"So Ike's girlfriend had her baby," I told Joy, halfway into my session. This was the second meeting since my breakdown and I found out how amazing Joy could be. I wished I'd opened up sooner because Joy was the kind of person who listened like nobody I'd ever known. She knew what she was doing, despite her short time practicing. I loved it.
Joy got a new couch and I took the liberty to plop myself down on it and make myself comfortable. She didn't seem to mind, so I hadn't moved. Eventually I'd sit up or I'd fall asleep and that wouldn't be cool, but I was perfectly comfortable lying down on her couch. "His name is Ryan. They're home at her house now, I'm sure just having a ball staying up all night to take care of him. Her parents are helping out and everything but Ike's done this so many times he doesn't have a problem with it."
"So you're an uncle now, huh?" she asked. I didn't know what it was, but I felt like I was talking to one of my friends when I spoke with Joy. She treated me like one of her friends. It'd been like that through all of the sessions; I just didn't realize it until I actually allowed myself to open up to her. When I spoke to her about the incoherent, irrelevant things she listened to me with bright eyes and a smile on her face. She always did make me feel incredibly comfortable, it only took some time before I allowed myself to be comfortable around her as well. As we spoke she painted her toenails for absolutely no reason. "Is it cool to have a nephew?"
"I don't know. It's weird knowing that the kid is my brother's son, but I'm over that now. I feel sorry for Ike because his life is over now that he's got a kid."
"Is he still in the band?" she asked, looking up.
"Oh yeah, but the band's on hold right now. We can't do much of anything until I've shown drastic improvement here and I could care less if I show any improvement. I'm giving myself a much-needed break; I'm giving Ike time with his girlfriend and his kid, and Taylor's having his own time in LA. Well, he was. He's back at home now. He's good friends with Rose and he wants to stick around and help out with the baby as much as he can."
"How do you feel about the baby?"
"Ryan's cute. I know I won't have to worry about him because he's not my little brother. I don't have to do diapers or put him down for naps or feed him or anything. I'm pretty good about it."
"And what about Rose?"
"What about her?" I asked.
"Well how do you feel about your brother getting married to her? That's a big thing; she's going to be a big part of your life now. If you guys do continue with the band she's going to be around a lot more, especially now with the baby."
"I don't particularly like her. I don't know why; she's just not my cup of tea. She's never done anything to be my friend so I don't do anything special to be hers. But Ike's getting married to her and Taylor's her best friend, so I have to like her somewhat cause I know she'll be around a lot more. She's a cool chick, she just doesn't like me very much."
"That makes sense," she said, putting the top back on the nail polish and setting it down. She gently blew on her toes. "Let's go back to the band being on hold. Is that why you took so long to open up to me? Because you want a break?"
"Sort of," I said, propping my head up with my hand. "I'd be perfectly happy never going back on tour and just disappearing. I'm fine with finishing high school, going to college and getting a degree in something or another and work a normal job where I'm not in the spotlight. But I know it won't happen because my brothers love what we do and I could never take it away from them."
"Have you talked to them about it?" she asked.
"No! If I talk to them about it, they'll think I want to quit. If they even remotely think that I want to quit, they'll stop immediately and that's the end of it. If they don't think I'm happy doing this, they won't even think twice about giving it all up."
"They'd really do that for you?" she asked.
"Oh yeah. In a heartbeat. They always said they could never do this without me and I know they won't. They think my happiness is more important than all the money and popularity in the world."
"Sounds like you have two older brothers that care about you very much." She looked at her fingernails. "I think I have to do my fingers over too." She grabbed the bottle of nail polish remover and a cotton ball and started on her fingernails.
"I guess so...�but they don't show it very well. We fight all the time. We never used to fight." I felt myself getting sleepy and sat up. I smiled, looking over the CDs in her collection. I pulled out our first album. "See, on this one, we're happy. Yay! Major hit, we're happy to be with each other," I told her, showing her the album. Then I put it back and pulled out our latest album. "This one, we're fighting all the time. 'Taylor thinks I'm on drugs! He's wasting himself away! Ike's decided to get married and he's going to have a kid!' " I put the CD back on the shelf.
