Betrayal
For the next few days, Zac continued to spend all of his time on campus, but not actually attending any classes. It was all too easy to slip away at the right times and hide away from the world. He might emerge to get lunch with Melissa, but otherwise he saw no one that would possibly tattle on him.
It was like getting away with the perfect crime, and Zac knew that he should have felt guilty for it. Yet somehow, he didn’t.
It had been a full week since his decision to drop out and other than the tedium of actually filling out all the correct paperwork, Zac could see no downside. Okay, the impending question of what he was going to do with the rest of his life was a downside. But he could deal with that later. Much later.
After finishing up one last painting, he sent a quick text to Taylor asking if he wanted Chinese takeout for dinner. He knew Taylor was already home, but Zac relied on him too do far too much of the cooking. If he was lucky, his text would catch Taylor before he began cooking and Zac could do him this one small favor.
Only a few seconds later, her received a text back with Taylor’s order and what he would have considered an excessive amount of smiley faces had anyone else sent them. But it was Taylor, and in Zac’s eyes, Taylor could do no wrong.
Zac was vaguely aware that he had swung from one extreme to another in just a few months. Early in the semester, it had been impossible for him to see out of the black hole he was in. Now, with Taylor in his life and college in the rear view mirror, he felt like he was floating on a cloud. He didn’t see any way he could possibly come down, but even as he thought that, he knew it was unrealistic. The absurdity of how he felt wasn’t lost on him, but he loved the feeling too much to dwell on that.
With an almost literal spring in his steps, Zac made his way to the parking lot and drove to the nearest Chinese place, where he proceeded to order double everything Taylor had asked for. It might be more than the two of them could eat, but he found that he didn’t care about that either.
Only a few minutes later, he was juggling boxes and bags as he struggled to open the apartment door. He began to call out to Taylor, but clamped his mouth shut when he heard Taylor’s soft voice clearly talking to someone that wasn’t him.
“No, I know—it’s just, no. it’s not that simple.”
Something in Taylor’s tone made the hair on the back of Zac’s neck stand up. Belatedly, Zac realized that Taylor was arguing with someone. Zac could think of few options for that, but Taylor’s ex-boyfriend immediately sprang to mind. That only made even more hairs in more parts of Zac’s body stand on end.
“No, I will not talk to him for you, Mom,” Taylor said, the last word coming out in a sigh that almost obscured what it was. Still, Zac was certain he had heard it correctly. Taylor was talking to their mother.
Zac couldn’t even think or move. He pressed his back against the door, closing it as softly as possible. Taylor was in the kitchen, with his back turned, and Zac could only hope he wouldn’t turn around.
“That is his decision. Zac is an adult now, you know. And you forced me to make an even more difficult decision before I was legally an adult. Zac’s heart and mind are in a much better place than mine were when I had to make the choice I made. Whatever he said to you, I stand by it, too.”
Taylor paused. He heaved a sigh that made his shoulders visibly rise and fall.
“Goodbye, Mom. Tell Dad I said goodbye, too.”
Zac could feel his heart shattering into pieces at the sound of Taylor’s voice, more childlike than he could remember it ever sounding. Even when Taylor was a child he had seemed to adult to Zac, so grown up. Before Zac could even begin to consider hiding, Taylor spun around and the look on his face was just as pitiful and broken as his voice.
“How—how much did you hear?” He asked.
Zac shrugged. “Enough.”
“The nerve of them,” Taylor said, looking at his cell phone in disgust, like he might throw it across the room. “They wanted—can you even believe this—they wanted me to convince you that you were making the wrong choice. They wanted to guilt trip me—and the sad thing is, after all this time, they still can. Almost. But deep down, I know they’re wrong.”
“What did… what did they say?” Zac asked, taking a few cautious steps toward Taylor.
“In essence, that you were throwing your life away and that you still had a chance to get back on the right track. That if I really loved you, I would take myself out of your life for your own good. It was just the same shit all over again, and I just—I guess I thought maybe they would have grown a bit. But no. Eight years later, it’s still the same shit about what a horrible influence I am.”
Zac felt a hard pit forming in his stomach, and he had a feeling he knew what Taylor wasn’t saying. That their parents could accuse Taylor of that was almost unbelievable, and Zac might not have believed it if it weren’t just another thing on a list of their crimes.
“You know the funniest part though?” Taylor asked. “Well, funny isn’t the right word. But I did find it interesting that they seem to be under the impression that you’re dropping out of grad school.”
The lump in Zac’s stomach threatened to turn into a black hole. He only wished it really was; then it could swallow him on the spot. His head down, he mumbled, “That’s… that’s because I did.”
