Stoned
My bunk was cold and lonely that night, and I slept horribly all the way to Royal Oak. Consequently, I woke up hating everyone and everything. None of that really changed once I had a few cups of coffee in me and was more aware of the world around me. I hated that sudden, coffee-induced realization of what my life had become. It was like a punch in the gut to see Seamus walk to the front of the bus, pour himself a cup, and walk away without a single word to me. Every single time I remembered that we were over and why, it was just a little more salt in the wound.
Seeing Zac had much the same effect, but he was harder to avoid than Seamus. If Shay didn’t want to see me, he had no reason to. He could go off and spend his day doing whatever he wanted, emerging only for his soundcheck and performance. But Zac… I had to spend the day working with him. Whether we wanted to or not, we had to put on happy faces and pretend that we liked each other all day long.
Never before, even other times that we had fought, had it been so hard to be in the same room as him. That wasn’t how it was supposed to be with your brother. Then again, lots of things between Zac and I weren’t exactly brotherly lately.
It was another stupidly hot day, so we all agreed that the walk would be a later one in the hopes of not scalding anyone’s feet off. That meant a short soundcheck, but I was fine with that. Our soundchecks were well known to be an unpleasant clash of personalities even when we were all in good moods. When I could barely stand to look at Zac, I couldn’t imagine it going very well.
The only bad thing about that plan was that it meant I had absolutely nothing to do all afternoon. Getting away from everyone else was a good thing, but it also left me alone with my thoughts. I spent the better part of the afternoon brooding into a cup of coffee in the first coffee house I found. I ordered it hot, not caring that I was already hot enough thanks to the weather. I really didn’t mind a little extra pain. The coffee offered me no solace, at least not emotionally, so after a few cups, I wandered aimlessly up and down the streets. It was boring and nothing at all in the city caught my interest, but I didn’t know what else to do.
When I could find no other way to occupy my time, I decided to head back to the venue. It was getting close to time for the walk, anyway, so I figured I wouldn’t have much time to just sit around with my thoughts before I had to put on a happy face and go to work.
There was a long line of fans by the venue, and as awful as it makes me sound, I just couldn’t handle talking to them right then. I darted around a corner out of their sight and scurried onto the bus. I feared that, since the fans were so near, everyone else would be hiding on the bus, too, but it was eerily quiet when I opened the door. At first, I didn’t see or hear anyone. I did, however, smell something.
Pot.
I sniffed the air a few times just to make sure I wasn’t imagining it. The scent was definitely too strong to be imaginary, though. And it was also too strong to just be lingering around from Zac’s usual post-show bowl. He didn’t smoke every night, but it was often enough that the stench seemed to just linger on our bus, mixing with the rest of the gross manly smells we generate so that I didn’t think anyone really noticed. This was a lot stronger, though, which could only mean one thing.
He was on the bus, smoking, right then.
Something about that made me really angry. I suppose because it was the middle of the day and it seemed to show a serious disregard for his job. He had only picked up the habit so heavily when we toured with Everybody Else. He and Carrick smoked every damn day, and Zac tried to explain that it helped with his anxiety or whatever, but I never totally bought it. As far as I knew, though, he only smoked to bring himself down after a show—not before.
I stomped to the back of the bus, certain that was the origin of the offending smell. Sure enough, there was an actual cloud of smoke billowing out of the back lounge. In the middle of it all was Zac, a little blown glass pipe pressed to his lips.
“What the fuck are you doing?” I asked.
Zac raised an eyebrow and casually blew out another puff of smoke before bothering to answer me. “The fuck does it look like I’m doing?”
“Getting blown out of your mind right before the walk?” I replied, crossing my arms over my chest.
“Yeah, and?” He turned his head away from me then, his cheeks hollowing as he sucked on his stupid pipe.
“And it’s one thing for you to be out of your mind after the show, because your responsibilities for the day are done then. But this, Zac? This is bullshit. You can’t be around fans and playing a show like this.”
He shrugged. “Wouldn’t be the first damn time.”
“Oh, believe me,” I replied, “we all know how high you were when your little boyfriend toured with us.”
“My little boyfriend?” His head snapped back around to face me.
“Carrick? Wasn’t that what he was?”
Zac glared at me, his eyes narrowing. “You don’t know a damn thing about Carrick, so you really ought to shut up.”
I knew he was right. I should have shut up. This was nothing more than a petty fight fueled by my anger at him for so stupidly getting stoned, and I was throwing any mean words at him that I could. But my anger at him went deeper than just that, and that’s what kept me throwing verbal daggers.
“So you mean you two weren’t fucking? Could have fooled me.”
“What does it matter, Tay?” Zac asked, a tiny smirk playing at the corner of his lips. “Are you jealous?”
I rolled my eyes. “You figured me out, Zac. I’m just so goddamn jealous that you’ve had sex with another man. Honestly, I don’t care what you do with Carrick. Or to Carrick.”
“So why are you still talking about it?”
