Asshole
The twenty-four hours or so after that fight seemed to be the quietest twenty-four hours of my life. It wasn’t really anything new, on that particular tour, for Zac to ignore me. Our only forms of communication seemed to be grunts and glares. But now Shay was ignoring me, too, which I wasn’t exactly surprised by either. On top of that, everyone else seemed to have heard about that little back of the bus brawl, so they all knew something was up. None of them really knew what, except that Shay and I also recently broke up, but they could definitely feel all the bad vibes.
It all added up to me feeling like everyone was ignoring or avoiding me.
I suppose it could have been worse. Ignoring was a lot better than constantly yelling and screaming at me. It was more than a little awkward to only talk to the rest of the band when we were working, but it wasn’t like we hadn’t had tense tours before. This definitely seemed to the be worst to date, though. And the worst part was knowing that it really was all my fault. I could try to blame Zac, but I knew this was all on me.
It wasn’t like I didn’t know, prior to this tour, that I was a horrible human being. But it seemed like everything that happened on this tour only served to prove just how horrible I was.
The drive to Cleveland was pretty long, which meant hours and hours spent cooped up on the bus with everyone ignoring me. I tried to curl up in my bunk and nap, figuring that was the easiest way to avoid awkward stares. But my pillow still smelled like Shay. In the end, I found myself sitting on the couch with my face buried in a book. I could still sense the stares, but I had a good reason to ignore them – or, at least, try to ignore them.
My book that day was fiction, not the usual non-fiction, self help sort of stuff I liked to read. I don’t know why I read that stuff; clearly I didn’t ever learn a thing from it. My life was a mess. I wasn’t helping myself or anyone else. It was sort of like the placebo effect, I suppose. If I read that stuff and attempted to absorb some of it, even if I didn’t put it into action, I could delude myself into thinking I was a better person. But I wasn’t.
That day’s book was a cheesy fantasy novel I’d picked up at a truck stop. It wasn’t good by any definition of the word, but it was a distraction – a very, very welcome distraction – from reality.
I created a little cocoon for myself on the couch and I was perfectly content to stay there all day. I had my book to distract me, a bag of potato chips, a couple candy bars and a soda. The only thing I was missing was my iPod and a pair of earbuds so I could blast music into my brain and thus completely cut myself off from everyone else. Not that I really needed music to drown out any noise around me. The bus was far too quiet, and it was a really, really disconcerting change from the norm.
Of course, it couldn’t stay that quiet forever. I was just starting to get really comfortable in the silence when Isaac stomped his way toward the front of the bus and began loudly surveying our snack selection. By the fourth time he’d picked up the same bag of chips, I began to suspect he hadn’t really come up to the front for food. Ike had ulterior motives, and he was absolutely awful at hiding them.
“They’re still going to be honey barbecue the next time you pick them up,” I said.
I knew it was a bad idea to engage him in conversation on my own, but I also knew that if Ike wanted to talk, he was going to talk whether I was listening or not. Even if he was just talking at me rather than to me.
He glanced at me, then at the bag of chips, then back at me. With a shrug, he yanked them open and stuffed a few into his mouth. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe Ike did just want a snack, and his coming to the front of the bus had nothing to do with me at all. There was a distinct possibility that I was just incredibly self centered and assumed that everything had something to do with me.
“So,” he said, still chewing a mouthful of chips and dashing my hopes all at once. “What the hell is your problem lately?”
It might have been the first time in his life that Isaac had ever gotten to a point that quickly, and for some reason, I didn’t feel like celebrating that achievement.
“What do you mean?” I asked, hoping to play innocent and get away with it.
“I mean, you and Seamus have obviously broken up.”
“Points for observational skills.”
He rolled his eyes. “Thanks. And now you and Zac evidently aren’t talking, after that big fist fight, which neither of you has explained to anyone. The common denominator in both of these is you, Tay.”
“So what are you trying to say? That I’m just an asshole?”
“Well… I wasn’t going to say that, but since you said it yourself…” Isaac trailed off, smirking. He plopped down on the couch next to me, completely ignoring the fact that I was clearly trying to occupy the entire thing by myself. “Seriously, though. What’s going on?”
I eyed him carefully. “Why do you even care?”
“Because it’s clearly interfering with the rest of the tour, and that’s just bullshit. Whatever your little relationship problems are, you need to keep them to yourself.”
“Considering the fact that my relationship is over, there shouldn’t be any more problems.” I pulled my book up to hide my face then, hoping Ike would take the hint and realize I was done talking to him.
Naturally, he did not. “Yeah, well, obviously there are problems. I mean, I don’t even remember the last time you and Zac fought like that.”
“So we were due for a fight,” I replied flatly.
“Yet neither of you will talk about why you were so determined to maim each other.”
I slammed my book down. “Zac was being an asshole, okay? It’s as simple as that.”
“So you’re both assholes?”
“I guess so,” I replied, fighting the urge to laugh out loud. If only Ike knew just how awful both of us were. I had a feeling he would take that little revelation even worse than Seamus had, though.
“Tell me something I don’t already know,” Isaac mumbled, and once again, I fought the urge to laugh. He ran his hand down his face, then stared me down. “Look, whatever the reason for that fight, you two need to kiss and makeup, because we’ve still got a week left before we can take a break from each other. It would be nice to not feel like I need to walk around my own bus in full body armor. As for Seamus… well, I’m going to go ahead and assume that was your fault. I guess it’s just lucky that he’ll be gone soon.”
“Yeah,” I replied, my voice barely finding its way past the lump forming in my throat. “I guess it is.”
Isaac seemed satisfied with that and turned his attention to his bag of chips, effectively ending the conversation. I was glad, because I didn’t know how much more of that torture I could tolerate. Until he pointed it out, I hadn’t even realized how close we were to finishing the first leg of the tour. It was a bittersweet feeling; I didn’t know if or when I would see Seamus again after he left the tour, but I supposed he would have been happy to never see me again. There was little hope that the two of us would ever get back together, but there was absolutely no way it was going to happen in only a week.
On the flip side, when I considered the situation with Zac, a week seemed like forever. We had only a little more than a two week break before the second leg of the tour. Even two months apart wouldn’t have been enough time for me to prepare for spending the rest of the fall on a bus with my little brother.
I just didn’t even know Zac anymore. But worse than that, I didn’t know myself.
Telling Isaac that Zac was an asshole… it wasn’t entirely inaccurate, but it didn’t come anywhere near the entire truth. He was an asshole, but I knew it was my fault. What I’d done to him, what I kept doing to him and with him, was absolutely unforgivable. But even saying that we were both assholes didn’t do justice to the situation.
It was a mess. And two weeks away from him wasn’t going to fix it.
I couldn’t even picture my life after the first leg of the tour. In such a short time, Seamus had become a part of it and I wanted to cling to him, even though I knew he wouldn’t let me. And Zac. I didn’t know what would happen with him. I could guess, though – more weed and more stupid, misguided sex. As much as I tried to refuse him, I had feared all along, from that very first moment, that I would never be able to.
It seemed I was right. In a lot of ways, I might not have recognized who I’d become, but the one thing I knew was that I was an asshole. Maybe it was just a self-fulfilling prophecy; I believed I was awful and so I was. Whatever the reason, it didn’t change the fact that I had done horrible things, and proven every initial impression Seamus had of me correct.
Yeah. I was definitely an asshole.