Family
After that night, I manage to convince everyone that I don’t want to room with Taylor again, even though I can’t explain why. It’s obvious that something has gone wrong between the two of us, but there’s no possible way I can explain that to anyone. Even if Isaac does already know, thanks to Taylor, that I’m with Carrick, he would never understand that I’ve been with Taylor, too.
I’m not sure how much everyone else on the tour knows about everything I’ve gone through over the last few months. Not even Isaac knew that much until that day in the studio. All I know for certain is that everybody on the tour seems to be ignoring me, at least to some degree. Taylor is the worst, with Isaac coming in second. Everyone else is just keeping a little distance because they can clearly sense something is wrong, even if they don’t know what.
All of that amounts to me being pathetically on my own while we tour a wildlife preserve. We manage to fake it for the cameras while we film a little bit for the website and take a few photos that I’m sure Taylor will tweet. But once the cameras are out of our faces, everything goes back to silence.
I couldn’t possibly feel more pathetic than I do right now, sitting on this bench watching the koalas.
“Hey,” Isaac says softly. I was so lost in my own thoughts that I didn’t even hear him walk up. He sits down next to me, though not too close.
I glanced out him out of the corner of my eye. “Hey.”
“How’s it going?” He asks. He’s so casual, like nothing at all has been happening.
I just shrug, because there’s no way to reply to that question that Isaac won’t hate me for. I’m sure there’s no way he can really understand why things are so weird lately, even though he was present in the office that day. He still doesn’t know, and he doesn’t need to know.
“Look, I don’t get… what’s going on,” he says, echoing my thoughts. “With you. With this whole… moving to California thing.”
“You can say it,” I reply, apparently already out of patience for this conversation. “His name. You can say Carrick. That I’m moving there to be with him.”
Isaac nods. “That’s what I meant. I don’t really know… how this happened, really.”
“Sometimes two people fall in love, Ike,” I say. I’m not sure when I stopped being scared of admitting that, but it seems it did happen at some point.
“That’s not what I meant,” Isaac says, pinching the bridge of his nose like he does when he’s losing patience. It’s a reaction I seem to cause in him a lot. “I guess I just don’t understand how we all got so… distant. How I didn’t know this was happening and you were even thinking about leaving. I don’t know what happened to all of us, Zac.”
There’s a part of me that wants to be angry that Isaac has somehow turned this around and made it all about the band, but I suppose in a way, it is. My decision to leave doesn’t just affect me, or Taylor, or Kate and the kids. It affects all of us. Everyone. It’s pretty selfish of me to just move across the country, I suppose. Maybe Taylor is rubbing off on me.
“I’m sorry,” I finally sigh. “I really didn’t mean to just spring it on you guys like that, but I know that if I don’t go now, I’ll never work up the nerve.”
“Why do you need to go at all?” Ike asks. “Just… just to be with him?”
I actually turn my head to face Isaac then, trying to judge just how much it pains him to say that. His face is fairly blank, though. Maybe I misjudged him. I heave a long sigh, then say, “Yeah, I just need… I need to be away from Tulsa. Things haven’t been so good for me there for a while, and I just don’t see them improving if I stay. And being with Carrick… it’s a good thing. It’s part of what I need. So I am going to be with him, but it’s for me, too. I don’t know how to really make you understand that.”
“Maybe I don’t need to understand it,” he says. “Maybe I just need to accept it.”
“And you do?” I cautiously ask.
Isaac nods. “Yeah. For some reason, I do. If some time and space between us all will get this band back to normal, then take all the time and space you need. Sometimes I think we forget that we’re not just three brothers anymore. We’ve got families, and hell, we’ve got ourselves to take care of. So… I just hope you’re right.”
“I hope I am, too,” I admit.
Isaac reaches across the bench and gives me an awkward clap on the shoulder. It feels incredibly strange, perhaps even more wrong than my last night with Taylor. But at the same time, it’s kind of reassuring. Even though Ike has no clue what my life has been this summer, he still believes that somehow I can pull through it. I wish I had half the faith that he and Kate seem to have in me, especially when they’re both so in the dark. Yet… they still believe in me.
Maybe they’re right.
After a whirlwind two weeks in Australia, we’re on the plane back to the United States. It hardly even feels like we’ve been gone that long, in a way, yet at the same time all the silence and awkwardness made this little tour feel like it would last forever. Maybe we should have been trying to savor it more, since god only knows when we will tour again.
