Say You're Falling Apart

[Taylor Caroline Becks]

Every girl needed that one friend who they could turn to in a moment of crisis and talk to, hopefully without the fear of judgement and Taylor had that with Damien, but this time he was the bottom of the list of potential ears who would listen to her tale. She lied to him, to his face and that was never something she had done before, but the logic was back come sunrise and the guilt in the pit of her stomach made her feel sicker than she had done in her entire life. Taylor still couldn’t believe that she had kissed Damien and almost slept with him not two nights ago and then Drake had come to her in the morgue all apologetic and wanting to change, to find a balance in their relationship and the slender brunette hadn’t been able to tell him the truth either. He looked so happy, so sincere when he spoke to her that she lost all nerve, all bottle and couldn’t bring herself to break his heart and basically suggest that he had been right all along in his assumptions about her ‘friendship’ with Damien.

Taylor hadn’t been on the university campus in the longest of times; not since she was a student here herself. She never met Damien here when they had plans and she just hoped she didn’t bump into him today on her way to find Bridget; the only person in the city she felt she could turn to right now. The last thing she needed was for him to see her looking a little worse for wear thanks to a lack of sleep and obvious by how casually she had dressed today. It wouldn’t take him long to piece together the fact that she had lied to him about not remembering anything from their night out and it would take him even less time after that to work out that she was sort of trying to make things work with Drake. God, this was a mess. This was the kind of drama that Taylor purposely avoided by not getting swept up in relationships and men. Then Drake had come along and Damien had popped back up and now she was a breath away from fleeing the city altogether and finding a nice quiet town millions of miles away where no one would know her name and where she would probably become an old cat lady who had stories made up about her.

Checking at the main desk, Taylor gave in Bridget’s name in exchange for where her office could be found. Once she had the office number, Taylor’s memory of these corridors came back to her and she walked quickly and quietly down them, hoping it was in the totally opposite direction to where the law professor could be hiding. Her luck lately meant that she wouldn’t be surprised if he did jump out at her before she could find some form of safety in Bee’s office, if she was there. God, Taylor hoped she was. She was about ready to explode at the seams and if her friend happened to be teaching she might end up having a nervous breakdown in the very hall which she had walked down before, during her final years at the university. Finally she came to the door with her friend’s name upon it and with a shaky hand she rapped on the wood, biting her lip and wringing her hands anxiously. “Please be here.”

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• • •

TAGGED! The voice of Sanity in this mess – Bridget!!
WORDS! 591
OUTFIT! Dressed Down Mayhem
LYRICS! Fact-Fiction - - - Mads Langer
NOTES! <3 <3 <3

[Bridget Cameron Delaynee]

She paced the front of the class, trying to make eye contact with as many of her students as she could. English Lit wasn’t the most fast paced, action packed majors in the world, but Bridge felt like she did a damn good job keeping her students interested in it. She told them little known facts; things that were so obscure, so out there about authors, poets of yesteryear that it makes you do a double take. This particular class was actually her creative writing course she taught. She only handled one a term, because of her other commitments to the college; it had a waitlist longer than her shoe wish list, but that just proved how dedicated she was to her students and her students were to the craft.

Bridget finished her thought, and instructed her class on their next assignment, a fifteen page short story set in any genre. Normally, she gave them more specifics, but every now and then she liked to toss out a guideline that was completely up to her students; just to throw them off. After her mini speech, she let them go but stayed behind like she always did for any extra questions some of them had for her. She didn’t have anything more pressing then some grades she needed to add to her computer and that could really wait until she was home and curled up in her favourite wingback in the little library she’d made of the second bedroom in her apartment. When every one of her student’s left the room, Bee packed up her things and left for her private oasis on campus.

Bridge was running late back to her office. It wasn’t unusual for the young professor. She was usually seen mingling with her students after class, grabbing a coffee from the cart before heading to her office; which is exactly what she’d done that day. She was one of the luckier professors on campus. Her students were fantastic. Inside the administrative building, she made her way down the halls back to her office and away from the outside world. It was the only place where she was actually alone. There were no dogs jumping at her for attention, and when the door was closed, no students popping in to ask about this and that.

Halfway down the hall with her office in it, the young blonde slowed down at the sight of someone already outside her door. It was obvious that they weren’t her student; all of them knew her open door policy, so it was someone else. She was blind as a bat sometimes, and her glasses, which she rarely wore, were locked up in her desk, in her office. When she got closer, she realized it was Tay and was close enough to hear her. “I am now,” Bee said, smiling. She slipped past to unlock the door before ushering her friend in and following behind. She shut the door when both her inside and moved around her desk to put her bag away for the time being. Her office was one with a view and Bee often found herself facing the wrong way when she sat behind her desk.

