It took me a month to get better. I'm at home, and the tour starts up again tomorrow in Milwaukee, our first tour without the girls. Even the first tour had Michelle with me, but now I don't have any of them. Yeah, Nic and Amber are coming along with us, but Amber's Amber, and Nic is so fucking annoying right now.
I don't know. It started off good and in the right place�my relationship with Nic, that is. She broke Taylor heart completely (I can see him walking around in utter dismay when he sees the two of us together) and lately all we do is fight. Somewhere alone the lines we just got sick of trying to damn hard to make it work.
She never found out I knew about her and Taylor. I never told her. I didn't want to bring it up because I wanted to make this work. I just wanted to forget about it. Eventually I got over it and moved on, but I questioned being with her for a long time. Now that questioning is coming back again.
"Zac, shut up!" Nic yelled at me. We were in the middle of another fight. I don't even remember what it was about, or what started it, or whose fault it was. All I knew was that she was pissed off about nothing, and she was taking it out on me. "God, if you would just open you eyes for once you'd see what the problem is!"
"What problem?" I yelled at her. "I don't even know what we're fighting about anymore! All I know is that for the past two weeks you've been yelling consistently at me for absolutely nothing! All I'm trying to do right now is to get better and focus so I can get back on my tour and forget that my girls aren't coming with me!"
"That's it! Your girls! You are always rambling about your girls, day in and day out. You don't even look at me anymore; it's always just them! Zac, can't you realize that they're the ones that started this whole mess? Every problem that you and your brothers have ever had involved one of them. They're bad influences on you. It's a good thing that they are not coming with us."
"You're just saying that because you don't like any of them. You don't like Rachel because you thought she tried to tell me that you were on drugs when you didn't want me to know. You hate Taurii because she chewed you out once. You hate Michelle because she's my best friend! I'm sorry Nic, but not everything in the world revolves around you."
"Where the hell did you pull that one from? I'm not talking about me here. If anyone here is egotistical, it's you! You're walking around with your millions of dollars from your touring, your records, and your painting. You think everything is good in the world because you're in it."
"Don't even talk about my success like I made it happen. I didn't even want it to happen! Do you even remember me telling you day after day that I wished it would all go away so I could go home and just be myself for a change? I'm on display all the time for everyone to gawk at and I hate it! I just want everything to go away!"
"Then why did you start painting? That just brought more fame and more money to your name."
"I started painting because I liked it and I was good at it. I didn't put myself out there. I mentioned to one person that I happened to be painting and he saw my work and said I should have a show. I didn't know until a few days before the show that people could buy my work and I'd get money for it. I just wanted a place to put my work so I wouldn't have to have it around here all the time. I'm getting rid of all the stuff I do! Do you realize I don't have any of it here anymore? I gave it all away, either to the gallery or to the people who bought it, or to you or Michelle or the rest of the girls..."
"What the hell is with you and Michelle?" Nic yelled at me, gripping onto the edge of a chair so she wouldn't gesticulate wildly. Funny, I always used to think her gesticulating was so beautiful, but now I couldn't even stand it anymore. "You don't shut up about her and you're talking to her all the time on the phone. I know you've been going out to see her lately."
It was true. I have been seeing a lot of Michelle since I've been able to move around at home a lot. We didn't do anything in the lines of cheating; I haven't been going to see her to make out with her or to have sex with her, I've just been going to see her to see her. I want to get a lot of time in with her before I won't be able to do that anymore. This tour has been prolonged for such a long time and we have so many dates that we have to do...I don't know if it'll ever end.
"I'm sorry if I've been trying to spend time with my best friend. It is still summer. I always see her during the summer. And now that I have to goon tour without her, I'm trying to spend some time with her before I leave and don't get to see her for a long time. I have a lot of dates to make up and a lot of dates to get to. This tour will go on for months; it'll be winter by the time we finish. I'm just trying to see her for a little bit. I'll get to see you all that time because you're coming with us."
"I don't think I want to come with you, Zac," she said.
"What?" I asked, blinking. She did not mean that.
"I don't want to come with you. I've been thinking it over. We've been fighting a lot lately and if we keep spending all our time together, we'll continue to fight through the entire tour. We'll just get worse and worse until we'll do something or say something we don't mean and really hurt each other. I still love you and I still want to be with you, I just don't want to spend all my time with you on the tour. It's not like I can room with the girls for a little while to calm down because they're not going. So it'll be the best thing just to not go."
"But, Nic, you have to go. I can't just stay with my brothers throughout the entire tour. That'll be insane. We'll kill each other because we have nothing else to do."
