Distance
I spend the next few days hiding in my apartment. What else is there for me to do? I don’t trust myself around Taylor at all now, not after what he very nearly told me. And now that I know… I can’t get near him again or I’ll lose everything.
It isn’t fair.
It’s not as though I really thought that people would be okay with this thing between us, but I guess the way Carrick so readily accepted my feelings for Taylor spoiled me a little. I never stopped to worry about what would happen if other people found out, and now the worst person possible knows. Of all the people who could possibly find out, Natalie is easily the one who stands to gain the most from it.
Maybe I should tell Taylor. Shouldn’t he know how crazy his wife is? But no. I don’t see what that would accomplish at all. She’s going to do what she wants and get what she wants no matter what. All these years, I don’t think anyone has believed me when I made little comments about her. Hell, sometimes I wasn’t even sure I was right about how bad Natalie really was. As it turns out, she’s so much worse. So, so much worse.
And that’s why I can’t tell him. Because whatever she’s planning, she’ll find a way to make it happen. She won’t stop.
So I have to. I have to stop this thing between me and Taylor.
When he texts me, I almost throw my phone across the room just from the shock. Once I come to my senses, though, I realized that he’s only asking me to come into the office to rehearse. We don’t have any concerts for a while, but we’re clearly woefully out of practice, so I guess I have to go.
It’s almost laughable how little progress we’ve made on this new album. Somehow, we’re supposed to go into the studio this fall, and I just don’t know how we’re going to be ready. When I think back over what’s happened this summer, though, it’s not really surprising that songwriting has taken a bit of a backseat. I don’t remember any other time that we’ve sunk this low, though. Even in the darkest depths of our fight with the record label, we kept writing. But I think we did it think as a subconscious fuck you to them. They hated everything we wrote, but we weren’t going to stop.
Now, though… now it’s different. Now we’re only battling each other and our own demons.
I’m not ready to throw in the towel and I hope Tay and Ike aren’t either, but it feels like I might as well be learning how to write and play all over again. That’s how out of practice I am. Just sitting at my drums feels awkward. They used to be like an extension of my body, a part of me, but now nothing feels right. If I could crawl out of my own skin, I would. I couldn’t possibly feel more uncomfortable in anyone else’s than I do in my own right now.
“Zac? Are you even listening to me at all?”
I blink and watch as Isaac’s face comes into focus. I wonder how long I’ve been staring off into space. Judging by the frustration on his face, quite a while. Oops.
“Yeah,” I reply, then sigh when he only glares more. “No, I wasn’t. Sorry.”
“Didn’t think you were. I’m going to go get lunch, since we’re getting fuckall done here.”
Before I can protest, he slams his notebook down and stands up to leave. He’s angry with me, I know he is, and he has every right to be. I haven’t contributed a damn thing to the song we’ve been working on all morning and, frankly, the song sucks. I don’t know how to fix it, though. I don’t know how to fix anything. So I just can’t find it in myself to even try.
Once Isaac is gone, it’s just me and Taylor in the room and that’s no good at all. I mumble something about how I need to get lunch, too, and I don’t even consider inviting him along. I just can’t. I can’t be around him at all.
It’s not that I don’t trust myself around Taylor, although I really, really don’t. It’s Natalie.
He follows me out of the studio, and I realize that I’m just not going to get off the hook easily. It’s not like me to avoid him, after all. I’ve spent the better part of my life clinging pathetically to Taylor. Now I’m practically running away. Even someone as typically clueless as him would notice the difference. Especially after everything he came so close to admitting the other day…
It’s a cruel twist of fate that Natalie would give me this ultimatum now that I know how Taylor feels. I’m not sure why I expected anything else. My life is just that fucked up, and fate just loves fucking with me that way. After all, it decided the guy I wanted more than anything just had to be my brother.
“Zac!” Taylor calls out, and I can hear his shuffling footsteps behind me, doing everything he can to catch up.
As much as I don’t want to, my body just… stops. At the very sound of Taylor’s voice, I’m frozen on the spot, even though I know I need to keep walking.
“Where are you going? I’m hungry, too, you know,” he says, his hand on my back making me jump. I didn’t realize he was that close.
I sigh, not spinning around to face him. “I don’t know. Just… away from here.”
“I thought you were going to lunch?” He asks, and I can practically hear his brow furrowing and his head tilting to the side in confusion.
“I am, I’m just…” I sigh again. “Just let me go, okay?”
