Cupcakes and Beer
The library was all but deserted on Friday nights, but that was the way Zac liked it. No distractions. No one to make small talk with. Just him, his laptop and some boring scholarly essay on Klimt.
Zac hated Klimt.
That was an exaggeration, he supposed, but at the moment, any artist who painted so many pretty, tall, pale women was on his shit list. They all looked like Carly as far as Zac could see, and it dredged up too many memories for him to deal with. Worse than the memories were the make-believe images his mind created of Carly with her new boyfriend. Was he even her boyfriend? Zac didn’t know. Whatever she wanted to call the TA she had cheated on him with. Images of Carly and Byron–what the hell kind of name was Byron, anyway?–flitted around Zac’s mind often enough to drive him insane.
He obviously wasn’t getting any work done, and the essay was due Monday. Maybe he could do better back at his apartment with a few beers, he decided. With that thought in mind, he packed up his laptop and papers, and headed down to the first floor of the library. It was quiet there, too, with the only other person around that quiet blonde girl who seemed to work every weekend. Melissa, he thought her name was. His friends kept suggesting that he ask her out; she certainly did smile at him a lot when he walked by. Zac couldn’t seem to get them to understand that so soon after things with Carly, he just wasn’t interested in dating again.
It wasn’t a short walk across campus to the apartment complex where Zac lived, but he didn’t mind. He’d lived in that complex since junior year, when things got serious with Carly and they decided to move in together. It was just far enough off campus to avoid all the raucous parties that the University of Texas was known for, but close enough that he could handle walking, so Zac had stayed there (although he’d wheedled the landlord into giving him a different, cheaper unit) even after the breakup.
Just around the corner from his complex was an all-night convenience store, and Zac found himself walking into it without giving it much thought. He was out of beer, he was pretty sure, so he grabbed a case and then wandered aimlessly past a row of pastries in a glass case. A big, fluffy chocolate cupcake caught his eye and he picked it up.
He had forgotten this year, he realized. But a quick check of his phone revealed that it really was March 14. His brother Taylor’s birthday.
It was stupid, really–something Carly had always been quick to point out. But it didn’t feel right if Zac didn’t do something to celebrate Taylor’s birthday, since they hadn’t been able to spend it together since they were in high school. The way he carried on, Carly said, you’d have thought Taylor was dead. But to Zac he might as well have been, given the way their parents had all but forced him to leave and never spoken of him again. They hadn’t allowed Zac to contact him, and by the time he went away to college and tried to find Taylor on his own, the trail had gone cold. He didn’t even know where to begin looking.
And so to Zac, his brother might as well have really been dead, and if he wanted to memorialize him with one cupcake a year, on his birthday, what did it really matter?
Zac paid for his beer and cupcake as quickly as he could, trying not to think about how pathetic he must have looked to the cashier. He had just turned to leave the convenience store when he saw two familiar faces coming through the door.
“Zac!” Shaun called out, a big smile on his face. Drew looked less enthusiastic, but he was always more accommodating of the bad mood Zac had been in for months now—since Carly.
He wondered when he would stop thinking of his life as before Carly and after Carly.
After an awkward moment’s pause, Zac formed a smile and replied, “Hey, guys. What’s up?”
“Just picking up supplies to pregame Southby tomorrow,” Shaun replied. “Remember, we scored those tickets? You’re still coming, right?”
Zac didn’t feel like pointing out that he hadn’t been planning to come in the first place, but he knew it wouldn’t make any difference to Shaun. “I don’t know; I’ve got a big paper due next week.”
“There will always be big papers. There will not always be free rides to awesome concerts.”
“Call me tomorrow and we’ll see,” Zac conceded, knowing his answer wouldn’t change. He wasn’t going.
“It’s cool, man,” Drew said softly, giving Shaun a nudge that seemed to pass him by completely unnoticed.
Shaun ran a hand through his thick, curly hair, then sighed. “All I’m saying is you can’t stay locked up in that apartment avoiding the world forever. It’s not gonna fix things. It’s just not.”
“I’m not sure anything will,” Zac replied honestly. Perhaps a little too honestly than he should have, judging by the hurt look on Shaun’s face and the growing discomfort on Drew’s. “Sorry, guys. I’m just… sorry. I need to go.”
Before his friends could say anything else and make the situation even more awkward, Zac nudged Shaun aside as gently as possible and scurried out of the convenience store. He knew he was being rude to them, and he wished he could find another way to be, but it seemed lately he couldn’t do anything right. It was easiest to just stay away from them and just become a hermit; all on his own, he would eliminate the risk of offending anyone else or making them feel that uncomfortable need to coddle him and his poor broken heart.
It wasn’t a good way to live, but it was becoming the norm for Zac.
