Chapter 6

Taylor swallowed the whiskey with a hard gulp. He’d been drinking everyday for a few days now, and he just couldn’t get a taste for hard liquor, but he loved the buzz. Being drunk made reality so much nicer. When he was drunk he was at peace. He didn’t have to see the scars that marred his body; the scars that he knew would never go away. When he was drunk and he stood on the scale weighing 124 pounds didn’t look as fatal as it did if you were sober. The best thing Taylor got from being drunk though was that his intoxicated eyes were blind to the one gone. When he was drunk he never had to think about Dawn. They had not spoken since the night of their fight. She never even called him, nor did he call her. He didn’t have to think about how much he missed her and wanted nothing more than to hear her voice, or how many times he woke up crying during the night his arms aching to hold her, or how long he loved her and wished he could tell her how sorry he was.

If life barely meant anything to Taylor before, it meant nothing to him now. Vomiting had become as easy and as casual as breathing was. He’d eat, and than he would throw up, and it was that simple. He didn’t even have to coax his stomach much. It was trained now and saw food as it sees a virus and disposed of it the same way. He cut himself now without even thinking about it, but only in places no one could see. His shoulders, his stomach, his hips, his thighs, his ankles all boasted scars now. It was his only release. He didn’t try to write poetry or songs anymore, and he couldn’t remember the last time his fingers grazed the keys of a piano. And lately he drank. He’d wait until it was late at night, he’d lock his door, and drink until he couldn’t stand the taste anymore.

He just wanted this all to be over. He tried to remember where he usually ran to when things were terrible like this. His mind was starting to get fuzzy, but through the haze he could see Dawn. He grabbed a sheet of paper from his dresser and sat down at his desk.

Dear Dawn,

As I write this the effects of alcohol are settling into my brain, but this seems to be the only time I am truly lucid anymore. I am so sorry about what happened the other night. I never meant to say those God-awful things I said, I just got scared. I wanted a place to hide so I ran beneath my terrible words. Everything you said about me was true and I didn’t want anyone to know, myself included. I’m scared Dawn, too scared to even say the right words, but I know I have to and I’m not sure why.

I love you Dawn. I know that it doesn’t mean much now, but I love you, and I have for a very long time. Always as a friend, but not exclusively. Do you remember the night that we went to the carnival? I won you that pink teddy bear and we rode on the Ferris wheel at least ten times. Do you ever think about that night? I do, all the time. I relive it over and over in my mind and wish again and again that it were that night. I wanted to tell you then, but for some foolish reason or another, I didn’t. I’m telling you now though. If for some reason I don’t have another tomorrow you’ll know that I was never mad at you for anything. You’ll know that I love you and that I want you to be happy.

Please, don’t worry about me. I’m doing what I need to do for myself, and I hope that someday I will be a lot happier because of everything I am doing now. Maybe someday I can truly explain this to you; years from now when we are sitting at my kitchen table I’ll tell you why I was the way I am. I don’t want your tears or your pity though. Not now, not ever. I hope if you are reading this that you understand, and that you forgive me and until this is all over you’ll remember me the way I was, and not the way I am. If you are reading this though, you are probably writing it off as the rambling of one intoxicated. And you might be right. My sentences probably will fail to make sense soon, and sadly this is the most sense they’ll ever make.

I love you Dawn and I am sorry. Please don’t worry for me, I’m invincible.

Taylor rested his head against the paper when the words became too blurry to read. Tears slid from his cheeks onto the paper. He grabbed it in his hand and was about to crumple it when a pang in his chest told him not to. Instead, he placed the tear-stained letter in an envelope, scribbled Dawn’s name on the front and put it in his desk drawer.

Dear Taylor,

I’m in my room fighting the urge to call you. It’s almost two, but I haven’t spoken to you in almost a week. I miss you. I’m sorry if I hurt you Taylor, I never meant to. I’m just so worried about you. You were always the brightest star in my world Tay, and you seem to have been sucked into a black hole. I want to help you if you’re hurting, and I want to see you smile again. You’re my best friend and I only want the best for you.

I want to ask you something Taylor, and it is the hardest thing I have ever had to ask anyone, but…Are you bulimic? You’ve been thin all your life and that’s nothing new, but I don’t see you eat anymore Taylor, and when you do eat you lock yourself in the bathroom. The last time I saw you, your eyes were so hallow and skin looked gray. You know that, if this is what you’re doing, it’s just like killing yourself. If you continue on for too long you’ll die Taylor. I love you too much not to interfere. Do you remember when we were ten? That was the year my cousin and her best friend had an “accident”. Do you remember that? That’s what my parents told me had happened to them. I still remember those words; “Dawn, Cousin Jessica and her best friend Laurie are in the hospital. They’ve had an accident and the doctors aren’t so sure they are going to make it. You have to be brave sunshine, your cousin needs you.” Laurie was already dead as I heard those words, she died from some internal bleeding cause by vomiting, not that I knew that then, and Jessica was in the ICU, hanging on for dear life. She lived a week longer. My mom told me I couldn’t go to her funeral. Do you remember Taylor? I stayed by your house that day. I was so sad because I never got to say good-bye to her. I also still remember the day I found out what Jessica really died from. I was fourteen or so and it was Jessica’s birthday, she would’ve been twenty that day. My mom told me the truth about the way Jessie died. She told me about her bulimia. And I cried. I cried so much because I remembered all the times my cousin called her self overweight, and all the times I watched her give her food to the dog, and I couldn’t believe that no one saw it. No one saved her.

