I peer through the glass of the windshield, even leaning forward to give myself a better angle of the sign just to make sure I read it correctly. "A junkyard?" I ask as he runs around from the driver's side to open my door for me. Taylor has brought me to a junkyard. Maybe after last night he thinks of me like a dog. A sick one that unfortunately needs to be put out of its misery. But the old fashioned way, no modern medicine drug to induce a peaceful passing. One where he can just bury the body immediately after.

"Oh yeah!" he says with a hitch of excitement in his tone. So he's looking forward to shooting me and getting rid of the body. A man of vast interests.

"Do you need to find a part for your car or something?" I try to gather as much information before I call Gabi and tell her I love her one last time.

"Nope," Taylor answers just as a man walks out of a large white metal garage off to the side of the lot.

"Taylor Reed! Welcome, son!" He's an older man with a head full of white hair, and a slightly curved back. He pulls a rag out of the back pocket of his overalls and wipes some sort of black gunk from his hands before reaching one out and shaking Taylor's.

"And you must be Rent," he says, turning and extending the same hand to me. "Ryn," I correct him before letting him take my hand. His grip is hard which does nothing to clear up my confusion.

"Right, of course. Well this way!" He turns on his heels back towards his establishment and right through the small gap in the two gates. Taylor begins to follow him, but I stay where I am. I'm not actually sure if I'm ready to die, no matter how awful yesterday was. As if he senses the lack of my presence he turns and looks at me over his shoulder.

"What's wrong?" he asks.

"More like what's right with this scene?" I spit.

He walks back to where I stand and asks if I trust him. My mind screams no, but it oddly comes out as a yes. Taylor takes my hand in his, it feels so natural, like we've done it hundreds of times before, but my heart begins to race anyways.

We follow the man, whose name I now know to be Wilbur, through his rummage yard (the name he gave it because it's more like a rummage sale, a place for hidden deals and treasures to be found rather than a place where junk goes to die,) that's been in his family since he was a boy. We make a couple of turns around stacked piles of old cars, only stopping once we have reached a single car sitting on the ground. It's an older model, most likely a station wagon given the long shape of the frame, in a pale blue color.

Wilbur conjures up two pairs of clean safety goggles, like the ones from a chemistry lab from one of the pockets of his overalls. I'm suddenly overcome with the feeling that I might still be asleep, all of this just a weird dream. One where Wilbur continues to pull other things from his seemingly small pockets until we're surrounded by an assortment of equally weird items.

"Here you two go. Now just a coupla ground rules. One, only aim for this one right here, any of the piles and one bad hit could send the whole damn thing tumbling," He says drawing our attention to the station wagon, "Two, stop by the garage on your way out. Patricia will want to see ya." He doesn't clarify who Patricia is, or why she will want to see us, but I don't ask any questions out of fear that I will somehow sound stupid. Wilbur shoots us a toothy smile and then disappears back around a pile of cars.

Taylor puts on his pair of goggles and walks to the trunk of the car, pushing the lid open and grabbing something from the back. As he walks back towards me I can see one of his hands on the head, the other low on the handle of a sledgehammer.

"I know I was really shitty to you last night but even if I asked you to, I didn't really mean it!" I say, fighting the urge to close my eyes to avoid seeing what happens next.

Taylor ignores me and instead extends the hammer to the right side of his body until it is behind him. He uses the momentum to drive it forward again, the force of the head slams into the driver's side door of the car.

"What the fuck!" I yell mostly out of shock from the loud sound. Again, he ignores me and instead winds up again, this time crashing the hammer into the front fender of the car.

"Last night, you seemed really upset. I thought you might like to hit something really hard." Taylor doesn't continue, instead he hands me the hammer. I originally thought the handle was wood, but now that it's in my hands I can feel the smooth coolness of the metal. I see why Taylor was carrying it with both hands, it's heavier than I imagined. I hold it, frozen for a second, trying to process what's happening.

"Y–you brought me here to smash a car with a sledge hammer?" I ask, still not totally sure this isn't a joke.

"Yeah, but I guess you can just hold it too. Whatever makes you feel better."

I bite the corner of my lip and narrow my eyes. Taylor raises his, before nodding his head towards the car. An invitation. I don't think twice, instead I step forward. Swinging the sledgehammer back in the same way I just had watched him do a moment ago. I swing with all of my might and deliver a hit to the back door. A loud crunch sounds around us, the clinging of metal on metal. I turn back to Taylor and don't bother to hide the smile that has broken like the car frame across my face.

"How'd it feel?" He asks, sporting a smile of his own.

"Fucking amazing!" I say, exhaling deeply before winding up again. This time plunging the head of the hammer into the headlight. I wait for the sound of plastic breaking before going in again. Again and again I swing the hammer back behind my head to gain momentum before smashing with force. Every so often, looking back over my shoulder to see Taylor watching me. A look of amusement mixed with something else I can't quite decipher on his face.

