Silence
When I get back to my apartment, I climb right back into bed. I don’t even care that it’s the middle of the day or that I really should be at work. I guess I am as childish as people say I am, because right now, all I want is to basically throw a tantrum. How awful is that? I really just don’t care.
I just can’t do this.
I can’t go through every day knowing that I can’t ever touch Taylor again. I can’t look at him standing three feet away and know that isn’t enough distance. There just won’t ever be enough distance to make this okay. I could run away and hide out somewhere on the other side of the world, and it wouldn’t be enough to make this feel right.
But I can’t do that.
The music is the one fucking thing I still have in my life that makes sense, even if I can’t actually remember the last time I sat down and wrote a song. If I gave that up… if I quit the band… I wouldn’t even know who I was anymore. I wouldn’t be anyone. I would be lucky just to exist.
So what can do I? I have no answers for myself, and that’s why I just flop down on my bed and go back to sleep, as though I can just sleep the rest of my life away or wake up and discover this was just a nightmare.
It’s always disorienting to sleep in the middle of the day. You’d think I would get used to it, since it’s not like my life operates on any sort of normal, 9 to 5 schedule. But there are some things that just still seem to throw me off, and taking a long nap in the afternoon is definitely one of them. The sound of my phone ringing breaks through my dreams a few times, but I manage to ignore it and go back to sleep. When I finally do wake up, everything hurts and I have no idea what time it is until I roll over and reach for my phone, which is actually silent for once.
Five o’clock. Just in time for the dinner I have absolutely no appetite for.
Somehow, I manage to drag myself to the kitchen, but there’s absolutely nothing there that sounds appealing to me right now. In the end, I settle for nothing more than just a beer. It’s definitely not a balanced meal, but I don’t care. Maybe it’s melodramatic to say that it feels like my world is ending, because I know things could be so much worse, but nutrition really isn’t at the top of my priorities right now.
I flop down on the couch with my beer and flip on the television, but no channel holds my attention. It’s like nothing matters to me right now. I can’t feel anything at all now that I know this thing with Taylor has to end. I might as well be watching a test pattern for all that I care about or even manage to process whatever show it is I’ve finally landed on. Even the beer I’m drinking tastes like it might as well be nothing more than water. I down it quickly and go back for a second, and I can’t taste that one either. The third and fourth go down just as smoothly, and before I realize what I’ve done, the entire six pack is gone. I’m not drunk, but I’m not really anything at all. No amount of alcohol could numb me more than real life has.
I’m lying in a heap on the couch, an arm and leg dangling off the side, when I hear my phone ring again. Ringing. A phone call, not a text. That could be important, but I can’t really find it in myself to care. It’s only the fact that it just won’t stop that bothers me and convinces me to roll off the couch and make my way to my bedroom to see who could possibly be calling.
I should have known there was only one possibility.
Carrick.
He never calls. I can’t even remember the last time he called instead of just texting, and it’s that little fact that convinces me to finally answer when he calls again for what my phone tells me is the third time in a row.
“Hello?”
“Zac,” he breathes out, sounding relieved. “Where the hell are you?”
“I’m… in my apartment?”
“Well, obviously your phone still works, so…” he trails off with a nervous laugh, and I realize Carrick isn’t making a social call. He’s been put up to this, and I can guess who by.
“You talked to Taylor,” I say, not even bothering to phrase it as a question.
There’s a tiny pause on the line, and that’s all the acknowledgment I need.
“Why? Why would you talk to him?”
“He called,” Carrick says. “He was just… he sounded worried about you, Zac. What the hell are you doing, huh? Running out on rehearsal?”
I sigh. I don’t know what to say to him. I’m sure Taylor has already presented him with a dozen potential reasons for my behavior, and I just don’t have the energy to go through the reasons why each and every one of them is wrong. I just can’t. I’m really starting to think running away would be easier.
“Zac? Are you still there?”
“Yeah,” I reply, because as much as I want to, I can’t just lie to him. I can ignore him and avoid his questions, but if he presses the right buttons, I’ll eventually tell Carrick everything.
And he always presses the right buttons.
“I’m coming over,” he says suddenly. “I’m bringing brownies. The good kind. We can eat them and talk or we can eat them and not talk, but I’m coming over and you’re going to at least stare at my face for a couple hours.”
“I can think of worse things to stare at,” I admit, and it isn’t really a joke, but Carrick laughs anyway.
“I’ll be there in about twenty,” he says and hangs up before I can protest.
Not that I really want to protest. The stubborn part of me says I don’t need Carrick to babysit me, but if I’m honest with myself, it’s exactly what I want.
