Her palms were sweaty, she was nervous beyond belief and she didn’t know why she was. Maybe it could be because if this didn’t work, then she didn’t know if Tiffany will ever forgive her, and she has to admit (partially) that she sort of took it too far. So, there she stood in front of Brittney’s door, trying her best conjure up all the courage she has because she has a feeling she’ll be needing. 

What Taeyeon is doing is suicide. It’s like poking a bear with a stick while it’s sleeping, the results are just disastrous, and Taeyeon has a feeling that things will end up badly for her. Part of her still believes she did nothing wrong and that Whitney did deserve what she got in the end, but then there’s another part of her is telling her otherwise. Taeyeon feels like she’s in one of those cartoons where there’s a little devil standing on one shoulder and an angel on the other, both speaking to her in small hushed voices. She can just picture it, Jessica on her right and Tiffany on her left, both telling her the opposite of what should be done.

With a deep breath and an exhale, Taeyeon shakes her head, throwing out any other thoughts that can change her mind, and she rings the doorbell. Her hands are clammy and she can feel beads of sweat run down the back of her neck as the door opens. An old man well into his forties opens the door and Taeyeon asks if Britney’s home. The man, Taeyeon presumes it’s Britney’s old man, tells her to wait a moment while he goes and calls his daughter. Taeyeon can only stand still as her muscles tense as the minutes pass by.

“You.” Britney’s hisses.

Taeyeon wills her hammering heart to slow down as she takes deep breaths, her eyes meeting furious ones.

“Oh, this is just perfect! So she sends her to rub it in my face!!” Britney throws her hands up as angered tears form in her eyes, “Was the video not enough?”

“Jessica didn’t have anything to do with the video.” Taeyeon’s voice comes out hoarse. 

Britney looks at Taeyeon for what seems like the longest minute in Taeyeon’s life. “Who?” Taeyeon doesn’t answer, she looks down ashamed to even be standing in front of Britney. “I’m sorry.” She manages to utter and waits for a push, a shout, a tug, but nothing ever comes. Taeyeon’s eyes slowly travel up to see Britney and she feels the guilt pour on her like a bucket of ice as Britney stand before her shaking with so much rage. Taeyeon doesn’t think she’s ever seen the girl like that in the years she’s known the girl. It scares Taeyeon for a second, and not for her safety, but for the other girls. Taeyeon thinks she may have broken the girl.

A loud slap echoes through the air.

Taeyeon, who stumbled back and landed on her bottom, is holding her left cheek.

“You..” Britney is trying her best to contain this murderous feeling inside, “YOU .” She seethes. She’s outraged. She just can’t believe that the was able to screw her royally. It’s one thing coming from Jessica, but for the to have trumped her?!

Taeyeon slowly stands, adrenaline running through her veins. She can’t feel half of her face. “I’m–”

“GET THE OFF MY PROPERTY!!” Britney pushes Taeyeon away from her, she doesn’t want the other girl anywhere near her. “I said LEAVE!!” She screeches.

Taeyeon stumbles and tumbles as she walks back to her car, blood trickling down the slash Britney made on her when she was slapped. She’s sure it was from the ring Britney was wearing. The guilt-ridden girl doesn’t turn back as she gets in her car and drives off, cursing herself and Britney.

–––

“Hold still,” Tiffany mutters as Taeyeon winces.

“Well, it hurts.” Taeyeon talks back, trying her best to not move even though her body instinctively leans away from the cotton ball drenched in alcohol.

Tiffany gently holds Taeyeon when she notices that Taeyeon’s about to lean back again, she carefully wipes away the blood on the girl’s fair skin as questions still swarm through her mind. The bright girl didn’t ask any question’s when Taeyeon showed up at her door, blood trickling down the side of her face and pooling at the base of her shirt. Her instincts took over, and she dragged the shorter girl into the nearest restroom to patch her up.

“There, now let me put on the ointment since it stopped bleeding,” Tiffany says as she gathers up the cotton balls stained with Taeyeon’s blood and throws them away.

Taeyeon can only grunt when Tiffany walks away from her once again. Her body hunched on the toilet seat as she looks at the desk chair before her. She could have gone home and cleaned her own wounds, but then she would have run into her parents, knowing very well that they’d only ask her a thousand questions about why there’s a gash on her left cheek.

Tiffany comes back with the ointment and she works quietly as she works on the girl she loves. It pains her to see Taeyeon like this. Memories rush back of when Taeyeon got stab and she wasn’t there for her, just like now. Someone hurt Taeyeon and she wasn’t around. 

“Who did this to you?” Tiffany’s voice is soft, caring, just like her touches. Taeyeon can see it in her worried soft brown eyes. She can see that it hurts Tiffany to see her like this. She knows.

