Failure
Somehow, I slept soundly that night despite feeling like roughly the worst person in the world. I knew I wasn’t really that bad; at least, I was pretty sure that cheating on your boyfriend with your brother wasn’t as bad as being a serial killer or something. But it was still pretty bad.
Early in the morning, the bus started rolling on to Memphis, and gradually people began to wake up. None of us were morning people – any musician who says they are is lying – but it’s hard to ignore the sound and feeling of a giant tour bus roaring to life, no matter how deeply you were sleeping. The roar of the bus and the hum of voices around the bunk woke me up pretty quickly, and despite the early hour, I knew I wouldn’t be going back to sleep. I had been lucky to get those few blissful hours.
Carefully and slowly, I peeled myself away from Seamus and padded to the front of the bus. Machine and Bex
were already up, going over some papers that I assumed contained our plans for the day. Neither one paid much attention to me as I headed straight for the coffee maker and picked out my flavor the day. Everyone else thought it was a little extravagant to bring my Keurig on tour, but I didn’t care. In just a few minutes, I would have a cup of caramel coffee in my hand and anyone who didn’t understand how awesome that was really didn’t matter to me at all.
With my cup of coffee in hand, I settled into the bus’s small couch and grabbed the book I had apparently left laying there at some point. I didn’t get a chance to read that much on tour, but I always brought a book or two just in case I needed something to occupy myself with during a long drive. This one was just some self-help thing that I had little faith would actually help me, but I figured it couldn’t hurt. I flipped through the pages for a few minutes, trying to remember where I had left off, and finally just gave up and started on a random page.
My mind wasn’t really on the book anyway. All I could think about how I had betrayed Seamus. It had only taken a few days for me to prove, without a doubt, that I just wasn’t worthy of him. I had never really felt like I was a bad person before. Sure, I knew I did bad things and probably hurt a few people, but everyone knew what I was. They knew I wasn’t interested in a relationship. I was upfront about all of that, if not the reasons why.
But with Seamus, I had tried. I had wanted to try. And I had still failed.
“Taylor? Are you listening?” Bex said, suddenly shaking me out of my trance.
I blinked and glanced up at her, then back down at my book. It occurred to me that I had no idea what I had just read, and that I had possibly spent five or ten minutes staring at the same sentence over and over again. And somehow, half of my coffee was gone.
“Sorry, what did you say?” I asked, giving her an apologetic smile. She knew better than to expect me to pay attention that early, but still she tried.
“The walk today,” she said. “It’s supposed to be over 100 degrees. Are we sure it’s safe to go ahead with it?”
I shrugged. “Maybe, maybe not. I know everyone’s not always comfortable walking when it’s really hot out, but that’s not really the point.”
“We’re going to need to make a decision soon,” she replied. “People will be lining up by the time we get there. They’re going to be pissed if they showed up for nothing. I mean, nothing aside from the concert.”
“Right,” I said. “I’ll make a decision.”
“Soon, please?”
“Soon. I promise.”
As I glanced back down at my book, I realized that wasn’t the only thing I had to make a decision about. Every walk mattered, but whether or not to cancel that particular day’s walk really wasn’t at for forefront of my mind. All I could think about right then was my situation with Seamus and Zac. What was I going to do about that?
I had a big decision to make. Was I going to go on pretending nothing had happened and try to be better to Seamus? Or was I going to break things off with him?
Well, the second of those hardly seemed like an option at all.
There was a third choice, though. I could talk to Zac and tell him what we had done was a mistake that needed not to be repeated. It was the truth; at least, the part about not needing to repeat it. It hadn’t really felt like a mistake at the time, despite how much I had beaten myself up since.
Yeah, that was definitely what I needed to do. I had to talk to Zac.
That decision made it a tiny bit easier to settle back into the couch and finally read past the same sentence. Another fresh cup of coffee made me feel even better and more awake, and soon I hardly even minded being awake so early at all.
At some point, Seamus woke up and wandered to the front of the bus, his face lighting up as soon as he saw me. He didn’t ask where I had been, though. Of course he didn’t. He was the perfect boyfriend, after all – never jealous or overly clingy. At least, not clingy in a bad way. After greeting Bex and Machine, he flopped down on the couch, sprawling his body across my lap and giving me a grin.
“Mind if I take a nap here?”
I grinned. “Didn’t you just wake up?”
“Sure did,” he replied. “But you’re far more comfortable than the bunk.”
“Then by all means, sleep away,” I replied, still grinning.
