After a full day of driving and awkward silence, Mac announced it was time to start looking for a hotel to stay the night in, because he was too tired to keep driving. I nodded cautiously. I hadn’t necessarily done anything to make him mad, and yet he was shutting me out anyway. I hope that no one ever has to be around me and Mac when we are both cranky, tired, and cooped up in a car all day because I’m sure the heavy sighs and eyerolls were getting to be a bit too much.
“Alright…home sweet home for the night,” he said as we rolled into a Holiday inn off of the highway. “Don’t tell Mom it’s taking us so long to get out there. We probably shouldn’t have stayed the whole day with Ave.”
“Why would Mom care?”
“Because she always cares.”
“True.”
We hauled our backpacks and duffel up to our room, surprisingly tired from sitting all day. When we got into the room, Mac asked if I wanted to order pizza, since we didn’t stop for dinner. I shrugged noncommittally. He threw me a look of annoyance.
“Why are you mad?” I asked, unable to leave any scab alone. I just had to keep picking.
He sighed yet again and turned to look at me, setting his phone back down after ordering our food. “I’m not…I’m not mad. I’m sorry. I’m just stressed out about all of this.”
“That’s understandable. You didn’t have to snap at me like that though. This is supposed to be a fun road trip.”
“Yeah, I know. I promise tomorrow will be better. I guess I should…call Taylor back.”
“What do you think he’ll say to you? Did you tell him what happened?”
“Yeah, I did.”
“Can I…know?” I asked cautiously. I wanted to know the details, as usual. Mac looked pained, but figured it would be easier to just tell me now, since I would surely find out anyway. I had a knack for that kind of thing, after all.
“Fine,” he said and flopped down on the bed next to me. I grabbed a pillow and held it tight to myself, leaning in as though I was at a slumber party with my best friends. “So…so Charlotte got married last fall, right?”
“Yeah, I remember.” Mac had come home for the wedding, since he was still good friends with Charlotte and knew Luke, her new husband, as well. Charlotte’s sister, Amelia, was around my age and we were friends, but not super close. Mac had definitely been in a weird place for the weekend. I thought about it. Charlotte must have been his first ex to ever get married.
“Well I went and it was weird. Don’t ever go to any of your exe’s weddings, it’s a really dumb idea. Even if everything is fine and you’re friends. It’s still…weird, I don’t know.”
“Mmmhmm…” I said, nodding and not breaking our eye contact.
“So anyway, she got married and that was fine. Not a big deal. But…we got coffee a couple days before the wedding and we hadn’t really been talking that much before then…since she was dating Luke and I was in California. Anyway…um…we kept talking you know…just as friends.”
I didn’t like where this was going, but I tried my best to keep the judgement out of my face.
“So we texted a lot and then…well marriage wasn’t all that she thought it would be. Let’s just say that. So then…she visited me.”
“Mackenzie.”
“Shut…shut up Zoe, you don’t…you don’t understand.”
“I think I do, actually.”
“Let me finish!!”
“Fine, go on.”
“So she visited me a couple months ago and…things…happened.”
“Obviously.”
“ZOE.”
“SORRY, okay go…”
“I guess you can probably fill in the rest.”
“Is she telling people it’s Luke’s?”
“Yeah, of course.”
“Ouch.”
“Yeah well, what are you gonna do? I would rather her tell people it was his than tell people it was mine. Can you imagine? Mom would have a cow.”
“Hold on, aren’t you always the one who is telling me not to care what Mom thinks?” I inquired, raising my eyebrows even though I knew the answer.
“That’s…different Zoe.”
“It is?”
“You’re driving me insane. Okay, I’m gonna order pizza then call Taylor. Just…do whatever you want.” He stepped out of the hotel room to place his calls, and I grabbed my laptop out of my backpack, searching for the wifi information on the placard by the bed. When I was finally online, I immediately went to the fansites that I hadn’t checked in a couple days, scanning them quickly before Mac came back. I knew I would only have a few moments.
I had posted a picture on Instagram this morning of the three of us – Avery, Mac, and myself, and there already seemed to be a bit of a discussion about it blooming underneath the photo. Mostly people commenting about how nice we all looked, how happy and genuine our smiles were. From my time lurking, I had learned that Avery was well liked in the fandom, even though no one knew about her estrangement from my mother or the fact that she had been kicked out. She was so sweet to fans, though, that I couldn’t blame them for loving her. That’s just who she was. Mac…not so much. People complained about him being rude and sarcastic, and instances where he was blatantly rude to fans were pretty common. I had seen it happen plenty of times. This year was the first time we didn’t have him around for Hanson Day, and I had a feeling that his excuse was mostly made up. I knew how much hea hated that weekend every year, when our town was overrun with rabid fans, screaming the names of his older brothers, so when he said he had gigs that weekend that he couldn’t pass up, I wondered if it was necessarily true.
