Drunk
We had the next day off entirely, although most of it was spent driving to Asheville. That meant I spent the majority of it in my bunk, sleeping. I only emerged when I was greeted with Seamus’ soothing voice and the smell of coffee. He knew the way to my heart already.
Zac and I seemed to have come to the decision just to avoid each other, though. He spent most of the day planted in the back lounge, playing some video game, and then went shopping with Muff for yet another video game. I would never understand the video game obsession, but I was glad that it kept him a safe distance from me all day long.
As for me, I spent the day with Seamus, exploring Asheville the way that we had Richmond. It was relaxing and fun, and it nearly took my mind off the drama with Zac. I felt like an idiot for even thinking there might have been something going on between the two of them; every second spent with Seamus was a reminder that he was my boyfriend. And I was his.
We shared a hotel room that night, and I didn’t even bother to look Zac’s way when the key cards were handed out. I didn’t care what he thought of it. He could be as upset as he wanted; it wasn’t going to change how I felt.
In fact, I didn’t bother to pay Zac any attention at all until soundcheck the next day. Once again, he decided to test everyone’s patience by fighting over every single song on the setlist and generally paying no attention at all. He was late or early or just plain wrong more times than I could count. We hadn’t even come remotely close to hammering out all the problems when we ran out of time. Zac was the first one off the stage, tossing his drumsticks down dramatically before practically sprinting backstage.
Isaac gave me a look that seemed to say “deal with him.” I didn’t want to, but it was obvious that his problem was with me. If anyone was going to get him back to normal, it would have to be me.
I found Zac in the green room, thankfully all by himself. He was sitting on a ratty old couch, staring at the wall. That in and of itself was weird enough; Zac was usually bouncing off the walls with energy before a concert. What really surprised and worried me, though, was the beer in his hand. Zac didn’t drink, at least not in the large quantities that me and Isaac did. Whatever he was upset about must have been bad if it had driven him to start drinking before a concert.
“Don’t you think you should wait until after the show to get trashed?” I asked, trying to sound more concerned than judgmental.
He only shrugged and took a long sip of his beer. I wanted to smack it out of his hand, but that would have been completely ridiculous. He was a grown man; he could drink when and where he wanted. Still, it might have at least gotten a reaction out of him, even if that reaction left me with a black eye. I didn’t do it, though. I took the high road.
“Zac. Will you please talk to me?”
“No, I don’t think I will,” he said, still not looking my way. He chugged the rest of the beer and tossed the can aside, missing the garbage can by a foot.
Even though there was plenty of room, Zac still shouldered me aside on his way out of the room. He always had to have the last word – even if that word was technically a petty, childish action and not a word at all. But I wouldn’t be deterred. I spun around and followed him down the hallway toward the venue’s tiny backstage bathroom.
I didn’t really even care that I was probably about to walk in on my brother using the bathroom. Stranger things had happened. I was just glad that he hadn’t locked the door. I yanked it open and planted myself in front it, using what little body weight I had to block his exit.
“What the fuck, Tay?” Zac screeched, his head snapping up to glare at me in the mirror above the sink.
“Talk to me.”
“I really, really don’t want to,” he replied. Despite all the anger he had shown up to that point, all I could see then was a scared little boy, and I still had no clue why.
“Zac, please,” I said, my voice softening a little. “I don’t understand what’s going on here. Obviously it has something to do with Seamus, and we need to talk about it. Whatever your deal is with him, I need to know.”
“My deal with him?” Zac’s reflection blinked at me and I returned his bewildered expression.
“Isn’t that what this is about? I’m dating Seamus and you apparently don’t like that.”
“You don’t date people, Taylor,” he replied, finally spinning around to face me for real. “You use them. You’re going to chew Shay up and spit him out just like you do everyone else who gets close to you.”
Was that really how Zac saw me? He was my best friend, and he apparently thought I was a horrible human being. Even Seamus had more faith in me than that, and he hardly knew me. But maybe that was why he could trust me; he didn’t know how bad I really was, and Zac did.
“Okay,” I replied. “I’m not gonna argue with you. Maybe I am that bad. So what, you wanna protect Seamus from me?”
“It’s not really about him, Tay.”
Just when I thought I understood what was going on, Zac had to go and confuse me again. If it wasn’t about his apparent crush on Seamus, then what was it about? I uncrossed my arms and took a step closer to him. “Zac… you know you can tell me. I’m not gonna judge you or get mad at you. I can’t blame you at all for liking him.”
“Liking him?” Zac repeated, his eyes widening. “You really don’t get it at all, do you?”
“Considering the fact that you’re telling me nothing? No. No I don’t.”
“It’s not about Seamus,” he repeated, taking a step closer to me. The room was so small that we were left only inches apart.