But Tay never visited the English Lit Professor, so she wouldn’t even be sitting behind the desk. Her office wasn’t the biggest on campus, but it was large enough that she had a small sitting area, in the opposite corner of her desk for when she had these pleasant visits. She pointed across the room, “Something’s up, sit,” she said, walking back around her desk and sitting in one of the more comfortable chairs. And weren’t her words just straight from Captain Obvious’s mouth. Sure, it was nice to think her friend was just there for a visit, because she was in the neighbourhood, but Bee knew better. The hospital her friend worked at wasn’t anywhere near the Teacher’s offices. And if it hadn’t been important, Tay would have just texted or called her and make plans for a shopping trip or lunch. So, right away, she knew something was up, and it more than likely had to do with her troubles of late. “Tell Teacher all about it,” she said, sitting back and getting comfortable for what was sure to be interesting girl talk.

•TAG• Trouble Tay
•WORDS• 734
•CLOTHES• She’s a lady
•MUSIC• We're Young and Beautiful// Carrie Underwood
•NOTES• Sorry! I was going to ask you something about this, but figured oh well! xD<3 <3 <3

[Taylor Caroline Becks]

Taylor’s hands were shaking. She’d never felt so nervous before about anything she’d ever done. She had never been boy crazy or one of those girls who dreamt about finding the perfect man to sweep her off her feet. For Taylor, love was just another part of life and up until recently it was something her feelings were usually clear enough on. Now, she didn’t know what anything was supposed to be and the lines between friendship and something more were blurring with every moment she tried to make sense of everything. What on earth had she been thinking?!

As the seconds ticked by and there was no noise coming from the inside of the office, Taylor began to fear that Bridget wasn’t there and the panic swelled inside her. She had been relying on Bridge to help her find some sense in all of this, if there was any to be found. If she wasn’t here then she’d have to wait or try to make plans with her for later, though Taylor couldn’t expect her blonde friend to drop everything for her. She did have a life of her own and Taylor didn’t want her to think that all she was doing was pushing her problems onto her; she felt like it seemed as though that was all they talked about recently. She hated weighing others down with matters of her own and usually she was capable of working through them herself, but this was spiralling out of control faster than she could handle and now she was verging on becoming a total mess, her head and heart demanding two very different things constantly.
“Oh, Bee, thank god. I thought you were still lecturing or something.”

[/color] The breath of relief accompanied the slump of her shoulders and the closing of her eyes. Just seeing her friend was enough to calm her nerves enough to go through with telling this tale. She had been afraid that she’d bottle it when she got there and make up some silly little excuse about just being in the area or just visiting Damien. Now though, she knew she could do this. Well, she had to really. She couldn’t deal with this alone and no matter what Bridget thought of her when this was over, she just really needed to get it off her chest and hear someone else’s opinion on her foolish behaviour.

Sitting down, she pushed her highlighted hair from her face and sighed. If it was so obvious that there was something the matter then how many other people could see there was something bothering her? She was trying to keep this a secret, but if her face gave it away then it wouldn’t be long before the whole of New York knew of what she had done and the trouble she had caused in so many areas of her life. “Oh god, Bee, I’ve been such an idiot.”[/color] Suddenly, sitting down didn’t seem like such a good thing. Taylor pushed herself to her feet and began pacing back and forth across the small space, her arms wrapped tight around her stomach as though she felt sick and to be honest, Taylor would be surprised if by the end of this she didn’t want to throw up. “I sorted things out with Drake and we’re giving it another go, but the night before I acted like I was a stupid teenager and I almost ended up sleeping with Damien.”[/color] She bit her lip and was almost scared to look across to where her friend sat, terrified of what her friend would have to say about the matter. True, she hadn’t gone into detail yet, but she didn’t want to overwhelm Bridget with how uncharacteristically she had been acting over the last week or so.
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• • •

TAGGED! The voice of Sanity in this mess – Bridget!!
WORDS! 693
OUTFIT! Dressed Down Mayhem
LYRICS! Fact-Fiction - - - Mads Langer
NOTES! <3 <3 <3

[Bridget Cameron Delaynee]

Lately Bridget’s life seemed to revolve around her pets, her work and baking her sorrows away. She wouldn’t say it out loud, not yet, but she’d get there. Not having her boyfriend around was starting to wear on her. And that meant, when it came to the half French blonde, that she’d be spending more time in her kitchen than she normally would. Just the night before she’d spent the entire night in there, baking cupcakes and lemon squares while reading through the poems she’d had her students create. Usually, Bee wore her heart on her sleeve, but she was starting to figure out that that only applied to her friends, not herself; those she kept firmly hidden.

Bee shook her head, walking through the office door. “Nope, I finished that almost twenty minutes ago. I stopped at the cart,” she said, lifting the take-out cup in her hand. “If I would have known you were coming, I would have grabbed you one.” If her friend always visited her at the school, she never would have guessed there was something going on with the brunette doctor. But Tay never visited Bee specifically, and that was enough for the young blonde to figure something was up; and her issues were more than welcomed right then. Bridget would have preferred dealing with everything else in the world other than her own problems. And Tay really seemed to need a friend to dump on lately, so Bridge was more than happy to play the role of shrink if it would help her friend and get her mind off her own issues.

