Page 28 of The Ones We Fight For

Only a month had passed since Talia had first felt like slapping Walker across the face in the middle of the street. Thirty days. It was amazing what could change in the span of a second, let alone a month. It only took a single moment to turn your entire life on a dime. Meeting Walker felt like one of those occurrences. A thing to label the fractured pieces of your life as “before and after x event happened.” She’d had a few of those moments in her lifetime: leavingArchwood when she was a kid, her mother dying, and the doctor’s appointment that ripped her dreams out from under her. Today felt like another one of those days. The looming feeling of importance made her muscles stiff with anticipation.

Amala, being her new best friend, was well aware of Talia’s habit of head-banging whilst brushing her teeth, cleaning, and basically everything else that involved being alone in her house, so Talia continued her loud rendition of “Welcome to the Black Parade” as she walked toward the door. A gust of wind blew back her disheveled, unstyled hair when she opened the front door, the toothbrush still dangling from her frothing lips. Walker stood on the front porch wearing an amused expression, and Talia quickly pulled the toothbrush out of her mouth with a gasp as she covered her lips with her hand.

“My Chemical Romance?” Walker grinned and pointed into the house, the music blasting away inside. Apparently, everyone her age had had a teen angst phase. Talia's had just never really went away.

“Mm-hmm?” Talia’s response was both an affirmation of the music choice and a question that asked what the hell are you doing here?

“Amala’s car broke down, so she called me to pick you, then her up, since we’re all going to the same place,” Walker explained, somehow understanding her toothpaste-garbled gibberish.

Talia did her best to hold back a scoff. She could smell the bullshit from a mile away, where Amala was probably looking out her front window at a fully-functioning car and patting herself on the back.

What a—and I mean this in the nicest, most “she’s my best friend” way—bitch, Talia thought.Amala’s house was closer to Walker’s than Talia’s was. Talia wouldn’t have been shocked if Amala made up an excuse and claimed she wouldn’t be ready in time, forcing Walker to drive out to Talia first. He was now a glorified chauffeur, showing up on her doorstep to her unabashedly loud morning anthem. Her half-brushed teeth and frizzy, untamed hair sticking out every which way were nothing short of mortifying.

Perfect.

“Uh, come in?” Talia blanched, and she held her hand firmly over her mouth to protect Walker from seeing the spray of toothpaste that inevitably came out when she spoke.

Nodding, Walker followed her inside, visibly unperturbed byher insanity. He bobbed his head along to the song when it got to the chorus. His reaction gave Talia a bit more insight into his music taste. While he wasn’t screaming the lyrics like a deranged howler monkey, he wasmumbling them, lips moving with the words.

Stop staring at his lips.

“I’m gonna…” Talia shoved the head of her toothbrush back into her mouth and awkwardly jabbed both thumbs down the hallway.

“Oh, yeah. Take your time. Sorry I’m so early.” Walker smiled, his line of sight drifting over Talia’s living room, surveying her bohemian wall decor and teal furniture. “I’ll just wait here.”

He sat on the couch in the same spot Talia had the night before, cramming extra-buttered popcorn into her mouth while she watched a documentary on mall Santa and prolific murderer, Bruce McArthur. There was almost a domesticity in the way Walker took his place in her house, like it was entirely normal for him to be there. She stood near the end of the other couch across the room, engrossed in the way he scanned each wall of her brightly colored living room. All the staring was definitely making her look like the next Bruce McArthur, but she couldn’t help it.

“Are you gonna…?” Walker pointed toward the hallway Talia should have already been halfway down. She gave him a firm shake of her head before escaping to her room in embarrassment. The laws of physics said she had to look like a hot mess, minus the hot part, any time she was in Walker’s presence. Talia ordered herself to finish getting ready at the speed of light so he wasn’t sitting on her couch—which she hadn’t double-checked for stray popcorn kernels—for too long.

After quickly pulling her hair into a high ponytail, a hairstyle that was cute but not the attractive beach curls she had been planning on, Talia applied a small amount of makeup and formulated a plan. She was going to walk back into her living room with the confidence of someone who was not at all humiliated that she once found the lead singer of All American Rejects extremely attractive. At least she didn’t opt for her boy band playlist that morning and Walker hadn’t walked in on a performance of the marionette doll routine from the “Bye Bye Bye”music video. He did not need to know that at one point she had dreams of dating someone with Justin Timberlake’s top ramen hair. The playlist she chose that morning made her seem cool, even a little edgy.

You aren’t lame, you’re a badass. You aren’t lame, you’re a badass. Talia repeated it to herself like a mantra.

She stepped out of her room with her chin held high, her footsteps matching the drumbeat in the new song. Determined to make it seem like the booming noise level was perfectly ordinary, she refused to lower the volume before strutting back out to Walker. By default, her body had a mind of its own when it came to music. Walker, if the involuntary bouncing of his leg and use of pointer fingers as drumsticks was any indication, was just as into it as she was. He immediately stopped when he saw her and stood up, a grin spreading across his face that was, unfortunately, charming as hell.

“Okay, what is this? Old Fall Out Boy?” Walker asked as “Thnks fr th Mmrs” continued to play in surround sound.

“If you’re going to diss Fall Out Boy, you better have a good reason.” Talia set her hands on her hips, eyeing Walker sternly.

“I wouldn’t dream of it, but I am going to need your Spotify username. I need this playlist in my life,” Walker declared. His eyes flicked over her for a moment, lingering near the top of her head before he finally gestured to the door. “Let’s go, Ponytail. We can continue to explore your grunge music in the car. What’s next?”

Talia did her best not to overanalyze the impromptu nickname as she followed Walker out on the porch. For some odd reason, she liked it. The embarrassment she had felt earlier dissipated with Walker’s support of her music taste and last-minute hairstyle.

“Evanescence,” Talia recited, looking at the lineup on her phone. “Then Linkin Park.”

“Damn,” Walker murmured. “When I try to play this stuff at the house, Colin acts like it’s death metal, and Pearl requests the newest god-awful pop song that they play on the radio way too much.”

“They need to be cultured,” Talia retorted, opening the passenger door to Walker’s minivan.

“You should come over and teach them a lesson,” Walker replied, pressing the button to start the engine.

“I will have to warn you that I also like god-awful pop songs. I’m a smorgasbord of everything good. That sampler meal you get at a restaurant when you have no idea what you want? That’s me, but with music. Punk rock is just my current flavor of the day.”

“So, you’re into Britney Spears and the Backstreet Boys but also Matchbox Twenty, George Strait, 50 Cent, Elton John, and Taylor Swift?”

How the hell he had read her like a light-up neon sign, Talia had no idea. She never once thought of herself as the predictable type. Between studying for the bar exam, wanting to wear a ball cap with expensive clothes, and her love for inappropriate stand-up comedy without downing a lick of alcohol in college, not a single person had figured her out as immediately as Walker. Not even Clifford, and she had spent years of her existence thinking her ex was the only person who truly knew her. Between Amala's innate ability to get her to share the deepest parts of herself and Walker’s psychic ability to know everything about her without even asking, Talia was starting to wonder if she ever really had true friendships back in New York.

“Exactly,” Talia confirmed with a small smile. “I fuck with some Taylor Swift.”

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