Burn
The next week or so, I keep myself isolated from everyone else. It just seems safest that way. I hide in my apartment, becoming more and more reclusive and paranoid by the day; the fact that I smoke the rest of my stash in the process probably doesn’t help with the latter. Whatever. My world is closing in on me. I’m not imagining that. I’m balanced on the edge of the cliff, waiting for someone or something to give me that final little push.
None of that is in my imagination. It really is that bad.
Eventually, I’m forced to leave my apartment. Even though we’re on something of a hiatus, ostensibly locked in the studio recording the next album, we’ve scheduled a few more little appearances this summer. I had completely forgotten about this concert in Iowa, but soon it’s upon me. I’m practically drug from my apartment for a few days of rehearsal, and then we’re on the road—well, technically in the air. Either way, I’m out of my apartment and out of Tulsa.
All day, there seems to be something strange about Taylor. I can’t quite figure it out, but I can feel it. Maybe it’s just because of this whole thing with Natalie and the pictures. It’s got me on edge too. I don’t trust myself to even look at Taylor for too long, let alone actually spend any time alone with him. It just doesn’t seem safe. The reasonable part of my mind tells me there’s no way she has spies here watching us, but I’ve spent too long cultivating the paranoid part of myself to pay much attention to my more rational thoughts.
In the end, the paranoid side wins and I spend the entire day finding ways to put space between myself and Taylor. I ignore him the best I can as we check in and wait for the airplane to board. I sit in a different aisle from him entirely on the plane. Once we arrive in Des Moines, I rush to my hotel room and lock myself up in it. It might be a boring as hell way to spend the night, but watching television and eating pizza is way safer than talking to Taylor. I know me. I don’t trust myself around him at all. Being a hermit is the far better course of action.
Which is, of course, why I’ve barely taken the first bite of pizza when someone knocks on my door.
It’s Taylor. It has to be Taylor. Before I’ve even made it to the door and looked through the peephole, I know it’s Taylor.
And I’m right. When I open the door, he’s standing right there, a strange smile on his face that makes me wonder if he’s drunk.
“Are you drunk?”
He giggles. “No.”
“Stoned.”
“That’s your bad habit, not mine,” he replies.
I don’t bother to mention that he’s had far worse habits over the years than a little pot. I just shake my head and cross my arms, waiting for him to tell me why he’s there. He doesn’t.
“Come on,” he whines. “Just let me in your room.”
“You know we shouldn’t.”
“I didn’t say let me fuck you. I said let me in your room. Besides, Nat’s not here. She’s not going to know.”
“I know, but…” I sigh. “You know it’s a bad idea, Tay.”
“I am genuinely just asking to come in your room. That’s it. Nothing bad. In fact, I think I have some good news for you.”
With a long sigh, I step aside and let him into the room. What more can I say? Taylor is stubborn. He isn’t going to give up until he’s told me whatever it is he wants to tell me, so I might as well give in and get it over with.
He walks into the room like he owns it, practically bouncing up and down with… excitement? Nervousness? I’m not sure. He waits until I’ve shut the door before he says or does anything other than just stand there, though. And when he does do something, it’s the last possible thing I expect. But somehow, I still feel like I should have known.
He’s holding the pictures. The pictures.
“W-what… how…” I’m apparently only capable of speaking in single syllable words right now. Nothing makes sense at all.
“What?” Taylor asks. “Did you think she kept them in her bra all the time or something?”
“But… but you just took them?”
He nods, looking ridiculously pleased with himself. “That’s exactly what I did.”
“But why?” I ask. My brain still feels like it’s moving in slow motion, not processing any of what’s happening here.
“Think about it, Zac,” he says. “What can she do without the pics? It’s just her word against ours. So yeah, I took them. And we’re going to burn them. And then what can she do? Who’s really going to believe something that crazy?”
Okay, he almost has a point. And yet… I still just can’t be as happy about this as he is. This can’t possibly solve all of our problems. It just can’t be this easy. Can it?
“She still knows,” I point out.
“But what can she do? What can she actually do now?”
I shake my head helplessly, because I don’t know, but I do know that she’ll do something. She’s Natalie. She’s not going to stop until she gets her way, somehow.
“What can she do?” Taylor repeats, and I can tell he’s starting to doubt his own plan now.
“I don’t know,” I reply. “Something. Anything. She still knows. Do you really think she’s going to give up that easily? Especially when this is… this is just like a giant fuck you to her. When she realizes the pictures are gone, then she’ll know we’re not following her orders.”
Taylor gives me the faintest hint of a grin. “I knew you didn’t really want to stop.”
“I never said I did. It just seemed like the only option when she…”
Taylor nods. “I know. But it’s not. It’s not, Zac.”
He’s so insistent that I can’t refuse him. I never could; why would this time be any different?
“Okay,” I say. “Let’s burn the pics.”
