Tulsa
Home, sweet home.
The tour might not have been over, but I didn’t care. It had never felt so good to come home, even if it was for only two weeks.
There were times that I wanted to escape Tulsa—times when it felt small and stifling, and I couldn’t remember what it was about such a small, backwards town that made me want to call it home. Then there were times when all I really needed was to escape all the drama and craziness of the business and the road. There was no better place, except perhaps a cabin hidden in the woods somewhere, than Tulsa to do just that.
Since a cabin in the woods wasn’t exactly a viable option right then, Tulsa it was.
I didn’t even mind waking up early as we rolled into Oklahoma. It felt nice to sit by the bus window and just stare out at the fields passing us by. Logically, I knew they weren’t any different than the countless other fields we’d passed by in the midwest, but they felt different. They felt like home. They felt like hope.
I was running low on that. Hope, I mean. But coming home seemed to renew what little I had.
It felt so much better than I could have imagined to go to my Starbucks again. To lug my suitcases into my house. To walk down the street to my office. I supposed it was just how awful this tour was that made home seem so much better than it ever had before. I hoped the feeling remained. I didn’t want to start feeling claustrophobic after just a day or two back in Tulsa.
The hometown crowd was different. It always had been. There was just a different energy to it, even when I knew that probably half of the audience wasn’t even from Tulsa. Maybe it was just Cain’s Ballroom and all the history it held. We all felt it. It was the reason why we so often began and ended our tours here. This might not have been the ultimate ending of the tour, but it was a good way to kick off a two week break.
We played a long set that night. Everyone was really feeling it, I think. Even Shay played a few more upbeat songs than usual—and for once, I didn’t think any of them were about me.
After the concert, we all planned to go to McNellie’s for something of an after party. It wasn’t much of a plan, but it was thrown together at the last minute. I couldn’t help thinking that no one had planned a real party because of all the tension during the past week. Now that I seemed to be getting along with everyone again—or at least not pissing them off every two seconds—some of the guys had seen fit to make this last minute plan.
I didn’t really care if my paranoid theory was correct. I just wanted alcohol.
When we got to McNellie’s, though, I didn’t feel as much like getting shitfaced. Knowing me, no good could possibly come of it. With both Zac and Shay around, I was really just asking for trouble. I settled for nursing a few rum and cokes, which gave me a nice buzz, but left me feeling like I still had control of myself. I was perfectly content to just sit back and sip my drinks, watching the party around me but not really participating in it.
I don’t know how long I’d sat there by myself when Shay made his way over and slid into the seat across from me.
“Thought you were a party animal,” he said, smirking.
I forced a little laugh. “I guess I’m getting old.”
“Well, it was a great show tonight. Great way to end a tour.”
“Yeah,” I replied. “We usually do some little prank on the opening act at the last show, so… consider yourself lucky, I guess.”
“Mmm, actually I do consider myself lucky, but I think I would have liked a prank. Could have been fun.”
“I guess no one was really in the mood for it,” I replied with a frown. “These last few days have been… rough.”
Shay nodded. “That they have. But hey, time to turn over a new leaf, yeah?”
“I guess.” I sighed. It sounded so much easier than I knew it really would be.
He reached across the table and pulled my hand off my drink, grasping it loosely in his own. “You can do this, Tay. I’ve got faith in you. I know you… you’ve done some bad things this tour, but I think you did a lot of growing, too. I mean, you had an actual relationship, however briefly, didn’t you?”
“I guess I did. And that worked out so well for me didn’t it?”
Shay rolled his eyes. “You tried, though. Didn’t you?”
“Did I?” I asked honestly. “I don’t know. I guess I did, sometimes. But then… well, you know.”
“Your heart was in the right place, I think,” he replied.
“Other parts of my body weren’t…” I mumbled, unable to stop myself.
Shay cringed slightly, but it passed quickly. “Be that as it may, I think this was a big milestone for you. Now you’ve got some time off to decide where to go next.”
“What if I have no idea where that might be?”
He just gave me a shrug and a grin. “Well, that’s up to you to figure out. And you’ve got plenty of time. You don’t have to jump into something else right away. Being by yourself—totally by yourself—could be good.”
“It could be,” I replied. “But I’m going to be surrounded by people for a few more months.”
“I didn’t mean entirely alone. Just… not in a relationship. Of any sort.”
