One More Trip To The Other Side
I’m a fool in a losing fight
Can’t escape the bullet’s bite
‘Cause the enemy’s in sight
Sign on the dotted line
Take your pick, have a bite
When seduction starts
I know it won’t stop
Till I give you the things
I can’t deny
You’ve got me wrapped around your finger
But I’m not quite what you thought I’d be
When she returned to Felton after her third trip out of town in a little more than a month, Carolina felt like she was on a roller coaster ride with no end. But that wasn’t entirely true; she didn’t have a single other trip planned for months, and it was only sheer coincidence that they had all fallen so close together. Still, she wasn’t entirely in control of her fate. There was still a metaphorical war going on inside of her, her feelings for Taylor and his fans churning around inside of her and never settling into something easy to understand.
It didn’t help that he had debuted yet another new song that had all of his fans chattering, including the ones she kept finding herself on Skype calls with. She didn’t have much to add to the conversation, but the rest of them were more than making up for Carolina’s silence.
“I just feel like he’s going through something lately,” Emilia said. “Has he said anything to you about it, Mia?”
Mia frowned. “Yes and no. I mean, I know that he—I really shouldn’t say much. But something happened with his ex when he was back in Oklahoma. That’s really all I should say.”
“Did they break up around this time of year? Or did something else traumatic happen in June? It could be some sort of sense memory thing.” Laura suggested.
“It could be,” Mia replied. “I don’t think that they did, but I really don’t know for sure. I didn’t really know him well when he was with Chloe.”
Chloe. That was a name Carolina didn’t know. It was a new piece of information about Taylor that she filed away, as though it might be useful later somehow. She could see on Mia’s face that she hadn’t meant to say that name out loud.
“She’s the one that Bridges of Stone is about, isn’t she?” Emilia asked. It was a song that had leaked years ago, the last demo that Hanson recorded before everything happened with the label. It was the last thing Carolina had heard before losing track of Hanson for what she thought was forever. She knew the song meant a lot to other fans, too, and she found that she really didn’t want to know who it was about.
“Yeah,” Mia said, a pained look on her face, as though she just couldn’t stop herself from admitting truths she wasn’t supposed to. “You know he doesn’t usually talk about who his songs are about, though. He’s been burned a few times that way. So you girls can’t say anything; you didn’t hear this from me.”
“Of course not,” Laura replied, a strange tone in her voice that Carolina thought she understood.
“Anyway, I just—” Mia sighed and ran a hand through her platinum hair. “I just worry about him, and he’s really not telling me much right now. I’ve talked to him about how it would be a good idea to get back into therapy, but I don’t know if he’s taking it very seriously. I think he’s just self-medicating.”
“As long as it’s just weed,” Carolina remarked, before thinking better of it.
“What else would it be?” Mia asked.
Carolina realized all eyes were on her, although she supposed that was just a side effect of having three girls’ faces staring at her through her screen. There was no escaping them, and there was no backing out of what she had said. In any case, they had already been discussing Delanie’s crazy antics, which hadn’t calmed down one bit since Los Angeles.
Carolina took a deep breath. “Okay, so. I know I should have said something sooner, or told him about it, or something. I don’t know. But a couple months ago, Delanie started telling me some shit about how Taylor has done like every drug known to man. Including meth. Meth! And I mean, I’m from West Virginia—I know what meth heads look like, and they don’t look like that. But I’ve just… I’ve felt so bad, since everything happened, like maybe if I’d said something about that lie, he could have realized how nuts she was and done something about it.”
“But what could he have done?” Mia asked. “We’ve all had those moments, I think, where we overlooked something that wasn’t quite right. But none of us could have predicted what was really lurking underneath the surface with her. But seriously—meth?!”
“Meth,” Carolina repeated, nodding.
“That is insane,” Mia replied. “Is it okay if I tell Taylor now?”
“Yeah, I guess,” Carolina replied. At least Mia had the presence of mind to ask. Maybe she was trustworthy after all and Carolina had been too quick to judge her. If she ever learned who to trust and who not to, it wouldn’t be a moment too soon, Carolina thought.
Mia picked up her phone and began to type. Carolina bit her lip, wondering if she should say something to Taylor as well, or simply let Mia take care of it.
“You know she’s still constantly MySpace messaging him, though,” Emilia added.
“I still can’t believe what she said to you, either,” Mia said, her words obviously directed toward Emelia. Laura muttered her agreement.
“I think I missed something,” Carolina said. “What did Delanie say to you?”
“It was after the house show,” Emelia replied. “I wasn’t feeling well anyway, and I guess that’s why she was able to get through to me. Texting me that she thought Taylor was with Mia, that he was picking favorites and stuff. The implication being that I wasn’t on that list of favorites.”
