isn't it? [taylor swift]

chapter 58

The first thing Leia registered was the warmth.

It bloomed softly across her back and shoulders, filtered through the gauzy curtains fluttering slightly in the morning draft. The sun had risen gently, spilling honeyed light through the wide windows and across the tangled sheets, casting golden patterns that shifted with the slow stir of city air. It wrapped around her skin like a second blanket, warm and weightless and entirely unfamiliar in its gentleness.

She hadn't woken up like this in years - not in someone else's bed, not without panic blooming in her chest, not without the ache of absence - not since she'd last been with Taylor. But today, there was no void. Just warmth. 

The bed beside her was empty, but not cold. The mattress still held the shape of a body. Taylor's body. The dent of her hip. The stretch of warmth across the sheets. A faint imprint on the pillow where her head had rested. It was like Taylor had slipped away only moments before, careful not to wake her.

Leia turned her face toward the pillow and inhaled. Cedar and rose.

The soft hum of the city trickled in through the windows... early traffic, distant horns, the occasional dog barking on the street below. It was New York at its quietest.

Leia blinked slowly, her limbs loose and heavy, tangled in the duvet. She'd slept well. Very well, in fact. 

Her eyes drifted to the chair in the corner of the room. Taylor's cardigan (no, not the cardigan, although Leia noted that she did want to ask Taylor if she actually owned one) lay draped over the armrest, half-fallen, the sleeves brushing the floor. Her guitar leaned nearby, still in its stand, a notebook open and face-down beside it. A page of lyrics - Leia could tell from the scrawl even from here - abandoned mid-thought.

She rolled slowly onto her back, wincing as the sheets shifted over bare skin still sensitive from the night before. Every nerve felt raw, rewired... like her body had been melted down and remade beneath Taylor's touch. She didn't regret it. Not even a little.

Leia let her eyes fall closed again. Not to sleep, but to stretch the moment. To stay inside it a little longer. She didn't know what time it was, and quite frankly, she didn't care. There was no clock in this room, just the soft shuffle of wind against glass and the echo of a city that didn't know what had changed in the night.

She'd tell Georgie later. And maybe Riven too, even if he probably already kind of knew it was coming.

The sound of quiet footsteps reached her first. Then the soft shuffle of fabric. The muted clink of ceramic against ceramic.

Leia didn't open her eyes right away. She let the moment stretch, warm and slow, like the sunlight still trailing patterns across her bare shoulder. The bed shifted slightly as weight dipped into the edge of the mattress, and the smell of fresh coffee cut gently through the scent of Taylor's perfume lingering on the sheets.

She opened her eyes just in time to see Taylor placing a mug on the bedside table beside her. A small curl of steam rose from it. The other mug remained in Taylor's hands, cradled between her fingers like something precious.

She wore an oversized sweatshirt Leia didn't recognise, sleeves falling past her wrists, collar stretched loose around one shoulder. Her hair was messy, swept to one side, and her skin glowed faintly from the morning light pouring in through the windows behind her. She looked like comfort personified. Like peace distilled into a person.

Benji followed behind her with a soft, irritated meow, tail twitching. He hopped onto the bed and took up position with a practiced arrogance, curling himself into the crook between Leia's calves like it was his birthright.