Taylor spent the next week moping around the house, barely going to work, and trying very hard to keep the laceration across his chest a secret. It was almost let out when he came home with a bag full of gauze and first aid tape, but he managed to sneak by his mother who was looking for him with a lot of questions.
Zac covered for Taylor's strange behavior by saying he was sick, but didn't want any fuss over it, which would explain why Diana kept bringing Taylor soup. However, after a week it was apparent that Taylor wasn't sick, at least not physically. Whenever he had a moment (which was often) he thought about Angela, and even tried talking to her, but he never got a response. He tried calling her but her phone was never on, and after a while he started to worry about her.
"Taylor, are you going to work today?" Zac asked, knocking on his door at five-thirty in the morning. He was still in bed, asleep. "Taylor??"
"No, go away!" Taylor snapped and turned over. He winced and rolled onto his back again. His chest was healing but hadn't healed completely yet and he still had problems with it. Luckily he didn't get an infection (mostly because Zac was anal about keeping it clean) and so far nobody knew about it. It was good.
"Taylor, you're going to have to come out of there sometime. It isn't the end of the world if you haven't spoken to Angela! Come on! This is ridiculous!"
"This isn't about her!" Taylor yelled.
"Then what is it about?" Taylor sighed and didn't answer. It was about Angela. "That's what I thought. Come on, a day of work will do you good. We need you down there and it'll take your mind off her."
"Not today, Zac," Taylor said, his tone not as harsh as it had been.
"Fine. But if you don't come in tomorrow I'm not going to cover for your bullshit behavior any longer." Taylor huffed as he heard Zac walk away and pulled his covers over his head. I never asked you to cover for me to begin with, Taylor thought. He fell back asleep quickly.
Taylor woke up around two o'clock and carefully stumbled into the shower. After he thoroughly cleaned out his long cut, he re-bandaged it and went into his room to get dressed. He got dressed and sleepily fumbled out of his room and went downstairs to the kitchen for some mid-afternoon breakfast.
When he walked into the kitchen he found his mother in there. "Oh, Taylor, did you just wake up?" she asked.
"What does it matter?" he muttered as he opened the fridge.
"Are you hungry, dear? Do you want me to make you some soup?"
"Mother, I don't need any soup," Taylor said. "I'm fine. I don't need you constant vigilance."
"Well Zac said you've been sick."
"I'm not sick now," Taylor said, looking at her. "I'm fine."
"Then why aren't you at work?"
"Because I don't want to be at work," Taylor said. "I want a nice relaxing day without having to deal with those morons at the studio."
"Taylor!"
"It's true," Taylor said. "Now I'd like to have a nice meal, if you wouldn't mind." She put up her hands, not wanting to fight with him, and left the room. He took out the milk from the fridge and a box of cereal from the pantry. He sat down at the table and had himself a nice breakfast of Frosted Flakes.
Zo� came running in, holding a stuffed animal, and climbed up onto a chair next to Taylor. "Hey Zo," he said, shoving another spoonful of Frosted Flakes into his mouth. She looked adoringly up at him. "What?"
"Why aren't you at work?" she asked, sounding very grown up. He smiled at her.
"I needed a vacation," Taylor explained.
"A vacation?" Taylor nodded. "Why?"
"Because I wasn't feeling well and I needed some time to make myself better." Zo� didn't believe him. "It's true."
"What about Angel?"
"What about her?" Taylor asked. He finished his cereal and got up to put his bowl in the sink.
"Where is she?" Zo� asked.
"I don't know, bubs. I haven't talked to her in a while." Zo� made a face. "Is there something you want or are you just annoying me?" Taylor put the milk back in the fridge. Zo� put her hands on her hips. "Oh, so you're just annoying me then." He picked her up, carefully avoiding his still painful laceration. "How about we find you some good cartoons to watch? There's always some cartoon on TV."
"Okay." Taylor walked into the living room with Zo� in his arms and settled down in the kitchen. Zo� stayed in his lap as he found some cartoons for them to watch. Diana walked in on them and smiled.
