Apologies
The guys joked about being alcoholics, but as the tour went on, I really started to wonder if there was some truth behind those jokes. It seemed they took every opportunity they could to go drinking, and only some of those opportunities managed to pass as promotion for their beer. The rest just seemed like shameless partying of the variety I’d seen people do in college. I never associated with the party crowd, though I did drink. My drinking was more along the lines of wine and cheese at endless music department parties where I knew I would never really fit in.
I wasn’t sure I really fit in anywhere, even now.
I definitely didn’t have any interest in spending every night drinking and then having to do my job hungover the next day. Whatever bug I’d picked up in Toronto hadn’t left my system yet, though no one else on the tour seemed to have it, which only cemented my suspicion that it was my nerves. I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t hack it in this business, at least not if meant working with Zac Hanson. All the nausea and puking was my stomach’s way of getting that message through to the rest of me.
It seemed a little excessive, really. I had already very nearly made up my mind to tell Taylor I couldn’t take the job, but I didn’t know how to actually say it. And the longer I delayed, the more it made me sick.
I had hoped to get him alone when we had a night off, but of course, the band and crew decided to take advantage of that night off and go out drinking yet again. I had no desire to join them, and Annalee wasn’t that much of a drinker either, so she stayed at the hotel with me. She wasn’t feeling as sick as me, but I could tell she was tired, too, so the two of us had nothing more planned than showering and going to bed. I had showered first and was laying on my bed trying to find something to watch on television while Annalee took her shower. A knock at the door surprised me, since I was positive everyone else was gone. Who could possibly be coming to see us?
I should have known.
When I opened the door, Zac nearly fell into the room, a cloud of alcohol vapors following closely behind him. I gagged a little on the smell of it, a mixture of beer, vodka and sweat, and shoved Zac off of me.
“What the hell are you doing?” I asked.
He frowned. “Talking to you. I mean, I wanted to. Talk to you. That’s what I came… to your room for.”
“I don’t think you’re in any condition to talk,” I replied, then took a step back into the room, still holding the door open for him. “But I’m not going to argue with you in the hallway.”
Zac stared at me for a moment, his brain too addled by alcohol to process that I was telling him to come into the room. Finally he figured it out and followed me inside, letting the door slam behind him. I winced, hoping Annalee hadn’t been able to hear that from the bathroom at the opposite end of the room.
“What do you want?” I asked, crossing my arms over my chest.
“To talk,” he replied, still looking perplexed.
I rolled my eyes. “You said that already. What about?”
“I… umm…” he began, clearly struggling to even think. I didn’t think I had ever seen Zac that drunk, and it was almost more frightening than when he was angry. His face settled into a frustrated frown. “Why do you have to be such a bitch?”
“That’s what you came here to talk about?”
“Not really, but you are one,” he replied. “You just… you can’t just let things be, can you? I mean, my life was fine… well, it coulda been worse… before you.”
I walked back toward the door. “I’m sorry, but if you’re here to blame me for ruining your life again, you can just leave.”
Zac shook his head. “No, that’s not… I wasn’t… What I mean is, you just frustrate me so much. I’m not blaming you. It’s just a fact.”
“Whether it is or isn’t a fact, you still need to go,” I replied. “Annalee is going to be out here any minute, and I really don’t feel like explaining to her why you’re drunk and rambling at me.”
“She doesn’t know about us?” He asked, tilting his head to the side.
“Why would she know? Did you think I would tell her?”
Zac shrugged. “I don’t know you. I don’t know what you would do.”
“Of course I didn’t tell her,” I practically hissed. “Despite what you seem to think, I’m actually not trying to ruin your life. So no, I didn’t tell her. Taylor suspects, I think, and I can’t help that. But I haven’t told anyone and I’m not going to.”
That seemed to surprise him. He recoiled from me like I’d actually hit him. “I didn’t… I shouldn’t have said that. About you ruining my life, I mean.”
“Damn right you shouldn’t have,” I replied. “Now can you just go?”
“No, not before… it’s just, I wanted to apologize, I guess.”
“You guess?” I echoed, raising an eyebrow.
He nodded. “I did. I wanted to apologize. For saying that. And just… god, this is all such a mess. I know I’m making it worse by… letting you into my life… but it was a clusterfuck anyway, and god forbid I actually do something that made me happy for once.”
I stared at him. I refused to let him get to me, even though he was so close. But what did it matter if I made him happy? I shook my head. “No. No, you don’t get to be that selfish, Zac. Because you know—you just said it—that you’re only making things worse.”
“And you don’t get to decide what I can do,” he replied, his voice turning into that angry growl I recognized immediately from my eavesdropping.
“When it concerns me, yes I do,” I replied. “I thought you figured out this was wrong. I thought that was why you have barely said ten civil words to me since Kansas.”
“Yeah, well, maybe a new baby can’t fix everything,” he said. “I think Kate’s figured that out, and you ought to figure it out, too. Don’t assume you know anything about my life.”
I gaped at him. “I didn’t… I didn’t say that. You don’t get to start snapping at me, Zac. I didn’t do anything.”
“Whatever,” he said. “I don’t know why I even bothered trying to apologize to you.”
“Then just go!” I hissed. “Annalee is going to come out and see this, and I can’t explain it to her. And I don’t care. Let it ruin your life. It’ll be your own damn fault if everybody finds out what you really are.”
Zac stepped in closer to me and narrowed his eyes. “You’ll be dragging yourself down with me, you know. If I’m so bad for sleeping with you, what do you think you are? Huh?”
I had no reply for that. Maybe he was right. Maybe I was just as bad as him. As Taylor had pointed out weeks ago, I knew who and what Zac was when I got into this. I made the choice to be with him anyway, so what did that make me?”
“Fuck apologizing to you,” he spat. “You don’t deserve it.”
With that, he turned and left. Only seconds after the door closed behind him, Annalee walked back out into the room. Thankfully, I was too shocked by Zac’s mood swing to even cry, so Annalee didn’t even seem to notice that anything was wrong. In a matter of minutes, we were both in bed and I was trying desperately to forget what Zac had said and go to sleep.
I wasn’t successful until early in the morning, instead spending most of the night staring at the ceiling. I didn’t even remember falling asleep, but I was jarred awake by my churning stomach just a little bit after nine in the morning. If we’d been working that day, it would have been my alarm or Machine knocking on the door that woke me, and I decided, as a scurried to the bathroom, that I would have greatly preferred either of those.
Once again, I found myself glued to the toilet, shaking and heaving even though there was nothing in my stomach that could possibly come up. I hadn’t eaten anything but a tiny salad the night before, and it didn’t seem to be the cause for this round of nausea. Still, I remained over the toilet, coughing and wishing I were dead.
“Are you alright?” Annalee asked from outside the bathroom. “Still got that stomach bug?”
“Yeah, and I guess I do,” I replied, pushing my hair back as another round of dry heaves hit me.
“I’m going to go get you some soda,” she said. “Maybe the vending machine has ginger ale or Sprite… something like that will help.”
I mumbled something I hoped sounded like “okay,” then leaned over the toilet again. Still nothing but nausea and those awful dry heaves.
A few moments later, when I heard Annalee returning the to room, I struggled to pull myself to my feet and rinse my face off. I didn’t really need to, but a little cool water might feel nice, I decided. I splashed my face with it a few times, then gripped the sink as the room began to spin. Once it slowed down, I took a look at myself. I looked awful; I had definitely lost weight and there were huge dark circles under my eyes.
Right then, I made a decision. I couldn’t take the job, and I couldn’t stay on this tour any longer.