isn't it? [taylor swift]

chapter 34

In another lifetime, Leia was sure that her and Taylor would have had the chance to properly explore the United Kingdom together. They'd made have gone out to a few bars, strolled down some high streets and even stopped by a chip store or two. 

In her dream of that lifetime, no one would look twice at them. They weren't internationally famous pop-stars - they were just Leia and Taylor, a young couple in love and living in the moment. They'd hold hands, kiss in between breaks in their sentences and post photos of each other on their instagrams. 

In this lifetime, it was Joe Alwyn who got to hold Taylor's hand and take her to his hometown. It was Joe Alwyn who got to hold the umbrella for her in the park, feed the squirrels on the benches with her and share a fish and chips in the rain.

Because Joe was allowed to be seen with Taylor.

Joe was allowed to be the supportive boyfriend at the end of the reputation tour stage, beaming from the VIP tent as she blew him a kiss. Joe was allowed to gush about her to fans when they bumped into him in the street. Joe was allowed to post Instagram photos that alluded to them being in the same room - even when they weren't. 

Leia watched from the shadows, her heart aching with each public display of affection between Taylor and Joe. She knew it was all for show, but that didn't make it hurt any less. She was becoming a doom-scroller now that she was on tour and was limited in what she could do in her downtime. Every tweet, instagram, article... it just felt like she was being erased from Taylor's life while still being right here.

Things had gotten a little bit weirder since they finished the Dublin dates. 

Manchester had been easy - Joe and Zaria attending the shows made it simple for them to hide their relationship while on tour together and no-one who didn't know about them had questioned anything. Lana Wilson, who was in charge of directing the documentary that Taylor was working on, had found him incredibly charming and even had captured a lovely 'candid' shot of Taylor rushing through the halls after the encore to find Joe.

Staged by Tree and Taylor's team, of course.

Dublin was when things started to get more complicated. 

No Joe and no Zaria meant there was no buffer of affection between them. The number of people who actively knew about their relationship that were on the road with them was smaller now - only Tree, Riven, Taylor's parents and Austin, Camila and Georgie knew. Adrain wasn't touring with them and her parents had returned home. The bubble was tighter.

Charli caught them kissing just before she went on stage in night one in Dublin. Tree and Riven were frustrated, but Charli had seemed unfazed by it and had no issues signing the NDA Tree produced for her by the end of the evening. 

On night 2, when she was almost ready for the pre-show Rep Room, Taylor had been watching Leia's opening performance on the monitors when Amos had asked her about her relationship with the girl. While the bass player had simply just meant their friendship and how they'd met while they'd been off-tour, Taylor had been taken by surprise and asked if he had seen them too.

By the time they reached the Wembley Stadium dates in London, it was pretty apparent that all of Taylor's band had a feeling the two were more than just friends. Leia wasn't sure what the conversations had been, but she was very apparent that something had been murmured between them all when Paul (Taylor's long-term guitarist) told her randomly at breakfast that he was glad she was in Taylor's life.

Meanwhile, Riven was probably more stressed than Leia had ever seen him in his life, and it wasn't because of her and Taylor's relationship.

He was a one-man PR team and things were starting to become unmanageable very quickly with Leia's constantly growing popularity. Since journalists couldn't reach Taylor for any press regarding the tour, their request emails had been firing straight towards Leia, Camila and Charli instead. While Camila and Charli had a few opportunities that were being handle with their own PR agents, it seemed a lot had been sent just to Leia.