🏈🏈🏈

"I didn't know ya had it in ya, Capt.," Taylor says as we climb into the bench seat of another abandoned car. Once we were both fighting fatigued muscles from the smashing, we left that car behind, only to find this one. Its door's are missing, and the seats are heavily stained, but neither of us care.

"To be honest, I didn't know I had it in me either," I admit. I'm sweaty and smelly, but can't stop smiling. I feel relieved, like my body isn't my own. I feel twenty pounds lighter after losing the weight I was carrying yesterday.

"Wilbur and Patty are huge fans of the Bulldogs. I met them at a meet and greet my freshman year. He told me all about his family business. He's a proud man. He reminded me a lot of my grandpa. He told me to take his number just in case, and he was right. It came in handy," Taylor says.

"Thank you.. For this." My words don't do this feeling justice. I watch him as he smooths his hair back with both hands before looking in my direction. He gives a half smile that I mirror. "Course," he returns.

We sit in silence, staring out the cracked windshield of the car for a long few seconds. Not that there isn't anything to say, but I'm not quite brave enough to bring it up first. Taylor however, does it for me. "Do you, uh, want to talk about it?" The air around us is thick, but it doesn't stop me from feeling the knife cutting through.

"About what?" I play dumb. Knowing exactly what he means, not needing to hear him say it. He does anyway though, which lets me know I'm not going to get off scot free this time.

"Yesterday, hmm." I pick at the skin around my nails. "Let's just call it my dark day."

"You're gonna have to give me more, Camryn. I mean you were real messed up." The long drawl on the vowel team is only accentuated further by his accent.

I chuckle softly into my lap, "Yeah. Not my finest moments. Sorry again for that... I uh, don't always know how to deal with my shit," I add. Tears well in the corner of my eyes threatening to come out. There is no way to decipher if they are from anger, embarrassment, or sorrow. Or some sort of masochistic menage a trois of all three. As if I hadn't hurt myself enough already and crying in front of Taylor would make it all better.

"Why me? Why not Cal?" he asks.

Why did I go to Taylor? Why did I show up on his doorstep like that? A house I had only seen from the outside once when I dropped off biology notes. One of the many questions I asked myself this morning. But Cal was never an option. He wouldn't get it, he never has. For the last four years he hasn't gotten it. My dad either, or my oldest brother Carter, he stays away for a reason. He doesn't even claim our family as his own. For the same excuse I will use in a few months when I can finally get away.

Taylor's hand is resting on the gear shift between us so close to my thigh. The image flashes in my mind again. The feel of his soft skin on mine, gently guiding me where he wanted me, a caring touch. I can't even overthink it before my words come tumbling out.

"Normally my best friend Gabi would distract me. She would plan the whole day full, sun up to sun down and not let me stop until I was too tired to think about anything," I say remembering the dark days throughout the years. Days full of shopping and eating, and some drinking, but on a more responsible level. One year she even dragged me to Sandusky to go to Cedar Point and then through one of the scariest haunted houses in Ohio.

"But she's not here. And I think—" I attempt to gather the words and give myself a second to breathe, "I think for weeks now, I was hoping she would show up. Some grand plan organized to surprise me and be my keeper for at least twenty four hours, if not the entire week. Not giving me even a fraction of a second to think about any of it. But she didn't and I don't know..." My eyes continue to bore a hole into my lap, my fingers now shaking from the sheer exertion of trying to keep the tears in. But I continue, despite them, "I found myself outside of a sketchy corner shop asking a man with no teeth to buy me alcohol."

It's only then, when I finish that I need to look at him. To attempt to read his face, to try to let him read mine. Because maybe then it can convey half of what I want to say. Maybe then he can just forget about all of it. His face does nothing to comfort me though. He's smiling in a way that shows me nothing but pity.

"God, listen to me. I sound like a codependent little puppy. Waiting for my friend to swoop and when she doesn't I get drunk and ruin your night and make you bake a cake with me and..." I bury my head in my hands reliving the night all over again for only the trillionth time today and it's eleven in the morning. My brain betrays me further at the scene of his hands on mine for the trillionth and one time today. I swallow hard and then think of Wilbur to stop my thoughts from going somewhere they shouldn't. I only remember Taylor is still next to me when he speaks up.

"You didn't ruin my night. Chocolate cake is my favorite," he says softly.

"Of course it is, chocolate cake is superior," I add.

"Did, uhm, the dark day," he pauses as if trying to string the words together in his head first, "the dark day have anything to do with chocolate cake?" he asks.

