Picnics
TRAVIS
A creak from the stairs pull me from my haze. I wasn't exactly sleeping, just thinking whilst staring at the ceiling. I sit up as Gigi takes the last step. Her hairs all messy, and her sweatshirts hanging off the side of her shoulder. She rubs her eyes and yawns.
"Hey," she says, "couldn't sleep."
I nod. "Me neither."
There's a brief silence. I rake my hand through my hair. She glances towards the back door.
"Calvin's not back yet?"
I shake my head.
She hesitates, "do you think he- I mean.. did something?"
"Yeah."
She nods, wrapping he arms around herself. "What happened?"
"I think," I exhale sharply, "I think she got her period."
Gigi's eyebrows furrow. "Yeah, I mean she asked me for a tampon so I figured."
I swallow. "I think she got it whilst she was asleep, though. Like, it went on the sheets. Calvin lost it, I heard him call her disgusting. Stormed out. She must've cleaned it up, but didn't want to sleep in her room incase he came back so she just.." I gesture to the couch, "came down here."
Gigi's mouth presses into a thin line, "Jesus Christ."
"Yeah."
"That's fucking awful."
I agree. I think about what must have happened, and images play through my head like scenes in a movie. Taylor curled up, sleeping soundly. Her face calm, and relaxed. Calvin pulling back the sheets and seeing the blood. Him screaming at her, jerking her awake. Her eyes are wide, she doesn't understand. And then she sees it.
Fuck.
My stomach twists and I feel a headache coming on.
Gigi stays quiet, staring at the floor. "And the-" She points towards her face, like she can't bring herself to say it.
I nod, my throat dry and scratchy.
"This is bad." She says, fiddling with the sleeve of her sweater.
"Yeah. I know."
Before we get the chance to say anything else, the other file down the stairs, talking about going to the beach.
"You want to come, Trav?" Nico asks me, and I shake my head.
"Nah, didn't get much sleep last night. Pretty tired."
Gigi looks at me, and I know she wants to stay home too.
"It'll probably overwhelm her if there's two of us." I whisper, and she hesitates, then nods.
"Ok, but text me if anything happens."
I assure her I will.
"Where's Taylor and Calvin?" Gigi's boyfriend asks.
"Taylor's still sleeping." I say, and Nico tells him that Calvin's going to meet them at the beach.
They all file out the front door. I grab a banana from the fruit bowl on the counter, and wait.
Then, finally, I hear a door creek open. There's the sound of someone's feet softly padding down the hallway.
I turn around, and there she is, standing at the edge of the room. She's wrapped up in a big hoodie, with her arms tightly bound around her chest.
There's a black bruise just underneath her eye, and my stomach twists. She see's me. Hesitates.
"Hey." I say, keeping my voice soft.
She glances around the room, then up the stairs. Her voice comes out small, and I strain to hear her.
"Where's Calvin?"
"At the beach with the others."
She doesn't respond right away, but I can see the way her body relaxes. She grips the sleeve of her jumper, and I add:
"He doesn't know that you slept in my room last night. He didn't come home."
She lets out a quiet breath, and her shoulders sag just a little. She mumbles something small that sounds like a thank you. Her eyes scan my face, then fall on the banana.
"Don't worry about it. You want one?" I ask, and she shakes her head.
"I'm not hungry."
I knew that she would say that.
Her lips look cracked, and sore. I nod. "Okay."
But I can't just stand here and do nothing. I need to get her to open up. It's the only way I can help her.
"Do you want to talk about what happened?" I ask, although I already know the answer.
"No."
We stand in silence for a bit. She awkwardly hovers in the entrance, her fingers digging into her sleeves. I run my hands through my hair and think.
"Come with me." I say, suddenly. She looks up, a small crease in between her eyebrows.
"Where?"
"You'll see."
She hesitates, and for a second, I think she's gonna say no. But then she nods. I tell her to get ready, and when she comes back, we leave.
We walk for about half an hour before we reach the outlook. Taylor trails behind me, and I walk as slow as I can because I don't want to put her under any stress. When we reach the top, it's empty, and I smile.
"When Nico and I were younger, him and I would come up here all the time to drink a couple beers and feel like grown ups."
A small smile flickers across her lips, but it's gone just as quick as it appears.
The ocean stretches out far below us, and we stand there for a moment and watch the waves crash onto the sand. I roll out a picnic blanket, and take some containers out of my bag. She slowly sits down and eyes me with curiosity. Her bruise is worse now, she'll have a black eye for a long while. Anger bubbles in my gut but I push it down.
I open a container and hand her a croissant. "Here."