Bridget smirked behind her coffee. “And your first thought was to race over here, where one of two problems works? Weren’t you afraid he’d walk past? His office is only down the hall.” And around the corner, but she didn’t add that. “At least you’ve finally admitted it,” she added, trying to bring a little levity to the situation. But Bridget kept her thoughts quiet, sipping her coffee and listening to her friend intently as she paced in the small space left in the office. Bridge sat back in her chair, toeing her shoes off and pulling her feet up close to her. She wrapped her arms around her knees after setting her coffee down on the little table beside her.

Bridget didn’t have the best of advice these days, for herself, but she could always help a friend out. And since Tay was pretty much her only girlfriend, it meant fewer problems to mix up in her head, and it was easier to help out. Bridget took about a millisecond to process what the other woman said before a huge grin spread across her face. “Damn, you’ve got timing,” she said, reaching over to pick up her coffee again. “What happened the night before? I need details about that,” she said, sounding a little bit too giddy for her own good. Of course, when you hear your best girlfriend came very close to sleeping with her childhood friend whom she has mixed feelings for, you needed details. And Tay wasn’t giving enough for Bee’s liking.

•TAG• Trouble Tay
•WORDS• 524
•CLOTHES• She’s a lady
•MUSIC• We're Young and Beautiful// Carrie Underwood
•NOTES• <3 <3 <3

[Taylor Caroline Becks]

At twenty six years of age, Taylor was living the drama that happened when you were supposed to be in college. Silly love triangles and drunken mistakes were supposed to be locked away back then, never to be spoken or thought of ever again. Now, she was supposed to be a professional who knew what she was doing not only with her life but the lives of the people that came into the hospital each day. Granted, she primarily worked with the dead, but even they needed her care and attention otherwise all kinds of chaos could erupt and the hospital could get into trouble or families wouldn’t get the insurance pay outs they deserved. It was still too late for her to be running to her best gal pal with something like this. Then again, her own college years were pretty boring compared to some of the wild stories she had heard, so maybe this was the way fate wanted her to check off those compulsory boxes under the ‘mistake’ section of her life.

Taylor waved her words off with her shaking hand and then shook her head, eyes fixed on the view outside of the window, remembering what it was like to walk across this campus with a pile of textbooks under her arm and her laptop in her bag. “No, it’s fine. It’s not like I ever come here to see you anyway.”

[/color] She raised her hand to her lips and bit at the skin on the side of her finger. “This corridor used to be part of admin, way back when, I’m sure of it.”[/color] Changing the subject couldn’t change the facts, but it helped provide Taylor with an extra minute or two to compose herself before she broke down altogether. No, despite how much this was messing with her head and her heart, Taylor wouldn’t crumble. She had to stay strong because there was no way in hell that she was about to cry over two guys!

Taylor shot Bee a glare with her hazel eyes and then sighed, pushing her waves back from her face again. “I know. I was practically James Bond making my way here just in case I saw him. Although, Damien and me are kind of alright, you see, I told him I didn’t remember what happened and he didn’t tell me.”[/color] She had felt awful for lying to him, but then he had withheld the truth from her too in a way, which seemed to balance it all out and make life easier for both of them, though Taylor still felt the need to be in his arms again.

She looked at her blonde friend who was grinning like the cat who’d got the cream. “You’re excited by this. You’re not supposed to be excited by this!”[/color] She looked around for something to throw at her friend but could only see a paperclip, which soon whizzed towards Bee but missed her by a few feet. Taylor’s hand-eye coordination was not the best when she was acting on stressed impulses. “I had had enough. The other night I showed up at Damien’s and demanded that he go out to the Marquee club with me. We got there, I lined us up enough shots to get a buzz going and we danced a bit and then I drank some more and then…then I kissed him.”[/color] Despite the inner turmoil and guilt she felt, her lips twitched upwards slightly at the memory and she licked her lips before she continued. “We were making out like damn teenagers and then we left to go back to his place, but when we got there and I was trying to pull him into the bedroom, he pulled away and told me that we couldn’t do it; I was drunk and Drake was still in the picture. He insisted that I take the bed while he slept on the couch and then the next morning I panicked and I lied and said I remembered getting to the club and ordering the drinks, but nothing else.”[/color] Taylor finally fell into a seat and slumped over, her elbows resting on her knees, her head in her hands. “The whole night was just full of this sexual tension that I haven’t had with Damien since I was eighteen.”[/color] The words were out of her mouth and she knew that she would probably have to tell Bee the tale of her past and the night with Damien for her to understand everything, but the tall brunette was quiet for now, allowing her friend to process what she had told her.
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• • •

TAGGED! The voice of Sanity in this mess – Bridget!!
WORDS! 819
OUTFIT! Dressed Down Mayhem
LYRICS! Fact-Fiction - - - Mads Langer
NOTES! <3 <3 <3

[Bridget Cameron Delaynee]

Bridge had never really done the crazy College life. She lived at home, worked on the strip and went to class, taking extra to graduate early and get the hell out of the desert. She’d been to a couple frat parties but that was really the extent of her College life. She hadn’t even had many friends that were very important to her. When she’d left, she’d cut pretty much every tie she’d had in Nevada. And then she came to New York, met Tay and finally found a friend that she actually cared about! And now her life was falling back into the college years she’d skipped out on, so of course Bridget was going to be there for her friend; if only to help as much as she could and live vicariously through her closest friend.

