Lose You Slowly
August 10, 2007
Isaac finishes his coffee and doughnuts quickly and leaves me sitting alone. I’ve got a million questions that need answering but I don’t know how to ask them. I’m pretty sure Isaac doesn’t want to be bothered with my questions anymore, though. And the biggest question of all is just how I’ve managed to skip ahead a year, but I know Isaac doesn’t have an answer for that.
I keep replaying the night before – although I guess that’s not really what it is, but I don’t know what else to call it – in my mind, hoping that it will turn up some sort of clue. Some reason that this has happened. I wander all around office, looking for anything at all that might help me figure this out. Eventually, I find myself in front of the piano, mindlessly tapping at the dust covered keys, but not really playing any song in particular.
Once I’ve tired of that, I decide to go back into our main office space and search around it a bit. No one else is going to be in there any time soon, so they won’t notice if I make a mess out of it. I’m pretty sure it won’t surprise Isaac at all if I make a mess out of things. He obviously knows I’m looking for answers, even if I haven’t explained to him exactly how many answers I need.
My first stop is Taylor’s desk. It seems like the logical place to look for answers about what has happened to him. I’m sure Isaac could have told me more about the accident, but I can’t even think, much less say, the word dead right now. Whatever happened to Taylor in that accident, I can’t make my mouth form the words to ask about it.
Taylor’s desk is always the messiest. Isaac keeps his fairly tidy and even somewhat organized. Mine is pretty messy, because things just have a way of accumulating there faster than I can deal with them, but underneath the chaos is a general notion of organization. Taylor’s desk doesn’t have any of that – no cleanliness, or any semblance of a place for things to go, and certainly nothing in its place.
I pick up a big pile of papers and sit down in Taylor’s chair to sift through them. It seems natural to sit down, but as soon as I do it, I feel a chill creep up my spine. Taylor would never sit here again, yet I had just plopped down like it was nothing. Dwelling on that isn’t going to help me. Looking through the papers is the important thing right now, even if it’s really just a mindless task to keep me from thinking too much.
Most of it is boring office stuff – junk mail, copies of contracts, letters from fans and all other sorts of paraphernalia dating back several months. A few worn pictures of his kids are scattered in amongst the other stuff. I pay attention to the dates, just to prove to myself that time has passed. The newest date I see on anything is May 2007. That’s only a month ago, apparently. It must have happened then, or not long after that.
The older papers dated back over a year, which isn’t surprising. What I really didn’t expect to find was a copy of my own wedding invitation. Stuck inside a random paperback book is a worn and torn copy of the unmistakable baby blue stationary Kate had slaved over getting just right.
Looking at how worn the paper is, I have to admit that a year had passed. I could deny it all I wanted, just because it wasn’t in my memory, but this invitation was more than just a few weeks old. Time may not have passed for me, but it has passed for everyone else and this wedding invitation is proof.
I flip the paper over to stick it back in the book. There’s handwriting on the back that I recognize immediately as Taylor’s. I would have known his barely legible writing anywhere. I want to be hurt that he’s written on my wedding invitation, but I just can’t be. It’s stupid to get upset about something like that.
Georgia, you know that you’ve been on my mind
Georgia, we’ve both learned to compromise
I’ll be there for you
When everybody’s coming unglued
I’ll be there for you
I won’t say you have to choose
I have to read it twice to realize it’s lyrics. I don’t recognize the song. It must have been one that Taylor had started working on by himself and hadn’t found the time to share with us yet. Maybe it was the last song he ever wrote. But if I have to guess, based on the position of the invitation in the chaos of Taylor’s desk, it’s been there for quite a while. I have a feeling he had written it before the wedding.
At first, I think it’s a song written about a girl named Georgia. We have lots of songs with girls names, though not necessarily even the names of the girls that inspired the songs. But it doesn’t seem like a coincidence that he scribbled those words on the back of my wedding invitation. After all, the wedding took place in Georgia.
It’s a lyrical message. It has to be. It’s not the first one we’ve shared over the years. We always got a kick out of hiding little messages to each other in the lyrics that no one else would notice. Taylor wouldn’t be able to read this one, but I decide to write it anyway.
‘Cause I don’t want to let you go
And I don’t want to lose you slowly
I’ve got nothing else to say. That’s the simple truth of how I feel about Taylor. Not just now, when I know that he’s gone, but how I felt when I stared at him at him across the reception hall but couldn’t say the words I really wanted to say.
Now I’d never get the chance to tell him.
Unless…
On a longshot, I tuck the invitation into my pocket. It’s not like anyone is going to miss it. I have no clue how I’m going to get back in time to actually deliver the message, but if I’ve got the invitation on me, I can worry about the rest later. Maybe, if I can get back to the right point in time, I can tell Taylor how I really feel. If not with my words, then with my lyrics.