I scrolled through all the websites and only looked up when Mac came back into the room. I clicked out of the pages, having learned my lesson from leaving all my tabs open at Zac’s house.
“Did you talk to Tay?”
“Not yet…will you go downstairs and wait for the pizza? Here’s money,” he said, handing me some cash. I begrudgingly got off the bed and went downstairs, wishing I could listen to his conversation with Taylor. When the pizza arrived it smelled so good it made my stomach groan with longing, but I wasn’t sure I wanted any. I had just sat in the car all day, and I didn’t feel as though I had necessarily earned anything that indulgent. I knocked on the door and Mac let me in, his phone still plastered to his ear. I saw doubt flicker in his face, and knew he was wondering whether he should hang up or just accept the fact that I was going to hear his side of the conversation.
“I mean…I know it’s different Tay. I know that. Right. I know.”
I laid on my stomach and watched my brother pick out a few slices and lay them on a napkin, eating them as he talked. He didn’t even think about it.
“I’m not…I’m not telling them. NO! How…What would that possibly achieve. Yeah she does. No. No she’s not going to tell them. I don’t…no she won’t.” I saw him glance over at me, and I knew they were talking about my habit of tattling.
“I won’t!” I said defensively. I was already bored of not being included so I went back to looking at the websites, thinking I was safe, since Mac was busy eating and talking on the phone. I clicked around aimlessly, searching through the tag of my own name before realizing with sinking dread that Mac had paced his way around the room and was behind me.
“What are you doing?!” He asked, “No not you, Tay. Sorry I…sorry I’ll call you back.” He hung up the phone and put it in his pocket, looking at me in horror. “Didn’t I tell you that was an awful idea?!”
“You said it was a bad idea…”
“Literally same thing, Zo.
“It’s not a big deal. Calm down. Call Taylor back. God, why does everyone have to be hovering over me all the time?!”
“What are you talking about?”
“Zac yelled at me for it too, and just…I don’t know I feel like everyone is trying to tell me what to do and not to do while also telling me I need to be more independent,” I felt my cheeks getting flushed with rage, the words pouring out of my throat before I could fully form my true feelings.
“Zoe, I’m not yelling at you…and…Zac yelled at you too? That means you’re doing this more than just a few times if two of your brothers have caught you in the act.”
“JUST LEAVE ME ALONE!” I shrieked, the echoes of my words bouncing off the walls of the hotel room.
I looked up at Mac, who looked like he had been slapped. That now made two brothers who looked at me like that in the past few days. I wondered how long it would be until I made Taylor and Isaac look as that shocked.
“Fine,” Mac said, putting his hands up as though pleading with me to cease fire. I knew I should apologize for snapping, but instead I went into the bathroom and slammed the door, putting my hands over my overheated face. I looked at myself in the mirror and instantly hated what I saw. I wanted to claw the skin off of my bones. I wanted to kneel in front of the toilet and heave up everything, even though I hadn’t really eaten much that day. I didn’t know what to do, my breath started coming in gasps.
Before I knew it, my vision began to go fuzzy around the edges, and I couldn’t catch my breath. The gasps became louder, and I heard Mac’s footsteps rushing to the bathroom and knocking on the door. I couldn’t tell him to come in or stay out, so he flung the door open and and maybe asked me what was wrong, but I couldn’t hear him. All I could hear was my own panic drumming in my ears.
***
“I think it would be a good idea if you ate something…” Mac said about an hour later, after I had calmed down. We were laying in the bed together, watching TV but not really paying attention to the content, just letting the sound chase away the bad thoughts that were swirling around our heads.
“I’m nauseous. I don’t think that would be a good idea.”
“Maybe it would settle your stomach.”
“Maybe like…a coke? Or something? I don’t want to throw up,” I responded, even though in some deep part of myself, I kind of did.
“I’ll get one from the vending machine,” he said, and sprang up from the bed, grateful for something active to do. I was so ashamed at the panic attack that had overtaken my body, leaving me shivering on the bathroom floor in the middle of a hot summer night. When Mac came back I took the bottle from him with a weak smile.
“Maybe I shouldn’t have come with you,” I mumbled.
“Come on, Zo, it’s fine. I promise.”
“Don’t…tell anyone, okay?”
“Okay. Lips are sealed.”