Chapter Text
The skyscrapers of New York City pass by like a blur, like she’s driving fast in a Maserati on the highway without a care in the world. But she’s in the back of a cab, passing her old apartment on Cornelia Street, to her new apartment with the love of her life. The love of her life.
Karlie Kloss has always loved freely and deeply.
She’s learned in the past twenty-six years that about herself. That she has a tendency to fall fast. Headfirst in a free fall or something like that. She’s not the best with words, but who can blame her. ‘Just married’ bliss is a perfect excuse to be incoherent.
It had been a good idea at the time, to have a surprise wedding in the middle of October, but the reality of coming back to work had set in immediately after the ceremony, when Josh excused himself to answer a quick phone call. Karlie was left stranded on the dance floor—how romantic—to entertain their now shared family before she had received her own phone call too, one confirming her red-eye flight for a shoot somewhere in across the world in the next few days.
Life after their wedding had seemed more hectic, too many things happening too quickly. But it didn’t matter that Josh had to stay longer at the office, or that she would jet set off to Europe on weekends. They’d manage six years together and waiting a few months for their honeymoon when their schedules eventually lined up wasn’t a big deal to her.
If anything, Karlie is more excited about having most of December and January off work to spend with Josh. And now here she is, on a rainy and cold winter night, anxious to get inside.
Her flight from Milan had arrived earlier than expected, meaning she’d arrived in New York during an ungodly hour. But despite being way past midnight, she’s amped up and ready to come home and relax. The cab stops outside of her apartment and she exits quickly, shoving a wad of cash at the driver, before hefting her luggage out of the trunk.
Karlie makes quick work of entering the building, avoiding the rain, and hurrying to the elevator. As she waits for the elevator taking her up, she thinks about texting Josh or calling him. But she doubts he’s still awake at this hour, he’d mentioned earlier about working late at the office again, and her surprise can probably wait until the morning.
When the elevator dings, she walks out into the penthouse and sets her luggage by the door, kicking off her heels and hanging her coat over their couch. The light is still on in the kitchen and when she checks, there’s an open bottle of wine on the counter and there are dirty dishes in the sink.
“Josh?” She calls out.
The apartment is silent, so she heads to the bedroom, ready to maybe surprise Josh before getting in a bit more sleep. The lights flicker on and Josh is there, already in bed and snoring. There’s a flash of blonde hair lying next to Josh, tangled in the sheets. Her heart lurches and her stomach bottoms out.
“What the fuck?” Karlie yells. Everything has gone black and white, and there’s a sinking feeling eating a hole through her.
She picks up the first thing her hand lands on and she throws it across the room. Glass shatters against the wall and her anger begins to fade as the rest of her brain catches up. Tears prick at her eyes and it feels like the past six years she’s had are burning up right in front of her.
Josh scrambles awake at the commotion and his eyes widen in panic when he sees her. The girl next to him stirs but doesn’t wake, instead, pulling at him as he tries to sit up.
“Karlie—” He’s barely even awake, still rubbing the sleep from his eyes, and Karlie knows she’s not thinking straight, coming home to this, so she turns and runs before the tears fall. She won’t let him see her like this.
That seems to spur him to move and Karlie hears him yell as he talks to whatever girl was in his bed. She slips her heels on as fast as she can and grabs her purse before heading to the elevator.
She doesn’t even think. The yelling gets louder as the elevator doors close and she’s sure Josh is calling after her but the only thing on her mind is to run and hide.
And that’s how she ends up in the pouring rain on the streets of New York.
-
There’s a knock on the door, hurried and insistent. Normally, you’d let your security guards handle it, but the noise has already woken up the cats. Olivia in particular jumps on the bed pawing at your face, so you shake off the tiredness and make your way to the door.
It’s one of the first nights that you have been in one place since touring ended. Just about a week ago, you were in Japan singing to a crowd of thousands but now it’s close to two am and everything’s quiet.
You make your way down the stairs and when you open the door, Karlie Kloss is standing in the rain.
“—I’m so sorry, I just didn’t know where to go, I just walked out and now I’m here and—”
“Karlie?” The supermodel jolts and cuts herself off. All you can do is stare. Karlie looks practically the same, as far as you can tell. The same towering giraffe, but more like a bedraggled cat drowning in the rain.
“Taylor—” Her voice catches in her throat, and the way she says your name, makes you stop for a second. She’s holding heels in one hand, without a jacket, and there are tears streaming down her face already.