"But you are on drugs," she said, looking at the fresh coat of nail polish on her left hand. I'd told her in our previous session about my drug use. She didn't take it very well, which was surprising. She didn't take it like a professional. She seemed genuinely upset with me for doing such a stupid thing.
"I told Ike," I said, turning around. She dropped her hand.
"Really? How'd he take it?"
"Well, I told him when we were at the hospital. He didn't have much time to think about it before the baby was born and he's too busy now to say anything."
"Zac..."
"What? I knew if I told him at any other time he would have gotten all older brother on me and I didn't want that! He'll remember it eventually and talk to me about it and then I can worry about it. It may be a few years but I'm willing to wait."
"That's not good."
"Oh well," I said, huffing.
"Zac?" I looked at her. "Can you do my other hand? I don't want to mess it up and I'm almost out of polish remover." I stared at her blankly. "Please?"
"And what makes you think that I'm not going to mess it up?"
"Because you made the mistake of babbling to me that your little sisters sweet talk you into doing it all the time," she said, giving me a smile. I knew there was a downside of babbling about nothing; people could get something out of it. "Just two coats. One now and another in about fifteen minutes."
"Fine." She sat on the floor in front of the table and I sat across from her. She put her hand out and gave me the bottle of bright blue nail polish. "I personally think this is violating our doctor/patient relationship."
"How about we do your nails when I'm done?" she asked, her whole face lighting up with the thought.
"No!"
"Oh, come on, Zac. It'll be fun." I shook my head. "How about bright yellow? Wouldn't that be so pretty?"
"You're the one who needs psychiatric help," I told her.
"I have black. We can make you a little Goth boy."
"How about no?"
"Please?" I looked up at her. "Pretty please?"
"Fine." I put a dab of the nail polish on her forearm. "Oops." She gave me a look. "So what do you want to talk about now? We still got a lot of time left."
"And I'm not letting you leave until my nails are done," she said, smiling. I didn't mind. She was actually pretty cool to hang around. If she weren't getting paid for this, I'd think I was talking to one of my friends--one of my slightly older friends. "I don't know. What do you want to talk about? It really doesn't matter to me. I'm getting money and a fresh coat of paint on my nails from this. And I'm actually having fun."
"I'm having fun too," I told her.
"That's good. I want you to be comfortable around me."
"I am. Don't worry." I thought about what I could tell her as I finished painting her nails. I put the cap back on the bottle. She smiled and got up, carefully opening a drawer to fish out the black nail polish. I noticed my sketch of her in a frame on her desk. I smiled upon seeing it; she must have really liked it if she put it on her desk. I turned my attention back to my hands. My nails weren't too bad; I stopped biting them recently. "Taylor is starting to scare me."
"Why?" she asked. She closed her drawer and shook up the nail polish as she carefully walked back to me.
"He's getting really thin. I mean I'm surprised he's still alive he's so thin. I know he didn't eat anything when he was in LA because he didn't have anybody watching him," I said. She sat back down in front of me. I put my hands on the table. "What should I do about him?"
"Well, Zac, you should talk to him first. He's not going to do anything about it until he thinks he has a problem. Try to convince him that he needs help. Tell him he needs to do something about it and that it's not his fault he's like this. He has a disease, Zac. It's something his mind is telling him to do and he can get help for it. If you can't convince him to do something about it, tell your parents and tell them they need to do something about it."
"I'm just really afraid that he's going to end up killing himself."
"If you get him help then he won't be able to do that," she said. I looked down at my nails. The black polish didn't look too bad. It actually went well with my punk rock shirt and my signature messy hair. I could get used to it.
"My mom's going to freak when she sees this," I said.
"Oh, I'm sure you have nail polish remover at home. If it's too much the most that'll happen is she'll make you take it off." She looked up at me and smiled. "I think it suits you."
