I walked into Zac's room at the hospital and sat down. I had no idea why I volunteered to go first, but I most definitely did not want to go first. I had nothing to say to him. He looked at me expectantly, waiting for me to say something, anything, but I couldn't think of a conversation starter.
"So, how about that Mets game?" I asked, then immediately regretted saying it.
"What Mets game?" Only Zac would not know what I was talking about. "When did the Mets play?"
"It's a conversation starter." He sneered.
"Well it's not a very good one," he said, sitting up. I noticed the bandages around his wrists that he was constantly playing with. I could tell he wanted to get out of here and quickly, but I knew when he was all right enough to go home they would stick him in the psychiatric ward for a while because this was considered a suicide attempt. "Ike? Are you mad at me?"
"Yes I am mad at you," I bluntly told him. "But you didn't seem in your right mind at the time, so I'll let it go."
"What did I say?" he asked. For the first time he wasn't getting defensive. I was relieved. Lately talking to Zac was like scolding a three-year-old.
"You called her a slut." His eyes grew.
"Wow," he said, looking away from me. "I'm sorry." I looked out the window. Rose and Taylor were just getting up and they disappeared from view. I never knew how good of friends they were. They'd always talked when they both were around each other, sometimes more than Rose would talk with me. They'd always seemed so comfortable around each other, unlike Rose and Zac who never seemed to get along.
"Honestly, Zac, do you have something against Rose?" I asked.
"No!" he immediately said. "No, not at all. I don't have anything against her. I think she's a wonderful person. It's just she's never done anything to acknowledge me or try to be friends with me so I just returned the attitude. I apologize if she took it the wrong way but she hasn't exactly treated me nice either."
"I don't think that's her fault, Zac."
"What? Are you blaming me?" he asked. "I just explained that I'm doing what she's done. God, it shows who you favor."
"What the hell is your problem?"
"I'm in a hospital because people think I'm trying to kill myself!" I got up. I didn't need to have a fight with him over Rose. I'd spend the entire time defending Rose and he'd be upset about it. I didn't want to think that I was going to end up defending her instead of my brother, as much as that was true.
"You know, Zac, you're really difficult. Don't come to me with your problems. I tried to help, I really tried, but you've got too many and I don't have the next eternity free to solve things you should have figured out ages ago." I left the room. If Zac said he didn't try to kill himself, then maybe he didn't try to kill himself, but whatever the hell he did he did it to himself and he really needed to figure it out. I could really have cared less if Zac stayed in there by himself, but it turned out Mom was outside and she went in with him after I came out. I stopped her before she went inside. "Where did Rose and Taylor go?" I asked.
"They looked like they were headed to the cafeteria," she said with a smile before going into Zac's room. I turned around and headed to the cafeteria. Rose and Taylor were having a conversation at one of the tables, and just as I approached they both erupted into laughter. Taylor had a cup of coffee while Rose was eating something...I couldn't tell. It was hospital food and it looked like crap anyway.
"Rose, if you were hungry I would have taken you somewhere instead of eating this crap food," I said.
"Well I didn't want to interrupt," she explained. "Taylor's kept me company, don't worry. This food isn't as bad as you think."
"The coffee is," Taylor muttered, looking into his cup and making a face. I looked back at Rose and I heard a kick under the table. Her face turned into a scowl at Taylor. He gave her a look and took a sip of his coffee. It was obvious something was going on and it involved the three of us. "Tell him."
"Not now." Rose offered me a sweet smile, hoping I'd leave it at that, but I wasn't going to.
"What? Tell me what?" I asked. Taylor gave another one of those looks to Rose and she sat back in her chair, playing with the food on her plate with her fork.
"I just don't think this is the right place to be discussing this. When I tell you, and I will tell you," she said, giving a pointed look back at Taylor, "it'll be when we get home." I got up.
"Then let's go. I'm pissed off at Zac and I have no reason for being here."
"Why are you mad at Zac?" she asked, growing concerned but obviously trying to vie the subject away from whatever she wanted to tell me. I wasn't sure I could handle anything else. The last time she made a big deal about telling me something it was when I found out she was pregnant.
"It's nothing. Let's just go." She groaned and got up. Taylor got up too, throwing everything away on the way out. I wasn't sure of Taylor's current relationship with Zac, but he obviously thought this was more important because he insisted on coming with us.