Taylor doesn’t. Of course he doesn’t. He uses the strength I so often forget he has to spin me around and force me to look at him. “What the hell is your problem today, Zac? Are you stoned or something?”
That’s where his mind goes? I guess it’s a good thing. I could lie and say that I am, and leave here looking like an asshole, but at least not having had to tell him the truth. Somehow, though, I can’t lie that much.
I shake my head. “No, I’m… I’m just not feeling good today, alright?”
“Alright,” Taylor replies, but he doesn’t quite look like he buys it. “Are you still going to lunch, though? Can I tag along?”
“No,” I practically snap, pulling back from his grasp on my arm. “I mean, I just… I’m just gonna go home. I don’t think that’s… such a good idea.”
“Lunch together isn’t a good idea?” Taylor asks, raising an eyebrow. “What, afraid you won’t be able to resist bending me over the table?”
“What?!” I gasp out. “Tay… that’s… just let me go, alright?”
For a second, he looks angry. But then that fades way and that vulnerable look I saw the other day returns. “I just thought… it meant something. What we talked about. What I told you. I thought it meant something.”
I sigh. “It did, Tay. It’s just… it’s just not that simple. It doesn’t fix anything.”
“Yeah, fine,” he snaps. “Just go, then. Run off to Carrick.”
If I didn’t know better — and I’m not sure that I do — I would say that he sounds jealous. Is it possible? Taylor Hanson… jealous of someone? It just seems completely impossible, yet here it is, happening.
“I’m not… I’m not running off to him. I’m just leaving here. I just need to not be here right now.”
Taylor’s eyes stay narrow. “Why does it feel like you’re just trying to get away from me?”
Because I am.
“You are, aren’t you?” Taylor asks. “Why? What did I do?”
I sigh. “You didn’t do anything.”
“So it was something I said?” He takes a step closer and instinctively I back away.
“No,” I reply, shaking my head. “It’s just… this is what I need to do, okay? I can’t explain it any more than that. I just need… we just need… some distance.”
“Look,” Taylor says, reaching out and gently touching my arm. “I get it if you’re still upset that I’m staying with Natalie. I know it… doesn’t make a lot of sense, and I know you’re going through a lot with Kate right now. And it will be good for you, I think, once it’s over. But it’s not… my life just isn’t that simple. I can’t just leave.”
“I know,” I reply, my voice barely above a whisper.
And oh how I know. I may know, even more than he does, just how trapped he is. A part of me is screaming that I should tell him. That he needs to know what an evil, manipulative bitch his wife is. But surely he knows. Surely that’s why he always insists that he can’t leave her. He’s caught between a rock and a hard place, and even if I told him the awful truth about her, it wouldn’t change anything.
Knowing what she’s done wouldn’t magically make it possible for him to leave. And he doesn’t need any more pain, anyway.
And that’s why I can’t tell him.
I pull away from his grasp yet again and take a few more backward steps away from him. “Just let me go, Tay. Everything will be… okay… I just need to go right now. We just need a little space.”
“Yeah, fine. Whatever,” he replies, crossing his arms over his chest.
I’m sure he wants to fight more, but he can see that at least for the moment, I won’t be persuaded. I’m not sure how long that will be the case, though. If anyone can break down my defenses, it’s Taylor, and he knows it.
Before he can start to persuade me again, I turn on my heel and practically sprint out of the office. I have to put some real, physical distance between the two of us. If I can get away from him… if I can stay away enough to forget the way his touch feels… maybe I can do this. Maybe I can really end it.
I have to end it, I remind myself. Natalie made that clear enough; it’s not a matter of if. It’s a matter of what she’ll do to us both if I don’t.
As I get on my bicycle and ride back to my apartment, I have to keep reminding myself of that. With every second that passes and every yard farther from Taylor I get, I have to remind myself why I’m putting this distance between us. It’s to save our asses—his, especially. It’s to save Kate from knowing what a horrible man she married and had children with. Selfishly, it’s to save my own skin and keep everyone from hating me. They would hate Taylor, too, though. And he has so much more to lose if his marriage fell apart. He may not love Natalie—I’ll never be convinced that he does—but I know he would crumble and fall apart under the weight of a divorce, especially under these particular circumstances.
I can’t let any of that happen.
I know I’m just a pawn for Natalie, but I’ll do what I can, what’s still within my control. If I have any self control left at all, then I have to use it to keep myself away from Taylor.