Your heart is racing but that doesn’t stop you from lurching forward and pulling her in a hug. It’s early in the morning, your apartment's probably a mess, but you usher her in quickly anyways.
“Do you want me to call anyone?” You whisper.
Karlie shakes her head, her lip pressed tightly, and you can see she’s trying to hold back more tears.
“Have something to eat, okay. I have some leftovers, but I don’t know if it’s kosher—” A sob racks her body and you stop talking, immediately. You shouldn’t have known that, because she never told you and—
You turn around and head straight for your closet, grabbing towels and some clothes, before heading back toward your foyer. She’s sobbing quietly, her shoulders shaking, and you resist the urge to pull her in again and instead hand her a towel. The cats have come down to see the noise and recognize her immediately, moving to rub up against her leg. They follow as you lead her towards one of the guest rooms and hand her a new set of clothes—ones the paparazzi have never caught you in, just in case.
Karlie doesn’t react, but her sobs have subsided, and you recognize the numbness in her eyes. She holds the towel around her gingerly, she doesn’t make a move towards the clothes. It takes you a few moments staring at her until you decide to throw away every doubt you might have, and you get on your knees to take off her pants. She stares off quietly, tears silently rolling down her cheeks, as you continue to undress her.
Once you’re done, you take her wet clothes and head to your laundry room to put them in the dryer. You swing by your closet and grab another towel and by the time you get back to the guest room, Karlie’s in the middle of pulling on the shirt, sniffling as she struggles.
Her hair is still wet, and it needs to be dried. It doesn’t take much to convince her to stand, and you sit her on the toilet while you blow dry her hair. You usher her back into the guest room, and you chance a look at the clock as you slowly tuck her in. Three am.
You should go back to your room, go back to sleep and let Karlie be. She’s stopped crying now and she needs space, but you want to stay.
“Stay.” She says, and it’s like she’s read your mind. You don’t hesitate to crawl in next to her, wrapping a comforting arm around you. She latches onto you and buries her head on your shoulder, and for a moment you think she might start crying again.
So, you do what you do best. You use your words. You tell her about the tour, about the screaming fans and how much they mean to you. How you met so many fans in amazing costumes. You talk about how a couple proposed in front of you and the fact that they had met because of your music had almost brought tears to your eyes. You talk as much as you can until your voice goes hoarse, and in the end, you talk about how much it means that they stayed.
(You don't mention how you wish she had stayed.)
Hours later, it's close to sunrise and you can’t tell if Karlie’s awake or not. She stopped sniffling a while ago and her breathing evened as you retold your mid-air mishap in Philadelphia. You’ve run out of things to say, things that don’t verge over this weird line between the both of you that’s been there for the past four years, but you’re compelled to cross that line.
"I broke it off with Joe," You whisper. "It's not public yet…” You trail off. You know she won’t hear it; she probably won’t remember it when she wakes up, but you something in you wants to keep talking.
“We grew apart, and then it just wasn't the same. I know it's not the same thing, but I get what it's like, to lose someone that close, your best friend even.” You take a sharp breath, unsure. These aren’t all the words you want to say because once upon a time, she betrayed you too.
“I'm here if you need me."
You wake up first, at five thirty on the dot, and you muster the courage to disentangle yourself from her. You can’t really call it courage because leaving her is the most cowardly thing you’ve ever done. You leave the room, without looking back.
-
“Where will you stay?”
Karlie hasn’t spoken much about what happened last night, but when you’d woken up that morning to her pacing in the kitchen like a ghost, muttering to herself about this and that, you had sat her down and she’d silently explained while you tried to make coffee.
“I can’t go home now, it’s almost Christmas and I just got married but I have to go back and settle this with Josh and it’s all just—” She sighs, her breath shaky, and you know she’s holding back tears again.
“No,” You cut her off, “Karlie, take a few days. Stay here, I can leave. Just, don’t go back there.”
“It’s your house, Taylor,” Karlie protests, “I should’ve stayed and talked to him and now—” She sobs again, more frustration than sadness and you step closer to her, unsure whether to touch her. She leans towards you, your shoulders brushing, and you wrap an arm around her tightly.
It’s awkward after that. Once the tears are dried and both of you are well rested, you avoid each other, not knowing the right words to say. You haven’t been close in a few years. Karlie’s visit to Nashville had coincided with her bachelorette party so they’d gone to your concert and got together after, but there hadn’t been enough time to really catch up.
