Chapter 34

By June, Cameron felt like she was standing on solid ground for the first time in two years, and her job was going well, and she made new friends and the hole in her heart doesn’t feel as prominent as before. She tried to avoid any news with Taylor on it, but with her co-worker being a swiftie it was unavoidable, and especially with the announcement of a new album, Lover, on the way, Taylor’s face was everywhere.

Lily was over the moon about the new release, and Cameron was nonchalant about it. She told Abigail she doesn’t really care about it, but Abigail called her on her bullshit not even five seconds after she said it. So she kept up her fan account because even if Cameron and Taylor were fighting, Mae was still Taylor Swift’s biggest fan.

Around late July, Cameron received a DM from TaylorNation that had Abigail screaming ‘I told you so’ in her ears while Cameron read the DM aloud.

“I’m invited to a secret session in the Nashville location, what do I do?”

“Like I’ve told you months ago, there’s no way Taylor’s not going to recognize you, I don’t care what sort of wig you put on,” Abigail raised her eyebrows, and Cameron pouted. “If you somehow still decide to go, I am going to talk Taylor into letting me into that session.”

Cameron gasped. “What? No! You’ll ruin my cover in minutes by laughing at me or something! I’m there as a fan, not as Cameron Elsher, her ex-best friend.”

Abigail’s eyes softened, and Cameron looked away. “Fine, but you owe me money if she recognizes you.”

“Deal! I get to take you to the local Japanese restaurant that just opened in Nashville too,” Cameron held out her hand, and Abigail rolled her eyes and they did an air handshake through FaceTime. “So, I’m thinking of a blonde wig. Do you think she’ll recognize me as a blonde?”

“I’m not sure you’ll pull off blonde hair,” Abigail narrowed her eyes, and Cameron gasped in offense. “Maybe you’ll pull off green hair.”

“Shut up, I’ll look amazing as a blonde, just you wait,” Cameron flipped Abigail off with both of her fingers. “I’ll have you know that I was a natural blonde as a kid before it fell out and I became a brunette. And, I happen to have an amazing blonde wig laying around at home from that one Halloween party Emma went to, so it’s perfect!”

Abigail’s eyes lit up. “I want to see it.”

“In your dreams, Anderson. I am not giving you more blackmail materials. I’ll see you in a week!”

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Of course, Cameron knew her disguise wasn’t fool proof, but she thought she was doing an amazing job. If her own mother didn’t recognize her when she walked through the door, than she was off to a good start.

“You look… different as a blonde,” Madison glanced at her daughter with a frown, and Cameron scowled and pushed away her mother’s hand as she tried to adjust the wig. “I just feel like the wig itself is kind of… ugly. The color looks too one dimensional…”

“Mom…”

“I have a better wig,” Madison declared and disappeared into the master bedroom, only to come out holding a wig proudly in her hand. Cameron would ask her mother where she got the wig from, but it was no doubt so much better than the platinum blonde hair she was currently wearing that she thanked her mother and switched it without a moment of hesitation.

“Huh, one would assume I am a natural blonde,” Cameron glanced at the mirror placed beside their front door. She had dug through her closet for the most un-Cameron like clothing she could find, which turned out to be just a bunch of her old high school cardigans and skinny jeans. Now-Cameron would never wear skinny jeans, and she begged her mom to borrow her long boots. All in all, it wasn’t a bad outfit, and Cameron tried not to think about what would happen if Taylor did recognize her. It wasn’t like it was going to be awkward or something.

She met the TaylorNation worker at a hotel lobby, where she was instructed to meet up, and handed over her purse and phone before she went into a waiting room with about fifty people or so.

“What do you think the album is going to sound like?” An excited male voice appeared beside Cameron, and she turned to realize the guy was talking to her. “I can’t believe I was chosen by the Taylor Swift herself.”

Cameron pointed to herself, and the guy nodded. “Well, the album is called Lover, so I would assume is about her boyfriend? I mean on Apple Music they said it was pop, so it’s probably pop. I can’t possibly guess what songs would be on there.”