"Darling will be there. She'll keep Isaac out of the way. Amber will keep Taylor out of the way. It'll just be you. If anything big happens, the two girls know how to keep you guys in shape. It'll be the best bet for you. You need to focus on this tour because you're just getting back into the swing of things and you need all you focus to be on your music. If you're thinking about a fight the two of us had, you won't be able to pay attention to what you should be doing. I know you can do two things at once, but right now you're still weak and you're just starting everything up again."
"Nic, I'm going to need you there."
"No you won't. I'll pack up my things and instead of going on the tour with you guys; I'll just catch a plane home, all right? I'll be home when you guys are done and if you want to, I can come here and stay with you for a little bit before you start something else up again."
"But, Nic�"
"I'm sorry. I've made up my mind."
And with that she left. She walked out of the room and down the stairs. I sat down, sighing. We were as good as broken up. She'd go home and I'd go on the tour. Since she's not coming with me, I'll invite Michelle to be my roommate. We'd be separated for months and after that I won't have any time to do anything with anybody, much less her. With that much time, I'm sure she'd find someone else anyway. She'd be back in school and I'd have to go back to promotions, so the schedules would conflict and I wouldn't be able to see her until next summer. That was a year away.
I got up, shaking my head. I had a phone call to make.
I walked into my room later that day, looking for Nic. I didn't know exactly where I'd find her, but I figured she'd be back in my room. I was right. She was sitting in my room, looking at the photos around my desk. The phrase 'a picture's worth a thousand words' didn't even begin to tell the story that was lining my desk. I saw her eyes look over each and every picture, of the significant drift in my life.
It started with the first tour; three fresh, happy faces smiling whole-heartedly at the camera. I hated that picture because we were so happy back then and now we're so, well, unhappy. But the only reason I kept it up there was because Michelle was in the background, looking up at us with a clean admiration. Yeah, back then it was all about the music. One could tell just by the look on our faces that we were thrilled and nervous about being there, the first show in front of that many fans.
After that picture started our own warfare against each other. Taurii and Rachel evolved into the pictures instead of just Michelle, and as the line went on, it turned to us not being so happy anymore. We'd force a smile to the camera, sometimes not even looking at the camera at all. I have a bold one of Taylor with a cigarette in his mouth, flicking off the camera. That was the year we started the drugs, and it showed. We all had tracks and glazed over eyes, a result from the high we so wanted to receive. And even in a few I could see the bruises on my body as a result from a beating.
Towards the middle was a collage of Amber and me. Even though it was still obvious that the both of us were high, the smile that was there was purely genuine because we were so happy together. My relationship with Amber was probably among the best ones, because we actually loved each other and loved being with each other. We didn't want to spend any time apart because we loved being with each other so much that being apart just wasn't as fun. I mean, sure, I had fun in my other relationships, but like with Nic, I still spend a lot of time with the girls and with Lauryn I was clawing to get away from her at times. Amber and I just really had the best friendship ever and adding the fact that we were hopelessly in love with one another just made it even better. Of course now I'm still friends with her, but I don't know how to act around her. When she rooms with Taylor on the tour I'm going to have a hard time with the both of them. I can't trust Taylor and I'm learning how to be friends with Amber again. She completely degraded herself and her image, but back then she was just awesome. She was another one I lost to Taylor in the worst way possible. She was afraid of love, unlike the rest of us who always said we loved each other. She didn't know how to say it because she was afraid of caring too much and that she'd just get hurt in the end. She'd been hurt before and she didn't want to admit that she loved me so when I sat it she had to find a way to get out of it as quickly as she could.
So as my collage with Amber died (I had the most pictures of her because in retrospect she was probably the one I loved the most), the pictures of Nic and I popped up. There wasn't as many as with Amber, but there were still quite a few. It started out with me always having that pack of cigarettes in my back pocket and the stoned eyes like in all the other pictures, but as the pictures progressed so did my image. I looked better and better through every one, because I got off drugs and went down to smoking only when I was worried.
After Nic was Lauryn. I didn't have too many pictures of her, because I haven't been able to put any of them up yet. But at the very far corner, at the end of the line, separated in a large space for more pictures of my present and future girlfriends to come and go, was one single picture. Of Michelle. Even when I'd put this collage together a few years ago, I knew that in the end I'd always have my Michelle and she'd be the one I would come home to every night when all this fame is over and I can hang my hat and settle down with her.