I am not going to let that happen to you Taylor. I love you and I am not going to witness another accident. I am not going to watch as they put the most important person in my life into a casket and lower him into the ground. Even if you hate me now, and always will hate me, I am not going to loose you Taylor.

Maybe I’m jumping the gun. Maybe I’m getting carried away, but the thought that you are doing this is killing me. Please Taylor tell me the truth. Please Taylor let me get you help. Please Taylor, please don’t die.

Dawn crumpled the letter up and threw it in the trash. This wasn’t the way you talked to your best friend. You sat down with them alone, when you had all the time in the world to talk to them. Your concern and caring were supposed to come from your heart and somehow this letter seemed cold and heartless. Plus, what good would a letter do? She knew that he was truly hurt and truly angry because he hadn’t even attempted to contact her in a week. She was so sorry she had snapped at him. She wished she could take it all back.

Dawn laid down on her bed and covered herself with the quilt. As she stared at the ceiling she wondered why things were happening the way they were now. She never believed in destiny. Life was created by your decisions. It was not predetermined. Since Taylor came home though, one could only call everything that happened destiny, because she didn’t recall deciding for any of this to happen. She thought back to that brisk Saturday night that she and Taylor laid in the grass in his yard and talked about loneliness. Two people so lonely would take refuge in each other. She heard the simple words echo in her mind, but all her life she fought to keep Taylor her best friend, and only her best friend, and now was no time to waste a lifetime of work. Falling in love with him wasn’t an option. She never made that decision, but it happened anyway. It was going to take hold though, she wouldn’t let it. She fought it with everything she had, and she won, but she was lonely as a rose blossom in the dead of winter. Then, almost as if a miracle, she met Eric. Dawn thought it was finally over and she was going to forget the meaning of being lonely, but she was wrong.

“What’s there to be lonely about?” she scolded herself, “You have your family, your friends, your boyfriend and your life is not even the slightest bit terrible. So what are you so God-damn lonely for?”

She never allowed herself to answer that question. Once she said the answer there was no taking it back. Once she admitted it to herself it was the truth and there was no more hiding it, or denying. There’d be nothing left to do, but embrace it, and she couldn’t do that. The question always sank into the void. Not tonight though. Tonight, for the first time she asked herself that question, and sobbed Taylor’s name into her pillow.

“Sweetheart, you have to go to sleep.”

“I can’t Walker, I just can’t.”

“Diana,” he said, “You’re worrying over nothing.”

“I’m his mother, that’s my job.”

“Honey he’s not a baby anymore. He’s a responsible young man and he can handle himself.”

“I know,” Diana said turning to face her husband, “I know that he’s not five years old anymore, but five year olds aren’t the only people in the world who need help. Just because he isn’t a baby anymore doesn’t mean he won’t ever need help. All it means is that he isn’t going to come running to me for it.”

“We’ve been through this before though! You know how effected Taylor gets by the slightest things,” he whispered taking both her hands, “Nothing is wrong with him.”

Diana let go of Walkers hands and walked across the room to the window, “You don’t think anything has changed about him?”

“Not really.”

“Was he always so sad? Was he always so anti-social? Was he always so secretive?”

“There were times he was all those things.”

“You never see him Walker,” she sighed, “You never have, and as time goes by, you see him less and less, especially since Hanson became more than a last name.”

“What do you mean I don’t see him? He’s my son for God’s sake!” he exclaimed.

“You know you’ve never grown to him like you have to the rest of the kids. I don’t know why, maybe your souls are just too different or maybe there is some reason you are frightened by him, but you’ve never gone to him like you have to the Isaac, or Zac, or Avery.”

“That doesn’t mean I don’t love him,” he whispered, “That doesn’t mean I want to see him hurting.”

“Of course it doesn’t,” Diana said facing him once again, “But that does make it harder for you to tell if he is hurting.”

“There is nothing wrong with Taylor,” he said firmly.

“If there isn’t anything wrong with him, why doesn’t he smile? If he is okay why doesn’t he want to see anyone? If nothing is wrong with him why do I hear him crying in his room at night?” she said tears beginning to form in her eyes, “He doesn’t touch the piano anymore. He always plays the piano. If he is so fine, than why isn’t he playing anymore? If nothing is wrong why is he so pale? And was he always this thin?”

Walker stared at Diana as she sobbed into a tissue. He hadn’t noticed any of those things. If they were there, than she was right, he didn’t see his own child. He barely knew his second son. Since 1997 though Taylor had become an idol. He could make crowd’s scream just by smiling at them and his voice brought teenage girls to their knees. That wasn’t the Taylor that Walker knew. Walker wasn’t sure if the Taylor he knew, even if he barely knew him, still existed beyond the white lights of flash bulbs.

“Diana, please, come to bed,” he sighed heavy, holding back his own tears.

She looked at him and saw the fear written on his face. Maybe she was getting carried away. She pulled back the sheets and climbed into bed and silently recited the prayer to Saint Joseph, the prayer for protection against sudden death.

Taylor peered into the dark room. He’d heard about this club before, but he’d never been here. He never thought he’d want to be. As a matter of fact, he didn’t want to be here now, but he knew it was the only place in town where he could score easy alcohol with no questions asked, so he snuck out of his house and came here.

“What’ll you have?” asked the grimy bartender.

“Bourbon,” Taylor swallowed, “On the rocks.”