I got inside my room before Ike finally caught up with me. "What the hell gives you the right to walk in there and say that about Rose?" he began to yell. I didn't remember what I said. "What are you thinking? Were you even thinking? I have every right to beat you bloody right now! I know I would if it was someone else saying that about her instead of my brother! And don't even think that I'm going to let you off easy because you're my brother."
"Oh, like you could even hurt me anyway," I snapped back at him, turning around. Before I knew what had happened, he'd picked me up by my shirt and slammed me against the wall. It didn't hurt as much as I thought it would but I felt tears come to my eyes by the fact that my older brother had done it to me. Five minutes previous seemed like a blur to me. I'd gone into the kitchen to get a towel to stop the bleeding on my wrists when my mother made me speak. I'd slit my wrists a little too deep and I needed to get rid of more blood than I thought. Ike didn't seem to be looking at my wrists or the fact that I had blood soaked sleeves.
"Don't you even! Don't you even pull that defensive bullshit with me! What you said about Rose was completely disrespectful, inappropriate, and just plain nasty. That happens to be the girl I am going to marry and you are not going to fuck things up like you always do. Not this time!" The temperature in the room grew very warm and the room began to spin around me.
"I don't even remember what I said. Whatever I said I'm sorry. Just don't yell at me."
"How can you not remember, Zac? You called Rose a slut! Now I know you know Rose and you know she is anything but a slut. You--"
"Ike...Ike it's really getting...it's really getting hot in here," I said, sliding my feet on the ground to get a better grip but it didn't seem to work. I saw the anger in Ike's eyes suddenly vanish and grew concerned about me.
"Zac? Zac, are you okay?" I closed my eyes and shook my head. The room was spinning around me, even Ike was spinning with it and I couldn't focus on anything. I felt myself getting weaker by the minute as the blood continued to flow from my wrists and Ike didn't notice. "Zac? Zac! Say something!"
"My wrists..."
"Your wrists? What?" My eyes were still closed but I could tell he looked at my wrists. "Oh my God!" He let go of me and I fell to the floor. "Mom! Call for an ambulance!" I didn't hear anything more as the room stopped spinning and everything around me vanished.
I woke up what seemed like a little bit later in a hospital. I didn't exactly know why I was in a hospital, or what really had happened, but I figured it had something to do with my wrists, which still hurt.
I turned in the bed, causing my mother beside me to look up. "Oh! Oh honey you're okay!" she said, putting her arms around me. I was confused. When she let go I tried to sit up but she wouldn't let me. "No, honey, you just stay right there and don't move. I'll go tell the doctor you're awake." I watched as my mother got up and left the room, returning shortly with the doctor.
"So, Zac, how are you feeling?" the doctor asked, taking out his little clipboard and his clicky pen.
"I'm fine. What happened?" I didn't look at him because I was afraid of what he was going to say, so I looked around at the machines that were hooked up to me. I had two tubes hooked into my arms, one giving me blood and the other looked like a standard IV.
"Well when you got here you'd lost a lot of blood due to those nasty slits on your wrists, which your brother Isaac said were self-inflicted." I knew Ike was going to tell. Taylor would have kept his mouth shut but I knew Ike would blab. "Were they?" I sighed. As long as my mother was in the room I couldn't lie to this man because she'd see right through it and correct me.
"Yeah, they were." I didn't look at either of them. I could really care less about what the doctor thought but I didn't want to face my mother. I didn't want to see the look of disappointment and fear on her face caused by me. The only thing I knew how to do right I fucked up and she found out about it. I never wanted her to find out about this secret.
When I first began to cut myself, I was at such a low point that I just wanted to end my life, just to escape from everything. However when I'd finally found something to do it with and somewhere to do it, I was becoming more and more afraid of death. I still wanted to kill myself but I didn't want to die. Then I told myself "just fucking do it already" and I slit both my wrists. Immediately I knew it wasn't bleeding enough to kill me but the pain was really inviting, so I stopped the bleeding and I just told myself whenever I needed an escape and I didn't know what to do, this would always work. I didn't know that it'd be nearly every day.
The rest of the conversation was a blur to me, I didn't pay attention to what I said but it was enough to satisfy the doctor and he left me alone with my mother. I didn't want him to stay but I sure as hell didn't want to be left alone with my mother when she thought I tried to kill myself. Killing myself may have been my intention the first time I cut myself, but not this time. I just wanted an escape this time.
When a few minutes had passed and my mother hadn't said anything, I finally decided to look at her. She wasn't looking at me, but out the window into the hallway instead. I didn't know what she was thinking but if it had anything to do with me trying to kill myself, I had to clear it up for her.
