The concert in Atlanta was surprisingly different from the one back home. The atmosphere was tighter and more spirited. To everyone’s surprise, Zac was actually with the rest of us before the concert. He sat next to me as we all talked.
Michelle and Rachel didn’t come with us, but we had two new faces. The boys already knew Vanessa. She introduced her friend Ashley, who was new. I glanced at Zac. Darling, sitting on the other side of me, turned to him.
"You going to show the new girl a good time?" Zac looked over at me, then past me to Darling.
"No, someone else can do it this time."
"What happened to you?" Darling asked. "You’re sociable, you don’t want to fuck the new girl…She knows about you, I’m sure she’s waiting for you to make a move."
"Well then she’ll be waiting a while. I’m not going to do anything with her. I have other plans tonight." Darling looked at me. I shrugged. I didn’t know what he was talking about, but I was sure it had something to do with me.
"Can I talk to you, Nic?" Darling asked.
"Don’t go yelling at her," Zac said. "She doesn’t have anything to do with it."
"Oh, you know she does," Darling said, and grabbed me. She pulled me away from the group. "What did you do to him? I let you stay with him one night and he doesn’t want to do anything!"
"I’m sorry! I don’t know what I did, I didn’t think I did anything, but I’ll stop. We talked, that’s it! We didn’t even talk about anything of substance! I don’t understand what is so wrong. He’s smiling; he’s even talking to Amber. So what if he doesn’t want to have sex anymore, the world will understand."
"Whoa…he doesn’t want to have sex anymore or he just doesn’t want to have sex with her?"
"I don’t know. Ask him, don’t ask me. He knows what he wants, okay? I am not the Zac Hanson interpreter here."
"Why are you getting upset?"
"Because you pulled me away to talk about him. I don’t want to talk about him. He’s just going through a lot and he’s different than you want him to be. Just leave the poor boy alone. Let the new girl fuck the bass player, apparently he’s better than Zac."
"No he’s not. I’ve done both of them. Zac’s much better."
"She’ll never know. Zac doesn’t want to do anyone right now. He wants to concern himself with himself, so leave him alone."
"You know what he wants to do, he wants to sleep with you."
"No he doesn’t!" I yelled, causing the attention of the rest of the people in the room. I looked over, then pulled Darling father away. "He doesn’t want to do anything. He told me he won’t do anything until I want to. And that’s going to be a while."
"So he does."
"Then why don’t you ask him, okay? Stop talking to me about him." I looked over at Zac. "Zac, come here."
"Why are you calling him over here?"
"You want to know what’s up with him, don’t you? There’s no better way than to ask him yourself." Zac walked up to us.
"What?"
"Darling has a few things to talk to you about." I looked back at Darling, then walked over to the group. The new girl, Ashley, came up to me.
"Are you close to Zac?" she asked. I nodded. "I’ve heard about him, is he showing me the ropes tonight?"
"I don’t know what you’re talking about," I said. "Zac doesn’t do that. He’s not like everyone else here. No, the guy you want is him." I pointed to the bass player. "That’s Scott, the bass player. He’s the best one here."
"Yeah, Amber was saying that."
"She’s right this time, but usually you shouldn’t even bother with her. She’s not the best girl here."
"What’s wrong with her?"
"She doesn’t understand anything about anybody, and she really doesn’t want to. She’s all up on herself, so don’t try to get anything from her."
"Alright," Ashley said, and glanced back at Amber. While she did that, I looked over at Darling and Zac. Zac was obviously pissed, but Darling was just trying to get information. "So, how close are you to Zac?"
"I just met everyone last night, I’m just as new as you are, but I absorb information quickly. I stayed with Zac last night, he told me a few things about everyone."
"Why’d you stay with him?"
"Because I wanted to. I made him sleep all night, so don’t get the impression that I’m a whore like everyone else."
"You’re a virgin, aren’t you?" Ashley asked. I saw her lighting up with the rest of them earlier, so I knew she wasn’t as good as me. It was selfish, yes, but these people had no care for their own life, or the life of the others around.
"Why do you care?"
"It shows."
"You know, Ashley, it’s just that I cared about who I trust myself with. Just because you’re a whore like the rest of them, doesn’t mean you have to be a bitch to me."
"I don’t like you calling me a whore."
"Then don’t fuck every guy you meet, and don’t expect Zac to be with you."
"What’s your problem? It’s just sex."
"That’s the problem. You don’t understand why people have sex." As I turned to leave, Zac grabbed me and pulled me away.
