Pleasure With The Pain
I like El Paso and Sonic Ranch. I really do. It’s just that right now, I can’t remember why.
It’s not the heat, because I’ve been in California long enough that only needing a light jacket to go outside in December isn’t weird to me. It’s not the food, because the people who run this place keep us well fed with all our Tex-Mex favorites.
It really all just boils down to one thing… Taylor. But doesn’t everything in my life?
We’ve been here three days already and actually managed to lay down the rough versions of a few songs. It’s seriously cramped quarters, with all of our equipment stuffed into the living room of Condor House, the little hacienda we’re all staying in. I spend a lot of my time outside, finding places to hide away and write things on my own, turning the snippets of my craziness that I’ve scrawled into notebooks over the last few months into actual lyrics. In the early mornings and evenings, we all come back together to work, and in spite of our differences, we’ve gotten a lot done.
Tomorrow morning, we move all of our equipment out of here and into the actual studio where we’ll try to turn all those demos into something that just needs polishing and mixing. In celebration of how successful of a trip it’s been, everyone is getting drunk tonight. And I mean everyone. I think the entire ranch runs on alcohol most of the time anyway, and Isaac brought with him a very rough draft of our future Hanson-branded beer, so he’s everyone’s favorite person at the moment.
As for me, I’ve stolen an entire six pack of the stuff and am hiding in a little alcove off the side of one of the other haciendas, just praying that no one at all finds me.
Naturally, the second I hear footsteps approaching, I don’t even need to look up to know that they belong to Taylor. And so I don’t—look up, that is. My eyes remain glued to the ground, mesmerizing by the bottle I’m spinning around with my finger.
“Hey,” he says softly, his voice even raspier than usual. That’s a good sign that he’s drunk, if the stench of liquor and cigarettes emanating from him wasn’t enough of a clue.
“What do you want?” I ask, surprising even myself with how angry I sound.
“To see why you aren’t at the party,” Taylor replies, sitting down next to me and ignoring the fact that I scoot away from him. He just follows me and gives my shoulder a nudge. “Come on, what’s wrong?”
I don’t bother answering with words. I’m pretty sure the glare I shoot him answers his question. Judging by the grin he gives me in return, it does not.
“I’m really glad you’re here,” Taylor drawls, ignoring the fact that I’m still glaring at him. “I’ve missed you since you moved, you know.”
“No, you’ve missed getting laid since I moved,” I correct him.
“If that was what I meant, that would have been what I said,” Taylor replies, actually sounding a little hurt. But only a little.
I sigh. I don’t know what to say to that. A drunk Taylor is a very easily pissed off Taylor, but the urge to argue with him only intensifies with every drink he has. The fact that I’m not sober right now doesn’t help, either. I just wanted to get drunk enough to make sleep come easily. That was all I wanted. I didn’t want to party; I wanted to pass out and avoid the party. I should have known Taylor wouldn’t make that easy. When has he ever made anything easy?
He snakes a hand into my hair and I don’t even bother telling him to stop. I just sigh again. “I can’t do this, Taylor. Not anymore.”
“What changed?” He asks.
“I guess I did,” I reply. “I just can’t… we can’t do this. It’s fucking everything up, and you know it. After everything that’s happened, after as many times as you’ve told me we shouldn’t do this… apparently I have to be the one to end it.”
“You didn’t seem to want to end it last time.”
“Yeah, actually, I did. I’m just too weak, and I’m going to keep being too weak. So every time we’re together, I have to fight this, because I know it’s not good for me. And it would be a hell of a lot easier to fight if you hadn’t suddenly decided you wanted it.”
“I just want my brother back,” Taylor says softly. I’m not sure if he sounds surprisingly lucid or even farther gone.
“Yeah, so do I,” I reply. I wriggle away from him, letting his hand fall away from my hair before he can twist it in any deeper. “But he’s too drunk to have this conversation with right now.”
There’s something ironic about the fact that I’m leaving Taylor this time, but I’m just tipsy enough not to want to think about that too hard. Without another look back at Taylor, I stand up and walk back toward our house. Hopefully the party has moved outside and it will be quiet enough for me to crawl into bed and die.
