Ginger didn't say another word to Zac for the rest of the evening or even the next morning. It was raining outside and the mood inside was just the same. Taylor still had no idea what was going on because nobody would talk to him. Zac packed quietly; their flight left in an hour and a half. Ginger was feeling okay although Kris was worried about her. There was too much tension in the house and Kris was afraid it was getting to her.
Zac was silent as he put his bag next to the door. Taylor was still finishing packing. Once he did, they'd leave for the airport. Ginger showed no signs of saying goodbye. Kris sat next to Ginger on the couch, watching one of the new movies they'd gotten for Christmas. It seemed they were the only ones getting along. Kris and Ginger had never really fought before and this wasn't going to be the first one. Of course Kris was upset that Taylor was still eyeing Ginger while he'd blatantly told Kris he was interested in her, but she didn't hold it against Ginger. It wasn't her fault she was pretty.
Kris was supposed to drive Zac and Taylor to the airport. The original plan was that if Ginger felt well enough she'd come along, but that idea was quickly shot down due to the fact that Zac and Ginger were not speaking. When Taylor finished packing and they were set and ready to go, Zac walked over to Ginger, who was now alone on the couch (Kris was getting a coat and finding her keys).
"Are you going to say goodbye or should I just leave?" he boldly asked. She didn't say anything to him. "Fine. But if something goes terribly wrong on the flight and I die I want you to live with the thought that the last thing we did was have a fight."
"Fuck you."
"Why are you being like this?"
"Because you don't trust me. You're fighting with me over something you should be fighting with your brother about," Ginger said, gesturing to Taylor at the door.
"Whoa, wait a minute, this is about me?" Taylor asked.
"Shut up Taylor," Zac and Ginger said together. He huffed and went to the bedroom to talk to Kris, who was still looking for her keys.
"Ginger if I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times. I don't like fighting with you over this."
"Then why do you continue to bring it up?" she asked, looking up at him. "Why do you continue to provoke a fight with me over something as silly as this?"
"Oh, so you think this is silly. This is all a game! This is all just a silly little game that you're playing. God forbid I have any feelings on the matter. This means something to me, Ginger. You're important to me. But you don't want to discuss it, you're always holding me back�"
"Oh, fuck you, Zac. I'm not holding you back on anything and I'm not playing any kind of game. You're important to me too but if you can't do something as simple as trust me, then fine. I don't want to deal with it. I don't want to talk about it. Go home and do whatever it is you do when you're not bugging me. I hope your plane does crash."
"I hope your cancer kills you."
They both huffed. Zac turned around and ran out the front door without another word, grabbing his expensive suitcase and taking it out into the rain. Taylor and Kris, who were witnessing the last part of the fight, left silently. Ginger indignantly turned the movie off and stormed to her room, where she threw herself down on the bed and cried.
When Kris came back Ginger was half-expecting Zac to be with her, but he wasn't. When she saw this, Ginger scrunched herself into her pillow and stared at the wall. "Honey?" Kris asked, walking into the room. "Honey, are you all right?"
"I'm fine." Ginger paused. "Did he say anything to you?"
"No, honey, he didn't. I'm sorry." Kris sat on the edge of the bed and began to stroke Ginger's hair. "He didn't say anything to anyone. In the parking lot Taylor tried to talk to him and Zac hit him, but that was pretty much it. Honey, what's going on? What are you two fighting about?"
"I don't know," Ginger said, the tears evident in her voice. "I don't know. I've never fought with him like this before and I've never seen him this paranoid before. I don't know what's going on. I know he doesn't trust Taylor and I'm sure he has good reason but he's acting as though he doesn't trust me either. It's not like I've showed any interest in him ever. He's just a friend and not a very good friend at that. My God, Kris, I've never seen him so mad."
"I cannot believe he said that to you, though."
"We're not speaking of what he said to me." Kris sighed.
"Honey�"
"Stop."
Kris got up and left the room. Ginger continued to stare at the wall, trying to think about anything but her fight with her boyfriend but that didn't happen. She couldn't stop thinking about it. When Kris came back into the room, asking if Ginger wanted to come along and see a movie with the family, Ginger feigned a headache just so she could stay home. She didn't know if Kris believed her, but she didn't care.
"I'm going to put the phone right here, honey," Kris said, putting the cordless phone next to Ginger on the bed. "If anything happens, anything at all and you don't feel well, call me and I'll be here in a flash. Do you know the number? I'm sure you do but just in case it's right here�"
"Kris, shut up and go to your movie. I'll be fine. It's just for a few hours."
"Well Dad was hinting that he wanted to take us to dinner, we might not be home until around seven or eight. Are you going to be okay here?"
"Kris, I'll be fine."
"All right. I'll call and check up after the movie." Ginger rolled her eyes. "I'll see you in a bit." Kris gave her sister a hug and left with her parents, who were yelling for her to hurry. It was still pouring outside and the clouds were blocking out any kind of sun. Although it was nearly three o'clock, it was completely dark outside. Ginger was laying in her room without any kind of light on.
It was three thirty when the doorbell rang and Ginger didn't bother to get up to see who it was. If it was important, they'd come back, and she didn't feel like getting up and speaking to anybody at that moment. She looked a mess. Although today she'd actually taken a shower, she'd been crying for hours and her eyes were so red she looked like she was high.
The knock sounded again, this time louder and more impatient. Ginger huffed, got out of the bed and went to the door. She unlocked the door and opened it up. Looking straight ahead of her, she froze. "Zac? What are you doing here?"