"What did you tell her?"
"Not much."
"How much is not much, Nic? I told you I didn’t want people thinking I have changed. I want to be the same person to them, even if I don’t act like it every now and then. I don’t want to have two different personas with the same group of people."
"I’m not giving them that impression, Zac. You are. Darling only pulled me over because she though I was changing you."
"You are!" he said, then ran his hands through his hair. "You are, in a way I never thought anyone could. Much less someone I’ve known for just as little time as I know you."
"Zac, I don’t know you. You don’t know me. I met you less than a full day ago. How can I be changing you?"
"It doesn’t take me long to realize when someone is affecting me. I took you in yesterday as the new girl, the routine. I was going to show you what we do here, but I couldn’t. You’re too good for that. You’ve got wisdom beyond anything I’ve ever seen. While we’re all here making choice after choice, which kicks another year off our lives, you know not to. And I picked that up, and I settled for talking. And with a single word I knew that I could open up to you. I told you things I haven’t even told my brothers—people I’ve known my entire life. I couldn’t tell them, but I told you. You’re just…you’re just it! You’re the person I can talk to. You’re the person that can untie my strings and get to the me inside."
"How do you know all this?" "How did you know to trust me and no one else?
I paused. "I just knew."
"And I just knew. It’s easier than you think to read a person, Nic. Especially if that person wants to be read."
"You can tell all that from just looking at me?" I asked.
"It’s all in your eyes." He looked in my eyes. "I don’t want to be with Ashley because I want to be with you. And she’s got ugly eyes." I giggled.
"She doesn’t like me very much," I admitted.
"Now I really don’t want to be with her." I smiled. "You’re going to be dancing tonight, right?"
"Do I have to? I danced all last night."
"You so did not! Every time I looked at you, you either were talking to Darling or not paying attention."
"I was dancing all night! I talked to Darling for five minutes at the very beginning of the show. I was paying attention to you the rest of the night!"
"Uh-huh. Sure…"
"I’m serious!" I whined. He shuddered.
"Please don’t whine. I get enough of that at home."
"Oh, I’m sorry. But I’m still serious. I was dancing all night. I know you saw me because you were nearly staring at me the entire show. You just want me to think I’m all horrible and stuff!"
"I know, I’m just playing with you. But you have to be wild and hyper tonight, alright? If I can play those drums and sing for three straight hours, you can dance."
"Showtime boys!" The stage manager called out.
"You’re going to dance for me, if you like it or not. If you even think about sitting down, I’ll pull you on stage."
"You wouldn’t."
"I would, and I’ll embarrass the hell out of you." He smiled and kissed me. "See you after the show."
"I’ll be the one sitting down and watching." I saw a sparkle in his eye. "Oh no you don’t!" He grabbed my hand and ran me out on the stage. The lights turned on and the screams of thousands of girls pierced my ears.
Zac grabbed a microphone. "Before we start the show, I thought I’d bring to your attention Nic here. She said she was going to be sitting down the whole concert! Now we have to do something about that."
I shook my head, but Zac nodded. "I think we should sit her down right here…" he said, and sat me down in the very center of the stage, "…and make her watch all of you for a little while. If she doesn’t want to dance, if all she wants to do is sit and watch, she can sit here."
The screams increased. I looked over the audience; thousands of girls there to see three boys sing and play instruments. It amazed me how many different faces I saw. "Now I’m going to leave you here. You look at the audience until I say you can get up." I looked at Zac, my eyes scornful. He laughed away from his microphone. "I’ll get you some earplugs, you’ll go deaf up here." He ran off stage only to come back quickly with Taylor and Isaac. Before he went to his drums, he dropped a pair of earplugs in my lap.
I couldn’t believe he actually did it. He actually sat me on the center of the stage and told me to look at the audience. I looked over the audience after putting in my earplugs. A few fans draped in Hanson gear were giving me death looks, probably because I was actually on stage with the Hanson boys, and I got to touch one. Fans could be so serious sometimes.
As the music started, I felt more and more embarrassed that everyone was getting into the music, dancing and singing along as I had to sit there and look pretty. I stopped looking at the fans and glanced at Darling off to the side, a silly grin on her face over my embarrassment. I could have shot her.
"Nic, look at the audience," Zac said. My head flipped back to the audience and I felt my cheeks growing red. I was actually blushing. Oh my God, I thought. I’m going to kill him.