Condor House is quiet, at least, but the remains of the party are lying all around—half empty bottles and plastic cups littering every surface. After that encounter with Taylor, I don’t have the strength to stop myself from picking up a bottle of Jack and downing a huge gulp of it. I don’t even like whiskey. But that gulp is followed by another, and then another… and then another. By the time I’m done, the bottle is significantly lighter, but my body feels much, much heavier.
It’s stupid, really, the way people think getting drunk is a good way to forget. It isn’t. It does the exact opposite, bringing everything you wanted to forget right to the forefront of your mind and magnifying it. I know that, and yet I still downed that whiskey so fast that I can barely walk the few steps down the hallway to my temporary bedroom. It feels like it takes me ages to get there, every inch of my body torn between running back to Taylor and running to the bathroom, but finally I collapse onto the bed.
Sometimes, I really hate myself. I hate how I react to things. Even though I didn’t give in to Taylor, I didn’t handle his advances all that well either. If they even were advances. If he was even sober enough to have any clue what he was doing.
I just don’t understand him, and I’m realizing that I probably never will. I doubt he understands himself either, and while that should make me pity him, it really doesn’t.
I can smell him on me and practically still feel his hand in my hair, just gently playing with it, so subtly that it almost might not have been happening at all. But it was, and even that tiny gesture makes me feel sick. Or maybe that’s the liquor talking. The thought of Taylor touching me has never made me feel sick before. Whatever the cause—and I’m leaning toward the liquor—it quickly becomes obvious that I’m actually going to be sick.
With an energy that I didn’t know I had, I jump out of bed and rush off to the bathroom down the hall. I barely land in front of the toilet in time, just seconds before all that liquor and everything I’ve eaten today comes rushing up my throat and out of my body. Unlike throwing up when you’ve got some stomach bug, throwing up when you’re drunk only leaves you feeling worse. I hate that. Even after there’s nothing left in me, I stay in the floor, clutching the toilet, too weak to move.
It could be hours or mere minutes later when I finally find the strength to move. I only make it as far as the sink, where I hold onto the counter for support and stare at myself in the mirror. I look awful, and not just because there’s puke on my face, although that definitely doesn’t help. I know Taylor is the one I should be angry with, but right now, it’s the guy I’m staring at in the mirror who I hate.
The guy with vomit in his hair.
I turn the faucet on and dunk my head under the water, which leaves me coughing and sputtering. It wasn’t my most well thought out plan, really. I must still be drunk, because it only gets worse from there. My hands fumble in the drawer below the sink, although I’m not sure what I’m looking for. Not until I find a pair of scissors. Sure, I could just wash the puke out of my hair, but right now, in my current state of mind, cutting it off seems like a better solution.
Maybe then I won’t feel the memory of Taylor’s hands in my hair.
At some point, I look down at the sink full of my hair and the sight is enough to sober me up. Sure, the room is still spinning, but my mind seems clearer. I don’t know what just came over me. Except I do. It was Taylor. It’s always Taylor.
Defeated, and unsure what I’ve just done, I toss the scissors down and walk back to my bedroom. I don’t even bother cleaning up the mess I’ve made. With all the drunks around, a little hair in the sink is probably the least of our worries come morning. It’s definitely the least of my worries.
I strip my clothes off before falling into bed; I might not have puked on them, but they feel and smell gross anyway. Once I’m wearing nothing but my boxers, I feel a little bit better. But only a little. There are still so many things wrong, so many things that I can’t even begin to fix. In the past, when I felt this way, I knew I at least had one person I could turn to—Carrick.
He did say I could call him while I was gone, though.
I fish my phone out of my pants and scroll through my text messages until I find one from Carrick. He said I could call, but I don’t want him to hear me like I’m sure I sound right now. My spelling is horrible at the best of times; if anything, it might actually be better when I’m drunk. So I type a quick message and send it off.
I pass out before he can reply.