Out
Time stopped, and I was certain that my heart did, too. Zac was shaking so hard that I feared he was just going to collapse on top of me. I couldn’t move. When the door slammed behind Seamus, time started again and Zac mustered up the strength to roll off of me and lunge for his underwear. I could only lay there, staring up at Seamus, who was shaking even harder than Zac had been.
“I’m not even going to ask if that wasn’t what it looked like,” Shay said, his voice surprisingly calm. “Obviously it was.”
“Shay…” I began, even though I had no clue what I could possibly say to him.
“Save it, Taylor. You can’t explain this. You can’t.”
I looked to Zac, even though I didn’t think he could be of any assistance. His head was down as he continued putting his clothes on. Yeah, he was definitely going to be useless. I decided to try again, scrambling off the bed and walking over to Seamus, not even caring that I was still naked and sweaty.
“Shay… please…”
He backed away from me, pulling his arm away from my grasp. Shaking his head, he said, “No, Taylor. Just… stop.”
I couldn’t stop. “I’m so sorry… I never meant to…”
“To what?” He snapped. “Sleep with your brother? My god…”
I could see him actually gagging as he said it, and seconds later, he shoved me aside and rushed to the bathroom. I didn’t have to guess why he did that; the sounds of him retching into the toilet hit my ears seconds later and made me feel ill, too. Shay might have been drinking, but I had a feeling his sudden sickness was due solely to what he had seen me and Zac doing.
Zac.
I turned around and saw that he was completely dressed, but rocking back on his heels like he didn’t want to leave.
“Tay… I’m sorry…”
I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter. Do you even realize how much of a fucking mess this is?”
“M-maybe it’ll be okay…” he stuttered out, his bottom lip quivering.
“Are you kidding?” I snapped. “Someone just saw us fucking, Zac. This could ruin everything. Just get out of here, and pray that he doesn’t tell anyone.”
“Tay…”
“I said get out.”
Zac looked like he was going to say something else, but then he shook his head. He shoved passed me and walked out the door with only the tiniest glance back at me before the door closed. A little part of me wanted to chase after him, but I knew it wouldn’t solve anything. I had to try to fix things with Shay, if that was even possible. The memory of his face when he saw us hit me again, and I had to lean against the door to keep from collapsing.
I knew I was good at ruining things, but this was worse than I could have imagined.
After a moment, my legs decided to work again and I made my way back to the bed. I pulled my boxers back on and surveyed the mess Zac and I had made. It would have been a fitting sort of punishment for myself to just lay in it, but I couldn’t do it. I ripped up the sheets and tossed them across the room. It wasn’t very satisfying, but for a brief moment that act of aggression made me feel better.
That was, until I saw Seamus leaning against the bathroom door, looking like he might be sick again.
“Shay..”
“Fucking save it,” he mumbled. “I don’t want to hear some stupid lie you’re going to call an explanation.”
“I can’t say anything for myself?” I asked, knowing full well that there was nothing I could say that could possibly make what Seamus saw okay.
He shook his head. “Well, just… for my own morbid curiosity, can you tell me how long this has been going on?”
“It, umm… just a few weeks.” I knew that was partially a lie, but I didn’t feel like explaining to him how it had really started when we were teenagers. Telling him that wouldn’t make things any better.
Seamus nodded. “So… after we started dating?”
“Yeah,” I replied.
“How many times?”
I blinked.
“I don’t even know why I’m asking. I’m still a little drunk and I guess I just want to hate you more, so… how many times?”
I sighed. “Umm… three.”
Again, it was almost a lie. We had only had sex three times. I was just omitting the first kiss and the blow job. He didn’t need to know about those, too, did he? It was all over regardless of the exact details.
That seemed to be Shay’s last question for me, at least for the time being. He walked back into the room and began to strip off his clothes. I had to look away; I could only imagine how awful he would think I was if he caught me checking him out after everything that had happened. I climbed into the bed while he was occupied, then rolled over and tried to keep my eyes on his face.
“I’m not sleeping with you tonight,” he said. “And not ever again, I’d imagine. It’s just too much trouble to get another room tonight. That’s the only reason I’m staying here. Do you understand that?”
“Yeah, I understand,” I replied.
He switched off the light and climbed into the other bed, rolling over so that he was facing away from me.
So this was it, I supposed. This was how it ended. All things considered, it could have been a lot worse, but I had a feeling it was the alcohol that subdued him. When he was sober and the full weight of it hit him, I had no doubt it would be worse.
As I rolled over and tried to sleep, I could only wish that somehow, I wouldn’t wake up in the morning.
“Get up.”
He didn’t have to ask me twice. Between flipping on the overhead light and opening the blinds, Shay had let enough light into the room that I didn’t think I would be able to sleep again for days. I rolled over the other side of my bed, away from him, and headed to the bathroom. I had absolutely no desire to speak to him, even though I knew I would have to eventually. Still, there was nothing wrong with prolonging the inevitable.