“And you were keeping that a secret from everyone but them?” There was just a hint of venom in Taylor’s words, and Zac supposed he deserved that.
“No,” Zac replied. “I mean, I meant to tell you. To tell everyone. It just sort of slipped out with them, but they kinda ruined everything. I came home with that pizza and I was so excited to tell everyone and we could celebrate and then—well, there they were. And everything went to hell.”
Taylor shook his head. “No, Zac. That was a week ago. You have had more chances since then than I want to count. And you still didn’t tell me. I mean, what is your plan here? What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know,” Zac replied honestly. “I just know I can’t do this. I mean—I can’t live like this. I don’t know what my life is going to be, but it’s not going to be college forever.”
“I don’t think I can handle this right now,” Taylor said, shaking his head again. He held a hand up to stop Zac from protesting, although Zac didn’t even know what there was to protest. “I appreciate that you’re going through a lot yourself, too, but I really need to not be here right now. I need to think about… well, a lot of things. And I don’t think I can do that here, this near you.”
“I don’t—where are you going to go?” Zac wanted to point out the bags of takeout he still held, but he didn’t think that would help his case.
“Melissa’s, maybe. Or maybe I’ll just drive around for a bit and hope I feel better. I promise—I’m not leaving. I just need a little space, right now.”
Zac nodded. “Okay. That… that’s fair.”
And truthfully, Zac knew that it was. He finally sat the food down on the table and let himself sink into a chair as Taylor wandered off, presumably to pack himself an overnight bag. There was a small part of Zac that feared Taylor really wouldn’t come back, but he knew—hoped—that part was just being irrational.
Then again, he had been burned before. Zac could still remember exactly how it had felt to watch Taylor drive away and know that he wasn’t coming back. Until that day, he had convinced himself that his parents would change their mind, that they were just overreacting. But he knew, as he helped Taylor pack his car, that was it. The end.
Only, it hadn’t been. They were back together now, and Zac could only hope he would figure out how to keep them that way.
“I’ll… I’ll, umm, call you later. I guess,” Taylor said, clearing his throat. “We’ll sort this out. I just… I just can’t. Not right now.”
Zac nodded. It was eerie, how Taylor had seemed to read his mind. There was just one question left unanswered, Zac realized.
“Hey, Tay?”
Taylor paused. “Yeah?”
“How did… I mean, how did they get your number? Mom and Dad, I mean.”
Taylor stopped in his tracks. “It’s the same number I’ve had for years. When I got to Buffalo, I bought the cheapest pre-paid phone I could get, just so I would have one, and I called home. I don’t know, I guess I thought that someday they would come around. They would realize how unfair they had been. And when they did, they would have my number. I’ve had three or four phones since then, but I made sure I kept the number. And I guess they kept the number, too.”
Zac was certain he would have fallen over if he hadn’t already been sitting down. “So, what you’re telling me is that all that time, they knew. They could have given me a way to contact you, and they didn’t.”
“Did you even ask them?” Taylor countered.
“No,” Zac replied honestly. “It… it never occurred to me that they would know. I trusted them, as strange as it sounds. It never would have occurred to me that they were hiding information about you.”
“It never occurred to them that you were on my side,” Taylor replied softly, only a hint of judgment in his voice, but a heaping helping of resignation.
“No, I guess it didn’t,” Zac mumbled. Zac himself was starting to wonder if he truly had been. If he had, wouldn’t he have asked them for something, some clue or breadcrumb to lead him to his brother? The area code alone would have narrowed down his search. They might have reconnected years ago, had Zac not blindly trusted their parents even after their biggest betrayal.
Betraying their sons and pitting them against each other seemed to be their parents’ idea of fun, Zac mused. They couldn’t know what they had truly done, of course, but it didn’t matter. Their intent was almost worse than the actual outcome. They wanted to, once again, convince Taylor that he was broken. Dangerous. That he was harmful to Zac, and if he truly loved him, he would sacrifice himself for his brother.
But instead, what they had done was reveal Zac’s secret, one that he truly hadn’t intended to keep. By the same token, his intention didn’t matter either, Zac realized. He had lied, by omission or otherwise, but a lie nonetheless. In doing so, he had broken Taylor’s trust. It could be repaired, he hoped, but it was two steps forward and one step back.
Belatedly, Zac realized that Taylor had spoken, but he hadn’t heard a word of it.
“I said I’ll be back soon,” Taylor said, once again seeming to read Zac’s mind. “I’ll give you a call when I—well, when I can. When I’m mentally up for it.”
“Okay,” Zac replied. He wanted to say more but the words wouldn’t come, and so he resigned himself to watching silently as Taylor walked out the door. The door closed with a soft thud and Zac stared at it and mumbled, “Love you.”