And I suppose that’s my fault, in a way.
But is it really? I can’t help glancing across the aisle at Taylor, totally engrossed in some book, or at least pretending to be. It’s probably just another tactic to ignore me. I know I should want that. I know it should be better this way, but… it isn’t. If we can’t be lovers, we should at least be able to be brothers, but it seems like it’s all or nothing with him. And now we’re nothing.
Even though I’m the one who has made the final choice that it’s over, I’m not angry with myself. I don’t blame myself. It’s Taylor who pushed me to finally end it for good. It’s Taylor who has spent weeks telling me that we shouldn’t be together, and I’ve finally realized that he’s right.
So why don’t I feel any better right now? Why can’t I find any sort of consolation in knowing that I have made the right choice?
Why can’t I just be happy?
Even though I know I should be happy, because I have Carrick waiting for me back in Tulsa, I’m just not. That’s why I spend the flight sleeping and the layover in Los Angeles ignoring everyone and reading some stupid book I picked up from one of those little stands of cheap paperbacks. It’s based on a video game that I like, which would normally interest me, but today it somehow just bores me. None of this bodes well for the rest of our seemingly endless flight, even though I know the last two legs, from Los Angeles to Dallas to Tulsa, won’t take that long compared to the hours upon hours we’ve just spent over the Pacific.
I’m not sure why everything bothers me today when just a few days ago I felt so much hope. I suppose it’s because I’m going back to Tulsa, a place that has grown more and more suffocating and less and less like home over the last few months. Aside from Carrick, what do I have there? Okay, so my kids are there, and that’s a big thing. But both of them and Carrick could be in California with me. There’s nothing tying me to that town and no reason to stay, yet for at least a few more weeks, I’m stuck there. It might be a simplistic explanation for my bad mood, and one that ignores my biggest problem, but it’s the explanation I’m going with.
Finally, hours later, even though it feels like days later, the plane lands in Tulsa. As soon as I hear the announcement, it’s like I can’t breathe. I’m literally being suffocated by this city that I’ve called home for so long.
I go through the motions of getting off the plane and walking back through the airport’s gates, but my mind is elsewhere. I’m so far gone that I barely even notice the crowd of people waiting for us on the other side of those gates. We always have a huge crowd; that’s no surprise, given the size of our family. Once again, Natalie has dragged all the kids out to greet Taylor. Nikki has too, but that doesn’t bother me.
And me… I have Carrick.
Of course, he was supposed to be here last time and those plans changed at the last minute. That’s why I didn’t even bother planning for him to pick me up this time. I had piled my suitcases and gear into a cab, not even thinking about how much it would suck to once again be the only one with no family to greet me at the airport. But Carrick thought of that. The wide yet strangely sheepish smile he gives me as I approach tells me he had definitely thought of that and decided to do something about it.
If I thought I couldn’t love him more, I was wrong.
“Hey,” he says when I walk up. His hands are stuffed into his pockets like he’s having to hold himself back from doing what he wants to do with them.
This is a test, I think. This is my chance to show my brothers and everyone that I’m not ashamed. This is my chance to reclaim that coming out moment that Taylor stole from me.
I yank Carrick toward me by his shirt and scoop him up into my arms. He chuckles and wraps his arms around me as well, and I’ve never, ever felt more at home than I do right then and there in his embrace. Before I can really think about what I’m doing, I’m on my tiptoes, planting a kiss on his cheek. When I do, I swear I can hear everything around us grinding to a halt. But I don’t let go. I bury my face in Carrick’s neck and just inhale the scent of him until I finally feel strong enough to face everyone again.
When I do finally back away from Carrick, I see a dozen pairs of eyes suddenly searching for anything else to stare at besides us. None of them speak, though. None of them seem totally disgusted, either, which I suppose is a good thing. I’m not sure what to say to any of them now; what they just witnessed said it all, I think.
“Come on,” Carrick says softly. “Let’s get your luggage and get you home.”
He offers me his hand, one eyebrow cocked like he’s not sure I’ll accept it, but I do. I think I can actually see the weight lifted off his shoulders once our hands are entwined. As for me, I feel home. I may not feel home anywhere else in Tulsa, but with Carrick, I’m right where I belong.
Whether it’s in Tulsa or Los Angeles, I know that feeling won’t change. Carrick is my home and my family now. He hasn’t replaced anyone else; he’s finally taken the spot he deserved all along.