Now that you both happen to have so much free time, it’s hard to pick up where you left off when you can’t really remember what it was like before.
Your early twenties were euphoria with Karlie in the center of it but now, both of you are older and so much has happened since. You know Karlie needs space, and you’re not exactly keen on talking to her about Josh at this moment without letting something slip in anger, so you linger in hallways waiting for a tell-tale meow.
Because after four years, Meredith and Olivia still love her.
But even avoiding her gets you restless though, and you can’t really write songs, so you spend some time in the kitchen looking up recipes for a kosher lunch.
“You don’t have to,” Karlie says from behind you.
You startle and the flour in your hands fly around in a cloud, making a mess out of everything. Karlie hides a chuckle behind her hand as she walks around the island towards you.
“I know but I wanted to, and I wasn’t sure—” You try to explain yourself.
“It’s okay,” She says softly, “We can just order something, maybe eat some ice cream later?”
You see the offer as an olive branch and accept it with a reassuring smile.
You spend that afternoon in your kitchen—you on the island counter, her sitting on the counter across from you—laughing over Chinese takeout. When Meredith wanders in pawing at your ankles, Olivia bolts in and tackles her down. Karlie bursts into giggles that turns into a full-blown laugh when you toss bits of food at them.
You never noticed how much you missed her laugh.
You don’t really start talking until the third day of her stay. Sure, you’re talking again, laughing really, but you haven’t really had deep conversations in between binging Grey’s and Friends.
Karlie’s working out in the guest room, you know because you can hear her workout music, so you take the moment you have and drift towards the music room. Sitting on the piano bench feels like coming back home and before you realize, you’re playing the chords to a song that hasn’t been written yet.
“You know.... you never called me back?” Karlie’s voice echoes into the room and you freeze. Your fingers go still on the keys and it takes everything in you not to turn around.
“I mean I get it.” She continues, “I did something bad…” You roll your eyes at the pun, “and I know that any apology isn't good enough, but I want to try. I betrayed your trust and you deserve to shove me away; you didn’t have to-to do all this.”
You want to say something. But the words catch in your throat.
“You’re trying now with everything that’s going on with me. I want what we had before…” She trails off. “So, I’m sorry, Taylor. I’m so sorry.”
You can hear the hope in her voice, tinged with sadness and regret. There's nothing you can think of to say that isn't I've already forgiven you, or I love you. So, you say nothing, and she walks away, her footsteps echoing like a drum.
-
When you finally released reputation for the world to hear two years ago, it really had been about finding love through all the noise. Through a rough couple of years in the media’s spotlight, you’d anticipated it to be Joe. He had stayed, at least for a while. You had even entertained the idea of settling down and letting that happiness and love feel real. He was nice and kind and he was a good man.
It’d been different living in the privacy of your relationship. You had this encapsulated space just for the both of you, where you could stay happy. It started slowly at first, but after just a handful of months, you stopped finding happiness in the hiding. And it felt like you were twenty-five again.
So, you pulled away, which wasn’t hard because of your touring schedule and his own filming schedule. Daily calls and messages turned into one call every few days. You left him on read after he brought up London and moving in together. And it became easier to leave him behind, just a stray thought in the back of your mind. Because the fans are your true love, you’ve come to realize. They’re the ones that really stayed through it all.
He comes to a show just before your one-year anniversary. He texts you ahead and you reply and make sure security knows and it’s all just logistics. When you see him backstage holding a bouquet of daisies, you don’t feel that rush in your chest—that electricity you feel when you strum the first chords to a surprise song and the crowd scream back the words—and you know. And maybe he does too.
Because one day you’re together and then you’re just… not.
Tree takes the news well, she doesn’t complain or nitpick about how you want to keep everything quiet, and she does her job. (Maybe a little too well, since Joe recently texted her an article about their “wedding”.)
And life moves on.
You finish the tour like a champ and then you make sure to promote Joe’s newest movie, like a good, kind friend would. Joe is kind enough to play boyfriend as long as you need because he understands, and you can’t believe you lucked out on such an amiable ex.
You didn’t want him to be another name that the media slaughters on sight, talking about how you tasted him, chewed him up, and spit him out. So, you planned for the breakup to go public in the new year, just after his movie and once you finished your tour. With your tour finally finished, you feel like now would be a nice time to get away and hide again.
But then Karlie Kloss shows up to your door on a cold and rainy winter night.