I drove home, Taylor in the back seat and Rose sitting next to me. They both kept exchanging looks through the mirrors, which got annoying after a while, but despite that it only added to my curiosity on what was going on between them. Whatever the hell this news was, it involved the both of them because otherwise Taylor wouldn't know. They're good friends but I don't think they're that good friends that Rose would tell Taylor before me.
When we arrived at Rose's house, we sat in the living room and Rose and Taylor sat across from me. "Okay," I said, unable to contain myself any longer, "what is it?"
"It's really not a big deal," Rose started out, "I mean it happened a long time ago, but Taylor insists that I tell you before we get married." I looked between the two of them. "Before I met you, Taylor and I dated."
"What?" I asked.
"Rose and I dated," Taylor reiterated. "It was only for a few weeks, but we broke up maybe a week before she met you. When she met you she didn't know I was your brother and when you talked about Rose I never knew it was her, and it stayed that way until we met again. It was weird for a little while but we're good friends now. I just thought you should know." I looked back to Rose.
"Why'd you think that would make me upset? I don't care if you two dated. I don't care who you dated before me," I said.
"And we had sex," Taylor continued.
"What?! You told me you were a virgin!"
"I think I'll be going now..." Taylor got up to leave.
"No, Taylor, you stay here," Rose said, yanking on his arm and pulling him back down on the sofa. "Listen, Ike, I'm sorry. I really am. If it makes any difference, I didn't like it." Taylor's mouth dropped but she wasn't looking at him. "But you can't do anything because it happened before we even met. I didn't like it and I didn't think I was ready for it, which was why I waited so long with you. I mean I didn't even like Taylor when I did it with him."
"Oh my God!" Taylor said. "Well thanks for telling me three years later!" Rose gave him a look but smiled to me.
"Honey, please don't get upset over it."
"I'm not upset," I said, but it wasn't very convincing. I didn't mind that they dated because it was before Rose and I even me, but she told me she was a virgin and I believed her.
"Ike, yes you are. I can see it all over you."
"No, I'm fine." I got up and walked away. I got to the kitchen when Rose caught up with me. "Rose, it's fine. Don't worry about it." I got a drink from the fridge. She put her hand on her hip and waited for me to notice. I looked up at her and sighed. "It's just you told me you were a virgin when you weren't."
"Taylor meant nothing to me, Ike. I didn't want to say it with him right next to me but he didn't mean a thing to me then and it's the same now. I love you. I don't love him. I was afraid to tell you because I knew you'd react like this. I just wish you'd understand," she said, turning away. I sighed. I couldn't be mad at Rose for long. There was just something about her, she was always innocent and I was always the bad guy, so she was always right.
"I'm sorry," I said, putting my arms around her and resting them on her stomach. "I shouldn't be upset and I don't know why I am. But I'll get over it." She smiled, turning back to me again.
"Good." She kissed me before we went out into the living room. Taylor was reading the paper, his feet up on the table. "Taylor, why don't you make yourself at home?" she asked, sitting down across from him. He flashed her a smile then folded up the paper. "Put your feet down!" He put his feet back on the floor.
"Hey Ike, we're in the paper."
"Why are we in the paper?" I asked.
"Zac. I guess they found out about him." He put the paper down in front of me. "And they're saying it's a suicide attempt. He's going to get a lot of unwanted publicity from this." I looked at the headline of an article. There must have been nothing going on in Tulsa because he made the front page.
"No, we're going to get a lot of unwanted publicity. Zac will do whatever he can to not get in front of camera. You know how he's going to react to this," I said. It was true; Zac would literally lock himself inside somewhere so he wouldn't have to go out and face the media. It was also the worst thing he could possibly do because it would spark rumors that he actually died.
"I'll warn Mom to not let him near anything that locks."
"This might play off for a while because Zac won't be let out of the hospital for a while," I told Taylor.
"Why?"
"Well he admitted that the wounds were self-inflicted. They're going to stick him in the psychiatric ward for a while to watch him. It's standard procedure for a suicide attempt."
"But it wasn't a suicide attempt, anyone can tell you that."
"But the wounds were self-inflicted so they're classifying it as a suicide attempt."
"Zac is not going to like that," Taylor said, sighing. "And I'm not going to be the one who tells him."
Despite the fact that I stated I didn't want to tell Zac that he had to stay in the hospital a few more days, it turned out that I had to. All of a sudden everybody pushed me into the room and disappeared quickly. I didn't have the energy to fight them. I didn't have the energy to do a lot of things lately.