I nodded. “I know, I know. It just feels like I’m suffocating here.”
“Well, you’ve got a break coming up, right? I’d say you ought to really take advantage of that.”
“Yeah,” I replied with a smile. “I think you’re right.”
“I often am,” he said, smirking. “Now, I’m going to go get another drink. Would you like anything?”
I shook my head. “I should probably get going soon. But umm… thanks for not hating me. Seriously.”
He smirked. “Believe me, I’m as shocked as you are that I don’t. I don’t understand it at all, I’m still, frankly, disgusted by it, but… I don’t know. I care about you. I worry about you. But I think you’ll be alright.”
“I hope you’re right.”
I felt a little better after Shay left, with all of his words still echoing in my mind. A break really was what I needed. He was right. It might have only been two weeks, but it was better than nothing, and I was going to take full advantage of it.
I downed the rest of my drink and then made my way to the bar where I knew I would find Ike. He told me the last time he’d seen Zac, he was on his way upstairs. I was sure that meant I would find him at the pool table or glued to one of the video games. I took the stairs two at a time, and sure enough, I soon found Zac hunched over some old video game.
This was it. Now or never.
“Zac?”
Just that one word made him jump practically a foot into the air. He cursed and kicked the game machine, just because he could, I guess, and I had to wonder how much he’d had to drink. Zac wasn’t much of a drinker, but when he did give in to the temptation, it was usually not a pretty sight.
Finally he calmed down and stared at me. “What?”
“Umm… good show tonight?”
He blinked. “Is that really what you came up here to say?”
“Yes.” No. “Well… it’s just… umm, it’s been a hell of a tour, hasn’t it?”
“You can say that again,” he replied. He picked up a beer from a nearby table and downed it, and I was sure he was trying to end the conversation but I wasn’t going to let him.
“Look, Zac… I’ve been thinking.”
“Don’t hurt yourself,” he replied, with a smirk that might have been more cruel than teasing, but I couldn’t say for sure.
“I just think…” I sighed. “You know, we’ve got two weeks off. I think it could be good for us to take some time off.”
“That’s the general idea, yeah. What else are we going to do with two weeks off?”
I shook my head. “No, I mean… like us. I think I need some time away from you. We don’t have any band stuff planned, so I just want to… be a hermit, I guess. Get my head back on straight before we leave again.”
Zac snorted. “Yeah, good luck with that.”
“I’m trying to be serious here,” I practically growled.
He blinked a few times, then stared intently at me, no doubt trying to judge just how serious I was. I didn’t waiver, except for possibly wobbling a little bit due to all that rum I’d chugged just before coming upstairs.
“Okay,” he finally said. “If that’s what you think will… help. Then sure, I guess. Two weeks apart.”
I nodded. “Two weeks apart. I think it’ll be good for us.”
Zac swallowed hard, then nodded. “Alright. See you in two weeks, I guess.”
And that was it.
It wasn’t really an ending, but it was the beginning of the end. Of that I was sure. It had to be. Once we got away from each other for a while, surely we would both see that we didn’t need to keep falling into bed together. Surely Zac would see how insane this thing between us was.
With nothing else left to say to him, I made my way back downstairs and plastered on a fake smile, making sure to say goodbye to all of our various band and crew members who were still partying it up. They were all having a good time, but my night was over. I was ready to, as Shay said, turn over a new leaf.
I called a cab to take me home and waited impatiently for it. If I was going to turn over a new leaf, I wanted to do it right then and there. I was ready for a new Taylor. A better Taylor.
After an excruciatingly long wait, my cab pulled up to the sidewalk and I collapsed into the backseat. It was a fairly long drive to my house. I’d shared an apartment with Zac for a while when we moved back to Tulsa, on the same floor as Ike and Nikki’s apartment, but a few years ago, I decided that I wanted a place of my own. I wanted space. It made me feel like more of an adult to finally have an entire building that I could call mine.
Right then, all I wanted was to walk inside that building, and pass the fuck out.
I wasn’t all that drunk, but the end of tour exhaustion was catching up with me quickly. I just wanted to rest. I tipped the cabbie generously because I couldn’t be bothered to stick around count out change, and then I was inside my house. It was wonderfully quiet. Peaceful.
As I fell into my bed, still wearing everything but my shoes, I could only think one thing.
Two weeks. Just two weeks.