A Rhapsody of Words
The only sound in the room after Taylor left was the soda he tripped over spilling out into the carpet. Diana turned on her heel and ran out as well, soon returning with a towel to clean up the spill. In her absence, I picked up the cup and stopped its progress across the room. Zac grabbed Taylor’s abandoned plate of food and hurried off to the kitchen with it.
We all worked together to clean up the mess Taylor had left behind – the physical mess, at least. It seemed no one wanted to be the first to address the other mess he had created. So, we consumed ourselves with mopping up soda and ignored the bigger issue. It was just easier that way.
The mess was gone in minutes, leaving only the slightest trace that Taylor had ever been in the living room, and leaving all of us with no more reason to stay quiet. Diana nervously fiddled with the dish towel in her hand and eyed the four of us.
“Well,” she said, glancing at all of us, but not focusing on any one person. “I just wanted to let you all know that I set out dessert. Just… help yourselves.”
She turned on her heel and walked back out of the room as though nothing at all out of the ordinary had just happened. Except for the damp spot on the floor and Taylor’s conspicuous absence, it was hard to tell that anything unusual had happened. But we all knew, even if nothing looked different, that things had changed irrevocably.
I looked at Zac, urging him with my eyes to say or do something, anything. I didn’t know what I expected of him, though. He had already proven that, while his heart was in the right place, he was just about useless in dealing with Taylor’s situation.
Isaac cleared his throat and I turned to look at him. He stood awkwardly in front of the television, as though his body had gotten ahead of his mind and stood up all on its own. “I should – I mean, this is kind of my fault. I’ll go talk to Taylor.”
“Ike, it’s not your fault,” Zac said. “It’s no one’s fault.”
“I don’t mean him being –” Isaac stopped and cleared his throat. “But I’m the one who made him talk about it. So, yeah. My fault.”
Isaac strode out of the room with purpose, although I wondered if he even had any clue what he was going to say or where Taylor had gone. He had a stubbornness about him, though, that I had to assume ran in the family. I stole a glance at his wife, who sat wordlessly in her chair, staring down at her half-finished dinner. I wondered if she felt as awkward as I did, intruding on this family crisis. At least I had been privy to Taylor’s problems before; I didn’t know how well she knew him at all and I didn’t really think it was the time to ask.
In fact, I didn’t really think it was the time to do anything but eat dessert and pretend that nothing was wrong. Yes, it was definitely time to call up my acting skills. I plastered on my best fake smile and turned back to Zac. “So, what’s for dessert?”
“Humble pie, for Ike,” he mumbled, low enough for only me to hear.
The pie, as it turns out, was pumpkin. Though I suppose somewhere in the house, Isaac probably did eat his own helping of humble pie as well. As for Zac and I, we beat a hasty retreat to his bedroom with plates piled high with pumpkin pie and German chocolate cake and lost ourselves in his and Taylor’s large dvd collection.
It was a shameless attempt to distract ourselves and hide out, but it seemed the only reasonable course of action. Maybe I should have felt like a coward, but I didn’t. On campus, I could meddle in Taylor’s business and boss Zac around; in their own home, it didn’t seem appropriate. I was a guest there, after all.
A guest who was, at that particular moment, cuddling with her boyfriend in his childhood bedroom. It felt a little strange, to be honest. The whole situation felt strange, but I didn’t know what to do about any of it. I was sure I would have had a worse Thanksgiving if I hadn’t gone home with Zac, though.
We stayed holed up on his bedroom for the rest of the afternoon. After we finished the second Harry Potter movie, Zac volunteered to go downstairs and retrieve some leftovers for dinner, but otherwise, neither of us moved at all for the rest of the evening.
The credits were just starting to roll on Mallrats when the door burst open and Taylor fell, rather unceremoniously, onto his bed. I looked at Zac, imploring him to say something, but he only gave me a shrug. With a sigh, I realized I would have to be the one to do the talking – even if it didn’t feel like my place.
Unable to think of anything smarter to say, I finally looked at Taylor and asked, “Are you alright?”
“Peachy,” he replied, picking at the hole in the knee of his jeans. “Are we having a Kevin Smith marathon?”
Zac shook his head. “Just a movie marathon in general. You can pick the next one if you want.”
Taylor seemed to consider the idea for a moment, biting his lip. Finally, he flashed us the tiniest of smiles. “Home Alone?”
With a huge grin, Zac sprung from the bed and retrieved the movie from the box in the floor where they, evidently, stored their shared movie collection. As he put it in the dvd player, he turned his head back toward me and explained, “It’s kind of a Thanksgiving tradition. We always watch it at some point, even though it’s a Christmas movie. We’re just weird like that.”
“Of course you are,” I replied with a laugh, then immediately regretted it. Considering the events of the day, was it really a good idea to call Taylor weird? A glance in his direction showed that he didn’t seem to have even registered my words. As Zac settled in next to me and picked up the remote, I grabbed his hand before he could press play. “Tay? Are you sure you’re alright?”
Taylor’s head snapped up and his eyes unclouded. “Yeah. Really. Let’s not make a big deal out of it, okay?”
“It is a big deal, though,” Zac replied.