He had a point there. Why was I talking about it? These were the most words I’d ever said about my suspicion that he and Carrick were closer than friends, and it was definitely the most I’d thought about it in the past three years. I didn’t like Zac’s insinuation that I was jealous, though.
“Does it bother you, Zac?” I asked. “What, did he break your little heart?”
Zac stood up, tossing his barely smoldering pipe to the side, and stepped closer me. “You have no fucking clue what you’re talking about, and you really need to stop, before you make yourself sound like even more of a jealous little bitch.”
I backed away, putting my hands up as if to surrender. I was still angry, but I really didn’t feel like getting punched by my little brother. Again. “Look, forget I said anything about your man. You just need to chill out on this smoking in the middle of the day thing, alright?”
“Who the fuck are you to tell me what to do?”
I sighed. “It’s just… do you really think it’s a good idea to be totally blown away for the rest of the evening?”
“I’m not,” he replied, pouting. “And anyway, why do you even care what I do?”
“Why would you think that I don’t care?”
Zac just shrugged. “Just figured it didn’t matter to you what I did. I mean, this stuff between us is over, right?”
“But… but that has nothing to do with me caring about your well being,” I replied, utterly confused by the words coming out of Zac’s mouth.
“Which I’m sure you don’t,” Zac said. “So can we just end this conversation now? You can stop pretending like you give a shit about me.”
He started to walk back to his couch, but I grabbed his arm. “But what does that have to do with.. with what we did?”
“You can’t even say it, can you? We fucked, Taylor. Multiple times.”
“Keep your fucking voice down,” I hissed.
“Yeah, yeah,” Zac replied, rolling his eyes. “I know, you’re ashamed of me. You’ve made that pretty clear.”
“Why the hell shouldn’t I be, Zac? Or have you forgotten that you’re my brother?”
“I’m not an idiot, Tay.”
“Getting stoned right before a walk? Yeah, I’d say you are an idiot.”
He stepped in closer to me, but shrugged off the grip I still had on his arm. “Is that what this is really about, Tay? You suddenly care about my drug habit?”
“What else would it be about?”
“You wanting to control me?” He offered with a shrug. “You thinking you actually have any kind of control over me, when you’re the one who said it was over.”
“It had to be over, Zac,” I said. “And don’t talk about it like there was an it. We fucked a couple times. That’s all. I’m not Carrick. I wasn’t your damn boyfriend.”
Zac laughed. “Why would I even want you to be my boyfriend, Taylor? Clearly all you can be counted on for is a piece of ass, not any sort of meaningful relationship.”
If I thought I was seeing red before, it was nothing compared to the rage that flooded my body at Zac’s words. I knew he was right, but it didn’t matter. I was so much angrier with myself than I was with him. The only problem was that I couldn’t beat myself up. So I settled for the nearest target, letting my fist fly straight for Zac’s face.
I’m sure I would have lost the fight in a matter of seconds if it wasn’t for all the weed in Zac’s system. His reaction time was slowed by it and he seemed totally stunned by that first punch. It only took him a moment to come back to his senses, though, and come back swinging—literally. His first punch landed a little south of its target, or maybe my cheek was its target. After that, it was just a flurry of punches and clawing hands, and I couldn’t tell you where either of us was aiming or where we actually hit.
The fight didn’t last long before I felt a pair of arms wrapping around my waist and pulling me back, followed by Isaac’s voice yelling, “What the fuck are you two doing?”
“The fuck does it look like?” Zac asked, rubbing his jaw. I was pretty sure I’d landed a decent hit there, right on his stupid, smart mouth.
“Beating this shit out of each other right before the walk,” Ike replied. “I swear, I don’t know what your problem has been this tour, but you need to sort this shit out without killing each other.”
“Highly unlikely,” I mumbled, rubbing my own sore shoulder.
It hadn’t been that much of a fight, because god knows I’m a weakling and Zac was too stoned to be his usual self, but if I looked half as bad as I felt…
What the fuck were we thinking, beating each other to a pulp? Hadn’t I just yelled at Zac for doing something stupid right before the walk? Now we were both in an awful state, and I didn’t know which of us to blame. I supposed we both shared in it. Wasn’t that just the way it went? Zac and I were just dragging each other down, trying to make the other person just as miserable as we were.
I sighed and cast a glance at Isaac. “Look, I’m… we’re sorry. Everything will be fine.”
It was a complete a total lie, and the look on his face said that he knew it, but he nodded his head anyway. “Alright. You’ve got like ten minutes to get your shit together.”
I glanced back at Zac, who was fiddling with his abandoned pipe. His head was down and I couldn’t judge what he was thinking or feeling at all. I supposed that even if I could see his face, I still wouldn’t know. Whatever it was, I didn’t want to risk sticking around long enough to get into another fight. With a sigh, I spun around and walked toward the front of the bus, still rubbing my sore shoulder. I could only hope that, as I had told Ike, this particular fight really was over.