Emma-Lou // Taylor Swift Adoption Fic

June 9th, 2026

Okay, so he's not that bad.

Michael goes to the same school, of course. Taylor drops me off at the front entrance and I walk the five year old to his first grade classroom. Then I go off to meet Javia. I also make sure to get him back to the car in the afternoons. It's probably a lot better that I do it rather than Taylor because I've heard that she's, like, every teenager's favorite pop artist.

I don't know if that's true, but people definitely talk about her.

When I got Michael from his class this afternoon, they weren't there so I went out to their yard and tried to remember which kid he was. I had only known this kid for two days so I think it's okay that I forgot which one was him for a moment.

A minute later, I found him. He looks like Taylor - a lot like her. The only difference is that his hair is curly. Taylor has curls, but not like her son.

I got him ready to leave and he told me all about his day as we walked around the side of the building to the entrance.

"We made snakes out of string and noodles. We painted them too!" He explained to me and it made me smile. He's the happiest person I've ever met.

"Do you like snakes?" He asked me.

Then, the weirdest thing happened.

"I don't know. I've never thought about it," I said, shocking myself. I've never been able to talk around new people, but I suppose I can talk just fine to kids.

Why am I like this?

When we got to the car, Taylor asked me if I had a good day and after I nodded in response, Michael started his rambling about what went on in his classroom today. I don't mind because for one, I wouldn't say anything and for two, nothing really exciting happened today.

Well, nothing that I would want to tell anyone about.

Alesha - yes, she spells it that way - decided to make my life a little more miserable today. Javia wasn't with me when this happened and that may be the only reason that this played out like it did.

Alesha is a five foot eight girl who is also on the swim team so she looks scary to my scrawny, little five foot two figure. She found me at my locker in between classes and started to talk to me just like normal. The only thing not normal about the first minute of this was that I didn't say anything back to her.

"So, Emma, how are classes going this year?" She began.

I shrugged, which was an honest answer in my book. I had managed to get barely decent marks and they were worse than last years.

"I see. Wanting to join any teams next year? It would be cool to see you on the swim team."

I shrugged again.

"You don't talk much, do you?"

I didn't respond.

"Are you, like, scared of me or something?" She was looking offended now.

I shook my head quickly, but she only rolled her eyes.

"You know it's rude not to talk to people," she said. "I guess that means that I could do this-" She pushed me into the locker. "-and you wouldn't say a word about it."

Unfortunately, she was right about that.

She pushed me again and laughed. The bell rang for us to be in our next class so she rang off and I was late to class. It wasn't my fault, but I couldn't tell my teacher that.

And another stupid thing... my teachers write out late notes and detention notes for our parents to see. I got a late note today and no matter how hard I tried to hide it, it slid out of my binder while I was trying to find a school form that Taylor needed to sign since she was my new legal guardian.

We watched it float to the ground and I began to panic when she picked it up. Her eyebrows furrowed when she read it.

"You were late to your second period class today?" She asked. She didn't sound like she was mad, she sounded like she couldn't believe it instead.

I merely nodded my head.

She went back to looking at the note for a moment until her eyes were back on me. "Did something happen?"

At least it was only us in the kitchen so I felt a little more at ease.

"Yeah," I squeaked out. She heard it, but I wondered how she did at the same time.

"Will you write it down for me?" She asked after I hadn't said anything else.

So I took a pen and wrote on a scrap piece of paper that I got stopped in the hallway by someone and was being asked all these questions. Eventually, I lost track of time.

It was good enough to get Taylor to leave it alone after she asked me, "were they being mean?"

I shook my head although I sort of wanted to come clean to her.

"Okay." She looked like she didn't believe that either.

She started on signing that form, but turned to me a moment later, saying, "you know you can come to me at anytime if something's wrong or something's bothering you and we'll work through it together, okay? I'm here for you, sweetheart."

I almost cried at that and writing this now, I'm trying not to cry again. Some day I'll be strong enough to confide in her, just not yet.