I don't mind if Nic knows. I don't mind if any of my future girlfriends know. At the end of the day, when there's no one else to come home to, I will always have Michelle. I've known since I was a little kid, running around with her and getting into mischief. Michelle is the person I'm going to grow old with and have kids with and work a nine-to-five job and come back from work and say "Honey, I'm home" and have my children run up to me and see her making dinner in the kitchen. Yes, it's very nineteen-fifties, but that's the way I see it because it's just the classic tale of husband and wife.
I looked away from my pictures and back to Nic. She was looking back up at me. "So, the end of your line is Michelle, huh?" she asked. I nodded. "I should have known I could never compete with her."
"It's not like I don't love you now."
"But you won't love me then. I always knew, for some reason, ever since I got here and you were always talking to Michelle, always talking of Michelle. I always knew from the way you looked at her and acted with her; I always knew she was the one who was going to get you in the end." She stood up. "So I have every reason to leave anyway. I have no future with you."
"No one ever said we don't have a future," I said. I knew I'd end up with Michelle, but that didn't mean I couldn't have a nice, long relationship with Nic. Even if she was going to leave and I wouldn't be able to see her for at least a year.
"I say we don't have a future," she told me. "I'm...I'm going to go to sleep. I'll make sure to say goodbye before I leave tomorrow." She kissed me lightly before walking out of the room and into the spare bedroom. Why she decided she was going to sleep in there, I don�t know, but she was the one who decided she wasn't going to spend her last night with me.
I saw her close the door and almost immediately shut off the light. It wasn't late yet. I picked up the phone and sat on bed. I dialed Michelle's number. "Hello?" I smiled at the sound of her voice.
"Can you come?" I asked.
"She's not going anymore?" Michelle asked. I'd called her up earlier and told her I might be inviting her along, if Nic refused to go like she did just now. I couldn't convince her to stay, and I wasn't going to have both of my brothers happy and me be upset. I talked it over a little bit with my mother, and as long as Michelle stayed clean the entire time, she could stay.
"Nope. I even talked to Mom and she said you could come. You can't bring any drugs, obviously, but you can come."
"Really?! Then yes I'll come! Zac, I love you so much."
"But there is something I need to tell you." I bit my lip. I didn't know how well this was going to go over with her, but I could try anyway. "Nic and I are pretty much broken up."
"That's too bad."
"And I really don't want to ask this over the phone, but I have to ask before we leave so if you don't like it you can tell me so."
"What is it?" I got up and closed the door then walked to the far side of my room, as far away from Nic as I could get.
"Michelle, I love you. I've been thinking about this a lot lately. I don't know why, maybe it's because Nic and I have been fighting and I've been thinking about us, but I want to be with you." There was silence on the other end of the phone. I could see Michelle now. She was trying to form words and was making motions to act out her response but I couldn't see her so they didn't do any good. I almost laughed, but then I realized I could be wrong.
"Y-You mean as your girlfriend?" she finally asked.
"Yes."
"Wow. I was not expecting that."
"You don't have to answer right away because I know it's a lot for you to handle, but it'll be better if I know before we leave."
"Of course I will!" Her sudden outburst surprised me. A smile crossed my face. I finally got the guts to do it. "Now let me go to sleep. I've got to be nice and pretty for you tomorrow." I laughed.
"All right, Michelle." I paused. "I love you."
"I love you too." I hung up the phone. I wasn't tired yet; it was barely eleven. I knew I had to get up early tomorrow but there was no use in trying to sleep. It was the day before the tour. The first two years we did the tour, my brothers and I would go into the garage and pull all-nighters, just jamming away on our instruments and see what comes from it. But we haven't played like that in years. We never practice by ourselves. Either we have the entire back-up band or we don't practice. We never play with just the three of us anymore. It was like what I told Taylor a few months ago We can't just lock ourselves in the garage and jam for hours anymore...We're thinking of music as a job instead of a way of life because we've been distracted... We have been distracted.
I walked into the garage and found Taylor already in there, trying to figure out a chord on our grand piano we bought just for him to write, but lately only I use. He didn't seem to be getting it right, and it was frustrating him. "Dammit," I heard him mutter, as he moved his fingers along the keys. I don't know what exactly what he was trying to play.
"Maybe if you take out the sheet music you'll find the right chord," I said. He jumped, startled, and turned around to face me.
"Oh, hey Zac. You scared the shit out of me," he said, and then turned to the keys. "It's something new and I can't seem to get the right chord out. I know what it sounds like in my head, but I can't find it." It surprised me. Taylor was so gifted at this; his talent greatly surpassed mine that he could always identify the chord in his head instantly and write it down without going to the piano first. But I've been doing all the writing for the past few years that he hasn't even tried to do anything. I don't know why he was doing anything right now, the night before the tour started. Maybe it was because he couldn't sleep either. I never could sleep the night before the tour. Maybe he had the same problem.
