We Are Infinite As The Universe - Kaylor

1. Your Hand Prints On My Soul

In which doubts are cleared, and a long-overdue breakfast date takes place.

Taylor Swift was terrified.

To anyone else, it was just a normal day. But to Taylor, that day marked a realignment of her entire world. After a lifetime of dreams and unanswered questions, she had finally found her. She had finally found Karlie.

The pair were still in the small gallery of the Met, locked in an embrace neither were willing to break. Around them, the Met was steadily beginning to fill with early morning crowds, some staring at them curiously.

Taylor sighed against Karlie's shoulder. They had to let go sooner or later. Taylor had been recognised in far less conspicuous locations throughout her career, and she didn't have her security team with her to make an escape.

But she only held Karlie tighter, her internal logic warring with the fact that she had never felt as safe, as warm, as at peace as she did in that moment, holding the girl from her dreams.

It was that exact sense of security that terrified Taylor.

How could it be possible? How could the girl she had been dreaming about since she was a child actually be real? How could she have known Karlie for only a few minutes, and yet feel so sure that this was the person she would spend the rest of her life with? It was exhilaration and terror all at once, a blind leap into the unknown.

For a horrifying moment, Taylor was convinced Karlie would disappear if she let go, fade away like another dream. Through all the uncertainty this new situation brought, she knew for a fact that she would shatter if she lost Karlie now.

But the noise of the crowd was increasing, and their moment of solace, for now, was coming to a close. Burying her face into the taller girl's shoulder, she pulled Karlie impossibly closer.

"I've been dreaming about you," she whispered. "For so long."

"Me too," Karlie, whispered. "For years."

"Promise me you won't disappear if I stop hugging you?" Taylor mumbled.

"Oh god no. I'm not going anywhere. Just..." Taylor felt Karlie's hand cradle the back of her head. "Promise me the same thing? Please? I still feel like I'm dreaming."

"I promise. I feel the same way."

"Good." Karlie whispered.

A sinister voice in the back of Taylor's head was telling her it wasn't real. That it was too impossible for someone she had only ever dreamed about to be standing before her. That she would wake up the second she stopped touching Karlie.

"Okay," Taylor took a deep breath and squeezed her eyes shut. "Okay."

Inch by inch, she peeled away from Karlie, a mantra of "please be real, please be real, please be real" looping through her mind. Heart racing in her chest, she took a step back until only her fingertips were brushing Karlie's arm.

Time for a leap of faith.

"Okay," she said to herself again, and took her hand away, eyes still clenched shut.

There was a horrifying beat of silence, a moment where Taylor was certain Karlie had vanished, and her whole world threatened to crack apart.

"Taylor?"

"Yeah?"

"Are you gonna open your eyes?"

Hands balled into fists, shoulders tensed up around her neck, Taylor blinked open one eye, then the other.