Page 98 of Loving Taylor
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The hardest thingI ever had to do was leave my heart behind with Taylor when I left the hospital. I couldn't even tell anyone what she had said. Slater had given me a concerned look when I had left her hospital room. I had walked away without saying anything, needing to regroup and give her some time before I approached her again.
Even replaying what had happened with Slater had been difficult.
"She isn't thinking straight," he told me. "In a few days she'll see things much clearer."
I wasn’t convinced.
"I saw how disappointed she was when she came to see you and you had taken off. She cares for you and that doesn't just go away overnight."
His words gave me some hope that she was just too upset at the moment and once she had some time she would let me back in.
When I got home I was agitated and angry. I headed for the room Eric stayed in and opened the door. I don't know what I was expecting but it looked like a normal college student's room. There was nothing that screamed ‘crazy stalking kidnapper.’
I wanted to throw his stuff out but I didn't want to get rid of anything that might help put him away. Surveying the room, I stepped inside. The closet caught my attention. I opened the door and stood back. Inside the door were pictures of Taylor. They ranged from when she was younger to more recent pictures of her.
I closed my eyes briefly. It had been right under my nose and I had been clueless.
The next day I felt more confident she would relent and see me but Connor had shaken his head at me. "She doesn't want to see you. And I can't go against her wishes."
I had bent my head slightly, trying to figure out what to do next. The waiting around was slowly killing me and I didn't know how much longer I could stand it.
"Give her some time and she will come around," he had assured me.
Her brother's view of me had changed dramatically since our first encounter when he had tried to interfere with me seeing his sister. I don't know exactly what had changed his view on me. Maybe it was my reaction to his missing sister and the fact that Jeff, who worked for me, had found her.
"I'll keep you updated on how she's doing," he suggested. I nodded and left, feeling more desperate with every day that passed. Even though I felt the way I did, there was no way to fix what had gone wrong between us and change Taylor's mind.
I kept in touch with Connor and got regular updates on her.
"She is doing as well as can be expected." His words reminded me that she hadn't come out of this emotionally unscathed. Her wounds would heal with time but it was the wounds that no one could see that worried me more.
Then she was discharged from the hospital but when I didn't see her around campus, I called Connor.
"She won't leave her room," he told me in a tired voice.
It was only natural that she would feel fearful of what had happened but she couldn't spend the rest of her life holed up in her room.
I considered going around to talk to her but Connor wasn't convinced it would be a good idea. And I conceded that my presence might hinder her progress. I was putting her welfare above my own.
"Give her time," he told me, trying to reassure me that she would let me back in. "She is struggling at the moment and she needs time to get back to her life."
Staying away from her was killing me inside. I felt like only half a person. Slater tried his best to help but the only thing that would help was Taylor. I missed her.
I held on to the memories we had shared. Lying in bed with her in my arms, the feel of her body against mine. The sparkle in her eyes when she laughed. The way she made me feel. I clung to it like a lifeline until I could get her back.
It hurt that she didn't want me around.
I tried to reach her but she never returned my calls. And all of my text messages went unanswered. I wanted her to know that although I was keeping my distance from her, I wasn't giving up. I was just giving her the space she needed to work through her ordeal and when she was more settled I would give her all the facts so she would be able to make a decision that affected both of us.
The details from my past gnawed at me, festering with every moment. There were a few things from my past I wasn't proud of but this one thing had the power to derail anything that I had with Taylor.
Every day that I went to classes, my eyes scanned the crowds for her, hoping to get a glimpse, but the first week after she got back there was no sign of her.
By that weekend I had to get away. I was falling apart. So I went to see my mother again. She was so happy to see me but when she took in my tired face and the heaviness in my features, she frowned.
"What's wrong?" she asked softly as she led me into the house.
