In Love
August 12, 2007
For the third day in a row, I wake up in this unfamiliar world. Yet again, my wishes have been ignored by whatever higher power is up there. At this point, I’ve decided that God is just fucking with me. At least, that’s what I would have decided if I believed in God.
I trudge through the boring routine of getting dressed and ready to face the day. It isn’t a day I want to face at all, so using that turn of phrase feels a bit strange. Like I’m a superhero for going through with this. The guy staring at me in the mirror doesn’t look like a superhero; hell, he barely even looks like me.
Without much thought, I pull out a razor and shave off all this stupid stubble on my face, leaving just a bit of a goatee. It makes me look older, but in a good way. Not in the neglected, broken down way I’ve looked older since I arrived in this timeline. I even manage to brush my hair back into something vaguely presentable – for as much as long hair on a guy can ever been considered presentable. While I’m on this roll, I even dress myself in khakis and a button-down shirt that I have to assume Kate has bought for me. It’s nice to see she left those for me.
It’s not ideal, because I still look like someone who has had his spirit broken. Who has lost everything. But maybe that will get me some sympathy.
As I drive to the address Kate gave me, it occurs to me that I don’t even know who my lawyer is. It’s probably one of the ones we – that is, the band – used in the past when we were dealing with record company stuff. If I know me, and I’d like to think I do, I’ll have chosen the path of last resistance.
Just as I suspect, from the address, the building where we’re meeting is this huge posh thing downtown. I have to wonder if Kate’s using my money to pay for such a fancy lawyer, and I immediately hate myself for the thought. But let’s face it – it’s either my money or her daddy’s. I’m not angry, though. The money has honestly never mattered to me; as long as I’ve got a place to live, food to eat, and I can keep playing music, I don’t care what happens to the rest of the money. So it’s just a funny thought, really. If I’m feeling spiteful, I might comment on it. But right now, I’m too tired to be spiteful.
I shuffled into the building and realize I have no idea what I’m doing. I pull my phone out to call Kate, but before I can, I see her walking toward me. That’s good. I have no plans at all to tell her about my little time problem, but she doesn’t seem to really notice that anything’s wrong with me. I guess to her, I don’t seem that different from usual. She’s always seen me as a little bit immature and dumb, a little bit in need of her guidance. She’s not wrong.
“Glad you could show up this time,” she says. She’s eying me from head to toe, and I know she’s judging my appearance, but she doesn’t comment on it. Thank whoever for small miracles.
I offer he a a smile, because I’m just not in the mood to talk more than I have to. Again, she doesn’t say anything snide. Strange, but I’ll take it. She motions toward a hallway and I follow her down it, into some kind of conference room.
Just as a figured, my lawyer is one of the ones we’ve worked with before. That’s good, even if I can’t remember his name. Weinberg. Weinstein. Whatever. He’s a short little weaselly looking guy, not nearly as imposing and scary as the tall blonde woman representing Kate.
Honestly, I couldn’t tell you anything we talked about in the meeting if I wanted to. It was worse than all the contract negotiations and other bullshit we had to sit through years ago. It’s clearly not the first meeting, and since I don’t remember that one, I have very little input to make. They all seem to have it covered without my help, though.
“Zac? Zac, are you listening at all?”
I have clearly thought too soon.
“What?” I ask, realizing that everyone is staring at me.
“The house, Mr. Hanson,” Weinstein offers. “Ms. Tucker plans to move back to Georgia, so we need to decide what will be done with the marital home. Either way, if you remain in it or not, the most common practice is…”
My eyes cross and my ears just automatically tune him out. I manage to catch a few words, though. “Sure, whatever. I’ll probably just stay there.”
“Okay, then we need to be sure that the house gets appraised so that we can determine the amount…”
And I’m out again, preferring to spend the rest of the meeting in my own brain rather than focusing on what the lawyers have to say. It’s mostly a bunch of legalese that is bound to go in one ear and out the other, even if I do listen. I don’t really care what we do with all the financial stuff; like I said, the money never mattered to me. Let Kate take as much as she wants. Everything I care about is gone, anyway.
“Okay, then. I think that’s it for now,” Kate’s lawyer, whose name I’ve not even managed to catch, says. “Of course, we’ll have to meet again when we get all the appraisals completed and make sure that we can agree upon those values.”
Finally, it seems we’ve talked over as much pointless financial stuff as we can. We all stand and the lawyers do this sort of professional stand-off thing, all forced smiles and stiff handshakes. Not surprisingly, neither Kate nor her lawyer offer me a handshake. That’s fine by me.
My lawyer escorts me out of the room, still rambling about all kinds of financial bullshit that he can’t be stupid enough to think I understand or care about. If this is going to happen, and clearly it is, I just want it over with as quickly and painlessly as possible. With that in mind, I keep my mouth shut and just try to nod my head at the appropriate points in whats-his-face’s speech.