"You know, Taylor, I was beginning to worry about you," she said.
"I just needed a break, Ma," Taylor said. "I'll go back tomorrow."
"Are you sure?" she asked. "You seem to be taking a lot of those lately�" He gave her a look. "I just want to make sure you're all right, dear. You were doing so great, and then all of a sudden you're back in your room and you won't come out."
"Mom, I'm fine," Taylor said, looking up at her. "God, why did I ever tell you about that?" Taylor shook his head. Zo� adjusted her head against his chest and grazed his wound. He bit his lip, instant pain shooting throughout him and he moved Zo�'s head. He sighed as his mother left the room and he continued to watch television with his little sister.
It was almost sun set when Zac and Walker got home. Taylor had all but fallen asleep on the couch with Zo� when Zac walked in and gave him a look. "What?" Taylor asked.
"We needed you at the studio today," he said.
"Really? Why didn't you make that clear this morning when you woke me up?" Taylor asked. "Oh wait, you did." Zac groaned and left. Zo� followed him and he picked her up before he went upstairs. Taylor changed the channel from the cartoons to something he could enjoy and rested his head against his hand.
You should be nicer to him, you know, Angela's voice told him.
Angel? Where have you been? he asked.
Open the front door. He got up and walked to the front door. He opened it and a very beaten up, run down Angela was standing on the other side. He immediately hugged her. "Oh my God, Angel, where have you been all week?"
"Can I come in or should we talk about it on the doorstep?" she asked.
"Sorry, come in," he said, stepping back. He took her hand and brought her inside. "Angel, you look terrible."
"Oh, thank you," she said, giving him a look.
"I'm sorry�but you're all beat up and everything."
"Well so are you," she said. "How's your chest doing?" He shrugged.
"Okay, I guess."
"I'll take care of that for you later," she said. "Can we sit down somewhere? I'm exhausted." He nodded and led her to the back porch where he sat her down on the porch swing to watch the sun set over their magnificent view. "Oh, man, this is amazing."
"Can I get you anything? Some coffee?" She nodded. "All right, I'll be right back." He went inside and made Angela some coffee. Do you take anything in your coffee? he asked.
No, black is fine. Thank you. He got her a cup of coffee and took it outside to the back porch where he sat down next to her. "So," he said, watching in awe at her. He couldn't believe he could see her, sitting right there next to him. "How has your week been?"
"Terrible," she said. "I got home and my mother freaked out, you know, of course she would, look at me."
"Yeah," Taylor said, looking at her. "Look at you�" She didn't seem to notice that he was staring at her; either that or she was ignoring it.
"Well, anyway, she got really mad at me and I couldn't stay at home anymore. I heard you talking to me so I just figured I should come out here," she said. "I don't have a car yet, so I figured I was going to just rent one, but I'm not old enough, so I had to take a bus�"
"A bus?" he asked. "Why didn't you just fly out here?"
"What's the fun in that?" she asked.
"Well, for one thing, you'd get here faster," Taylor said. "It wouldn't take you an entire week to do so." She sighed.
"I couldn't take a plane," she told him. "I couldn't walk through an airport like this! People know who I am now and they would have said something. No, I took a bus with people who didn't care and just kind of cruised on over here." He shook his head. "You're mad at me. Why are you mad at me?"
"I've been trying to contact you all week, Angel. Why didn't you talk to me?" She lowered her gaze to the mug of coffee in her hands.
"I'm sorry." It was all she said.
"I really needed you this week, Angel," he said.
"But I'm here now," she whispered. He sighed and put his arm around her. She put her head against his chest, carefully avoiding his wound. "I'm sorry."
"Why didn't you tell me who you were?" he asked.
"It would have changed everything."
"No it wouldn't."
"Yes it would, Taylor! It's changing things now! You knew me before I was aware that I was going to inherit that money. I didn't want you to think that I was a different person! I wanted it to be the same, and I was only there to take care of you. I told you a million times that it's not about me."
"Of course it's about you," he told her. "You're so important to me."
"Am I really?" she asked. He nodded.