“Right, have you ever met Taylor Swift?” The guy continued to chatter on. “I met her once during the Reputation Tour, I was lucky enough they they chose me for the secret room thing and I even get to hug her.”

Well, I’ve cuddled her before so don’t get too excited.

Cameron smiled brightly. “Oh really? That sounds like fun.”

“She’s the nicest person I know,” the guy sighed dreamily, and another voice joined in excited.

“I know right! I’ve never met her in person, but I heard about her baking and her cats, I can’t wait to meet the cats. I’m a huge cat person, and I really want to hold Meredith,” the girl in pink hair smiled brightly, and Cameron bit her lips before any unnecessary comment about Meredith being a bitch could slip out of her mouth. Although she would admit that she missed Meredith and Olivia, her daughters might be a bitch but they were her daughters.

“What’s your name?” Cameron asked instead, slipping into natural territory that doesn’t involve Taylor. “I’m Mae.”

“Aww, Mae is such a cute name!” The pink hair girl gushed, and she played with her Taylor Swift merch excitedly. “Mine is Hailey. What about you?”

Halsey turned to the guy. “I’m Theo.”

“Nice to meet you guys,” Cameron smiled, and was saved from making any further conversation as the TaylorNation worker came into the little room and they were escorted to a bus which took them to Taylor’s house, a place Cameron has yet to been to.

Hailey sat beside Cameron and talked enough for the both of them while Theo sat across the aisle from them, and responded to Hailey’s questions with more enthusiasm than Cameron, who stared out the window of the bus and tried to calm her racing heart.

They weren’t the last one off the bus, but Hailey looped her arms with Cameron’s and pulled them to a stop at every little thing that they somehow ended up being the last one into the house, and Theo grumbled the whole way in until the Taylor Nation people led them to the very front of the room, where it was Cameron’s turned to make herself as small as possible.

There was a small “stage” area set up, with a chair beside the piano and a speaker, where Taylor was likely playing the songs. The guests sat on the carpet with various of pillows and blankets that no one was uncomfortable, but even then Cameron pulled her legs up to her chest and let Hailey’s hush chatters distract her from the fact that she was about to see Taylor again.

Maybe this was a bad idea, maybe she shouldn’t have come because obviously, if Taylor hadn’t reached out she wasn’t ready to talk to Cameron yet, and who was Cameron to just barge into her life again like that?

Just as she was getting up to escape the room all together, the room fell silent and then there was screaming as Taylor walked into the room and Cameron swore her whole world stopped. If Abigail told her she was Taylor-deprieved, Cameron would laugh in her best friend’s face, but seeing the blonde for the first time in months felt like she was meeting a stranger for the first time again, except the stranger felt like home.

Taylor wove to the audience, and from the room Taylor came from, they heard a crash followed by a girl’s apologetic words as a ball of fur ran out, and Cameron had seconds to brace herself before she was greeted with a mouthful of Meredith’s fur. For a cat who waged so much war with her while she was still living with Taylor, she was quite clingy. Olivia came after her sister and Cameron struggled to brace herself while Taylor hurried over to save Taylor from suffocating under two excited cats.

“I’m so sorry, they don’t usually do that,” Taylor handed Olivia to the girl, and tried to pry Meredith away from Cameron’s cardigan. Really, if her cardigan survives this claw encounter, Cameron would go online and give this product a five stars review. “Are you okay?”

“I love cats,” Cameron managed to get out while avoiding Taylor’s eyes and the rest of the people in the room laughed. She petted Meredith on the head and leaned back, watching as Meredith glared with judgment in her eyes, as if she knew how long she had been away for. “Hi, Meredith.”

Meredith meowed back and finally got her claw away from her cardigan and curled up on Cameron’s lap, stretching lazily before starting to clean her claws. Taylor frowned at the behavior but said nothing.

“Well, if you don’t mind, I think Meredith might be in your lap for the rest of this session,” Taylor smiled at her, and Cameron smiled back. “What’s your name?”

“Mae,” Cameron responded quickly, and Taylor nodded and walked towards the chair.