I don’t know why, but Kate decides to intervene. I’m sure it isn’t because she actually pities me for having to listen to this guy drone on and on about divorce law. Whatever her reasoning is, I’m grateful.
“Zac, can we talk?”
I don’t even bother looking back at my lawyer before answering her. Whether he wants to accept it or not, I’m done with him – at least for the day. “I suppose we can. Last time I checked I was still capable of speech.”
“Funny, because you didn’t really look that way during the meeting.”
I don’t remember Kate having such a biting wit, such an ability to keep up with my own sarcasm. I guess things change, especially when you’re effectively absent from your own life for a year. Unfortunately, I don’t have a witty reply to that. At least my lawyer has taken the hint and wandered off. “Sorry I don’t have a lot to say about dividing up shared property and shit. Oh, look at that. I remembered what we talked about.”
“Good for you,” she says. “Do you really have so little to say for yourself? That’s not the Zac I used to know.”
“I guess I’ve changed,” I reply. It’s probably the most cliche and untrue thing I could say. If there’s anything I haven’t done, it’s change. I’m the guy she knew a year ago, in fact, not the one she seems to think she knows now. But I can’t explain that to her.
To my surprise, Kate accepts that without question. “I guess you have. But we both know you were a lot of things all along that I just didn’t know about.”
“Yeah, I guess was. But that’s all over now, isn’t it?”
“You’re not out of brothers yet.”
It’s like a punch to the gut. Whatever sarcasm and anger I was mustering up is all gone. “I might as well be. Do you know what it’s like to have your reason for living taken from you?”
“Yes. I do,” Kate replies, a small, wry smile playing at her lips. “But then I found out he was never really mine to begin with.”
Another punch to the gut. I guess, as stupid as it sounds, I’ve never really thought about how much I meant to Kate. I’ve always been so selfish. Everything has been about me. After all, that’s how I got Taylor in the first place – because he could never say no to me and he was what I wanted. And Zac always gets what he wants. At least, he used to.
I’ve destroyed everything and everyone in my path, all the while thinking I was doing the right thing. How could I be so stupid?
“Gone mute on me again, I see.”
“I – umm.” Yes, it appears I have gone mute. “It’s not… it wasn’t like that, Katie. It wasn’t.”
“Tell me you didn’t love him, then. Or, failing that, tell me you weren’t with him first.”
“I can’t do that,” I reply.
Kate shakes her head in disgust and turns to to walk away from me. I can’t let her go. I reach out ad grab her arm, maybe a little more tightly than I mean to, but it stops her from leaving. “Katie. Listen to me.”
“What more could you possibly have to say to me?”
I pull her closer to me. “I can’t tell you that I wasn’t with him first. I can’t tell you that I didn’t love him. But I love you, too. It’s not the same, that’s true, but the two of you aren’t the same. So how could it be? He was never good to me or there for me like you were. You were the one I leaned on when everything was going wrong, and now I don’t have anyone.”
“You want me to feel sorry for you?” She asks, and her voice is cold but she isn’t putting much effort into wiggling free of my grasp.
I shake my head. “No. I hate pity. Pity isn’t going to fix anything. I just want you to understand that I didn’t want it to happen this way and that I… I do love you, I really do.”
My voice may have stuttered and I may not have said it with much conviction, but for maybe the first time, I really feel it. I hope it isn’t just because she’s all I have left and I want to cling to her. But maybe this is what I needed to be able to see it clearly.
“If you loved me, you would have be honest with me,” Kate says, her voice barely above a whisper. She’s still angry, I can tell, but she’s giving in just a little bit.
“I’m selfish,” I reply. “I didn’t want to lose you, and I guess I was right that I would if you knew the truth.”
Kate finally pulls herself free of my grasp. “You’re right. I don’t know, maybe it would have been different if I had found out differently, but… I didn’t. So we’ve got to live with what is, not what might have been. And I don’t think I can live with you, not with this hanging over our heads.”
She doesn’t give me time to say anything else, just turns away and hurries out of the office. I look around and realize all of this conversation has happened in public. There’s a receptionist sitting at a desk and I can only imagine what she thinks of us now, but she doesn’t look up at me. Working in a lawyer’s office, she’s probably seen dozens of fights between couples of the edge of divorce. But probably none quite like ours.
The receptionist finally glances up at me and I decide I should probably leave before I start to look really creepy just standing there. I don’t really know what this day was supposed to accomplish. I don’t know what I accomplished trying to really talk to Kate. I don’t think I could ever win her back, no matter what I say. That realization hurts worse than anything else. Even if I make it back to the right time and try to fix all of this… what if I can’t? What if everything is too far gone to be fixed?