I don’t think our office is going to reveal any more clues to me, so I decide to go home and just sit for a while. Maybe I can explore my not-so-new house. It might have some clues about whatever happened in my seemingly short-lived marriage.
The drive home passes quickly and soon I find myself on an unfamiliar couch, watching random daytime programming on an unfamiliar television set. This isn’t my home, but it is. I barely even know my way around it yet. I guess it’s a good thing Kate isn’t around to see me stumbling around, slamming my hand into walls I don’t know are there or opening every hallway door in search of a bathroom.
I sit through two programs about women who don’t know the fathers of their children and it puts me to sleep. A knock at the door jars me awake. Some fancy doorbell – no doubt something Kate had picked out – rings out next and makes me nearly jump off the couch. I stumble to my feet and rush to answer the door. I hope it’s not Isaac coming to ask me more questions that I can’t honestly answer, or worse yet, Natalie coming to berate me for my phone call.
It’s worse than that. It’s Kate.
She looks much, much older than I remember. It feels weird to say that I remember it, when for me, it was only a few hours ago when I last saw her. She was glowing and shining then, the portrait of a blushing bride. Now she’s wearing a plain black dress and she looks paler than I think I’ve ever seen. Even her freckles seem faded.
“Katie.”
Her mouth is a thin, tight line and it seems to take her so much effort to speak that I think she might crack and shatter. “You were supposed to meet me at the lawyer’s office today at 11. I guess you forgot.”
I nod my head. It’s not a question, so what can I say? Of course I forgot. The Zac she’s expecting might have known about the appointment, but I didn’t. How I could meet her at a divorce lawyer’s office when just a few hours ago, I was pretty sure I was a newlywed?
I know I have to say something, so I settle for the obvious. “I’m sorry.”
She crosses her arms and rocks back and forth a little on her heels. “Well, I suppose we can make another appointment. I just wish you’d actually show up for them so we can get this over with. All this paperwork takes forever, you know.”
I nod again, still unsure exactly what I should say to all this. It sounds like an argument she’s had before. “Can I, umm… get you something to drink or anything? Do you wanna come in?”
“No, you can’t and no, I don’t,” Kate replies tersely. “You want to be friendly and chat with me? Now? Really, Zac.”
“I’m sorry? I’m not allowed to be nice to you?” I take a step backward instinctively. Maybe it was a bad idea to invite her in.
Kate stares me down for a minute, like she’s sizing up someone she’s meeting for the first time. It’s more appropriate that she could know. She finally shrugs and steps into the house. “I suppose you’ve never really been anything but nice to me. It just wasn’t enough.”
She isn’t wrong. That’s a fair assessment of our relationship even before the wedding. She might not have known then, but she never really had all of me. She was never enough for me, even though I tried to be everything for her. I don’t reply to her statement. I just follow behind her ask she walks straight to the kitchen and helps herself to a glass of water.
“I can try to cook something if you’re hungry,” I offer.
Kate laughs and it sounds like she hasn’t made such a sound in a long time. “No, thanks. You’re already divorcing me, do you really need to try to kill me, too?”
“I wasn’t! What the fuck, Kate? I’m trying to be nice to you, that’s all.”
“And I just don’t see the point of it,” Kate replies, then takes a long sip of her water. “You’re not getting me back. We’ve gone too far for that to be any sort of possibility. So just leave me be.”
“I wasn’t trying to win you back, either,” I reply, exasperated with how difficult she’s being. “I’m not allowed to be a decent human being to you?”
Kate’s laugh became a full blow guffaw at that, but it fades off at the end as though it might almost turn into a sob. “That’s just not possible for you, Zachary.”
I need a drink to deal with all of this. If I know myself at all, then I’ve got to have plenty of liquor stored in… wherever it is the liquor is stored in this house. I take a wild guess that the small door that might lead to a pantry is actually the liquor cabinet, and I hope Kate doesn’t notice my hesitation. It turns out that my guess was spot on, and I wrap my hands around a bottle of expensive whiskey. I pour a generous amount – because why not? – into the cleanest looking glass I can find in the dish drainer.
“Ignoring me now?” Kate asks. “Invite me in, then ignore me. Thanks a lot, Zac. I’m just gonna go now before you get totally shitfaced.”
I take a big gulp of the whiskey just to buy myself time. Then I realize that if I give Kate too much time, she’ll probably just get fed up and leave. So I slam the glass down and look at her. “What did I do? Why do you hate me so much?”
Kate tilts her head to the side. “You really don’t know? After all this, you really don’t know?”
I shake my head. If only she knew. “I just wanna hear you say it.”
“Right. Right,” Kate says with a small nod. “You really want to know?”
I nod again. I’m getting sick of this. “Yes. That’s why I fucking asked.”
Kate steps across the room until she’s standing only inches away from my face face. Her face is like a statue, like it’s carved out of pure, emotionless stone.
“Because I know. I know about you and Taylor.”