I inhale deeply and exhale through my mouth. "My mom passed away four years ago yesterday. Chocolate cake with chocolate frosting was her favorite. She would bake it for every birthday, every holiday. Sometimes she'd bake it on a random Tuesday and claim it was a holiday, any excuse to make a cake. And never homemade. Always the boxed mix with the canned frosting and the cheap little sprinkles. I haven't had chocolate cake in four years," I choke out the last part, trying to create a dam in my eyes, pushing the tears away once more but failing slightly as a few escape. The muscles there are growing tired from the repeated act.

"So... dark day," Taylor says in acknowledgment.

"Yep, dark day. A day that if it were possible I would skip right over all together. Erase September twenty fifth from all calendars."

"You could petition," Taylor jokes, trying to make the air a little lighter. "If anyone could argue their way into making a year three hundred and sixty four days, it's you."

I smile at that. He's trying. I can tell he's a little uncomfortable by the way he keeps shifting in his seat, but he brought me here to smash things and that means more to me than he will ever know.

We both fall quiet for a second. I kick at a few pieces of trash around the dirty floorboard of the car. Taylor speaks up first, again he asks, "But why me, why not go to your family? Can't you all go through it together?"

"The Quinn family hasn't bonded on a single thing since she passed. Or even before, for that matter. She was like the thread that stitched all of us together. A very fancy decorative one. Once she was removed, the whole thing fell apart."

I think back to September four years ago, when I first heard the news. My dad sat us down at the kitchen table and told us there had been an accident. He didn't even cry when he told us, or as I screamed and begged him to take it back. It felt like he grieved for three days. As soon as the wake ended it was back to the play books. Everything was business as usual. My older brother is still in denial and uses the military as a way to stay away. Cal, well, he's too preoccupied with his own life to notice anyone around him. "My mom's ashes are still in an urn at home. They won't let me scatter them anywhere, but won't give me a reason why. So no, we can't go through it together. We never have." I can feel the anger and sadness from yesterday, from the last four years, returning. But then remember what Taylor did for me today, and yesterday for that matter and it slowly begins to melt away again. "I guess I just knew, even in an inebriated state, that you would come through."

"Damn, Camryn I didn't know." His tone has turned solemn, it's barely audible. The big muscly cover he usually sports slips even further away revealing the mushy one he promised was underneath when we first met.

"Yeah, but you asked. So thanks for that. Not many people have." Before I can realize what I'm doing, my hand is across the seat and grasping his and giving it a subtle squeeze.

🏈🏈🏈

We settle in but don't move right away. Taylor plays around on his phone while I sit uncomfortably in silence and twiddle my thumbs like an idiot. I can't let some snarky comment slip out and ruin the semi alright time we are having. Around thumb circle sixty two however, a noise burst through the speakers that makes me jump. Taylor places his phone in the cup holder and puts the truck in reverse.

"What the hell is that?" It sounds like it was recorded in a bathroom with self made autotune equipment.Taylor turns his head as he backs out and asks, "What is what?"

"This!" I say pointing to the radio, "This atrocious sound daring me to deafen myself by shoving dull pencils deep into my ears."

He stops the truck this time, but doesn't bother to turn it down.... Or off. "Do you mean Travis Scott?" he asks but I don't answer. I just shake my head in silence. He skips to the next song, but I feel no relief. I don't even try to hide my feelings as my face screws in discomfort.

"Oh come on! This is Drake, everyone loves Drake, Champagne Papi?" Taylor pleads.

"Anyone who is called ChampagnePapi doesn't deserve to be played," I tut, reaching over to turn it down to zero. Taylor skips to another song and turns the dial back up, eyeing me as he does as if just bracing himself for my next comment. I burst out laughing when an upbeat song comes through the speakers. It truly keeps getting worse. Taylor intently watches me, but gasps when I fake gag.

"Oh no, you can't disrespect Taylor like that!" He says, his tone as serious as the face he's sporting. Who knew a nearly six foot five football player would love an American popstar. I don't know which question to ask first. "Taylor Swift? Is it because you share a name or because you have a crush on her? What even is this playlist?" I gasp for air through my laughter.

"I'll have you know that I listen to this before games to get my mind ready. Taylor Swift has a song for every mood." I grab his phone from his hands and slide my finger along the screen, scrolling through the playlist. I'm horrified to find mostly pop and country songs, with a few rap sprinkled in. I feel Taylor's eyes on me, watching. His signature smirk is visible in my periphery.

"No, just no. There is no way. What about all of the magical mood songs from the seventies and eighties? How can you possibly get pumped up without Guns n Roses or Aerosmith? Even the idiots at the block parties know who AC DC is! No wonder you got injured, you were too busy serenading the other team's players about how heartbroken you are!" I cry.

Taylor ignores my laughs and refuses to comment. He grabs his phone from my hands and changes the song yet again. Before I can respond he turns it up to thirty and sings along as he begins to drive. I just smile and shake my head laughing and listening as he sings every single lyric. I don't agree with his Taylor Swift theory, but this song, somehow, fits this moment perfectly.