“Well, sorry for that delay, but welcome everyone!” The people cheered, and Hailey reached over to try and pat Meredith, only to have the cat hissed at her, and Cameron poked the cat in warning. Meredith settled back into her lap, and Cameron wondered if the one that was going to give her away was actually her daughters.

“You guys has all been hand picked by me, I’m sure by now you’ve heard of the term taylurking, and so I may have did a little lurking to find all of you guys but you have all shown a lot of interest in my work and I thought I would give you guys a treat and let you listen to my new album before it release!” Taylor grin proudly and held the huge vinyl of the new album, Lover. “But keep in mind, what happened in this house stays in this house until the album is released, okay?”

A chorus of ‘yes’ echoed throughout the room and Taylor smiled proudly and placed the vinyl in the record player.

“So this first song is called I Forgot That You Existed, and I want to open this new era in a more playful way that shows that the Reputation era is behind us, and that I woke up one day to realize, huh, maybe the past isn’t bringing me as much pain as I thought it would,” Taylor grinned, and it was only through years of knowing the blonde did Cameron see the uncertainty behind her eyes as she pressed play.

The music was absolutely incredible, and Cameron screamed along with all the other fans when the song was done and clapped loudly as Taylor introduced her next song.

Cruel Summer: About an uncertain summer romance that reeks of pain and desperation.

Lover: About an intimate romance with a guy.

The Man: Obviously how her life would be different if she was the opposite sex, and how people would judge her differently because society expects different things from male celebrities in comparison to female celebrities.

The Archer: Touches on the subject of anxiety and how her own experience in the spotlight has made her think that she never knew who was real and who wasn’t.

I Think He Knows: Obviously about Joe, and Cameron cannot relate to the song to save her life.

Miss Americana and the Heartbreak Prince: an underlying tone regarding the current political states with a spin of satire.

Paper Ring: Obviously about Joe too, and Cameron wondered for a scary second if the blonde had gotten engaged in the months they’ve been apart. But she felt like Abigail would’ve told her about it, or she would’ve caught whispers of it from the paparazzis, or maybe not because Taylor hid her relationship with Joe for years before the paparazzi knew.

“The next song is called Cornelia Street,” Cameron sucked in a breath and looked up at the blonde for the first time that night. “I rented a place on Cornelia Street for a few months before I got an apartment in New York, and this song is reminiscing my time there and how there was a moment on that street that I would go back and change in a heartbeat if I had a time machine.”

There were murmurs that rippled through the crowds, but Cameron stilled, and Meredith purred as the brunette ran her hand through the fur in search of comfort. There was something on that street that Cameron wished she could switch too.

“…I hope I never lose you, hope it never ends, I’ll never walk Cornelia Street again. That’s the kind of heartbreak time could never mend, I’d never walk Cornelia Street again. And baby I got mystified by how this city screams your name…”

Cameron thought of her own experience on Cornelia Street, and the last time she had walked that street at night, in the dark, with echoes of their fights haunting her memories.

Maybe we just need space.

“…I hope I never lose you…”

The song ended, and Hailey gripped Cameron’s arm tightly and leaned forward to whisper into her ears. “That was so bittersweet.”

“Yeah,” Cameron nodded in response as Taylor gave the crowd a moment before introducing her next song.

“So, this next song is kind of a follow up to the previous song, and it’s called Death By A Thousand Cuts,” she pulled at her own hair, a crinkle on her forehead and Cameron fought the urge to reach forward to smooth it out. “And yeah!”

The song started, and Cameron wondered if thinking the song was inspired by her was too egotistic, even for her standard.

“Saying goodbye was death by a thousand cuts, flashback waking me up. I get drunk but it’s not enough cause the morning comes, and you’re not my baby…”

“…and what once was ours, was no one’s now. I see you everywhere the only things we share is this small town…”

Well, they did share the same hometown, but Cameron refused to think more about it as the song ended and Taylor introduced her next song titled London Boy. Obviously about Joe once more.