"Maybe I can help," I said, walking over and taking a seat on the bench next to him. It sent a wave of d�j� vu through my mind; this was how I learned to play piano. He learned many years before I ever showed interest in it, so when I finally did he figured it'd be better if he just taught me instead of hiring some old nag. But a lot of things have changed since then.
"It's kind of like the way the second verse starts out," he explained, handing me the sheet music, "but it's a bit different and I can't pinpoint exactly what it is. I know the bass notes are the same but the others aren�t." I looked over the music and just by glancing at the notes I figured out what would be the best to add right there. I immediately got what he was talking about, it was the same, just one or two notes were different.
"You mean, like this?" I asked, putting my hands on the piano and playing a chord.
"Yes! Thank you, it's been bugging me for fifteen minutes now," he said, glancing at my hands before sketching the notes down on paper. "I didn't understand how I couldn't know either, I've been doing this for so long usually I don't even need a piano to figure it out, but maybe I'm losing it or something."
"No, I think you're just rusty because you haven't done it in a while," I said. This was weird, me and Taylor having a conversation. I don't think we've even talked since we came home, but now here I am, sitting next to him and helping him out with music. It was so not like us lately.
"Zac?" he asked. I looked over at him. "You're really close to the girls, aren't you?"
"Yeah, I guess you can say that. I'm closer to them than you or Isaac."
"Well I took them out before they left, just to say goodbye and stuff, you know, thanks for the drugs and the great sex. Michelle didn�t come. You know the two of us aren't exactly the best of friends."
"You two are the furthest things from friends. Any farther apart and you'd be enemies," I bluntly stated. Taylor looked a little sheepish as he turned away from me. I could tell he didn't like that.
"How is she doing?" he asked, refusing to look at me. He took a pencil and began to doodle on a spare sheet of paper. I knew he was uncomfortable talking about her. Why was he bringing it up now? Why not four years ago when the two of them just started to avoid each other? I guess a lot things have been weird lately, maybe this was just another link in the chain. "You do talk to her a lot, don't you?"
"Yeah. She's good. She's�well, she's Michelle. Not much has changed since you went out with her. She's the same person, she's just lost a little of her shyness."
"Michelle was hardly shy," Taylor said, still doodling, but a smile spread across his face. Out of everyone on the tour, Michelle was the only girl Taylor never had sex with. It was surprising to the onlooker, but anyone who'd been with us for a long time would realize that the two of them ever doing that would just be too weird. They don't mix anymore, not since they went out.
"Is she happy?" Taylor asked. He must still care for her a great deal if he still thinks about her and her happiness. Michelle was never a girl someone could just get over, though. I never got over her. That was obvious now that I was finally back with her (I decided to keep that tidbit of information from Taylor). Taylor must be the same way.
"Yeah, she is. She's really happy." I paused. I had something to tell him, but I didn't know if I should. Well, it's now or never... "Taylor, Michelle didn't cheat on you with Ike. She slept with me." He looked over.
"I know."
"You know?" I asked. "I've been living in fear of telling you, worrying that if you ever found out you'd beat my ass and you knew?" He nodded. "How did you know?"
"Michelle told me." I grew confused.
"When?"
"It wasn't long ago. We finally talked to each other, but we didn't talk for long. She felt that she needed to tell me, so she told me. But, Zac, I wouldn't go beating you again. I'm not like that anymore."
"Why'd you do it in the first place?"
"It was the only way you'd listen," he said, looking away again. This was just as hard for him to say as it was for me to ask. "I know that's no reason to do it, but at the time it was the only answer that I could think of. Those drugs..." he sighed, "those drugs really fucked us all up, Zac. Ike got stubborn and bitchy, I got violent, and you grew distant. It did something to all of us. That's just the path I chose to take. I'll never forgive myself for taking it, but that was my decision. It wasn't the right decision. I see that now."
"It's okay, Taylor, you don't have to put yourself down over it. You realized that it was wrong and you stopped doing it, so somewhere along the line you did the right thing."
"I wasn't the one who realized it was wrong. I didn't stop it by myself. Someone told me to stop doing it. Do you know who told me to stop?" he asked. I shook my head. "Amber. She said I shouldn't do it anymore because one of these days I'd seriously hurt you and she couldn't bear to see you hurt."
"Good thing she wasn't there this year," I said.