Bridget shrugged. At least she knew this was odd. The blonde was starting to wonder about that. And with everything else going on in her friend’s life, it would make sense that she went a little forgetful for a minute or two. Bee smirked and rolled her eyes. She knew the trick, her students often tried it when they didn’t do their assignments and were beating around the proverbial bush looking for an extension. “I’m sure it was, but stating as much won’t solve your problems, Hon,” she said casually, sipping as her coffee. Whatever happened since the last time they spoke was seriously eating away at the usually so calm brunette. If it would have been anyone else, Bridget would have been just amused. She was amused by the whole situation, but she was also worried about her friend. She didn’t think there was a time she’d ever seen the other woman frazzled; really frazzled about something.

The only thing Bee could do was roll her eyes at the glare. It was nothing she hadn’t seen before. “I think you were playing Miss Bond Light. The real James Bond would have been waiting for me in my office, not outside it,” she said, biting her lip to hold back the grin and failing happily. “And tisk, tisk on the lying game. You should have been a cop,” she said shaking her head. With just one look and the right false truth and she’d have every crook spilling their guts. Okay, so she was going over board with the whole idea, but it entertaining nonetheless.

Bridget finally caved and laughed. “Of course I’m excited about this! I have no life! I have to live vicariously through you and this is too good to pass up!” she stated through short fits of laughter. After a minute, Bridge was able to bring her laughter down to a smirk. Still, she managed to keep her mouth shut as Taylor explained everything through. It really was a lot to take in. Bee’s eyes widened and she sat back. “Hold up, rewind a little. What was that last part?” The rest of what her friend had said made sense. There had to have been a catalyst for Tay to basically go off the deep end; which Bee well knew. And she knew it would have ended up somewhere on the bases, how far she couldn’t have guessed before. “You’ve slept with Damien?!” She asked, spitting it out. She had planned on letting Taylor say her part, but she couldn’t hold back the stunned words. Of course, now that she knew that information, even if she didn’t have details, it seemed almost painfully obvious. Though, how she would have known any of that, without someone spilling it, she would never know.

•TAG• Trouble Tay
•WORDS• 603
•CLOTHES• She’s a lady
•MUSIC• We're Young and Beautiful// Carrie Underwood
•NOTES• <3 <3 <3

[Taylor Caroline Becks]

It was times like this that Taylor was thankful to have another person in her life to call a close friend, other than Damien. He was hardly the most ideal person for the brunette to talk to right now and most of the other people in her life were those who worked at the hospital where Drake worked his charm to befriend most of them too. Aside from that, she only really had her dad and whilst she thought she could be quite open with him, there were limits to what a daughter could call her father to discuss and this strange love triangle was definitely off limits to the military man. This was the kind of thing that required another female perspective as only another woman might possibly understand Taylor’s conundrum and possibly help her find the answers in the dark.

Taylor frowned at her friend, pursing her lips slightly as she rolled her eyes. “I hate when you go all ‘teacher’ on me.”

[/color] She said, knowing full well what Bee was hinting at. The doctor just needed a few more minutes to compose herself. Parts of this story were things that no one had ever been told before and it was a little scary to think that she would be letting some of those skeletons out of the closet now.

She shot her friend another look. “Please, I’m in enough of a mess without needing to be arrested for breaking and entering.”[/color] She tugged at her sleeves and wrapped her arms around her midriff in a comforting fashion. She was still feeling like this wasn’t her life, that it was just some story somewhere or a TV drama that had layered the love plots on thicker than they ever needed to be. Never in a million years did she figure her life would be turning out like this. “Why can’t I just have a nice simple life?”[/color] Whenever she found a nice little routine to fall into, something had to come and turn her life upside down. First, her mom had been diagnosed with a terminal illness, then Taylor had discovered she had the HTLV-1 virus, then she had slept with Damien and now there was all of this drama unfolding just when she finally decided to give love a real chance for the first time in her life.

“Remind me to sit there and laugh the next time you have a crisis.”[/color] Taylor said, still shocked that her friend could find this so funny. She didn’t think she was overreacting at all to the situation considering what she had done could potentially ruin lives, including her own. Her head was spinning, she felt sick and she didn’t understand what was going on anymore. It was like someone had squashed all this drama down her throat and held it there, choking the sense out of Taylor slowly with each day that she had to deal with it.
Her green eyes flicked up to meet Bee’s shocked expression. No one, on the planet, knew that she had slept with Damien before and now it was time to confess to it all. She swallowed and rubbed her hands together slowly, needing the soothing distraction as she told her friend the tale that she had worked out from Taylor’s final few words. “I was a senior in high school. Damien was in Washington at university and it was his junior year. I had been having a rough time at school with bitchy girls and false rumours and my dad was away so I drove out of state one night and went to see him. I was a mess; crying, not wanting to head back to New Jersey…it was awful.”[/color] She bit her lip, wondering how much information to give her friend now. “There was something different between us. I don’t know if it was just emotions running high or missing each other but, well, he was the guy who claimed my v-card.”[/color] She laughed at her phrasing of it and tears formed in her eyes as she remembered the night as though it was only yesterday. “I told him that I loved him that night.”[/color] She whispered, her voice cracking.

