Push
It takes two more days for Carrick to finally nudge me out of my apartment. Okay, he practically has to push me—physically. But I know I can’t ignore Isaac and Taylor’s phone calls forever. The fact that Taylor actually cared enough to call kind of scared me. It made me wonder if he had any idea what was really going on.
No. He couldn’t.
The more I think about it, though, the more I realize that he needs to know. I don’t like that realization, but that doesn’t make it any less true. How can I possibly face something like this alone? Sharing it with Taylor means splitting the burden a little; maybe that way, neither of us will collapse under the weight of it.
But maybe we will. It’s a risk I think I have to take.
All these thoughts keep swirling around my mind as I make my way to the studio with Carrick, and I still come to no real conclusions about what to do. Somehow, I do have to tell Taylor—I’m just not sure how. I’m glad Carrick is going to be at the office, too, even if we won’t be working together. Just having him near will help.
There’s a good chance that I’m leaning on him way to much lately, but I really don’t care. I need him.
My one saving grace is that everyone is in the office today, so there’s precious little time for Taylor and I to be alone. We have to get these demos laid down; we’ve been putting it off for too long. At this point, the next album is just some vague concept, this thing we know is going to happen at some point in the future, but god only knows when or how. The motivation to really make the album just isn’t there right now, not for any of us. This is the least direction I think we’ve ever had—possibly even worse than the three years it took us to finish Underneath. At least then the one thing we had going for us was our drive to keep going. Now I’m not sure we even have that. I don’t like it, and I really don’t like the sinking feeling that a lot of it is my fault.
With none of us feeling especially creative, we decide just to focus on laying down some guide tracks for a few songs. That’s easy enough; at this point in our careers, it’s something we can just about do in our sleep. Nothing has to be perfect, or even all that good. We just have to get the basic idea of the song recorded. Guide tracks are definitely the best course of action on a day when we’re clearly all none too happy about being in the studio.
We work all the way through to lunch without taking a single break. I’m actually surprised when one of our interns pokes his head cautiously through the door to let us know they’re all ready to call in an order at Mexicali. When did it get so late? It feels like we just got here, and I can tell by the confused looks on their faces that Isaac and Taylor feel the same way. Maybe all we needed to feel normal again was to get back to our music.
But maybe not.
Things might feel normal right now, but I know that certain things will never be normal again.
As soon as that thought crosses my mind, my appetite is gone. I know I can’t just not order lunch, though; that would draw too much unwanted attention. I rattle off my usual burrito order anyway, just to keep everyone off my back, but I doubt I’ll be able to force more than a few bites of it down my throat.
We continue working until the guys get back with our lunch order, and then we break to eat. Everyone scatters around the building; there’s obviously some unspoken tension in the air still, so no one really wants to be within the splash zone. They may not know what’s wrong, but everyone can feel it. Everyone knows something bad is about to happen. But no one but me really knows what the problem is. If it were up to me, no one else ever would.
I hide in one of the back rooms, one that’s usually just used for storage, to eat my lunch. It ‘s pathetic, but at least I’m alone. For a while. When I hear footsteps through the larger storage area, headed my way, I know without even looking out the door that it’s Taylor. Who else, besides his wife, has such impeccable timing when it comes to ruining my day?
“Zac,” he says, breathing heavily like he’s been running a marathon around the building searching for me. “There you are. Are you hiding or something?”
“Or something,” I mumble, the words going completely unnoticed by Taylor as he walks right into the room and sits down on the opposite side of the table.
“What are you doing?” He asks. “Seriously.”
“Eating lunch,” I reply, ignoring the fact that I’ve taken all of three bites out of my burrito.
Taylor rolls his eyes. “I said seriously. Why are you being like this? It feels like you’re pushing me away.”
“Maybe I am,” I say.
Taylor reels back like I’ve actually physically punched him. “But… why? After what I told you?”
“It has nothing to do with that.” That’s as close to the truth as I want to get, even though I know it won’t be enough to soothe his worries.
“So if it’s not about that, then what did I do?” Taylor asks, still pushing me just like I knew he would. At least there are some small ways in which I can predict his behavior, even if everything else about him makes no sense at all.
“Nothing,” I reply as emphatically as I can, and it almost sounds believable. “It’s not about anything you did.”