"I couldn't go leaving you here like that." She didn't say anything. "I'm sorry."
"So am I," she whispered. "Come in, get out of the rain." She pulled him inside and closed the door behind him. He shook the rain out of his hair and she brought him over to her room. "Sit down, dry off�how'd you get here?"
"I took a cab from the airport." She sat on his lap and put her head against his shoulder. "I felt awful about what I said. I knew I couldn't leave with that being the last thing I said to you. Where is everyone?"
"They went to a movie. I didn't want to go." She looked up at him. "I don't like it when we fight."
"Me neither." He kissed her. She pushed him back down on the bed and went immediately for his pants. "Whoa, babe. Are you sure you're up for this?"
"You know, if one more person asks me if I'm up for anything I'm going to scream. We had a fight. We're making up right now. I'm fine and nobody's going to be home for hours. Hold on." She stood up and opened a drawer, grabbing a condom and throwing it over at him. "I haven't been able to be alone with you all week."
"Are you�" She gave him a look. "Okay. Okay." She smiled and kissed him.
Kris called at five o'clock on her cell phone and Ginger and Zac were in the living room making out. Ginger didn't want to pick it up but she knew it was Kris. If she didn't pick it up, within five minutes Kris would be there wondering what was wrong. Ginger picked up the phone, Zac still kissing her neck.
"Hello?" she said breathlessly.
"Are you okay?" Kris asked.
"Yeah. I'm fine. How was the movie? How much longer are you guys going to be out?" Ginger asked.
"It was great, you should have come. I was thinking of stopping by before I went to dinner to�"
"What? No! Don't come here." Zac stopped kissing her. They were lying on the living room couch in their underwear and it wasn't exactly a scene Zac wanted Kris to walk through the door to see.
"Well I needed to get�"
"Don't come here," Ginger said.
"I�"
"Don't come here!"
"�Why?" Kris asked. Ginger looked at Zac.
"Um�Zac's here."
"Oh! I get it now. You didn't have sex with him, did you? You're not fit enough to do that."
"Yes I am and yes I did. Now you don't need anything here. Just go to dinner, take your time, call me before you come home," Ginger said.
"All right, all right. What is he doing there?"
"Kris, I'm kind of in the middle of something here, I'll see you when you get home." She hung up the phone without letting Kris say anything else. Zac laid next to her, looking over her body.
"When did you get so skinny?" he asked. She looked down at herself. She knew she'd lost weight, but she never really noticed it until now. "That makes me worry. Is there something you can do about that? I know it's because of the radiation and everything, but, damn�"
"Why do you care? I still have boobs." He rolled his eyes and looked away. "But look at you, you've changed since the last time I've seen you. Look at this, muscle man, you've been working out." She poked him in the stomach, which was beginning to be defined.
"Yeah�yeah�"
"Kris told me you hit your brother," Ginger spontaneously said and ruined the mood in the room. Zac sat up.
"I figured she would." He stood up and walked towards the kitchen. She got up and followed. He didn't say anything about it.
"Well?"
"Well what?" he asked, turning around. He jumped back a bit, not expecting her to be right behind him.
"What happened?"
"He pissed me off. I hit him. No big deal. I didn't break anything." She gave him a look. "Fine, fine. Kris had to go back to the car to get something and we kept going. He started talking to me about what I'd said to you and he basically told me that you should be dating him and not me. So I hit him."
"He did not�"
"He did."
"What did he say exactly?"
" 'Zac, a girl like that is not in your league. She's in mine.' " Ginger paused. "Yeah. Now can we talk about something else, please?" She sighed and walked back to the living room, where she sat down and turned on the television. He got himself a soda and went back into the living room and sat down next to her.
"It kinda feels like we're married, doesn't it?" Ginger said. "We're sitting in our living room watching television in our underwear with nobody else around. This is the life."
"Eh," Zac said, "it'd be better if we were naked."
"Do you want to be naked?"
"Not really. You can be naked. I'm fine with that." She gave him a look and turned back to the television.
"Now what the fuck is up with that? Nobody's breasts are that perky," Ginger said, complaining immediately to the television. Pamela Anderson was on television and usually when she was on Ginger was complaining.
"Ginger, they're fake."
"Still. It takes a bra one or two sizes too small to get my boobs that perky," she said, pulling at her bra strap. "And she's not even wearing a bra! I wish I could not wear a bra." Zac rolled his eyes. "Shut up, you."
"I didn't say anything!" She eyed him again, but kissed him. "I love you."
"I know. I love you too." She kissed him again. "When are you leaving?"
"I got a flight for eight o'clock." She looked at the time. It was five thirty. She sighed. Now that they were on better terms, she didn't want him to go. "I was supposed to leave at noon but I had to come back here. It's bad enough now I'm going to get home and have about five minutes to pack for the next three months while we're on the road."
"Oh, yeah, I forgot you were going to be gone for so long. Where are you going? Europe?" Zac nodded. "Oh. When are you coming back?"
"The middle of March. I'll be here for your birthday." She nodded. "I'm pretty sure I'm going to miss Valentine's Day, though. I know you were looking forwards to that." She shook her head.
"No! No, it's okay. Don't worry about it. I've spent the last sixteen Valentines by myself, why should this year be any different?" she said. The bitterness in her voice was soft but Zac picked up on it right away.
"You're mad."
"No I'm not."
"Yes you are. Don't lie to me." She looked up at him.
"I am. But don't worry about it." She kissed him. "You will be here for my birthday, right?" He nodded. "Good. That's all that matters."