Four songs later, my butt was falling asleep from the vibration and I was getting restless. The energy in the theatre was so high, it was nearly impossible to just sit still. Zac hopped from behind his drums, taking a microphone with him. He pulled me up.
"Did you learn your lesson?" he asked, then put the microphone to my mouth.
"Yes, I’ll sing and dance for the rest of the concert."
"Even the slow songs?" he asked, smiling.
"Even the slow songs."
"You’re going to look like an idiot dancing to the slow songs." I gave him a look. "Alright, you’ve learned your lesson. Get out of here, you’re taking up our space!" I saluted him. "Everyone scream for Nic!" The theatre erupted in screams, the volume nearly knocking me over. I was ready to leave, but Zac hadn’t let go of me yet. "I don’t think that was loud enough! Come on, scream for Nic! She’s been a good sport!" The fans screamed again, the volume much greater than before. "That was much better. Bye Nic."
"Bye," I said, and walked off the stage. Darling was waiting for me. I walked into her open arms, putting my hangs over my face. "I can’t believe he did that."
"I can’t believe you actually went out there! I wouldn’t have," Darling said, rubbing my back.
"I didn’t have much choice."
"Aww…poor Nic. You had to sit in front of a couple thousand people."
"Please don’t remind me." I got out of Darling’s arms and took a breath. I honestly never could figure out how those boys got out and performed in front of that many people every night. I wasn’t out there a half an hour and I couldn’t handle all their eyes in my direction. I have a hard time when one person has their eyes on me, much less a couple thousand.
I looked up and Amber was fuming. I figured it was jealously, I’m getting all of Zac’s attention to the point where he could actually pull me in front of the entire theatre. I smiled at her and turned back to the stage. Zac looked over, so I started dancing and singing along. He smiled.
Zac ran up to me after the show. "I cannot believe you," I told him.
"Yes you can. You just don’t want to. So, are we going to go somewhere or do something, cause I really want to go out and do something. I am so full of energy right now…"
"And it’ll fade fast. No, we’re getting back to the hotel."
"You’re not going to make me sleep again, are you? I really can’t just stop and sleep."
"No, you don’t have to. Not right away, but I will make you go to sleep eventually." He smiled and put his arm around my waist.
"Then let’s go. We gotta get out of here. I can’t talk with you with all these people around."
"Alright. We can go." He led me out of the theatre. "Better sleep with one eye open tonight, Zac."
"Why?"
"Revenge is a lot of fun when someone has lots of butterfly clips, a camera, and access to Ebay."
"No!" he said, sternly, as he turned to me. I smiled. "You wouldn’t!"
"Your hair is kind of long, it would look cute…"
"You are so dead." I squealed (surprising the both of us that I could make that sound) and started running, completely unsure of where I was going. He followed after me, with much more energy than me. He caught me quickly, and we both fell to the ground.
"I’m on the ground," I said.
"Yes, I can see that. We both are."
"I only have half a shirt on. This ground is disgusting, get me up."
"No, I think you can stay there for a little while longer." He lightly began to press me against the ground, whatever I was laying on squishing against my bare skin.
"Ew! Zac! That’s so disgusting!"
"Why do you think I’m doing it?"
"I swear I’m going to put clips in your hair and sell the pictures on Ebay! I swear I’m going to do it tonight and you can’t stop me no matter what you say or do!" I told him.
"Remember you’re coming to our show tomorrow. I can do wore things than make you sit on the stage."
"I’m sure you could." He smiled at me. "What’s that about?"
"Nothing. So, let’s go back to the lovely hotel, I’m getting tired."
"I knew you would. Alright, get off me and we can go." He stood up, pulling me with him. Somehow, the boy always seemed to have a car waiting for us, sometimes with a driver. This time there was a driver.
"Where to?" the teenager behind the wheel said, looking back at us.
"Home, James," Zac said. "The last time I checked, Tulsa’s pretty far from here."
"Not my home! Dude, just go to the hotel." The driver smirked and adjusted his mirror, but didn’t go anywhere. "Today, please."
"Oh," he said, and starting driving.
"You make the worst chauffer, Jeff." I cleared my throat. "Oh! Jeff, this is Nic. Nic, Jeff."
"Evening ma’am. I will be your chauffer until I get fired, or bored, whichever gets first."
"Fired?" I asked. "Please tell me you’re not getting paid for this."
"I use the term very loosely. No, I just happen to do this when I don’t have anything better to do. I’ll be around for the next few weeks, as long as you people aren’t going very far away."
"Do you know everyone?" I asked Zac. "Are we going to either get a car or a ride from someone in every city?" Zac thought about it. "Yes."
