[tyler]

[Mikayla Laurel Garrity]

Kayla dropped her backpack in disgust before she pushed it away with her foot. This.Was.Hell. “ Hey let’s take a bike ride across Europe. I love bikes”. Stupidest shit ever. She was sweaty. All the time. She wasn’t as athletic as Tyler, so she felt like she was constantly needing to take water breaks. She smelled gross. It was a foreign country. But she felt the lump in her throat form..instantaneously. “ Are you hungry?” she asked, trying to not start bursting into tears. She looked down at her arms, which were darkened from sweat and being outside. She took in a deep breath to try and steady herself, except it seemed to take a reverse effect. “ I hate this,” she said, bringing her hands up to her face and wiping the tears away that were now pouring over her cheeks. “ I’m dirty. And disgusting. And I smell. And we’re like… constantly moving. And there’s a lot of cool stuff, but sometimes it’s nice to just… you know. Like. Sit.” she said before pushing away more of her tears and trying to not sound like she was choking on her own tears as she took in deep breaths. Kayla gathered her hair, which just felt dirty and pulled it up into a ponytail. “ I want my silk sheets. And I want to drink almond milk from my fridge. I want to watch Moulin Rouge. And I want to order in Chinese food. And I want to take a shower. In my bathroom.” she said frustratedly as she made her way to the bathroom. Kayla tightened her ponytail in frustration before changing out of her clothes and wrapping a towel around herself. After starting the hot water for the shower she came back out into the bedroom, trying to keep away all the tears from her cheeks. ” I’m just..frustrated. People shouldn’t have to exercise on vacation” she said, like the whole premise of it was stupid – even though it had been half her idea. “ I don’t understand why we can’t be home. “ she said, moving over to the bed to sit beside him. “ I just want things to be normal. And they’re not. And even my place isn’t normal. And it sucks. And it’s scary. And I don’t know what we are anymore. And I just want to be able to crawl into bed, and for it to be like we’re in highschool again. Except everything is different. And I’m in a stupid country with stupid sweat. And the only reason I’m here is because of you. “ she said, bringing her arm up to push some of the tears away with the back of her hand. “ I just want normal back. And I don’t know how to get it. Because anything we get with anyone else won’t be as special. And I feel like we aren’t back to what we used to be yet. And I don’t know how to get there. And I just want to take a shower and for everything to be okay. I want to be able to say that I think we should move in together again, even though now I don’t want to say it. Because if you were to ever say it, it seems forced. And that’s not fair to you, but it’s how I feel. And I really want a bacon cheeseburger,” she said before sniffling once more and leaning against his side.

[Tyler James Kingsley]

Tyler set his back pack down, stretching his arms out and yawning. Today had kind of kicked his ass. Even if they only rode around one city for the day it was still all day. Tyler thought maybe he’d suggest the Eurorail for the rest of the trip, get month passes or something. That would help a lot. Tyler took a drink from his water bottle, Kayla asking if he was hungry. “Yeah I kind of am actually, are you?” No sooner had he asked, Kayla had burst into tears, saying she was basically miserable on this trip. Tyler wondered if maybe this trip wasn’t the greatest idea. Like maybe they should have opted for something tropical or something. “What?” he questioned, frowning. This trip couldn’t fail, it had to turn out okay. They needed this. Okay, but also maybe she was just tired from the day. Tyler looked up, desperate to make things work, “Okay, it’ll be fine, we can take the train to the places we need to go.” He hated to see her cry. She was frustrated. It had been a long day, right? Surely she just needed a shower and she’d calm down. Tyler sighed when Kayla went to go turn on the shower. Tyler didn’t have a computer with him, but he had his tablet. And for some lucky reason he’d bought Moulin Rouge on iTunes ages ago. They could at least watch that. He just hoped it was her being tired making her upset and not that she didn’t actually want to be here. Kayla had come back out in a towel, sitting down beside him, saying she couldn’t understand why they couldn’t be home. “We can go home…” he said quietly, unsure of what she wanted right now. He wasn’t entirely sure what she was really upset about enough to cry about being sweaty but he understood when she said she just wanted things to be normal again. He wanted that too. He didn’t know exactly how to get back to that either. He was happy when she talked about it. Not happy that she was upset, more relieved that she still cared about them enough to be upset over it. For a while there he wasn’t sure she did, she’d just been icing him out. Tyler sat closer to her, hand rubbing the small of her back. Tyler turned to face her, taking both her hands in his, “Alright, Kayla, listen to me. We’re not the way we were, and I don’t think we can be that again. We can be better. That times ten. We’re still us. I’m still me, and you’re still you. I still love you, I always will. You still love me, I know you do. As long as we have that, we’ll be okay, don’t you think? I love you, I want to make this work with you, because you’re worth it, and you’re what I want. I want that one day. Married, house, kids, we can have that. And we will, but right now we need to work on us. We don’t have to be here, we can be anywhere, but I need to know you’re not going to ice me out, because I can’t fix us alone. We have to do this together. Both of us. I can’t feel like I’m the only one trying,” he said desperately. He felt like crying too. He wanted things to be okay so badly. “I know it’s scary…” he added quietly, “I’m scared too. I get scared you might change your mind and walk away from everything. I can’t… think about that.” Tyler took a deep breath, “I promise you, I’ll be honest. I’ll tell you what I’m thinking. I won’t lie about things like moving in. I swear, if we talk about it when it comes, I really mean it.” Tyler looked away, rubbing his eyes, “Will you just… promise me you won’t give up on us? Please?” Tyler stood up, pulling her up with him and walked across the room, giving her a small nudge to the bathroom. “Take a shower. Everything will be fine. I promise it will.” He said before leaning down to kiss her. And then he was on a mission to get a bacon cheeseburger stat.

