"Hm, probably since I was 15, maybe a little earlier."
"What was Mac like?"
I couldn't believe he was asking about him already. "Well, what do you want to know?"
"I really don't know. What was he like?" I looked at the shadows cast by the streetlamps on the wet street, and breathed in the moist London air. I felt tears sting my eyes, and I quickly wiped one away with the back of my hand.
"He was really amazing, we met in high school. I didn't really pay attention to him much until my sophomore year. We were pretty close friends, but I was never really attracted to him. I mean, it's Mac, the cute boy who would play 'Julia' that Beatles song for me when I was feeling terrible. He was so nice, one incredible guitar player. He has so much talent. His mom died in our junior year, and we just ended up spending more and more time together. I took a lot of art courses my senior year, and he's really into art too, so we just started off really slow. We spent a ton of time together in art and stuff and we just kinda 'got together'. When he went on tour in Europe 2 years ago I went with him, it was the happiest I'd been in my entire life, I love it over here, and it was my first time here, and it was only with him. I would write him poems and he'd write me songs. He was even the first one who got me high." I laughed, remembering my rambling of nothing that first time, it didn't affect me that much, the second time I talked for 4 hours straight, and Mac listened the whole time. I was babbling about soap and how before I died I wanted to take a shower with Cascade. Taylor looked at me without anger,
"He sounds really cool, you were good friends." he smiled. "He was lucky."
My voice lowered. "Yeah, turns out that we were only friends in the end."
"What happened?"
"Exactly what I said. In the beginning we were inseperable, I mean we just always wanted to be together. And y'know, when we started getting a bit more serious, it was cool. I was so comfortable with him, he was good to have around. I mean we spent four years of basically talking about nothing, and that was all I was really ready for. After he toured Europe, he had a pretty strong underground following, so he moved here. He asked me to come, and it was like a tacit sort of thing. Y'know, if I moved in with him here, we'd more than likely get married some night at, like 2:30 in the morning, surrounded by some great artsy friends and not have kids and just hang out and create music/writing for the rest of our lives. End of story. And I thought I wanted to come. Thought I would be nothing but thrilled 'til the day I died with that life. The more I wrote about it, the more I realized that I couldn't be with him. I wanted kids, I wanted more passion. I did love Mac, very much, but my stomach just was telling me that he wasn't the one. It was me that ended it, and we're okay with eachother, we came to the conclusion that we needed some time off, which, to everyone else except my parents was crazy. Everybody thought we were perfect for eachother, but I didn't. He was my best friend, and I wouldn't trade those memories for anything, but I couldn't commit to him. I was tired of relying on him, I wanted to take some hits on my own. So I narrowed down the thousand poems I'd written about us into a collection and sent them off to a couple publishers and Castle Rock picked it up immediately. All of a sudden I had this huge amount of money, royalities coming every week, and talk of a book tour. My fans, I found out, really wanted to meet me. So I toured the states for six months and had a blast, I got to be interviewed by Rolling Stone and a bunch of literary magazines. I loved the attention I was getting. I didn't have time to think about Mac. Then he called me about six months ago, about two or two and a half months after the first book tour and wanted to get back together. All his friends couldn't believe that we had been together. So I visited him, we spent a month being lazy and hanging out, it was great. But in the end I realized I was done with that period in my life. I had to end it." I paused, amazed that I had been talking for such a long time.
"What'd you do?"
"I kissed him goodbye, and came back to the states and went on prozac." Heavy silence."Mac tried to commit suicide the night I left, he was in a lot worse shape than I thought he was. He would always hide the hurt from me, that's just another thing I couldn't deal with. When I left, he waved me goodbye, and didn't cry too much. But I wasn't going back to him. He's okay now, he writes me letters, and I do send him a postcard from every city I go to, he loves that. I can't commit to him, I still miss him so much, but I want someone else. I needed a break from any kind of relationship for a while. I didn't think that anyone could be as sweet as Mac, but now.. I'm moving on with my life. I'm on tour right now, and totally loving this. My work is a lot better than my life." Taylor stopped walking, he lifted my chin and I looked into his darkened blue eyes.
"I want to make you happy. I know I can, let me. Please." I began to cry, I wanted to try to believe in him, he was doing one hell of a job, and I was crumbling. He lightly kissed my lips and took my cold hand in his.