"Wouldn’t it just be easier to bring your own car?"
"No, cause I’m not about to drive it from city to city. I can just get one from someone else. They trust me enough." Jeff glared at us through the mirror.
"The rest of them don’t trust him enough so they insist on driving themselves, like me," he said. "So what’s up with this? Zac, I’ve never seen you this close to any girl—not even Amber."
"Please don’t put me in any comparison whatsoever to her," I said.
"You don’t like her either, do you?" Jeff asked. "Is there anyone who likes her at all?"
"Just Taylor," Zac said.
"Well he doesn’t count. He’s got an ego twice the size of Texas. He just likes her because she can tolerate him and his vanity."
"I saw him checking out his hair with four different mirrors this morning," I said.
"You should see him before an interview. He’s twice as bad," Zac said. "I swear, all that attention goes to a boy who still sleeps with a stuffed rabbit called Foo-Foo when we’re home and couldn’t go to sleep without a bedtime story until he was fourteen."
"Foo-Foo?" I asked, snickering.
"That thing’s older than I am!" Zac said, slightly laughing. "Sharing a room with that boy does have its advantages."
"That’s even better than the butterfly clips!" I said.
"What butterfly clips?" Jeff asked, looking a bit worried. "Is there another side to you I should know about, Zac?"
"I was planning on putting butterfly clips in his hair tonight and taking pictures," I said.
"Why?"
"Because I put her on the stage and made her sit out there for twenty minutes," Zac told him.
"Why?" Jeff asked again. "You know what? Nevermind. I don’t want to know. Whatever you do to get off, that's your own private matter. I just wish you wouldn't do it in front of the crowd, my sister was there and she's only thirteen." Zac gave him a look. He pulled up to the hotel. "See you guys later. I have to go back and pick up my sister."
"Alright. See you tomorrow."
"Nice meeting you," I told Jeff. He waved, and Zac and I went into the hotel. We’d been in there that morning, and were leaving the next day.
We walked to the room where Zac promptly flopped on the bed, rolling around, become a human burrito in the comforter. In a few seconds, all I could see was his mass of long blonde and his combat boots poking from either end. The scene was so unlike the Zac I had been talking to. I was laughing to the point where I was crying, because I would have never expected it from him.
"Nic?"
I looked up. All I could see was half a face trying to poke its way out of the sitting up Burrito Man, which made me laugh harder. "Oh my God, get a grip, woman." After I calmed down, I got up off the ground in which I had been rolling on. He’d taken himself out of the comforter, and it was now a jumbled mess on the bed. I took a few deep breaths and wiped my eyes. "What was that?" he asked.
"That was the most hilarious thing I’ve ever seen in my life."
"Why? A few years ago that was what I was known for. Goofy stupid stuff like that."
"Well the past day or so that I’ve known you, you wouldn’t do anything like that."
"Yeah, I haven’t been very goofy lately." I looked at him. I did remember seeing him on TV shows and such being very odd like that. But that was rounding on four years ago. Back then he seemed very innocent, him and his brothers. That reminded me of something.
"Can I ask you something?"
"Sure."
"Well, I know this isn’t something I should base a theory on, but when I’ve seen you in front of the camera, or in front of an audience, you seem to have a very close bond with your brothers. But since I met you, you haven’t said a word to either of them. You don’t seem to care about them at all. What’s up with that?"
Zac sighed. "We used to be close. When all this started. Then, we only pulled the act in front of the cameras. I could personally care less about the both of them right now."
"Why?" "We all changed. Taylor’s ego got the better of him. After a while, he caught on that all the fans liked him the best. Then Isaac, he’s just pissed off at the world for some reason. I have yet to figure out why. He’s got an attitude. He hates Taylor because Taylor’s very vain. He hates me because I don’t like him."
"Why don’t you?"
"Because he’ll go out of his way to make me feel inferior to him. He’ll look for my mistakes just so he can correct me when he sees them. Whenever we talk, we end up fighting. I want him to get off my back and he wants me to live up to his standards." I didn’t have anything to say. Before yesterday, my image of Zachary Hanson was happy-go-lucky kind of famous kid. "Fame’s a bitch," he continued. "These guys were my best friends before all this happened. But then it did, and I’m dreading going home because I’ll actually have to share a room with them again. I’m telling you, Nic, if I knew we were going to get like this, I wouldn’t have tried so hard." He took off his shoes. "Come on, let’s go to sleep. We have to get up early."