With a sad smile, Taeyeon looks away from Tiffany’s eyes, not wanting her to see the self-pity she felt. “I deserved it.” Her voice soft but clear to Tiffany’s ear. Questions swarm through Tiffany’s mind as she thinks to herself how Taeyeon deserves the gash on her left cheek.

And then it clicked.

“Britney,” Tiffany says in awe, reaching her epiphany. Leaning away from the girl, Tiffany throws away the cotton swab that was used to apply ointment. 

Taeyeon bites her bottom lip as she nods, not making eye contact with the latter. “..... I’ve been thinking and,” She breathed in and out deeply, “I kinda did take it too far… and I thought that ” She played with her thumbs, feeling like a child confessing its wrong doings, “I should own up to what I did, like, she should know who at least did it, and I…. well I apologized and got this,” She points at her wounded cheek, “in return. Not that I thought I wouldn’t get anything in return, of course.”

Warm hands cover cool ones, stopping the cool hands from fidgeting out of nervousness. One warm hand lets go and gently cups the smaller girl’s chin, bringing her eye level to the other girl. “Thank you.” Tiffany knows it took a lot out of Taeyeon to not only own up to what she did but to also apologize to Britney and mean it.

This Taeyeon, this is her Taeyeon.

–––––

*2 Weeks Later*

Lunch time was never calm for the school Taeyeon attended. It was always noisy. Students chatting to one another about classes and what the latest gossip around school, or in other words, what happened at Paul’s kick back that ended up being a full blown out party, with almost the entire school being there.

“God I still feel like crap.” Tiffany moaned as she laid on her left arm, facing Taeyeon who was eating her lunch.

“That’s what you get for drinking so much,” Taeyeon mutters as she takes a drink of her Gatorade. 

Tiffany whimpers once more and Taeyeon rolls her eyes, handing her drink to the groaning girl with some empathy. “You should have gone. It was fun.” Tiffany says after she takes several greedy gulps and hands it back to the owner. 

“I don’t drink, and I hate crowded places. You know that.” Taeyeon says as she places her almost empty drink in front of her tray and focuses back to her food.

Tiffany pouts as she leans on her arm once more, her hand playing with Taeyeon’s fingers, or more specifically, one of Taeyeon’s silver rings. Sometimes she wishes Taeyeon would like to associate herself with more social gathering, like Paul’s party for instance, but no amount of persuasion from her end has ever made Taeyeon budge about her opinion on the parties that Tiffany has attended with Jessica. The girl is just flat out not interested.

Taeyeon notices the pout on Tiffany’s face but doesn’t give in. There are some things that she just won’t do, and partying with a bunch of idiots isn’t one of them. Tiffany knows it, she just doesn’t understand why Tiffany keeps on persisting. 

A tray slams on the empty table the two are sitting at, bringing the girl’s attention to the upset Jessica who sits in front of them. Jessica doesn’t utter a word as she takes out her clutch and throws a single bill in Taeyeon’s direction. “She’s here,” Jessica mutters and then it dawns on Taeyeon why Jessica’s so upset.

“No way! I won!!” Taeyeon exclaims with a smile as she reaches for the money.

“Luck!” Jessica counters, “You got lucky!”

Taeyeon snorts as she shoves the twenty dollar bill into her right jean pocket. “Whatever. I still won.”

Tiffany doesn’t comment on the two’s bet. She decides to ignore it. She’s too busy feeling like crap to care at the moment.

“Babe.” A tall, lean guy sits next Jessica, bringing all of the girl’s attention to him, “I need to talk to you.” He says urgently.

Jessica looks at him weirdly, “Sure…” She motions at the other two to take care of her food and she walks away with her boyfriend a few steps away.

“That was weird,” Taeyeon comments as they both eye them talking in hushed tones. 

“I have a bad feeling about this.” Tiffany, who is now sitting up straight, takes Taeyeon’s Gatorade drinks the last of it. 

“Five bucks he breaks up with her,” Taeyeon says nonchalantly as she picks up the last of her burger and eats it.

“Taeyeon!” The hand that was once playing with Taeyeon’s fingers, slaps her arm. Tiffany stares at her in disbelief.

“Kidding.” The smiling girl rubs the spot where she got hit. Their phones suddenly ding and the two girls look at each other weirdly before looking at their phones. Taeyeon’s the first to open up the video she was tagged in through Instagram, and her eyes bulge at what the video says and displays. “Uh oh.” Her eyes immediately look up to the couple she was once looking at and she sees Jessica’s boyfriend… er, ex-boyfriend getting slapped by Jessica before she walks away.

“I’ll be back.” Tiffany quickly utters as she rushes to get up and quickly walks in the direction Jessica went.

“Okay…” Taeyeon barely manages to mutter before she looks back down onto her phone, “That ing .” She stares at the username.

britneycohners
#2months