“Yeah, but that wasn’t all,” Laura said.
Emelia shrugged, but it was obvious she was still hurt by whatever she was trying to downplay. “Well, I understand now why she would say things about how he just wasn’t interested in me and I wasn’t his type or whatever.”
“She just wanted to get under your skin. Eliminate someone she thought was standing in the way, coming between her and Taylor.” Carolina knew, as she said the words, that they applied to her, too. It was Delanie’s MO. Pick off the competition one by one, preying on whatever weakness she saw that would make that person no longer want to pursue him.
It hadn’t worked on her, at least. And it had clearly gotten to Emelia, but Carolina knew that she was still desperately into him. Laura had told her that only a few days ago, Emelia had confessed her feelings to Taylor, only to be let down gently. He had clearly handled it well, if she was still hanging around his fandom, Carolina thought. She was trying desperately not to think about what she would do if the same thing happened to her.
“I just really think he needs to like—I don’t know, how do you even ban someone from being a fan?” Laura spoke.
“I don’t know,” Mia replied. “And I don’t think he would take such a drastic step anyway. It’s not really his fault that she is the way he is. Maybe he gave her some reasons to assume the wrong thing, but her behavior—that’s on her, not on him. But I don’t know how he could or would… without, like, a restraining order or something.”
“Would that be such a bad idea?” Carolina asked.
Mia shrugged. “It might create a bad precedent. It’s just too confrontational for him. He doesn’t like to cause drama or really do anything that harsh, you know?”
Laura shook her head. “Well, maybe he needs to learn to be harsh. Some people deserve it.”
“You can tell him that, then,” Mia said. “I’m not sure he would listen to it coming from me. I’m probably too easy on him sometimes. I don’t know what he would do if I told him what to do, rather than just listening while he vents.”
“Yeah, I don’t think he would listen to me, either,” Laura admitted.
“Who are you talking to?” A disembodied voice asked, and it took Carolina by surprise. It had to be Zac, but hearing him without seeing him made it obvious—it was the voice she had heard in Taylor’s house, and it must have been him who surprised her in the bathroom.
“Just some of the girls—Emelia, Laura and Carolina. You met them all at Taylor’s show. We were just talking about some of the stuff Delanie did.”
“Mmm, that’s the crazy one, right?” Zac asked, walking back out of the frame, his voice and demeanor both seeming entirely disinterested, as though he didn’t really care about Taylor’s fandom but had heard enough to contribute to the conversation whether he wanted to or not.
“Well, I’m not sure she’s been diagnosed with anything. Or really is diagnosable at all. But yes, that one.”
Carolina shook her head. “It’s all too calculated. She knows what she’s doing. Her methods are absurd, maybe even crazy, but I don’t know if a person with some real psychological disorder could manipulate the way she has—well, maybe a sociopath, I suppose.”
“I’m just saying, none of us are psychiatrists, and we’re definitely not her doctor,” Mia replied.
“But she’s completely wackadoodle!” Zac added from somewhere off screen.
Mia rolled her eyes, but her lips turned up in the barest hint of a smile. She gave a quick glance off screen, in the general direction of Zac. “Alright, girls. I need to go help Zac with dinner. I would really like for him not to burn our house down right after he just moved in.”
“Thanks, babe; love you, too,” Zac replied.
The girls laughed, then quickly said their goodbyes and ended the call. Although it was still relatively early, Carolina was exhausted. She hadn’t felt like eating anything when she got home from work, but she supposed she probably should. She grabbed her phone and shuffled to the kitchen, where she found that she really needed to go grocery shopping.
Once she had located a frozen dinner that looked edible and stuck it in the microwave, she picked her phone up off the counter and opened a text to Taylor.
She turned her phone upside down and turned her attention back to the microwave. What if Mia hadn’t texted him at all earlier and Carolina’s message just confused him and opened up another can of worms? But no, she had seen Mia pick up her phone; she must have been texting Taylor.
Just as the microwave dinged, so did her phone.
Carolina felt somewhat let down by that response. Then again, she wasn’t sure what else she expected him to say. Ignoring her food completely, she typed another text.
After sending the text, she forced herself to put her phone away and get her meal out of the microwave. She carried it off to her office, hoping the inspiration to write might strike while she ate. She sat her phone on the desk and forced herself to focus on her food.
Her silent phone seemed to be taunting her. The minutes passed, but no further response came from Taylor. Maybe it hadn’t been the best joke in the world. It hadn’t really warranted a direct response, anyway. But it was an opening, of sorts, to further conversation, and it appeared Taylor was just going to leave it hanging.
That was fine. Carolina had writing to get done anyway. She couldn’t expect Taylor to be willing to talk to her at all hours. She would talk to him some other time.