When I walked into the room, Zac looked up and scowled when he realized it was me. He immediately turned back to the television. I sat down on the chair next to him. He was watching the television quite diligently so he could ignore me completely; he was watching some channel that wasn't the news. I knew he didn't want to watch the news because there just might be a story about him on it.
"You made the front page of the newspaper," I said. He huffed and turned up the volume, indicating he didn't want me there. I snatched the remote from him. "You know you're going to have to stay here a few more days."
"Why? I'm perfectly fine," he asked, reaching for the remote. I held it away from him and turned off the television. "Hey!"
"No, you listen to me now," I told him, giving him a look. "They're going to move you to the psychiatric ward and observe you there for about two weeks. I know you say this wasn't a suicide attempt but you admitted that you did this to yourself so it's classified as a suicide attempt and you have to see a psychiatrist and the whole shebang." He looked at me blankly. "What?"
" 'The whole shebang,' Taylor? What the hell is with you and corny phrases?"
"Shut up."
"I don't want to see a psychiatrist! Why do I have to go to a psychiatrist? We're just going to waste time and money because I'm not telling some fucking stranger all my problems. I don't even tell you all my problems, how am I supposed to tell someone I don't know?" His face clouded over and he began to think of something.
"What?"
"I was just thinking of this girl..." I rolled my eyes immediately. "No, not like that. It was a little while ago, I don't remember when, but before a show I went outside to walk around and I met this girl. I don't know how we started talking but I ended up telling her everything, I mean everything. I told her about the cuts on my wrists, I told her about everything."
"Well maybe it can be the same way with the psychiatrist."
"No, I only told her all that because I was hoping to get lucky. I'm upset about it because I didn't even get her name or anything. She was just really nice to talk to."
"Zac, if you think about it, that girl could be just about anyone. You can unload all the stuff you're carrying on someone and they'll just listen and you'll feel a lot better." He shook his head, looking away. "Why not? You told her."
"But I'd feel a lot better telling somebody I knew."
"Well you don't have to walk into that office with the psychiatrist and automatically say all of your problems right off the bat. You can take a few sessions to get to know the person first, get more comfortable in your situation before you decide to say anything too personal."
"I don't want to do it."
"You have to. It's not your choice if you want to do it or not." He huffed. We sat in silence for a few moments before he turned to me.
"Well now that everybody knows my secret, I think you should tell yours too." I shook my head. "Come on, Taylor, it's either you say it now and get help while I'm getting help, or fuck up the band later when someone else finds out."
"I don't need any help, Zac," I said.
"Neither do I but it looks like I'm being forced." I shook my head. "Come on, Taylor. You're killing yourself here. I don't know what the hell is going through your head and why you're doing this, but you're so skinny it's painful just to look at you. How can you even walk? I don't know how you can get up in the morning, you haven't had any nutrition in weeks, possibly months; you need to eat something and keep it down."
"This is stupid," I said, getting up and walking to the door.
"Taylor, just think about it! What are you gaining from this? Nothing. All that's going to end up happening is you're going to waste away until there's nothing left and you either die of starvation or you end up fucking up your body so bad that you develop all these conditions and you die a slow and painful death."
"Stop it!" I yelled at him, shutting him up. "Nothing's going to happen. I'm fine. So I've decided to control what I put in my mouth. At least it's better than you! At least I'm not cutting my wrists because I don't know what else to do with myself!" I left the room, huffing as the door slammed behind me. I plopped in a chair next to my mother.
"Well you're the second person to come out of there all in a fury. Is Zac not in a good mood that he keeps sending people out of the room upset?" I shook my head, pulling my knees up to my chest and wrapping my arms around them. Zac didn't know what the hell he was talking about, me being so skinny. I looked exactly the same as I did when I started this stupid thing. While standing next to Rose I must have looked like a rail because she'd gotten so big. Maybe that was it. Maybe it was because I'd been next to Rose. "Honey, are you okay?"
"I'm fine, Mom," I said, gritting my teeth as I hid my face in my knees. "Why does everyone keep asking me that?"
"You just look a little down, Taylor."
"It's just..." I took my head out of my knees and looked up at my mother. She had a gentle smile on her face, something she always seemed to have when she was concerned, and was waiting for an explanation. "It's just it seems like I'm not even friends with Zac anymore. It seems all we do lately is fight."
"You two just need a break from each other. Zac is okay now and it looks like we'll be taking a longer break than we originally thought. You should go back to LA so you two can be apart for a little while. I think you both need some time alone." I nodded. Maybe that was exactly what I needed.