Taylor rubbed at her eyes and told herself to stop being so foolish. She glanced back down at her hands again. “We’ve never dated. We’ve never spoken about that night since it happened and we’ve never gone there again, until the ‘almost’ of the other night.”[/color] She said, her head still bowed as she tried not to look up at Bee’s reaction, worried about what her friend might have to say now, though Taylor had a sneaky suspicion that she knew where this whole conversation would end up going; to her feelings about the two men in her life.
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• • •

TAGGED! The voice of Sanity in this mess – Bridget!!
WORDS! 848
OUTFIT! Dressed Down Mayhem
LYRICS! Fact-Fiction - - - Mads Langer
NOTES! <3 <3 <3

[Bridget Cameron Delaynee]

Bridget shrugged while a smirk on her face as big as the Cheshire cats. “It’s what I do,” she said nonchalantly. She was nothing if not sarcastic. Bee also knew with information like this, and stories like these, it took a few minutes to gather thoughts and words to tell it right. It was better than what Bridget had done as a child tripping over words; as if she couldn’t get them all out fast enough so had to stutter and mess up in her excitement. She’d learned over the years to stop before she just blurted things out, to think through her words and then say them but every once in a while, she’d slip up and spill whatever thoughts came to mind, whether they’d hurt someone or not. “You wouldn’t get arrested, Miss Bond. You work for MI- whatever,” she said, with a smirk. She used to watch the old James Bond movies with her dad, but she could never remember who it was double oh seven worked for. Tay’s next comment left Bee silent. Not because she didn’t have something to say about it, she always had something to say. But more because she knew it would be pointless to say anything at all to a rhetorical question, so she just let it slide.

Bridget coughed, sobering herself up. It really wasn’t an amusing situation. This was her friend in crisis; not some stranger. It was just difficult to imagine Taylor’s life in such turmoil. Of the small group of friends Bee had, Tay was the grounded one. She was the reliable one. Bridget sighed. “I’m sorry, it’s not right of me. It’s just, you have to realize it’s a little unlike you. You’re the one with routines, with lists and responsibilities. You’re not the one to run around causing troubles and having triangles. And I promise you’ll be the first I call in a crisis even remotely close to this,” she said, feeling sorry for her outburst. She wasn’t usually so… bitchy. But it really was odd that her only really solid friend was going through something so, blurred at the edges.

Silenced, Bridge just sat back in her chair and just stared ahead at Taylor. It was a lot of information to take in and process, but Bee was good at doing those things quickly. [b“It’s all just, wow,”

[/b][/color] Bee said just blinking. Bee wasn’t a shrink by any means but she was going to try, it was what friends did. “I know you’re giving you and Drake another shot, and I think it’s great, I really do, but Tay, if you’ve never actually talked about what happened between you and Damien, how do you know he wasn’t feeling the same way? You know guys; they’re fickle with their emotions.” And didn’t she know it. She didn’t have a clue what went through her boyfriends head when she ever saw him, which as of late hadn’t been much. But she wasn’t about to go and drop all her problems on Tay when they were working on solving her issues.

“I honestly don’t know what to say, Tay. Either you forget all about Damien and the other night, which I don’t think would be wise since it’ll eventually eat away at you, or you make him sit his ass down and you talk about the almost night and the real night. Personally, I’d go with the second option, but I can be violent at times, so,” she said with a shrug. Bee had never been put in the position Tay was in, she didn’t know where to go or what to say. It was a little annoying, but Bridget was determined to help her friend, even if she said the wrong thing, which knowing Bee, it was bound to happen.
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•TAG• Trouble Tay
•WORDS• 634
•CLOTHES• She’s a lady
•MUSIC• We're Young and Beautiful// Carrie Underwood
•NOTES• <3 <3 <3[/size]

[Taylor Caroline Becks]

Taylor knew that Bridget just wanted her to get to the point and it was possibly the only way that the brunette was ever going to get this tale out. If she could, she would ramble aimlessly about everything but the truth when it came to the scenario she had to tell about now.
Without missing a beat, Taylor gave her friend the answer she was missing. “MI-6.”

[/color] James Bond was a regular holiday classic for her and her father. They’d put the movies on whilst they prepared the house or whilst Taylor cooked their dinners when she was home. Her father was the kind of man who lived off a lot of take-out food, much like his only daughter, but when Taylor returned home, she liked to cook the meals her mother had taught her the recipes of just because it was home.

The tall doctor looked at her friend with desperate eyes. Bee was right. She was never the girl who got so caught up in impulse that she made mistakes or acted recklessly. However, her love life was the one area of her life that was less organised than she would ever like it to be. She chose the troublemakers and then broke it off with them once she got the fix of danger she needed. She hadn’t managed to find anyone stable enough for her liking and everyone came and went like the holidays. Sighing, she looked out of the window, fixing her gaze on a tree where a group of kids were sitting around. “Yeah, but let’s face it; I’m hardly the face of Hallmark. My love life is all over the place at the best of times and I don’t exactly wear my heart on my sleeve now, do I? Maybe I’m not cut out for relationships that last longer than a month.”[/color] She said dejectedly, sighing softly and then looking down at her shoes.