True to his word, Carrick arrives at my apartment in exactly twenty minutes. I’ve done nothing but stare at my phone since he ended the call, so I’m ready for it when the clock tells me twenty minutes are up and the buzzer by the door goes off. I buzz him up without even bothering to say anything into the intercom system first; not the safest move, really, but I know it’s Carrick. I’m not worried. And so what if it was an ax murderer? I’m not sure I’d even put up a fight.
But it’s not. It’s Carrick, an aluminum foil covered plate in his hand and a worried frown on his face.
“You look like hell,” he says honestly, shoving the plate into my hand like it’s some magic potion that will fix everything in my life.
If only.
We fall into a silent little routine as I let him into the apartment. Carrick follows me to the kitchen and uncovers the brownies while I dig a few sodas out of the refrigerator. I could go for a beer, too, but Mountain Dew just seems like the thing to drink with pot brownies.
Carrick’s brownies are a thing of beauty. I actually brace myself against the kitchen counter as I take the first bite, and I’m not even ashamed of the orgasmic moan I let out. These brownies are just that good. Carrick knows it. He just watches me with a satisfied smile on his face, letting me shamelessly scarf down two whole brownies before taking one for himself.
We’ve settled into the couch and made it halfway through the plate of brownies before Carrick speaks again.
“So, you gonna tell me what’s up?”
“Mmm… maybe,” I reply. “You gonna tell Taylor?”
Carrick tilts his head to the side in contemplation. “Why would I do that?”
“Well, he’s the reason you came to check on me. So I can only assume you’re going to report back to him after you leave me.”
“No,” he replies. “I’m not. I mean, yeah, he called and told me you were freaking him out, but I checked on you because I care about you. He’s just the reason I knew you needed me right now.”
I stare at him for a moment, as if I really need to consider his words to know if he’s telling the truth. Of course he is. I can’t think of a single time Carrick has lied to me in the five years I’ve known him. Maybe I’m just looking for an excuse to stare at him.
With a sigh, I finally say, “Yeah, okay. But you can’t tell anyone what I’m about to tell you. Not even Taylor.”
“What if he needs to know?” Carrick asks.
“He probably does,” I admit, “but please don’t tell him. I’ve got to deal with this on my own, or it’ll just turn into an even bigger mess.”
Carrick raises an eyebrow and I realize I’m getting ahead of myself. With another long sigh, I try to figure out where to begin this awful story.
“Okay, well… when we were gone to that festival? Taylor and I did something really stupid. Well, it was mostly me. I gave him head in this photobooth while it took pics of us. And I kept the pics, but apparently I left them in a pair of jeans in the laundry at my—at the house.”
“Kate found them?”
I shake my head. “No. Natalie did. She was helping and… s-she found them, and…”
It sounds like I’m going to cry, but I’m not. I just can’t get the words to come out of my mouth. All I can see in my mind is that awful, cold, evil look on Natalie’s face.
“She, umm… she basically said that if I wanted to be sure that no one else ever saw the pics, I would stay away from Taylor.”
There. I said it.
Carrick just stares at me for a moment, like he doesn’t totally believe what I’ve said. I probably have lied to him once or twice, but why would I lie about something this awful? After a moment, he nods, like the meaning of my words is just sinking in.
“Okay… okay, that’s fucked up. But like, you just have to get the pics, right? Problem solved.”
I shake my head. “What if she’s made copies, though? And how am I going to get them? I could tell Taylor, but… I just feel like he doesn’t need anything more to worry about.”
“Don’t you think he ought to know he married a psycho bitch?”
“I think he knows,” I reply. “He just… doesn’t care. Because marrying her was somehow better than the alternative. Or because our parents practically forced him to. And staying with her… he’s decided that’s better than the alternative, too. And if she’s this psycho, it actually might be.”
Carrick nods again, a little more slowly this time. “Yeah… okay. There has to be some way to stop her, though.”
“Or I could just stay away from Taylor… forever.”
“And how is that going to work? I mean, you’re still in a band together.”
“It worked for over a decade,” I reply with a shrug. “I can be his brother and his bandmate without…”
I can’t even finish the sentence because it isn’t true. I can’t—not without being little more than a shell of a person, just drifting through life without feeling anything other than a desperate need for Taylor.
“So what do I do?” I ask, my voice barely above a pathetic whisper.
“I don’t know,” Carrick says honestly. “But we’ll figure something out. It’ll be okay… somehow.”
I know he barely believes the words he’s saying, but he knows they’re what I need to hear. I don’t quite believe them, either, but I desperately want to. With nothing more we can really say on the subject, we lapse into a comfortable silence again, curled up on the couch with what’s left of his brownies.