“So what is it about?”
For just a second, I thought I saw fear flash through Zac’s eyes. I didn’t understand what he was so afraid of; he should have known that I of all people would understand whatever he felt. In an instant, though, the fear was gone, and he was advancing on me. I thought he was going to punch me – for what, I had no clue – and I braced myself for it. But he didn’t punch me.
He kissed me.
He came at me with such force that I was knocked back against the bathroom door, pinned between it and his body. Zac’s lips were rough against mine, a little too aggressive for the kiss to be that great – not that kissing my brother should have been good in the first place. I never really claimed to have high morals, anyway. So I felt little remorse at all for dragging my tongue along Zac’s bottom lip, daring him to take the kiss a little further.
That seemed to be his breaking point, though. He pulled back so quickly he might have never been there at all, and shoved me to the side. I found myself pinned again – this time between the wall and the door. By the time I freed myself, Zac was long gone.
I knew there was no point in chasing him, so I walked back to the green room and grabbed a beer for myself. If Zac could drink before a concert, so could I. I fell down onto the couch and popped the top on the beer, taking a long sip. It wouldn’t help my judgment, I knew, but I didn’t think that anything at all would help me to make sense of what had just happened.
As I sipped the beer, I briefly wondered how many of our fans would be surprised at just how much alcohol we asked for at the venues we played. We actually started putting it on our rider before we were even legally able to drink it, just as a joke. To our surprise, they still provided it. People were all too eager to please us back then; sometimes I thought no one would even bat an eyelash if I asked the venues to stock the green room with hookers and blow. We didn’t even drink it ourselves, though. Most of it we gave to the roadies and the guys in our backup band. The rest just went to waste.
Except for one time, I remembered.
Suddenly, Zac’s actions made a lot more sense to me. I had almost blocked that night out of my memory – or maybe the alcohol had blocked it out for me – but now it was flooding back to me.
We were in South America, near the end of the tour. Our parents had kept the little ones at home for that portion of the tour, deciding it was just too much hassle and money to bring them all along. None of us were going to complain about that; we missed them, sure, but we liked the little bit more freedom we had without a troupe of little kids to keep up with.
One night, they made plans to go out alone, taking advantage of one of our few free days. Isaac was supposed to watch me and Zac, even though we insisted that at fifteen and seventeen, we really didn’t need babysitters. As it turned out, Isaac had made plans to meet up with some pretty girl one of the roadies had brought backstage. He made us promise that we wouldn’t tell Mom and Dad that he was leaving the hotel.
We weren’t stupid, though. Of course we wouldn’t tell them. And I had plans of my own. I don’t know what possessed me to do it, but before we left the venue the night before, I stuffed my duffel bag full of all the Brazilian beer I could lay my hands on. It wasn’t the first time I had gotten drunk; I was getting pretty good at convincing people to sneak me drinks at all the stupid events the label made us attend. But it was the first time I had decided to let Zac join the party.
He had been hesitant at first, when I opened the hotel room refrigerator and showed him my stolen treasure. He shook his head and backed away, saying that he would just watch tv and let me do what I wanted. But I wanted to have fun, and I knew it would be no fun if one of us were sober. Eventually, I broke down his resolve and together we drank every stolen can.
Honestly, I don’t remember how things went downhill from there. Alcohol made him honest, I guess, and he admitted that he had almost gone all the way with Marion. He wanted to know what I had done, and in my drunken state, I admitted to every single girl… and the one guy. I still hadn’t admitted to myself what that meant – and I wouldn’t until Alex forced it out of me – but I couldn’t lie to Zac.
From there on out, the memory is hazy. Zac was curious, we were both drunk, and it all went to hell in a handbasket pretty quickly. I only remember bits and pieces – his chapped lips against mine, the way he blushed when I pulled his boxers down, the tiny little sounds he made when he came in my mouth. I was too drunk to even be ashamed of the way I ground myself against him, getting off without him ever laying a hand on me in return.
Maybe I blocked that memory out because there was just no good way to rationalize it, even for someone as apparently horrible as me. He was my brother. And evidently, he hadn’t blocked the memory out at all. I was beginning to think he had only wallowed in it, beating himself up for what we had done, and hating me for what I continued to do with everyone who wasn’t him.
The fact that Zac never seemed interested in women, dating or sex was beginning to make a lot more sense.
Unfortunately, gaining a new understanding of why Zac was acting so strange didn’t help me figure out how to deal with it. The fact that I had enjoyed kissing him only made it worse. I didn’t just have his feelings to consider; I had my own and Seamus’ as well. Whatever I did, I knew someone was going to get hurt. I was afraid it would be all of us.