“So, Taylor…any plans for this evening?” Mrs. Kelso questioned her daughter coolly at the dinner table that evening. Her voice broke the heavy and awkward silence that ensued every night.
“I’m sleeping over at Sam’s,” Taylor replied quietly, pushing peas around her plate with her fork. She avoided any direct eye contact with her mother.
The Kelso’s were what one could refer to as a “dysfunctional family”, but not completely. The dysfunction only came into play when Taylor was in the mix with the other three members. Mr. And Mrs. Kelso had been married for nearly thirty blissful years, and Isabella, Taylor’s twenty-two year old sister, was what their parents considered a picture of perfection. Bella was beautiful and smart, never set a toe out of line, and was attending college on a full athletic scholarship. Taylor was the “disappointment”, and her parents had never tried to hide that from her.
“I don’t really think that’s a good idea,” Mr. Kelso interjected.
“You never cared any other time. Why start now. Eighteen years after you should’ve,” Taylor replied simply, her tone challenging.
“And now I realize what a mistake that was. I mean, the last thing we need is for you to get yourself knocked up by the likes of him,” her father explained as if speaking about the weather.
“Excuse me? ‘The likes of him’?” Taylor dropped her fork and glared at her father. “What in the hell is that supposed to mean? That if I got, as you so eloquently put it, ‘knocked up’, by someone else that would be okay?”
“It means that if you got knocked up at all it would be bad, but if it happened to be by that…that…loser…”
“LOSER?! Sam happens to have a 3.99 G.P.A. and is going to school to become a pediatric surgeon. A surgeon, for Christ’s sake. But he’s a loser. I think someone’s standards are slightly absurd.”
“He’s a druggie,” Mrs. Kelso interjected quietly. She always whispered words that she found ‘inappropriate’.
“Whatever…I’m outta here. Don’t expect to see me until Monday at the earliest. Not that you care if I leave. Forget that I’m you’re youngest daughter…the last you’ll ever have. Oh wait, I forgot, all you two see me as is this immense screw-up who isn’t worth anything,” Taylor stood up and stormed upstairs to her bedroom, slamming the door hard behind her.
She spent the next few minutes throwing clothes and things and into her bag, chucking the occasional random object across the room to release some anger and using every obscenity she’d ever heard.
“Whoa…” Hayden walked in, a small music box she’d thrown missing his head by a few inches. “Calm down, killer.”
“Ohmygod…I’m sorry…did I hit you,” she asked in concern.
“No, you missed…you have terrible aim. What’s all this?” he looked at her suitcase, then back to her.
“I hate them. I cannot wait to get the hell out of here and away from them,” Taylor dropped onto her bed and lit a cigarette.
“So, where are you going?” he sat beside her.
“Sam’s. I’ll be there all weekend.”
“So Sam started this fight?”
“Yeah…they just don’t understand how I feel about him.”
“Do you think you’ll end up marrying him?”
Taylor looked over at him in mild shock. “Marry him? Where did that come from?”
“I mean, you through all this hell with your family, day in and day out, and he’s the source of it. If you look back, all of your home problems started with him. Your family hates him. So the question now becomes, is he worth it? After all the time and aggravation, do you think he’ll marry you in the end?” Hayden asked honestly.
“I dunno…I like to think so. But I mean, I don’t wanna get married right now or anytime soon…I’ve got too much stuff I need to do before I settle down,” Taylor flicked an ash into a pop can that was sitting on her nightstand.
“Like what?” he smiled softly.
It had been months since Hayden and Taylor had sat down and talked like this, and he wasn’t about to let the opportunity pass.
“School, mostly. I don’t want to end up like my mom. She depends on my dad completely since she never went to college. She was always the happy housewife. If he ever left, she’d be screwed. I want to be able to take care of myself no matter what.”
“Still want to be a DJ?” he asked.
“Yeah…but I also want to do some theater, too. Local stuff, nothing major. I feel like I need to be out there, ya know. I want people to know my name,” she looked over at him. “What about you?”
“School, obviously, teaching still. Travel. I wanna travel all over the world. There’s just so much, that I don’t even know where to begin.”
She was silent for a few minutes, then began to trace the pattern in her quilt with her finger. “Would you think I was a bad person or a bitch if I told you that I wasn’t sure if Sam was the person I needed to be with?”
“No…but I’d ask why and how?”
“It’s so strange. When we’re together, and we’re alone, it’s like nothing’s ever changed. But as soon as we get around everyone else, he gets…uptight, I guess. It’s like he’s not sure he wants everyone to know that we’re still together. And his little ‘side business’ isn’t helping either. He’d rather sell drugs than get a real job, and I don’t want to deal with that for the rest of my life.”
“So, Sam’s drug business bothers you?”
“Of course it bothers me. I mean, I knew he was a bit of a pothead when we started dating, but I know he’s doing more than that now. And that bothers me. It’s like, ever since he realized he could make some good money selling, he’s lost his priorities and his morals.”
“So why don’t you talk to him about it,” Hayden suggested, taking one of Taylor’s cigarettes from the pack and bringing it to his lips.
“Cause he won’t discuss ‘business’ with me. He insists that he can handle himself and that I have no reason to be concerned or interfere,” she explained as she handed him her lighter. “It makes me absolutely crazy cause all I want to do is help him see that he’s on the wrong path and asking for trouble.”
“So just try again, I mean, talking is the only way…”
“Hayden, will you listen to me,” she interrupted him. “He doesn’t care about what I think of his business. As long as he’s raking in the dollars, he’s not going to quit. I love him to death, but I’m beginning to think that sometimes love isn’t enough to make a relationship work.”
“Just, do me a favor, okay? He’s mad about you, and if you tell him everything you’ve just told me, and the rest of the story, and how you feel, I know he’ll at least think about it. You guys have too much time and emotion invested in one another to just give it all up without a fight.”
She threw her arms around him and hugged him tightly. “You’re right. Thank you.”
“Anytime, kid,” he smiled.
Taylor grabbed her bags and left for Sam’s place, blowing Hayden a kiss over her shoulder.