Shay must have agreed with me, because he didn’t interrupt at all as I took my time showering, shaving and brushing my teeth. I only sped up at all when I walked back into the room to get dressed. For the first time since we’d started sharing a hotel room, I felt incredibly awkward about being naked in front of him. In the past, I had at least felt confident that he couldn’t see my sins even when I wore nothing at all, but now I imagined that if he looked at me, it would be all he could see. I shimmied into a pair of jeans and pulled on the first shirt that I found, not even caring if they matched or were clean, and then walked back into the bathroom for a dry towel I could use on my hair.
I wouldn’t have even noticed that Shay had followed me if I hadn’t seen his reflection in the mirror.
“I can dry my hair in the room if you need to shower…” I offered.
He shook his head. “It’s fine. I’ll get a shower later, before the show.”
“Oh… okay.”
“You know, I was really hoping to wake up and realize that everything that happened last night had just been a bad dream. Or just some drunken hallucination or something.”
“Sorry,” I replied, unsure how else to reply.
Shay nodded. “I’m sure you are, but it doesn’t change anything.”
“Well, what do you want me to say?”
“That’s just it, Taylor,” he said. “There’s nothing you can say that will fix this. I mean, god… you do get how fucked up this is, don’t you?”
I spun around to face him, not just his reflection. “I’m not that stupid.”
He sighed and took a few hesitant steps toward me. “I know you’re not. I just don’t understand how you could…”
“Sleep with my own brother?” I offered and watched him cringe. “Honestly, I don’t know. It just… happened. And god, I knew it was wrong, but he was… fucked up and hurting, and it was really my fault, and I just… obviously fucking him wasn’t going to fix it, but…”
“But it was the only thing you could do? Right, makes sense,” he replied, giving me a look that said it really didn’t.
I threw my hands up in the air. “I really don’t know what else to say. That’s all I’ve got by way of an explanation. And I know you said you didn’t want an explanation anyway.”
“No, I really didn’t. None will really suffice.”
“I really wanted to be good to you,” I admitted. “For once, I thought I could… but I guess not.”
“I guess not,” he replied softly.
There was a question nagging at my mind, and I hated to ask him, but I had to know. “You’re not… you’re not going to tell anyone, are you?”
“You think anyone would believe me?” He countered, chuckling as he said it. I didn’t like the sound of that laugh, but I trusted that he wouldn’t tell anyone.
I didn’t know why he was still being so comparatively good to me. God knows I didn’t deserve it.
“Thanks,” I said, my hand instinctively reaching out for his arm. I didn’t even realize I had done it; the need to be close to him was still too strong.
Shay pulled away from me, his eyes clouding over. “Please… don’t. Don’t touch me.”
That was the end of the conversation. We finished dressing and packing up our things in complete silence. However good he might have been, whatever reasonableness he could muster up, there was still a huge wedge between us that nothing could budge. It was still over, no matter what. Neither of us really needed to vocalize that. What relationship could survive finding out the person you were with had such a horrible secret?
None possibly could.
Shay left the room before me, mumbling something about turning in his key and getting a coffee before we had to leave. I only nodded in reply, figuring that he didn’t want to hear any more of my voice, anyway. After he was gone, I took one last look around the room, then slung my bags over my shoulder and walked out.
I made it only a few steps down the hallway before I collided with Zac who was just walking out of his room.
“Shit,” he said. “I’m sorry, I didn’t see you there.”
“Yeah. It’s fine.” I pushed past him and continued on toward the elevator.
“Tay,” he said, grabbing my arm and pulling me back. “Can we talk for a minute?”
“I suppose we can, but I’d prefer that we don’t. I don’t have anything to say to you.”
He sighed. “I just… I just wanted to apologize, okay? It was stupid to do that in your room where he could walk in.”
“No, it was stupid to do it, period, Zac.”
“I know…” he sighed. “I ruined everything between you guys, didn’t I?”
I blinked, then shook my head. “No. We both did. You and me both.”
Zac nodded. “Yeah… well, I’m sorry.”
I shrugged. “Hey, you were the one who kept reminding me that I was going to fuck it up and cheat on him or something.”
“Yeah, and I made damn sure that it happened, didn’t I?”
“I wasn’t going to say that,” I replied, wondering where I’d suddenly developed so much sympathy for Zac, when he’d made the last few weeks miserable. “But if you did it on purpose, just to make it some kind of self-fulfilling prophecy… then that’s pretty fucked up.”
“I didn’t,” he said. “But what isn’t fucked up about all of this?”
“I guess you’re right. But it’s all over now, isn’t it?”
Zac blinked. “Yeah… I guess it is.”
Even as I walked away from him, I had a feeling that it wasn’t really over. Somehow, I just didn’t think it could be, no matter how much I wanted it to be and how much it needed to be. We had opened up some wounds that we just couldn’t close – at least not on our own.