She takes it but doesn't eat it. Just picks at the edges a bit. I watch her pull off a small piece and roll it between her fingers before letting it drop on the blanket. We sit in silence for a while, and I eat my croissant even though I'm not hungry. Just to give me something to do, I guess.
She looks at me, and her eyes are so blue I think I might die.
"Taylor," my voice comes out hoarse, "you okay?"
Her eyes search mine, and she goes to move closer, then hesitates, her breath shaky. "I'm fine."
I reflexively go to take her hand, but she pulls away. My chest pangs and I put my hands in my pockets, even though the place they're yearning to be is intertwined with hers. "You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to," I say, my voice low. "But if you do want to talk, I'm here."
She shakes her head, "no. I'm okay." Her hands shake a little, and my heart breaks. I decide to try a different tactic.
"You know, one time, when me and Nico were about seventeen, we stole some weed from his uncle and came up here to smoke it."
She looks at me, confused about the quick topic change, yet curious all the same.
"Anyway," I continue, "his mom was a teacher, and she worked at the primary school down the road. What we didn't realize is that her class had a school trip that day, where they were climbing to this outlook."
This time I'm sure that she's smiling, and I smile too. I watch her pull off a bit of her croissant and put it in her mouth, and I think that's the closest I've come to my heart exploding.
"So there we are, smoking this weed and feeling proud of ourselves, when who comes walking past but his mom and about thirty eight-year-olds." I let out a wheezy laugh, and she giggles softly, taking another small bite of her croissant.
"We got in so much trouble. She called my mom, and I was grounded for like, months." I remember it so clearly. Mom was pissed.
"Didn't you hear them walk up?" She asks, and I may as well be smoking weed right now because her smile is making me high.
"Nah, we were probably too busy talking about how cool we looked."
She laughs quietly, and places her croissant on the lid of the container. She pulls her knees to her chest and hugs them, looking out at the ocean.
"It's so pretty here." She says, and I nod.
"I love it. It's even prettier up here when the sun is rising. I'll take you up here again to show you sometime, if you want."
She smiles and looks back at me, "I would like that a lot."
I watch as her gaze falls to my lips, and then back up to my eyes. I freeze, the breath caught in my chest. I can't help it, I lean closer, so that are foreheads are almost touching. I want to kiss her. I want to kiss her so badly that it aches.
And then all of a sudden, she leans in, and our lips brush. Just briefly, a soft touch. My eyes flicker shut, and stay like that long after it's over.
I wonder if I imagined it, it was so quick, but then I open my eyes and see that hers are closed. Her face looks calm, stoic, and her lips are slightly parted. She slowly opens her eyes, and looks up at me. I smile softly, and she does too, tucking her hair behind her ears.
And then her face tenses, her demeanor changing. She jumps up, her smile gone and her eyes wide.
"I- I can't do this.'
I stand up, and her breath quickens.
"I'm with Calvin. I can't do this."
"Then break up with him." I say, my hands sweaty. She shakes her head and looks like she might cry.
"I can't."
"Yes, you can. I can be there when you do it, even."
"No," her eyes are glassy and her hands are shaking. "No, I can't break up with him."
"Why?" I ask, and I can feel my temperature rising. "He's an asshole Taylor! He-- you're relationship, it's.. wrong. He hurts you! He gave you that!"
I point at her black eye and she winces. "Travis, I can't."
"Why? Why can't you?" I say, doing my best not to yell. I just don't understand.
"Because that's just not an option, Travis."
And with that she turns and walks away, leaving me alone with the sound of the ocean. I take a few breaths before I pack up our picnic, and follow her down the track. When I get back to the house, Taylor is already there, and the rest of the group has returned. Taylor's greeting them with a smile. Calvin walks out of the car, and wraps his arms around Taylor to kiss her. I'm the only one that notices the way she flinched as he moved his arm towards her. She leans her head up and they kiss again.
My head spins.
Because half an hour ago those lips were on mine.
Calvin takes a shell out of his pocket and hands it to her. "It made me think of you." He says, "It's shaped like a heart."
She smiles and takes it from him. Except her eyes don't light up the same way they did up at the outlook. He envelopes her in a hug and I have to look away because his hands are on her ass.
I say hi to the guys and hear Jessica ask Taylor how she got the black eye. Taylor hesitates, then says that she dropped her phone on her face in bed. Everyone starts laughing, including Calvin, who calls her his silly girl.
"Oh my gosh, I do that all the time!" Shanelle says, "hurts like a bitch."
I let my mind wander, thinking about the bruise on Taylor's face, and the way her lips parted after our kiss. The way she laughed when I told her my story, and how I saw her pinching at her skin in the bathroom.
It's obvious that she needs help. It's also obvious that she really doesn't want it.
And I don't know what the fuck to do with that.