Taylor does her best to ignore the stoic Karlie, sitting with her arms crossed on the living room couch while Taylor rushes back and forth, getting packed to leave. The sun is just about to rise now, and Taylor has frantically been readying themselves to leave only about halfway through their week. Karlie wasn't happy about it. After hanging up with Tree, Taylor had no choice but to get out of bed and get dressed, leaving Karlie behind beneath the sheets. "Karlie, this is an emergency," Taylor had said apologetically.
Karlie hasn't said a word to her since, watching her pack both of their bags without any help offered.
"Karlie, are you going to be ready to go in like twenty minutes?" Taylor asks, wheeling a suitcase towards the front door of the cabin. She waits for Karlie's reply, staring at her hesitantly before going back up the stairs for another bag. She shakes her head to herself as she goes into their temporary bedroom, thinking that this might be the first time Karlie is genuinely angry with her. But this really was an emergency, an emergency that has kept her heart painfully racing since answering that phone. What am I going to do? "Kar? Like, fifteen minutes," Taylor says, when returning downstairs with the other suitcase they brought along. "Are you going to get changed or are you just wearing your pajamas?"
"You said we'd stay for a week," Karlie says with a hard, neutral tone. She is sitting with both her arms and legs crossed now, glaring a hole into the floor.
Taylor sighs, putting a hand against her forehead as she tries to apologize for this. "Karlie, I'm as upset by this as you are. I have no idea what to fucking do. I'm so stressed out. I just know I need to go home and deal with it, and preferably land before there are paparazzi at LAX."
Karlie doesn't reply, her lips are pursed tightly.
"I'll make it up to you, Karlie," Taylor pleads, "I promise. We can even come back here, I just need to deal with this."
"What does it matter?" Karlie mutters.
"Karlie, this is my life! Our lives! Do you know what this could do to us? The stories are going to be horrible! You have no idea what it's like! We need to get control of the situation," Taylor explains desperate. "Your life is going to be even way more complicated than it is now if you're labelled as the next person I'm dating. It's bigger than us being in Maine right now, okay? We need to figure this out for the both of us, we need to go back. I'm sorry."
Karlie doesn't reply and her glare to the floor doesn't soften.
"Ten minutes, Karlie," Taylor says quietly as she takes out her phone to tell her security to come to the door and pack away her and Karlie's luggage, but she doesn't end up pressing the call button when Karlie replies.
"I don't want to go."
"Karlie, we don't have a choice—"
"You said that you wouldn't make me do anything that I don't want to do," Karlie says coldly, staring at Taylor now, and her glare is practically unrecognizable from the girl Taylor has spent these last weeks with. At any rate, she's definitely a complete stranger from the girl she's spent these last few days with.
Taylor stares at her with parted lips, as if waiting for Karlie to realize this is an exception that has to be made. "Please," Taylor begins slowly, hoping that she doesn't have to add any more to her case before continuing, "This is different, Karlie. This is bad. I'll make it up to you."
"I don't want to go," Karlie repeats firmly.
"Can you please? Please just get in the car, Karlie. Don't make this more difficult than it already is," Taylor says calmly, doing her best to keep her patience with the girl. Her phone vibrates in her hand, a text from Tree. Whatever she has to say now is probably not going to soothe any of the feelings Taylor has about the situation weighing heavily upon her now. "Karlie, can you just do this for me? Please?" Taylor snaps, wiping her thumb at the corner of her eye and feeling moisture. She can't help the tone of her voice, not now. Her mother, father, and brother were going to be waking up hours from now, seeing headlines about her daughter dating a princess. Karlie's entire family must have already seen the news. "Jesus, Karlie, we need to go," Taylor says tightly, wiping at her eyes firmly to keep from tears forming.