"Well she's going to help me out now. Thank you for inviting her to come. I don't think I would have thought about it. I really need her there. I don't think talking to her on the phone was enough and all it was doing was racking up the bill." I smiled. "You know she still loves you."
"Yeah, but Amber and I were over before we started," I said.
"But you were happy together. I've never seen you with someone like that before," he said.
"You've never seen me with Michelle, have you?" That was a mistake. I shouldn't have said that. I saw him cringe as I said it. I knew he still had feelings for Michelle, and I was probably just going to rub all that back in his face with bringing her along.
"No, I haven't."
"Well, yeah, we're better than me and Amber." Well, since I'm deep, I might as well dig deeper. "I'm sorry about Nic."
"I know, but the two of us weren't going to go anywhere anyway." Yeah, because the whole thing was fake. I ignored my thoughts. Now was not a time to think about that.
"Well, we're as good as broken up if you want to get her back," I said, hinting. I want him to get back with her. I knew he liked her a lot, I could tell just by the way he looked at her.
"No, I don't think so."
"Oh, why not?" I asked. "You could have something really great. You never know until you try it."
"I don't want to seem like we're juggling her around, Zac. Don't you think about how she must feel? She falls desperately in love with you and still doesn't get over you when she goes to me. I know she went to me the same reason you went to Lauryn, to try to get over you, but it didn't work." I bit my lip. I knew he was lying. "All of a sudden she was still in love with you but she had these new feelings for me and she didn't know what to do. Then you had a heart attack and she took care of you, so the two of us died out. Now here we are a month later and you and her are breaking up? She waited so long for you and you just break up?"
"Well don't look at me like it's my fault. She was the one who wanted to break up," I said.
"I just think she needs to get away from this family. Let her go home and have a boyfriend that lives in her town instead of someone she can only see in the summer, and still not have a normal relationship because we're so Goddamn weird."
"We are weird."
"Well not me, just you." I rolled my eyes and looked over the sheet music.
"Do you have a drum beat to this?" Maybe getting back on the music will take my mind off the fact that Taylor and me were having a deep conversation. Who would ever think Taylor and I could have a deep conversation without bailing when I realize I'm getting too personal? But it felt good to talk to my brother again.
"Yeah, I wrote that already," he said, lightly smiling. He'd always favored the drums, but he said he wasn't as good as I was so he switched to the piano. He loved the piano to no end, but if for some reason I fell off the face of the earth, he wouldn't skip a beat on taking the drums and hiring a new keyboardist. Like the band would ever survive without me, but I'm just hypothetically speaking.
"Mind if I give it a whirl?" I asked. I didn't want to help him on his song if he was intent on writing it alone, but I did want to play what he had set out for me. He shrugged, handing me the sheet music. I looked over it, walking over to my drum set and grabbing a pair of drumsticks on the way there from a large pail we had. I'm always losing my drumsticks, for whatever reason. I either threw them out into the crowd or lose one while I'm playing or something, but I always have to have a large bucket of them next to me when I'm playing cause I can't stick with just one pair all night.
"You start," Taylor said. He had the whole song in his heard already, so I'm sure he didn't need the music to play. I counted off on my sticks and started a beat, and he joined in with the piano. This was really strange, Taylor and I playing together. All we needed was Isaac and we'd have a complete set...
"Hey, what's going on down here?" Isaac asked, walking down the stairs. I spoke too soon.
"I was writing and Zac wanted to try it out so we just started playing," Taylor said. Isaac smiled.
"We haven�t done that in a while, now have we?" he asked.
"No we haven't," I said stopping. I twirled my drumsticks between my fingers, which had always been a subconscious habit of mine. Taylor just couldn't get it right, and whenever we switched off and he went to drums, I always pointed it out so he wouldn't permanently taking my spot. To be a drummer you have to be able to do the twirl, it's just a given, but Taylor just can't seem to get it.
"Mind if I join?" Isaac asked.
"Go ahead," Taylor said. Isaac grabbed his guitar and walked over between the piano and the drums, glancing at the sheet music I had on a stand. "But how about we just jam for a while? See how it goes?" God, I could only dream of that. Would Isaac agree? Could we really just sit here and jam for the rest of the night like we did before everything got fucked up? We've been trying so hard this past month to get back into the music, back into the old step of things. We got rid of the girls, we got rid of the drugs, maybe now we could finally be the kids who loved music they gave up their lives for.
"Sure," Isaac said, with a smile. Hey, maybe dreams do come true. "Zac, you in?"
"Of course." I counted off on my sticks, and for the first time in years, the three of us were actually doing something we loved, just for the hell of it.
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