Taylor gave a small, snorting sort of laugh. “Seems like you two are the only ones who think so.”
Zac and I tilted our heads in unison, and I momentarily wondered if we weren’t as bad as Isaac and Melissa. I supposed there were worse things to be than a couple who was that in sync with each other, though. After a moment, Zac asked, “What do you mean?”
“I mean,” Taylor said with a sigh. “Turns out, I was worried about nothing. Mom was more upset about the mess I made when I stormed out than she was about my sexuality. Dad didn’t really say anything, but when does he? And Isaac… well, turns out he already knew, anyway.”
“He knew?” Zac’s brow furrowed.
Taylor nodded. “I guess wasn’t… very discreet last year, when I was the only Hanson on campus. There’s a lot you didn’t see when you visited me. But Ike had friends who were still there, and I guess word got back to him. Not that he was surprised, though. Apparently.”
“If it makes you feel better, I was surprised,” Zac said.
“Yeah, I remember,” Taylor replied, his lips threatening to turn up in a smile.
“For what it’s worth,” I started, still feeling like I was intruding by even speaking. “I didn’t know, either. Not that I had really known you very long…”
“I never thought you were a good judge of character, anyway. After all, you’re dating Zac.” Taylor’s hint of a smile turned into a full on smirk at that, and the tension in the room finally began to dissipate.
Even though Taylor did honestly seem to be in a better mood, I didn’t see the need to press the issue and possibly upset him again. I nudged Zac, and he got the hint, pressing play on the remote. We settled back onto the bed together once again and the three of us watched the movie in silence – except for Zac and Taylor quoting various bits of the dialogue and laughing loudly, of course.
It was still pretty early when we finished that movie, so Taylor and I elected that Zac should go retrieve us more snacks and we should watch the second movie in the series. We all agreed, however, that the third movie didn’t exist.
With Zac out of the room, I found that I did feel a little more comfortable talking candidly with Taylor. “So, is Thanksgiving always this exciting here?”
Taylor chuckled. “Usually, no. I don’t make it a habit of screaming about my boyfriend during holiday dinners. The clumsiness is a kind of tradition, though.”
“I’d say the clumsiness is more daily than just once a year,” I pointed out with a smile. “But seriously, you’re alright?”
“For once, yeah, I’m alright. Mom and Dad were surprisingly cool about it all, like I said. They even want me to bring Joey to visit over Christmas break.”
I felt my smile growing wider. “That’s great! Have you told him yet?”
“No, I haven’t,” Taylor replied. “What about you? Are you going to visit for Christmas, too?”
“I think so. We talked about it a little bit. He wants to visit me at my dad’s, too.”
Taylor smiled back and finally seemed to relax completely, unfolding his ridiculously long body along the entire length of his bed. “That’s cool. I know I joked about you being a bad judge of character, but you two are great together. Not that Zac’s ever had bad taste in women, exactly. But you two just… fit. I like it.”
“I like it, too,” I replied with a giggle.
My giggle was still hanging in the air when Zac walked back into the room and he shot us both an accusing look. “Were you guys talking about me?”
“Conceited,” I shot back. “But… maybe.”
“About how devastatingly handsome I am, right?”
Taylor rolled his eyes and yanked a Dr. Pepper from Zac’s hands. “Yeah. That’s exactly what we were talking about.”
“I knew it,” Zac replied, plopping down on the bed next to me. He handed me a soda and gave me my choice of several bags of chips before handing the other bags to Taylor.
Despite the soda, my energy started to wane about halfway through the movie. I didn’t even realize it was happening until the sound of Taylor’s cell phone ringing brought me back to the land of the living. My eyes gradually came back into focus and I saw the credits rolling. I had already seen the movie a million times, though.
From the other side of the room, Taylor flipped his phone open and said, “Hey, baby.”
His tone of voice gave away that he was talking to Joey again and I couldn’t help smiling. I was glad that he was so comfortable now, at least around the two of us. He’d get more comfortable around the rest of the world, I was sure.
Zac gave me a slight nudge. “Are we that bad?”
“Oh, we’re way worse.” I giggled.
Zac giggled, and I could see from the look on his face that he agreed. Taylor spoke in hushed tones, all but turning to face the wall for a sense of privacy. Zac gave me another nudge. “Come on, let’s the lovebirds talk.”
A glance at the clock as we walked out showed that it was nearing midnight – no wonder I had fallen asleep so easily. I followed Zac across the hall and into the guest bedroom, where my pajamas from the night before still lay on the bed, waiting for me. I shrugged out of my clothes and pulled the pajamas on, Zac’s eyes on me the entire time from his perch on the side of the bed.
He wiggled out of his jeans as I made my way around to the other side of the bed and curled up under the covers. I hadn’t actually asked if he was spending the night with me; I just assumed he would. And evidently, he assumed the same thing. It was a good assumption to make, though. I curled up into his arms easily, as though we were two puzzle pieces made to go together. Maybe we were.
“Did you have a good Thanksgiving?” He asked.
I nodded. “Yup. Can’t think of anywhere else I’d rather spend the weekend.”
“Me either,” he replied. “But if you were there, it wouldn’t really matter where I was.”