The Letter
Taylor didn’t care that he was still in his pajamas. He couldn’t waste another minute without finding out the contents of Zac’s letter. He was a little concerned that his loud fight with Shiloh might have attracted the attention of some of their neighbors, but ultimately he didn’t really care what they thought of him. He was pretty sure that to all his neighbors, he was just the weird hermit who used to be a big celebrity. It didn’t matter to Taylor at all if any of them saw him breaking into Shiloh’s apartment again.
His mind made up, he walked up her steps and picked up the small fake rock that contained her extra key. She really should have moved it after she realized Taylor knew where it was hidden, but luckily for him, she hadn’t. Pleased with Shiloh’s forgetfulness, Taylor slipped the key from its hiding place and opened the door.
He walked down the hallway, straight to her bedroom. He could only hope that she hadn’t moved the letter from her desk. Taylor only barely managed to stop himself from peeking into the nursery. He didn’t want to think about the baby right then or the fact that he had just had a huge fight with her mother. All that mattered in that moment was finding out what Zac had wanted to tell him.
When he walked into Shiloh’s room, he could see that her desk was still a mess. He began shuffling through the mess of papers, magazines and other assorted things piled on top, but he didn’t see the letter. Then he remembered how she had swept up some of the mess into a drawer. That was most likely where he would find Zac’s letter. He opened the top drawer and pulled out the pile of papers in it, carrying them to her bed so that he could look through them more easily.
He had barely begun shuffling the envelopes when he saw the one with Zac’s handwriting. It had been opened, he could see. Shiloh had read it. He wanted to be angry with her for that, and somewhere deep inside, he was. But more than that, he was just terrified to see what it said. This was the last piece of the puzzle, the last piece of his brother. Trembling a little, Taylor opened the envelope and removed the folded sheet of paper.
Despite a voice in the back of his head that said he didn’t really want to know what Zac had written, Taylor began to read.
Dear Taylor,
You’re probably wondering why I’m writing this in a letter instead of just calling. I guess I could ask myself the same thing. But I know if I called, you would just interrupt me, not allow me to say everything I want to say, or maybe not even answer at all. Of course, you could ignore this letter, and knowing you, you will. You’re really good at ignoring things that you don’t like, aren’t you?
That was mean and I’m sorry. Actually, no, I’m not. You need to hear everything I’m going to say in this letter, whether you want to or not.
You know, sometimes I wish I could just run away like you have. It would make things so much easier. Isn’t your life easy now? Away from everyone, not having to think about us at all or worry what we’re going through without you. The thing is, though, you leave all your problems behind when you leave. And that’s what you want, I guess, but someone else has to shoulder the problems that you leave behind. Someone else has to suffer in your absence, and it seems that someone is me. I guess the only thing keeping me from running too is wondering who’ll take over the suffering when I’m gone.
The easiest answer to that is Shiloh, but god knows she’s suffering enough anyway. She doesn’t want me to tell you, but I don’t really care. Congrats, Tay, you’re going to be a father. Apparently you had sex with my girlfriend – if that’s ever what she really was. I think everyone but me could see that she wasn’t, but I fooled myself for years because I really loved her. I really did, and I guess I still do. I know you made fun of me for it, and I wish I would have listened. Maybe I could have prevented myself some of this pain if I’d realized years ago that she would never love me the way I love her.
She’s determined to raise the baby on her own, though. So you don’t need to worry your pretty little head over that. As far as she’s concerned, the kid doesn’t have a father at all. Might as well not have one, I guess, since you skipped town pretty much as soon as the kid was conceived.
I did the math myself and figured out I wasn’t the dad. I’m pretty smart like that, you know. Shiloh wasn’t even speaking to me the week that it must have happened. You know how she does that. I guess the silent treatment thing probably should have been my first hint that she really didn’t like me all that much. But you know how stubborn I am. I hung on until she finally admitted to me that she’d had sex with you and she was 99% sure that you were the dad.
You know I didn’t even kick her out of our apartment then? I was perfectly willing to pretend the kid was mine, but she was having none of it. I’d wondered why she didn’t seem very happy about having the baby, but it all made sense then. And then she left. I guess eventually everyone leaves, huh? One way or another.
I thought I could at least still be there for her, though. But she didn’t need me, just like you didn’t need me, us, the band. I guess I’m just useless to everyone, aren’t I? I couldn’t hold the band together and keep you in Tulsa. I couldn’t be enough for Shiloh to love, or even enough for her to pretend that I really was the father of her baby. I couldn’t be anything at all that she wanted.
What am I even doing, then, if no one needs me? Every day I ask myself that and I never have an answer. I can’t help thinking you must feel the same way. How do you deal with it? Is running away the only solution, or does it stick with you no matter how far you run? If it does… then I guess there really is no good solution. Just one. Please tell me that isn’t the answer.
And please come back.
Love, Zac
By the time he finished reading the letter, tears were rolling down Taylor’s face. The last few words were barely clear enough for him to even read through his tears. They dropped heavily onto the page, threatening to wash Zac’s words away entirely.
Zac had accused him, but more than that, he had just wanted answers. Answers that Taylor didn’t think he could have given him, but he wished he’d tried. He wished he hadn’t been such a coward. If he could have at least made Zac feel less useless, less alone, maybe Zac wouldn’t have come to the final conclusion that there was no way out of what he felt.
Taylor didn’t hear the door open or Shiloh’s footsteps coming down the hall. When the bedroom door swung open, he nearly jumped off the bed in surprise.
“Again?!” Shiloh screeched. “What the fuck are you doing?”
“What the fuck are you doing?” Taylor countered. “You… you stole this letter.”
“I was having contractions,” she replied. “It’s not a big deal, it happens sometimes when you’re this far long. They’ve stopped for now, but they sent me home anyway. And you broke into my house.”
“To get back what you stole from me. Zac’s letter to me,” Taylor replied.
“At least he wrote you a letter,” Shiloh said, her voice cracking.
Taylor couldn’t stop himself from jumping up and pulling her into his arms. She dissolved into sobs in his arms and he walked them back to the bed together, not saying a word, just letting her cry onto his shoulder.
“I… I know I shouldn’t have,” Shiloh squeaked out between sniffles. “But I saw it there and I just… I thought, this might be the last thing Zac ever wrote. The last little piece of him that I’ll ever have. So I took it.”
Taylor nodded. “That… I can understand that, I guess. So you read it?”
“Yeah,” she replied. “I should have known how much he was hurting, but you know how he is. Always smiling. He never lets his emotions show.”
“I should have known, too,” Taylor said. “But as easy as it is to do, it’s not really helping us to dwell, is it?”
“I guess not,” Shiloh replied, sounding unconvinced. “We both failed him, didn’t we?”
Taylor sighed. “Yeah. Yeah, we did. Can we try not to fail each other, too?”
Shiloh slowly nodded. “Yeah… yeah, I think we can try.”