"You know, I didn't get to tell you how beautiful you are," he told her. "It's so weird to see you�" She smiled. "You do have amazing eyes."
"Thank you." He wanted to kiss her and they both knew it. He leaned in and as their lips almost touched, the door opened and Zac came out. They separated quickly.
"Hey, Taylor, Mom was�oh, hi," Zac said, looking at Angela. "Am I interrupting something?"
"No," Taylor said. "We were just talking." Angela nodded and took a sip of her coffee. "Zac, this is Angel. Angel, this is my brother Zac."
"Nice to meet you," Angela said and shook his hand. He nodded.
"Likewise," he told her. "Now is it Angel or Angela? Taylor keeps switching back and forth and I have no idea what to call you."
"Angela," she said.
"Would you rather have me call you Angela?" Taylor asked. Angela turned to him.
"No, I like it when you call me Angel," she said.
"So what did Mom want, Zac?" Taylor asked.
"You know what, it's not really that important," Zac said. "Nice meeting you, Angela." She waved and he went inside. They stayed separated in their first awkward silence.
"This is a beautiful view," Angela said a moment later. Taylor nodded.
"Yeah, it's why we picked the place." Angela took another sip of her coffee. "Do you want to go upstairs?"
"What?" she asked, looking at him. "Oh, yeah, sure." He got up and the two of them went upstairs, avoiding confrontation with the rest of the family. When he got into his room and closed the door behind him, he felt a lot more comfortable. They spent most of their time together in his room and although there was a bit more tension between them, it felt better to be in a familiar area. She walked over to the bed and sat down while he stayed by the door. "What's wrong?"
"It's just weird," he said. "Being able to see you like that."
"I haven't massively ruined your mental picture of me, have I?" she asked. He shook his head.
"No," he said. "No, this is pretty much it. I didn't expect you to be Angela Kennedy, though." She sighed. "It's just because, you know, when we were looking at that magazine and you pointed her out�"
"Oh, yeah," she said, scratching her head. "About that�"
"Why exactly were you pushing for me to date her when it was you all along?" Taylor asked. She smiled.
"I thought it was funny," she told him. "You had no idea it was me, and honestly Taylor, I never thought you would actually get to see me. I figured it was going to be a normal mission. I'd do what I was sent here to do and then I'd move on. I didn't think we'd ever talk afterwards."
"Oh come on, Angel," he said. "You knew from the moment you came here that it wasn't just about the mission." She sighed.
"You're right. I got attached. I shouldn't have gotten attached. It wasn't part of my job and I should never have let myself become friends with you." Taylor took in a deep, furious breath.
"Then why are you here?"
"To fix you," she said. "It's my fault you got beat up like that and I just came to even things out for you. And, I didn't exactly get to say goodbye or anything like that, so I figured I should do that too."
"You came all the way out here just to say goodbye?" he asked. "We could have done that telepathically! My chest is fine; it's healing just fine on its own! You didn't need to come way the fuck out here to fix me up and say goodbye! All you did was give me false hope."
"False hope? What the hell are you talking about?"
"I thought you were my friend, Angel! I thought we had something here, and you're just sitting there telling me that was wrong? It's not wrong! It means something to me�you mean something to me!"
"I was never supposed to!"
"It doesn't matter if you were supposed to or not, it happened. Everything happens for a reason, Angel, and don't you dare tell me this doesn't mean anything to you because I can see it in your eyes right now that you don't want to say goodbye."
"I should never have fucking come here," she said, getting up. "I should have known you were going to react like this. I'm psychic and I didn't even see this coming." She walked over to the door and he stood in front of it. "Move, Taylor."
"No."
"Move!"
"No! I'm not going to let you just walk out of here and have this be it. You're not just going to leave like this!"
"Move out of the way before I make you move." He shook his head and with a piercing stare Angela had pushed him out of the way and onto the floor. "Goodbye, Taylor." She opened the door and left quickly. He sat up against the wall.
"Oh my God," he said, putting a hand to his forehead and feeling tears well up in his eyes. And with that, she was gone.