"I didn't try to kill myself, Mom," I told her. She nodded but still didn't look at me. She wiped at her damp eyes. "Mom? I'm being serious here. You know I can't lie to you. I didn't try to kill myself."
"Then what? What the hell were you trying to do?" She was mad. I didn't want her mad at me. It wasn't my fault the only thing that could help me escape from my problems was hurting myself.
"I was just trying to escape."
"From what?"
"I don't know," I said. "The music, the fame, my brothers, life in general..." She shook her head, not following me. I didn't want to say why. "I'm not happy, Mom. I've never been happy. I've kept it from you because you always said 'If you want to quit, go ahead, you don't have to stay doing this if you're not happy.' Ike and Tay are happy so I never wanted to take it from them. I'm not a people person. I don't like getting up in front of all those fans and exposing myself to them. I don't like talking to anybody. I'd prefer to stay in my little bubble away from the rest of the world."
"Honey, you can't live like that. You can't stay in a little bubble and hide from the world."
"I know that! I get out on the stage, don't I? I do it! I'd just be so much happier if I didn't have to." I sighed and looked away. If Taylor and Isaac heard this they would definitely not be happy. "Don't tell Tay and Ike this, okay? They'll feel obliged to give it up because I don't want it and I couldn't do that to them. I won't don't that to them."
"But Zac, if you're to the point where you're trying to kill yourself--"
"I'm not trying to kill myself!"
"--Where you're hurting yourself to escape from the tasks of an everyday life, then I don't think you should be doing this. For your safety and well-being."
"It doesn't matter. You can say what you want to say. I'm not going to quit this. As much as I want to, and I wish I could, I'm not going to." Normally my mother would have commented that she was happy I was being persistent and staying dedicated to something that I started, but she was too concerned over me. I didn't want her to be concerned over me. I just wanted to go home. Sighing, I looked out the window and saw Taylor outside.
"I came as soon as I could, what happened?" I asked Ike, who was sitting in the waiting room. He'd been very sketchy on the details when he phoned me the night before but I knew it had something to do with Zac. "Is everything all right?"
"Zac tried to kill himself," Ike explained.
"Zac is always trying to kill himself." He shot me a warning look. "What? He is."
"That doesn't mean you should blow it off like that. Apparently Zac slit his wrists yesterday and he cut a little too deep or didn't stop the bleeding in time or both but he passed out and we brought him here. The doctor just came out and said he's doing all right now, he's finally awake, and he did in fact cut his wrists himself."
"Well I could have told you all that. But he is all right, isn't he? He didn't do anything too bad to himself?" Ike shook his head. I let out a concerned breath. "Good." I looked beside Ike and saw Rose sitting there. I was surprised I missed her; she was so big. "Rose! How are you doing?" I asked, sitting beside her. There was one thing Ike didn't know about Rose and she did a lot to cover it up. Not long before she met Ike, she was dating me. That was around the time when I was doing a lot of experimenting, and Rose was one of the girls I ended up sleeping with. We didn't break up in the nicest way possible (she found me in bed with somebody else). At the time she met Ike, she didn't know Ike was my brother and I didn't know the Rose Ike was talking about was my Rose. It turned out really awkward for the both of us, but with time Ike and Rose got closer so Rose and I made up with each other and we became very good friends. We bickered a lot, but most of the time we were pretty good friends. I was happy for her and Ike.
As Rose brushed her hair out of her face, I noticed the giant rock on her finger. "What's this?" I asked, picking up her hand.
"Ike proposed."
"I didn't know you were going to do it so soon!" I said, smiling. "Ike, you could have told me you were going to do now."
"I didn't tell anybody, Tay. What makes you so special?" he said, lightly laughing. I crinkled my nose a moment before smiling again.
"Well I'm happy for you both." I gave Rose a kiss on the cheek. Rose's plan was to never tell Ike about what happened between us. It didn't even happen during their relationship so I was confused as to why she refused to tell Ike. It didn't mean anything to either of us; we only dated a few weeks before we broke up. I respected that she wanted to keep it from Isaac and I'd go along with it as long as she wanted me to, but I knew she couldn't keep it a secret from him the rest of her life. I couldn't keep it a secret from him the rest of my life. I made a point to talk to her later when Ike wasn't around.
"Taylor?" Rose asked, looking over me. "Have you lost weight?"
"Have you gained weight?" I kidded back at her. She crossed her arms.
"I have a baby inside of me. What's your excuse?"
"Uh...I don't?" She didn't like my excuse. But, before she could make a comment about it, the door opened and my mother walked out. "How is he?" I asked, speaking for everyone.
"He's good. He's got a lot of his energy back and before we know it he'll be back to the same ol' Zac again," she said. Great, I thought but immediately scolded myself in my head for thinking it. "You can go in and see him if you want, but the doctor said one at a time. I'm going to get some coffee from the cafeteria."