The next song, titled Soon You’ll Get Better has Cameron sobbing because Mama Swift was as much of her mom as Madison was, and when she had got the call from Austin of all people, she had flown down to Nashville without a moment’s delay. She saw Taylor in passing, but they both went out of their way to make sure their path didn’t cross and Mama Swift had gave Cameron a knowing look and a sigh about ‘trouble in paradise’ which Cameron ignored.

False God was probably about Joe too, but Taylor mentioned it is a song that compares love to a religion.

“The next song is called You Need To Calm Down, and it’s in support of the LGBTQ+ community-” Theo exhaled, and Cameron glanced over as her new friend’s eyes seemed to widen in excitement. Cameron herself was quite thrilled about it, she had known the blonde wasn’t exactly straight with the sex-episodes back with Car-whats-her-name but having it manifest into a song is different. “And it’s basically to the hater telling them to calm down.”

Taylor played the song, and Cameron listened in excitement at the banger that Taylor had created.

“So, this next song is an apology of kind. There was a relationship I deeply treasure that ended up blowing up in my face and I really hope that one day I would be able to apology in person and fix what we had but this is my pre-apology to that person,” Taylor paused for a second, and Cameron froze in her spot, and calmed her beating heart as the music began. Maybe it was an apology for Joe after a fight?

“I blew things out of proportion and now you’re blue. Put you in jail for something you didn’t do. I pinned your hands behind your back oh, thought I had a reasons to attack, but no…”

It took everything without Cameron to remain seated, and to jump up and accept and apology and pull the blonde into a hug in months because if truth were to be told, she was as much to blame as Taylor was. She shouldn’t had bottled up her feelings, she should’ve said something about her own emotional void before it came to a breaking point.

“…I don’t wanna lose, I don’t wanna lose this with you. Hey, it’s all me, just don’t go…”

Meredith perked up, as if sensing her uneasiness and wobbled off of her lap. They had a mutual stare-off before Meredith meowed and walked away. Cameron rolled her eyes fondly at that cat.

“…tell me that you’re still mine. Tell me that we’ll be just fine, even when I lose my mind… tell me that it’s not my fault, tell me that I’m all you want, even when I break your heart…”

Cameron digged her nails into her thighs, and looked up only to found that Taylor was already looking at her. Cameron smiled, and Taylor smiled back, but there was this furrow to her brow that told the brunette that Taylor was trying to figure something out.

This is your moment, dear wig, this is the moment of truth, Cameron pulled at the fake blonde hair until the song ended and she felt the gaze on her move away. The last three songs were all bangers, and Cameron sworn Taylor looked at her again when she introduced her song Daylight, and Cameron wondered if the blonde knew.

The listening session ended as the light in the room was turned on and Taylor stood up and everyone in the crowd was in a different emotional state but they all clapped politely.

“Well, I’m going to be roaming the room for a bit while I let all of you process what you just listened to,” a few people laughed at this, and Taylor smiled brightly. “I’ve also baked some cookies that you guys can feel free to enjoy, and my mother made enjoy pasta for a hundred people, I think, so enjoy it!”

The people cheered, and then the room was filled with chatter and Hailey grabbed Cameron’s arm excitedly as Theo went and grabbed a plate of cookies for them. The cookies were good, but Cameron wouldn’t expect anything less from Taylor, and she saw from the corner of her eyes different fans approaching the blonde.

Which was good, because Cameron doesn’t know if she would survive an one on one session with the blonde right now. Which was exactly when her bubble burst.

“Don’t look now, but Taylor Swift is coming our way,” Hailey could barely contained her excitement, and Cameron’s eyes widened as she quickly swallowed down the cookies and Theo stood up straighter if possible. Hailey smiled brightly and waved as if she wasn’t freaking out earlier. “Hi Taylor!”

Taylor smiled, but her eyes were only on Cameron. “Hey! Can I talk to Mae for a bit?”

Oh shit. 

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this chapter turned out waaaay too long so i had to push the rest of it to the next chapter, i hope you guys are having fun with this so far tho!

i won’t publish anything tomorrow cause i’ll be busy all day but just a little spoiler that our next chapter is called ‘eldest daughter‘

take it as you will 😉

~ kathy