That moment of silence almost broke the strong, dark haired woman, but she managed to hold it together until the sound of Bee’s voice put her at ease again. “He does. I mean, he did.”[/color] She took a moment to pull her thoughts together and then tried again. “That night, he said it too. In fact, he said it first and then I said it before I…well - jumped him is probably the appropriate definition of what happened.”[/color] She chuckled to herself and then rotated the bracelet on her wrist for a distraction. “He’s always been Damien, y’know? And that night…I guess I’d just missed him a lot.”[/color] She had been adamant for years now that the night they had shared together had nothing to do with her fleeting romances and inability to keep both feet in when it came to relationships.

She looked across as her friend and pushed her hair back from her face again, momentarily wishing that she’d braided it or pinned it up today. “How can I? I’m the one who lied to him about it first and I’m the one who ran from it last time too. I can’t do this with him and Drake is just…Drake is safe, y’know? I know where I stand with him and I understand what he wants from this. Damien could throw it all on its head and leave me even more lost than I am now.”[/color] She said, musing her thoughts out loud and sighing heavily when she was done, shaking her head at the mess she had managed to sink herself in without even realising it.
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• • •

TAGGED! The voice of Sanity in this mess – Bridget!!
WORDS! 638
OUTFIT! Dressed Down Mayhem
LYRICS! Fact-Fiction - - - Mads Langer
NOTES! <3 <3 <3

[Bridget Cameron Delaynee]

Bee laughed, shaking her head. “Only you,” she said on a sigh. “Alright, so Miss Bond, you work for a well funded British Intelligence Agency, surely they could’ve expedited you’re release from prison,” she said with a smirk. “Forget the fact that you were sneaking into my office, and you’re always welcome here, no matter how you get in,” she added rolling her eyes. She’d be lying if she had paid much attention to the double oh seven films, with the conversations going on, they’d been more like background noise than anything else. Of course, none of that matter, sitting in the office now. Taylor was avoiding, and Bee was letting her to a point. It was a lot to talk about, and the ramble time was probably much needed.

The blonde professor, set her head back on her knees and looked up at her friend, thinking. She didn’t think Tay’s words rung true. But she was a hopeless romantic. “I think you just need to be with the right person, like anyone. And wearing your heart on your sleeve gets it dirtied and broken easier,” she said, closing her pale eyes for a minute before opening them up again. “Besides, Hallmark lifestyles are overrated and this is coming from a romantic like me,” she added, chuckling as she waved her hand, dismissing all the worries. She shouldn’t have been one to hand out advice so willingly; after all, she’d been having some... difficulties as of late, and unsure how do deal with her own issues without calling Tay up and adding to her already sky high list.

Bee shrugged. "Tell him I was trying out an experiment with a new writing technique. I hypnotized you and made you recount your last drunk night," the blonde professor said, coming up with something off the top of her head. She really needed to take a break from her work. It was seriously starting to get in the way of her good advice; beside the fact that no one sane would say something so sci-fi. Bee shook her head, “Look, I’m certainly not one to talk, I’m dating a cop,” she started, ignoring the jab in her stomach she got whenever she wasn’t telling the complete truth. "Is it safety you really want Tay? Predictability gets old, and when you’re done playing it safe, who’s going to be there to help you pick up the pieces that isn’t me pouring the alcohol freely while cussing him out in two languages?” Bridget was already on Team Damien for the sole fact that she’d yet to hear he’d done something so ridiculously stupid as basically break into her friends’ apartment. Plus, he loved her, and that brought him well into the lead in the romantic’s eyes. “If everything you said is true about the ex-lawyer, then shouldn’t it be a little easier?” she whispered against her knees.

•TAG• Trouble Tay
•WORDS• 483
•CLOTHES• She’s a lady
•MUSIC• We're Young and Beautiful// Carrie Underwood
•NOTES• <3 <3 <3

[Taylor Caroline Becks]

Taylor shrugged, welcoming the distracting talk of James Bond facts and figures. At least it took the men in her life off her mind for a few short minutes and replaced them with thoughts of mysterious men with British accents who could offer a short life of excitement and danger without the real hassle of romantic drama. “By the time they got around to letting me out the world might have ended.”

[/color] She flicked her eyes across to her friend. “You know that and I know that, but campus security does not.”[/color] She remembered the men herself from the days of being a student and roaming around the hallways late at night after losing track of the time. She wasn’t quite sure what they reminded her of exactly, but their sour expressions and grizzly attitudes didn’t put them in the most promising light.

Bee, forever the eternal optimist when it came to romance, was exactly who Taylor needed in all of this. She knew that her friend would keep her from running to another state just to avoid dealing with the mess she had caused. There was no one else to blame but herself, not even the guys could be held responsible for this when they were pretty clueless about this whole thing. Tay’s feelings were kept to herself most of the time and even the two men didn’t get a look into her guarded heart. “Kind of hard to find the right guy when I make a habit out of dating the wrong ones.”[/color] No one who had been on her dating list in the last few years had been worthy of making a permanent partner, not by a long shot. Despite primarily being career driven, Taylor did dream of having a family of her own one day; the two kids, loving husband and family dog were part of her dream for the future, though she didn’t need it to happen right now.