I didn’t care how silly we looked. Those small little moments of happiness with him were the best. It only took seconds for my mind to fly back to Zac and ruin my good mood, but with Seamus, a book and a fresh cup of coffee, I really had nothing to be upset about. If I could just keep my mind off my brother, everything would be perfect.
For the rest of that morning, things were perfect. Zac didn’t seem to be purposely avoiding me, but we didn’t talk more than we absolutely had to, either. He basically stayed barricaded in the back of the bus, surrounded by the other gamers, and I stayed at the front with Seamus. Things were easier that way, but of course things couldn’t just stay that way.
After splitting up to eat lunch, since we could never all agree on one restaurant, we met back up at the venue to discuss our plan for the walk. It was every bit as hot as Bex had said it would be, and even though we had been in air conditioned buses or buildings all day, we were still miserable. I could only imagine how the fans waiting outside for hours felt. I hated canceling a walk, but I couldn’t really see a way around it.
Ultimately, the decision was up to just the three of us, but I didn’t mind at all that Bex had seen fit to sit in on our band meeting. Even when we weren’t just this side of heatstroke, our discussions had a way of quickly turning into arguments, and Bex had this amazing ability to defuse the situation. I think it probably stemmed from the fact that we were all scared shitless of her, even when she was in a good mood. She took shit from no one, not even her employers. It was something I definitely admired about her, and I was not above using her as a human shield during any potential fight with Zac.
“You seriously want to cancel the walk?” Isaac asked, his eyes wide.
I crossed my arms defiantly. “Yeah, I do. I don’t know about you guys, but my feet are blistered and burnt after the last few days. Fans are getting hurt, too, and I’m not just talking about a little blister that isn’t worth whining about. It’s not worth it.”
“It’s not worth it?” He echoed.
“You know what I mean,” I replied. “We can still donate some money anyway so it’ll be like we did the walk. I just don’t think we need to genuinely risk anyone’s health. Not when it’s this hot out. We can schedule the next few walks later or something, so it’ll be a little cooler.”
“Way to stick to your guns,” Ike mumbled, then turned to Zac, who was glued to his phone and barely seemed to even be aware that other people were in the room. “What do you think?”
“I think Tay’s right,” he replied, not even glancing up.
Well, that was a shocker. Since when had Zac ever been agreeable? If Ike and I were arguing, Zac was far more likely to play mediator – or tell us we were both being assholes – than actually take sides. And of all the possible sides for him to take, he was taking mine? I certainly wasn’t going to argue about it, though. In fact, I was having a hard time not being smug about it. I could already feel a grin stretching across my face as I stared at Isaac and waited for his next remark.
Isaac glanced back and forth between then two of us, then at Bex, as though she might back him up. When he could see that he had no support, he threw his hands up in the air and stood up. “Alright, whatever. I’ll go send out a tweet that we’re calling it off today.”
“I’m sure the fans will be really disappointed…” Zac mumbled. I wasn’t even sure that anyone but me heard him, and judging by the little smirk on his face, he didn’t seem to care. He was just pleased with himself.
Why was he in such a nice, agreeable mood anyway? I hated knowing that as soon as I could get him alone, I was probably going to ruin that mood.
Once the decision was officially made, Isaac and Bex scattered off to do… whatever they were going to do… and left me alone with Zac. I hadn’t planned it that way, but it worked out pretty well for me. I cleared my throat and took a seat next to him, trying to subtly get his attention away from whatever he was doing on his phone.
“Hey, Zac?”
“Yeah?” He asked, still not even looking at me.
“Umm… about yesterday afternoon.”
A tiny raise of his eyebrow, but otherwise, no sign that he even knew what I was talking about.
“It’s just… well, I’m not saying it was a mistake or I didn’t enjoy it or anything, but…”
“Yeah,” he replied, cutting me off. “It probably was a mistake.”
“Well, maybe… it’s just, I really want to make this thing with Shay work, you know?”
He finally glanced up and gave me a tiny smile. It wasn’t totally convincing, but usually Zac didn’t even bother trying to be something he wasn’t truly feeling. Maybe he did mean it. “It’s fine, Tay. I get it. You’ve got a boyfriend and I’m… well. Your brother.”
“Something like that, yeah…” I mumbled. This was far easier than I thought it would be. Was it just a trick?
“It’s alright, really,” Zac said, giving me another smile, then turning back to his phone.
Maybe it was. Maybe it wasn’t. For the time being, I was willing to accept Zac’s assurance that it was. All I knew for sure was that, with this Zac thing hopefully off my back, I had a tiny chance not to be a total failure as a boyfriend. I just hoped I didn’t find some other way to fuck it up. Knowing me, though, I would.