The Best News
“Anybody here?” I called out as I walked into 3CG. Someone had to be there, since they had buzzed me in, but the studio was fairly quiet.
I had waited over a week before I decided to show my face there again. Even though he had made no attempt to contact me, I hoped that things with Zac had blown over. For all I knew, he had decided we were over and he really was going to try to work things out with Kate. It was what he claimed she wanted, and it seemed to me that no matter how much he fought with her, he did always go back to her. Why should now be any different?
“Hello?” I said again, walking down the hallway past a few open doors and empty rooms. “Anybody at all?”
I heard some shuffling footsteps and then Zac’s head appeared around the corner. “C-Colby?”
I nodded, my mouth going so dry that I couldn’t speak. Of course I should have expected to see him, but apparently I wasn’t prepared for it. He looked thin, if it was even possible for him to lose any significant weight in two weeks. And he looked older. I wanted to hug him, but I held myself back.
“I didn’t… I didn’t know you were coming by,” Zac said, sounding as breathless as I felt. “But it’s kind of a good thing you did.”
“Why is that?” I eyed him warily, my arms crossed more to keep myself from shaking than for any other reason.
“Will you come in my office so I can show you?”
His voice sounded sincere enough that I nodded and followed him. But I still didn’t quite trust him. After days and days of silence, he suddenly had something to show me? It made no sense.
I found Zac leaning over his desk, riffling through stacks upon stacks of papers. How his desk had become so messy after just a few weeks in that office, I didn’t understand at all. Finally, he glanced up and seemed to remember I was there, a packet of papers in a manila envelope in his hand.
“What’s that?” I asked.
Rather than speak, he held the packet out, forcing me to step into the room and take it from his hand. I opened it up and pulled out the stapled documents. Upon realizing they were legal documents, my stomach turned. Hadn’t we had enough of the courtroom drama? Then I realized… they were divorce papers.
“You’re… you’re getting a divorce?” I asked breathlessly.
“I filed for it,” Zac said, nodding. “It doesn’t mean she’ll agree to it, at least not without a fight, but I spoke to my lawyer and got him to fly out here so we could hash things out.”
Dumbly, I asked, “Why are you telling me this? Why are you showing me these?”
“Well, because… because…” He stared at me for a moment, looking incredulous. “I mean, isn’t this good? For us? I just thought you would want to know, but apparently I really missed the mark on that one.”
“What, did you do this for me? Because you thought it would make me happy?”
“Well, I didn’t think you would be upset by it,” Zac shot back.
“What the hell, Zac?” I practically screeched. “You can’t do something like that just because you think it’s what I want. And even if it is, that’s no reason to do it. If you’re going to divorce her, do it because it’s really what you want.”
“It is what I want,” he said, his face softening just a little. “It is. You know it is. But I really don’t get why you’re so upset about it when you were talking about how I needed to make a change and how things weren’t working the way they were going.”
I knew that conversation hadn’t gone the way I wanted, but I hadn’t expected this at all. Out of other options, I turned away from Zac and laughed. I was just this side of hysteria, and I had no clue how I was going to explain to Zac what I had really meant with the clumsy ultimatum I’d tried to give him.
“What is your problem, Colby?”
“I’m not the one with a problem,” I said, spinning back around. “I wasn’t asking you to leave your wife. I wasn’t even suggesting it. I was talking about your drinking, Zac. You show up shitfaced every time you fight with her, you spent days drunk after you found out about Layla… every time you have a problem, you sink to the bottom of a bottle. It’s starting to scare me, Zac. If every fight, with her or with me, turns into you running off somewhere to get drunk… I can’t be a part of this. I just can’t.”
“So that’s the change you were talking about,” he said, practically spitting the words out. “You want me to stop drinking. Like you have any more right to ask that of me than you do to ask me to leave Kate?”
“Not to be nitpicky, but I never asked you to do that—you just decided that I had.”
The anger that flashed in his eyes assured me that I really shouldn’t have said that. “What-the-fuck-ever. You’re right when you say you don’t have any right to ask anything of me. Especially when you start talking shit about me having a drinking problem. I mean, really? How many times did I see you drunk during the tour? I’m sure I’d see you drunk now too if you weren’t breastfeeding.”
“You would see me drinking,” I said as calmly as I could. “And you would maybe even see me drunk. I’m sure you have a few times. But you wouldn’t see me using it as a coping mechanism… and one that just makes all my problems worse.”
“Everybody uses it as a coping mechanism, Colby,” Zac replied. “Don’t act like you never have. You’re no better than me.”
I took a few steps back and threw my hands up. “I didn’t come here to debate this with you. As far as I’m concerned, it’s not up for debate. You don’t see it, fine. But I do. And until you do, too… I don’t know where that leaves us.”
“It leaves me wondering why I bothered with this,” Zac replied, shaking the divorce papers.