She raised one eyebrow and looked at her friend with a look that clearly questioned Bee’s sanity. “Yeah, this is a guy who was a lawyer for a good portion of his adult life. Let’s remember that anything I say to him will probably turn into a testimony or interrogation.”[/color] He usually wasn’t too bad when he was out of the suit and away from the courtrooms or lecture halls, but just like Taylor knew her medical knowledge was instinctive when someone was hurt these days, his courtroom nature was still there just waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike again, and she wasn’t the best of liars in the long run.
Taylor sighed and looked out of the window again. She loathed predictability. She may have been a woman of routines and mental lists that prepared her for almost anything, but she wasn’t predictable. Her choice in men, her sudden desires to hit a club or the days when she would book a couple of days vacation and shoot off somewhere made sure of that. However, the uncertainty about her feelings for Damien, his feelings for her and whether or not a relationship with him would be the biggest mistake of her life didn’t fill her with the answer she needed either. “Nothing is easy about this. I don’t want to lose what I have with Damien, but Drake…”[/color] She trailed off and shook her head gently. “He’s a sweetheart, despite his past irrational behaviour.”[/color] She still wasn’t quite over the whole fight in her apartment when he had showed up unannounced last time, but he was working hard to make up for it and it was nice to have a boyfriend who she didn’t have to meet in the unfriendliest of places.
[/blockquote][/blockquote][/size][/justify]

• • •

TAGGED! The voice of Sanity in this mess – Bridget!!
WORDS! 666 (!)
OUTFIT! Dressed Down Mayhem
LYRICS! Fact-Fiction - - - Mads Langer
NOTES! <3 <3 <3

[Bridget Cameron Delaynee]

Bee waved her hand, dismissing that. “If you were the real double oh seven, then you wouldn’t have been caught, now would you?” she asked, feeling like she won that round and hopefully skipping the next few to get to the point behind Taylor pacing the English Lit. professor’s office. Oh, there were plenty of reasons for the other woman to show up knocking at her door, all but one were ridiculous and quickly scratched from the list. Bridget ran her manicured fingers through her hair, wanting to get whatever Tay was bottling up out and in the open so she could help with it all, but it was really only a matter of time before the taller woman spilt everything.

Bridget’s eyes brightened as she pointed at her friend. “There you go! You know who the bad ones are. You could probably spot them a mile away!” she exclaimed, happily before coughing and sitting back. “Avoid them like the plague and you’ll be set.” Admittedly, it was a pretty lame plan. She was stuck on two guys, not on the gender itself. And Bridget wasn’t in any position to tell her friend who to pick; she could only tell her what she thought about it all and apologize when she said the wrong thing with the best of intentions, which she did more often than she’d like to admit.

The smirk on Bee’s face was hard to hide, but she tried. “A Doctor and a Lawyer, how could you choose?” she was being sarcastic. Most girls in her position, though unaware of the exact details, would kill to be in her shoes; having to chose between the two men. Bridget would have been one of them another time, but now? She knew too much. She shook her head, “Alright, I get it. But if Damien really loved you and wanted you that much, he’d let a few false truths slip without calling you on it until you’re ready to tell. In the long run you’ll be laughing about this in another four or five decades anyway,” she said, trying to get her friend to see what she saw.

Bridget liked predictability as much as she liked root canals and needles. Routines and schedules weren’t really for her. And the only thing in her life that followed a routine and schedule was work; more specifically her classes. She knew what days she had what class to teach and at what time she had to be there for. Everything else in her life was a surprise waiting to be discovered, and she loved that. There was spontaneity at every turn. She didn’t know what she was going to have for dinner that night until she got home and decided before hitting up the grocery on the next block. “He’s also ultimately predicable, Tay. You know that,” Bee said softly.

•TAG• Trouble Tay
•WORDS• 473
•CLOTHES• She’s a lady
•MUSIC• We're Young and Beautiful// Carrie Underwood
•NOTES• <3 <3 <3

[Taylor Caroline Becks]

Taylor couldn’t recall how they had got onto this discussion of James Bond and she also didn’t know why it had continued this long either, but it was keeping her friend from pushing her into spilling the real reason behind her visit and Taylor was feeling a little like a coward for hiding behind this pointless conversation about a scenario that was entirely fictional and would never happen. Well, if it ever did happen she was positive that they would never hear about it, considering it would be a matter of British National Security and it wasn’t like that was something that was in a daily newspaper. “I also don’t think that the real double-oh-seven would need to break into your office. Super spies don’t have these kind of problems.”

[/color] She said with a sigh, raking her hair back from her face with manicured fingers.