I can already tell as the words fall out of my mouth that Taylor’s going to read too much into them. I put too much emphasis on you and he knows it is about something someone did. He’s going to ask. He’s going to fucking ask and I’m going to fucking tell him. It’s absolutely unavoidable now. I’m not sure, but I think I’m hyperventilating.
“Then what—or who—is it about?” He asks. “Is it… Carrick?”
And just like that, I can breathe again. I let out a huge sigh and shake my head. I don’t even realize how much I must have been freaking out until I feel Taylor’s hand on my shoulder, like he’s anchoring me and pulling me back to the surface.
“What the hell is it, Zac?” He asks. His voice is soft, but still imploring. He’s getting agitated because I can’t just spit it out, but there’s something more than that in his words, something gentler in his tone.
He cares. He actually cares. And that’s why I tell him.
“It’s your wife,” I finally manage to choke out.
Taylor just stares blankly at me, his hand falling from my shoulder and landing with a soft thud on the table between us.
I take a deep breath before I continue. “Natalie… she, she found the pictures. Of us. From the photobooth.”
His eyes blink rapidly for a moment, and I swear I can actually see the gears in his mind turning, trying to make sense of my words. After a moment, he shakes his head, “No… no she didn’t. She didn’t say anything.”
“Not to you,” I reply. “She was helping Kate with the laundry and she found them. She came right to me, and told me… told me never to touch you again.”
Taylor’s still shaking his head like he doesn’t believe me. Maybe he doesn’t. Maybe he honestly has no clue what Natalie’s really like, and he’s going to refuse to accept any evidence against her. It shouldn’t surprise me so much. He’s just that damn stubborn.
“She knows, Tay. She knows.”
“No… no…” he repeats, still shaking his head, but now it seems more from fear than refusal to believe me. “W-what’s… what’s she gonna do?”
“Nothing,” I reply. “As long as I leave you alone. She was very clear about that.”
“And if you don’t?” He asks, his voice full of morbid curiosity, his face telling me that he doesn’t want me to answer but he needs to know.
“I don’t know,” I reply, shaking my head. “But it won’t be good. She threatened to tell Kate. To… to make sure I never saw my kids again. I can’t imagine you would get to see yours, either.”
Whatever was holding Taylor together snaps right then and he falls back in the chair, shaking so hard that my first instinct is to reach out and touch him. Natalie can’t see me now. She can’t know. But somehow I just… can’t. It’s so fucked up that I’m so scared of her that I can’t even touch him now when we’re all alone. I hate that she’s done this to us, to me.
“She wouldn’t…” Taylor mumbles, but at this point he doesn’t even sound like he believes himself.
I shrug. “She seemed pretty serious. Do you wanna risk it? I don’t. So that’s why… why I’ve been pushing you away.”
Taylor nods. “So… so that’s it, then?”
“I guess,” I reply. “I don’t know what else to do.”
“Well, maybe…” Taylor begins, but there’s no light in his eyes, no sign that he even believes what he’s saying. “Maybe if she just doesn’t find out… maybe it’ll be okay. It’s not like anyone knows.”
“Besides Carrick.”
Taylor blinks. “Oh… oh. Right. Well, you’d rather be with him, anyway, wouldn’t you?”
Now it’s my turn to stare at Taylor blankly. In a split second, he went from broken down and scared to cold and hard. All at Carrick’s name?
“It’s easier to be with him, anyway,” he continues. “I know it is. You know it is. So you should do it. Just be with him instead of me.”
The words come out like Taylor’s rehearsed them, and I just don’t believe that it’s what he really wants. But it doesn’t matter.
“Yeah,” I reply, nodding. “I guess I should… just be with him.”
Taylor nods again. “Yeah. You guys will be good together.”
“Okay. Yeah.”
I stand up and wrap my burrito back up, still not having eaten any more of it. I’m waiting for Taylor to stop me, to tell me he doesn’t mean it, and he’s thought of some way we can get around Natalie’s plan.
But he doesn’t.
He lets me walk right out of the room, my cold and unappetizing my burrito in my hand. He lets me walk away from him. I don’t know if he’s doing it because he has to or because he wants to, but it really doesn’t matter. The result is the same, no matter the reason. I still don’t even have the power of choice. I’m still forced away from someone I really want and stuck with… well, someone I also want. But it’s not purely by my own choice, and that makes it feel wrong.
I’m not sure anything will ever really feel right again, though. I guess I should just get used to this feeling.