“See, there you go again,” I said. “You’re either with me or with her, but it’s never really a choice. You’re with who will have you in that moment, until you fuck up and go running back to the other. I’d like to be your choice, Zac. You say you love me, and maybe you do, but I’m not seeing it. I’m just seeing a drunk ping pong ball, bouncing back and forth between two women he claims to love.”
“Claims?” He repeated, his eyes growing wide. “Claims to love?”
“I’m sorry,” I said, backing further away from him. I’d seen this angry side of him before, and even if I knew that he was only lashing out at me because it was easier than being mad at himself, I couldn’t handle it. “I’m sorry, I should just go. I shouldn’t have come here in the first place.”
“You’re right. You should go.”
Zac’s glare was icy, and that was the final push I needed to just leave. I tried not to cry as I hurried out of the room, but I barely made it a few feet down the hallway before I was sniffling and blinking back heavy tears.
“Colby?” A voice asked, and I recoiled. After a moment, I realized it wasn’t Zac, but Taylor.
“Yeah, I’m on my way out,” I said, willing my feet to start moving again.
He poked his head out of room he was in and gave me a curious look. “Is everything okay?”
“Everything is about as far from okay as it could possibly be,” I replied, still sniffling. “Go ask your alcoholic-in-denial brother about it. Although he’ll probably just blame it all on me.”
Taylor stepped out of the conference room and leaned against the door frame. “Did you tell him you thought he had a problem? Because you know he won’t take that well. He’s just going to argue that he doesn’t.”
“Yeah, well, I didn’t think it would be that big of an argument,” I replied, wrapping my arms around myself. “I knew it wouldn’t give him the push he needed to change, but I thought it might at least give him something to think about. I don’t know what will make him change. I can threaten to leave, but so what? He’s got his wife to fall back on.”
“And that’s his problem, I guess,” Taylor replied. “Maybe it’s a side effect of basically always getting his way, and it’s too late to fix that now. But he’s never going to believe he ever really has anything to lose. He’s never stared down the barrel, you know?”
“And you have?” I asked, raising an eyebrow curiously.
Taylor shrugged. “Finding out your ex-girlfriend is pregnant does tend to make a guy reconsider some of his bad habits, yeah.”
“Yeah, well,” I shrank into myself more, not feeling like pointing out that finding out about my pregnancy had only driven Zac to the bottom of a bottle. “I don’t know what it will take to snap him back to himself. But I’m almost afraid to find out, and I can’t keep trying. I can’t kill myself in hopes of finding whatever that thing is.”
“And no one is asking you to,” Taylor replied, his voice soft. “You do what you need to do to keep yourself safe and sane. Maybe if someone doesn’t cater to Zac’s every whim for once, he’ll wise up. Maybe not. But it can’t hurt.”
It wasn’t much of a reassurance, but it was what I needed for right then. I nodded at Taylor, and he gave me a little pout. He held his arms out, and almost in spite of myself, I stepped in and let him wrap me up in his arms. I didn’t let the hug go on for long; I couldn’t have explained why, because I wasn’t attracted to Taylor like that, but I knew I would feel guilty if Zac had seen us.
“Thanks,” I said when I pulled away from him. “I don’t know… when I’ll see you again. I know I came back before, but it’s going to be a lot longer this time, I think.”
Taylor nodded. “It’s okay. I understand.”
I turned away from him then, wiped my eyes again, and walked out of the studio. There was no point in lingering any longer or someone else would try to convince me to stay. If that someone were Zac, I didn’t know what I would do. At least I didn’t think there was much of a possibility of that happening, considering how angry he seemed to be with me.
I had made it just a block down the street when my phone began to ring. I groaned in frustration, sure that it was some member of the Hanson family. Once I managed to fish it out of my purse, I saw that it was actually Tobias.
“Hello?” I asked, after swiping my finger across the screen to answer the call.
“Are you sitting down? God, that’s such a cheesy thing to say. But you need to sit down for this. Or actually, don’t. I don’t mean to get your hopes up but—“
“Oh for fuck’s sake, just spit it out!” I screeched at him.
Tobias chuckled. “Okay, okay. Well, they haven’t officially announced the winner, but the opening act contest…the poll is closed. And you were in first place.”
“No,” I replied almost instinctively.
“Yes,” He said. “And like I said, they haven’t made any official announcement, but you have to have won, right? You weren’t just in first place, either; you were blowing the competition out of the water.”
“I don’t… I don’t know what to say…” I replied breathlessly.
“Say you’ll come get me when my shift ends in about twenty minutes and we’ll go out to dinner to celebrate,” he replied.
Still breathless, I replied, “I’ll have to call Avery and make sure she can watch Layla a little bit longer, but… okay. I’ll be there. Or I’ll call you. Or something.”
“Okay, see ya soon.” The phone beeped to announce that the call had ended before I could say anything else.
I had won. I was going back on tour… and away from Zac. A part of me wanted to run right back to 3CG and tell him about the incredible opportunity I was about to have, but I knew I couldn’t. He would only whine about me leaving or tell me he was glad to see me gone. No matter what he did, it wouldn’t be good. He could ruin even the best news.