A small smirk managed to break through Taylor’s forlorn expression and she shook her head fondly at her friend. “And what if it’s the wrong one’s that I’m always attracted to because I run from the right one?”[/color] She arched her eyebrow and waited for her friend to answer. That was the situation she felt like she was in now. She had run from Damien when she had lied and she had continued to run by never mentioning it again. Was he the right choice though? It was so hard for her to tell; he had been in her life the longest but did that just mean her feelings were more hazy towards him because she couldn’t remember a time in her life when he wasn’t there? None of this was making sense and the more she thought about it, the more her head started to hurt and spin from it all. If she ever heard a girl wish to be in this position - torn between two guys - Taylor was fairly certain she might hit them, and she wasn’t a violent person!

Taylor groaned again; she hadn’t thought of it that way. “At least there’s no way anyone will be disappointment in my boyfriend’s profession.”[/color] It was hardly a massive deal to her and most people didn’t see the hype when Taylor was a doctor herself. She didn’t know why people thought it was so much different for it to be this way around, but they did and she didn’t often question it. She didn’t care what her potential partner did for a living, so long as he didn’t try and live off her without a good reason. “In another four or five decades, I’m hoping I won’t remember this! Or at least still be thinking about it.”[/color] If her HTLV-1 remained dormant, that is. Her mother had only been in her forties when she had died and Taylor was fearful of it happening to her too.

She sighed, closing her eyes and looking across at Bee, knowing her friend was ultimately right. Drake was predictable. He had the ten year plan, the dreams he wanted to reach and a lot of them were things Taylor didn’t feel wholly comfortable with. At least not yet. Sometimes he seemed so blinded by them that she thought he forgot about her hesitations for some things, like a family. Her disease, whilst entirely harmless most of the time, was hereditary and she couldn’t bear the thought of one of her children falling sick because of it when she might live a long and full life. It was the reason she never thought about having kids, sometimes resigning herself at this young age to be the fun ‘aunt’. Maybe Drake would talk her out of that though, like she knew Damien would try to do if he were in the position of the other man. She bit her lip and then looked down at her hands. “What the hell do I do, Bee?”[/color] She whispered, desperate for an answer now.
[/blockquote][/blockquote][/size][/justify]

• • •

TAGGED! The voice of Sanity in this mess – Bridget!!
WORDS! 700
OUTFIT! Dressed Down Mayhem
LYRICS! Fact-Fiction - - - Mads Langer
NOTES! <3 <3 <3

[Bridget Cameron Delaynee]

“Oh, they do! They just don’t advertise that in the movies. I mean, really, who would watch a movie about a super spy with love woes?” She asked, rhetorically. Their conversation was a terrible to way to stay as far from the reason behind Taylor’s surprise visit as they could probably get. But if a little extra time was what was needed then Bridget would be more than happy to comply until her closest friend was good and ready. Though, if that wasn’t soon, Bee was about to get too blunt for her own good. It was lucky that they got back on topic in record time, or Bee would have to ask for a surgeon’s number again; her foot seemed to find a space in her mouth quite often as of late. “Well, if it’s the bad ones you want to run to, you know to run away. Damien, run to, Drake, run from,” she said with a shrug. It was easy to say, she knew, when it wasn’t her friend’s in the situation. But it was also the simplest conclusion.

Bridget really shouldn’t have been handing out relationship advice to anyone, but it was Taylor, her best friend and she couldn’t just sit by idly while her friend went through some major turmoil; especially considering she was a little bit biased after the pet’s incident. And it took her mind of her own relationship problems. Bridget laughed, shaking her head. “Definitely not. They’ll be too busy being jealous of you,” Bridge said. Really, she didn’t get it much either. Who really cared if you were married to a rocket scientist, or a Neurosurgeon? If there was enough romance and love, did it really matter? Maybe that was the romantic in her, but she honestly didn’t. “In another four or five decades you had better have gotten over this little bump in the road and I better have surrogate nieces and or nephews running this town,” she said with a wicked, wide grin. She was an only child and wanted a sibling for the sole fact that she could have nieces and nephews to spoil rotten.

Bee took a sip of her coffee, thinking about that. If the roles were reversed, she would want Taylor’s advice and she would want her best friend telling her what she should do. She knew, probably because of that whole biased opinion, that Tay should at least give being with Damien a try. There weren’t many things that bothered Bridget to the point of actually hating a person; but hurting or poor treatment of animals- no matter what they may be, was at the top of that very short list; even if she wasn’t too thrilled with the critters herself.

She wasn’t about to pick up Tay’s pets, but she wasn’t also about to try and kill them off either by turning off their heat lamps. “I’d suggest going with your gut, but apparently following that leads to this,” she said, waving her free hand about her. “So maybe you should flip a coin. Bad, I'm well aware, but what can I say? Choose the yummy ex-lawyer you still have the hots for?” Okay, terrible advice, Bee was well aware of that, but what else could she say? Pick Damien, he would never turn off the heat lamps and life with him would never be dull? Bee was pretty sure her opinion of the two was obvious, but if her friend needed a blunt answer, the blonde professor was definitely willing to spill.

•TAG• Trouble Tay
•WORDS• 590
•CLOTHES• She’s a lady
•MUSIC• We're Young and Beautiful// Carrie Underwood
•NOTES• <3 <3 <3