With a big grin of his face, Taylor scurries off toward the room’s balcony, whipping out his lighter as he goes. I’m powerless, as usual, to do anything but follow behind him. There are two chairs and one empty but dingy old ash tray on the balcony, as though this had been planned out for us by the entire universe. That’s a silly thought, and I dismiss it as soon as it occurs to me.
“Want to do the honors?” Taylor asks, holding the lighter and photo out to me.
I shake my head. “No, you can.”
I watch with rapt attention as he places the photos in the ash tray, settling himself into a chair and placing the ash tray on the balcony floor in front of him. He flicks his lighter at the corner of them and a second later, it catches. A bright orange flame licks the corner, spreading quickly across the entire sheet of photos. It’s almost hypnotizing to watch the proof of our indiscretion fade away into blackness, ash and nothingness.
Neither of us speaks a word, barely even letting out an audible breath, until the photos are all gone, nothing left of them but a tiny little pile of ashes.
And then it’s over.
It isn’t really, though. This is just the end of one phase and the beginning of another. What’s coming for us next… I don’t know. But I can’t imagine it’s really anything good. Just another, different sort of trial. Somehow, though, I feel a little bit more hopeful that we can make it through.
Taylor’s long, relieved sigh hints that he feels the same way. He follows it up with a soft laugh, then fishes a cigarette from the pack in his pocket and lights it up. It’s so casual that I almost can’t believe it’s even happening. This has been way too easy. It can’t possibly stay this way.
“So what now?” I find myself asking, ruining the almost blissful quiet surrounding us.
Taylor shrugs, flicking a little bit of cigarette ash in on top of the photograph ash. “I dunno. Whatever we want, I guess. Wasn’t that the point?”
“You know it’s not that simple,” I reply.
“Do you need a cigarette?” He asks. “Because you really need to chill out. Here, have a cigarette. Light up a joint. Do something, because you’re stressing me out when this is actually going our way, and there is no need to be so tense.”
“Yes, Taylor, I brought weed with me on the plane. Because that’s a smart thing to do.”
He rolls his eyes, but doesn’t say a word. Instead, he pulls out another cigarette and, before I realize what he’s doing, stuffs the end of it into my mouth. When he holds the lighter in front of it, I have no choice but to let him light it for me. I cough a little at first, but it isn’t so bad. Not really. It isn’t the first time I’ve smoked tobacco, but it never became a habit for me the way it did Ike and Taylor.
It doesn’t do much to calm me down, but in a silly, childish way, I like that it’s something Taylor and I are sharing. Other than the few rushed times we’ve been together, we seem to be drifting farther and farther apart lately, with nothing left to link us together except for the band and some vague sense of family obligation not to totally abandon each other. But what do we have in common, besides this awful secret that isn’t so secret anymore?
The second I think about that again, any trace of the cigarette’s calming effect leaves me.
“Zac,” he says, between drags of his own cigarette. “Are you alright?”
“No,” I reply honestly. “I don’t know… no, no I’m really not.”
“Why are you still so worried?”
“Why aren’t you?”
Taylor shrugs again. “Because I can’t be. Because if I stop and actually think about everything that’s so fucked up about… all of this, about my whole life, I’ll probably kill myself. So I just can’t think about it. I can’t.”
He says it so dismissively, so casually, like it’s nothing at all. If he’d expressed any emotion at all, I think I might have broken down. I can feel it, though, barely held back by the floodgates. Someday soon… we’re both going to explode. There’s no doubt in my mind that it’s coming.
Even if we have each other, I’m not sure how we can survive. And I’m not even sure that we have each other.
“You just have to stay positive,” he says, but his voice is completely monotone, void of any and all emotion.
“How did everything get so fucked up?” I ask, the words barely more than a mumble.
“It’s my fault,” Taylor replies, his own voice a hoarse whisper. “I married that… that… well. You know. I fucked everything up.”
There’s the tiniest catch in his voice, a pinprick hole in his own floodgates. I reach out and rest my hand on his thigh, not daring to make any bolder move than that. Taylor glances down at my hand, but doesn’t say a word. He just pulls out another cigarette and lights it up. I haven’t even finished my first.
We sit there in complete silent while we smoke the rest of our cigarettes. It still doesn’t do much to calm my nerves. Taylor’s hand coming to rest over mine on his thigh goes a lot longer toward soothing my worries, in fact. I know we still shouldn’t do this. Natalie still knows, and knowing is all she really needs to ruin our lives. I don’t know how, but I don’t doubt at all that she can find a way.
Once the cigarettes are nothing more than stubs and ashes, we still sit there, watching the sun go down. Taylor gives my hand a squeeze, causing me to glance at him. There’s the tiniest hint of a smile on his lips, but a serious look in his eyes.
“She can’t take this away from us,” he says, squeezing my hand tighter. “No one can.”
I hope he’s right.