"I'll go in first," Ike offered. Mom nodded and walked towards the cafeteria. Ike went inside the room, leaving Rose and me alone. I sat down next to her.
"So," I said, as nonchalantly as I could, "when are you going to tell Ike about us?" Rose was taken aback.
"Why would I tell him?" she asked me. "It's only something that will make him uncomfortable and I don't want that."
"Well you two are getting married now. Officially. Don't tell me you're going to keep this from him the rest of your life because I know you better than that. I'm surprised you've held out this long. If you don't tell him soon you'll end up blurting it out later when you're married, it'll start this big controversy and he'll be all like 'Why didn't you tell me sooner?' "
"He doesn't need to know, Taylor."
"Why? What are you so afraid of? We went out for three weeks and it was before you even met Ike. Even when you met him you didn't know I was his brother and I didn't know you were the Rose he was always telling me about until you met the family for the first time. There's nothing wrong with it. We didn't know," I said, trying my best to convince her. She wasn't having it. "It's not like it's going to affect anything. If he even gets mad, which he won't, he'll get mad at me, not you."
"What makes you think that?"
"Because I slept with one of his old girlfriends and he'll think this is the same type of situation, in which it isn't." She shook her head. "Come on, Rose. I'm sick of this."
"He doesn't need to know."
"Please?" I knew this would work. I could get her to do anything if I tried hard enough. All I had to do was let my eyes fill up with emotion and my lower lip protrude a little bit and she caved. She wasn't looking at me because she knew I was doing it, but I didn't let up until she finally turned to me.
"Oh all right! I'll tell him! But I won't tell him here. I'll wait until we get back to my house before I say anything to him." She got up, which proved to be a feat due to her large stomach, and turned to me. "Come on, we're going to the cafeteria to get me some food...and perhaps you as well."
"Fine." She led me to the cafeteria. We passed Mom on the way there; she was heading back to Zac's room. We didn't talk as we passed by her, just smiled, but I could tell I needed to have a talk with her later. She looked completely out of sorts and my mother just wasn't like that, however her son did just try to kill himself.
"So what's this crap I heard that you and Zac got into a fistfight?" Rose asked me. I paused. I figured that Ike would have told her.
"Yeah, we got into a fight," I admitted. "I confronted him about smoking, which turned out only to allow him to smoke publicly. He denied it and yelled at me, and he said some pretty harsh things to me, so I ended up hitting him. He hit me back and we just started fighting."
"So you hit him first?"
"Yeah, but..."
"Nuh-uh! I don't want to get involved," she said. I smirked.
"But Mom! He was yelling at me and...and...and it's not my fault!" I whined in my best little kid voice. She gave me a look. "What? Before you know it that's all you're going to be hearing. Mom! He did this! Mom! He hit me! He's picking on me! Mo-om!"
"What makes you think I'm going to have sibling rivalry in my house?" she asked.
"Well, it happens naturally, and you're going to have about a zillion children. You know Ike wants a lot of kids."
"Oh God, he wants me to go through this a zillion times?" she asked, placing a hand on her stomach. "I don't know if I can be pregnant that many times. I'm sick of being pregnant now and I've still got two months to go! God, if this is uncomfortable now I don't want to go into labor."
"Don't worry. Ike will be right there by your side. I might be too, but only if I don't have anything better to do..."
"You better be there! Listen to me. I want you there. Then again if it were up to me, I'd have everybody in the world there." She thought about it. "I still want you there."
"I don't know, it might be a little weird," I told her.
"Why would it be weird?" she asked, turning to me. Her hair flipped over her shoulders as she did so; she'd grown her hair long since the last time I saw her. When I dated her it was short and layered. It looked beautiful before but it looked more beautiful currently because there was more of it. "Taylor? Why would it be weird?"
"I don't know. I guess, just thinking about being there when you give birth to a kid that's my brother'..." I knew I had to make up something else, and quick, before she asked and I couldn't come up with anything. "...It's just weird because we used to date and now you're marrying my brother and having his kid."
"Taylor, the last thing I want to do is make you uncomfortable," she said, "and I'll do whatever I can to help that. But I'm happy with Ike and I'm glad to be having this baby. You're just going to have to get me out of that pretty little head of yours. I know I'm gorgeous and all, but I'm spoken for."
"Damn," I said, a wide smile on my face. We joked around like this a lot but I had a feeling we'd have to stop soon. Isaac would not like it if I flirted with his wife, something I did a lot. Flirting with Rose felt just as natural as breathing. "I'll just have to contain myself around you from now on."
"You better. I have no doubt Ike could kick your sorry ass."
I had no doubt he would.