To Zac’s surprise, Shaun and Drew left him alone for the rest of the weekend. A part of him was worried they were going to lose patience with him and give up entirely. Maybe this weekend was just the beginning of them finally realizing that he wasn’t going to come out of this funk.
And maybe not.
He had been in the library for several hours Wednesday afternoon, revising some art criticisms he was supposed to have turned in several days ago. His professors were probably losing patience with him, too. Time seemed to pass so quickly when he was working, yet he never got anything done. Until he saw a curly head poking into the door to his study room, he didn’t even realize that he had worked through dinner.
“Hungry?” Shaun asked, holding out a brown paper bag. “I got bagels from the coffee shop downstairs, but I’m totally up for ordering a pizza delivered to the library, too. Well, I would be, but it would probably get me fired.”
In spite of himself, Zac laughed softly. “You’d be the hero of all the freshmen you’ve recruited, I’m sure.”
“Maybe so,” Shaun agreed, sitting down across from Zac and digging into the bag. He offered Zac a bagel before speaking again. “Another lonely night in the library, huh? But hey, that Melissa chick is working again.”
“She’s always working,” Zac replied, more interested in his food than in Shaun’s attempts to hook him up.
“Look, man, she’s cute. What’s your hold up? You know she wouldn’t turn you down. And a librarian? That’s kinda sexy.”
Zac shook his head. “It’s not about her. You know it’s not.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Shaun mumbled. “I’m sorry; I know I’ve been on your case lately. I just can’t stand to see you down like this, you know? This depressed Zac is depressing me. But I don’t wanna guilt trip you about it. I just wanna cheer you up, and I don’t know what else to do to help.”
Zac shut his laptop and gave Shaun the best smile he could manage. “I appreciate that. I really do. I know I’m being a jackass and taking this whole… breakup way too hard. I should be over it by now; it’s been months.”
“And you were with her for years,” Shaun pointed out. “It’s alright, dude. You remember how hard I took it when Trisha broke up with me, and we had only been together for a couple months. But when you get so into something, and you see yourself with them for a long time, it’s just… it’s routine. It’s your life. Then it sucks when it’s ripped away from you.”
Ripped away from you, Zac thought. Carly wasn’t ripped away from him. She chose to ruin what they had and leave him. Ripped away from you—that sounded like something beyond her control, something like what had happened to Taylor. Of course, that was different. Taylor was his brother. But maybe it was that loss, the pain of losing his brother, that made Zac so prone to becoming this pathetic, depressed mess. Had he been this way before Taylor left? It had only been eight years, but it was hard to remember what he was like before, as a teenager or even a kid.
“Yo, Zac?” Shaun’s voice cut through his thoughts. “You still in there, man?”
“Yeah, sorry.” Zac shook his head, as though he could clear out the cobwebs and ghosts that way. If only it were so simple. “Just got a little lost in thought. Look, I appreciate what you’re trying to do, but sometimes it’s like… I can’t force myself to cheer up, and having it pointed out that I’m not very cheerful just makes it worse. Like I’m a burden or whatever. But… thanks. Although these bagels suck.”
“They do, don’t they?” Shaun laughed. “Let’s go get a pizza. There’s nothing pizza, wings and beer can’t fix.”
Zac wasn’t so sure about that, but he was sure that he’d gotten as much work done that evening as he was going to get done. If Shaun was still willing to give him a chance and hang out with him, then maybe there was some hope left for him.
Shaun helped Zac pack up his papers and the crappy bagels, and the two of them made their way downstairs. Of course, Shaun had to lead them right past the circulation desk where Melissa sat peering at them over the top of a book. She couldn’t have been more obvious if she had tried, and Zac had to try not to laugh at her. And then he couldn’t even remember the last time he had laughed.
Maybe there really was some hope left for him, some light at the end of the tunnel.
“Alright,” Shaun said, slapping Zac on the back once they were outside and away from Melissa’s prying
eyes. “So, you turning over a new leaf? Coming out with us this weekend?”
“I don’t know…” Zac mumbled. He had visions of himself as the sad, lonely drunk at the bar while Shaun and Drew tried to pick up chicks, and he didn’t think he was ready for that yet. But he definitely wasn’t ready to pick up chicks himself, either.
Shaun nodded knowingly. “No, it’s cool. It’s cool. Maybe next time?”
“You know what?” Zac asked, surprising even himself. “I’ll come. Maybe it’ll be good for me.”
A look of shock passed across Shaun’s face for a moment, and Zac would have been offended if he hadn’t surprised himself as well. Maybe it was Shaun’s new patience and his willingness to accept that Zac wasn’t going to be okay so soon that made Zac decide to give him a chance. He knew his friends meant well, even if they did sometimes push him too far. They only wanted to help him, he knew, and Zac had to admit… he needed all the help he could get.