[Mikayla Laurel Garrity]

Kayla closed her eyes as Tyler kissed her, feeling her body sort of relax from relief. When he pulled away she realized he had sort of nudged her towards the shower. She was still processing everything he had said and hadn’t even realized. She smiled faintly before stepping on her toes to give him a quick kiss, telling him she’d be out soon before stepping into the edge of the shower and placing the towel across the rod along the shower. She turned towards the water, washing her face off quickly before she turned so that the heat of the water was basically beating up her back. Kayla closed her eyes tiredly, resting her head against the side of the shower. She didn’t even know how she and Tyler had gotten to this place where they were scared of hurting each other and being hurt. But she knew the sooner she got out of here, the sooner she could get back to Tyler. Kayla stood up quickly, rinsing off her hair before ripping off what felt like five layers of skin by how harshly she was scratching at her skin with her loufa and strawberry body wash. Kayla changed into Tyler’s old soccer t-shirt and a pair of cotton shorts before drying her hair the best she could with a towel. He was right. A shower definitely helped. Kayla brought her hair over to the side of her neck, loosely putting it into a fishtail braid. “ Hey,” she said as she came over and sat in his lap, not really caring that she was clean and he wasn’t. “ I just want you to know two things. All of my life I have been certain of one thing. I wanted to be on broadway. But I’m a little older now I guess.. and there’s actually two things that I know above everything else. You are what is home to me. No matter where that is. And I couldn’t walk away from you and what we have if the entire world depended on it,” she said, taking both sides of his jaw in her hands before she leaned in to give him a quick kiss. “ I put the shower back on for you, it should be warm,” she said , crawling off of his lap and onto the bed. They could talk more when he came out. At least, she figured they would. Maybe she could order something to eat. She laid her head against the pillow tiredly, watching Tyler’s lower back as he walked towards the bathroom. It was ridiculously unfair how attractive he was. But when she looked up for the first time, she noticed he had hooked Moulin Rouge up to the tv with his iPad. She smiled tiredly. Falling asleep with him watching Moulin Rouge was one of her favorite things in the world – though she sort of figured he might be getting sick of it. Either way, she wasn’t going to start it without him. Kayla looked at the phone on the nightstand, debating whether she should call for room service. It seemed like so much energy. She knit her eyebrows together, trying to decide when she heard a knock at the door. With a slight groan, Kayla put her hands out to her sides before pushing herself up and coming over to the door. She stepped to the side, letting the cart get pushed inside before she smiled, thanking him. So Tyler had ordered her a burger. Kayla narrowed her eyes as she started looking at it. Three pickles, same size. Mustard and bbq sauce mixture. Caramelized onions. Toasted bun. An order of strawberries instead of fries. Two slices of cheese. No lettuce hanging on the outside of the burger. “ Hm..” she said, picking the plate up before stopping to look at Tyler’s. So much more plain. Kayla put the cover back on Tyler’s so it wouldn’t get cold before doing the same for her own, waiting for him before she started eating and made her way back to the bed. It was stupid and probably made no sense. But they were both showered,and were sort of exposing themselves to each other with how they felt. If anything it felt like a cleansing experience for them completely.