"Your eyes are green today."
"Yeah, I decided to go natural today. I'm not wearing makeup and I don't have my colored contacts in. Before you know it my hair will be brown again."
"What possesses you to change yourself?" I asked. "I think you're just beautiful like this." She smiled.
"Well why do you hide yourself from the world?" she asked. "I think you're a wonderful person, incredibly talented and incredibly beautiful, why would you ever want to escape from yourself?"
"I think everybody wants to change who they are."
"Then you know why I change who I am."
"I think your toes are due for another coat." She nodded, finishing up my nails. "I think this does suit me. Could you see me Goth?"
"Oh yeah, with the black hair and everything. I think you'd be one sexy Goth." I laughed. I hadn't laughed in a long time...
When Zac came home, the first thing I saw was the black on his nails. I grew very concerned; I hadn't really paid attention to Zac in a while but the polish was new. The thought left my mind when I saw he had a slight smile on his face. From what I heard, Zac never returned from seeing the psychiatrist with a smile on his face. He was supposed to return, freak out and lock himself in his room. He sat down across from me in the living room and turned his attention to the television. Mom went into the kitchen to start dinner, leaving the two of us were alone.
"What's with the nails?" I asked. He looked over.
"What? Oh, yeah, Joy did it."
"Who's Joy?" I asked.
"My psychiatrist."
"Your psychiatrist, who is supposed to be helping you relieve your depression, painted your nails black?" I asked. I didn't quite understand. Joy was not a common name for a psychiatrist, and I never heard of any doctor who went by her first name.
"She wanted to make them bright yellow but I wouldn't let her."
"And she lets you call her by her first name? Which I am guessing is Joy." He nodded.
"Oh yeah. Joy's awesome. You should meet her; she's really cool. She's really hot too. She's a good friend of mine now. At first I didn't want to like her but she acts like my best friend more than my psychiatrist," he said. She was hot. That was why he let her touch his nails.
"So are you opening up to her? Mom said you were having a problem with that."
"Well I am now, but I didn't really want to earlier because I didn't know if I should but Mom mentioned it was confidential and I didn't know that. So I'm fine with it now." He sat up. "Taylor? Can I talk to you for a minute? Like where no one else can run in and overhear?"
"Sure. Let's go upstairs." I turned off the television and got off the couch. He followed me upstairs and we went into our room. Zac locked the door to make sure no one came in. "What's up?"
"Taylor, I think you need help."
"With what?" I asked.
"You know with what. Would you look at yourself? I bet you're about a hundred pounds right now. When was the last time you ate? I know you weren't eating when you were in LA because you didn't spend any money and you lost a lot of weight. I'm really worried about you and if you don't get help soon I seriously think you're going to starve yourself to death."
"Zac, I'm fine," I said, trying to blow it off, as usual. "You're just imagining things." He walked up to me and grabbed my arm. "What are you doing?"
"I can put my hand around your upper arm," he said. I looked down and it was true. His hand was completely around my arm. "And this is the grossest thing in the world because all I can feel is skin and bones. Do you even have any muscle? How can you even move? Taylor, you're wasting away before my very eyes and I'm really starting to get scared. I'm not going to let you die on me, man."
"Zac, you're being silly. I'm fine." He let go of me and opened the door.
"MOM!" he called out.
"What are you doing?"
"I'm telling Mom."
"What?!" I yelled at him. "No you are not! You promised me you weren't going to say anything!"
"No, I said I wouldn't say anything as long as I had a secret to hold. I don't care about my secrets anymore and this has gotten way out of hand. If you don't get help soon you're going to die and I'm not going to let that happen. I'm not going to let you do this to yourself any longer! It's been months!" Mom appeared at the door.
"What's going on?" she asked.
"Taylor's got something he wants to tell you," Zac said, looking straight at me. "And if he doesn't say it I will so he better damn well say it." I shook my head.
"No, I'm not--"
"Say it!"
"No!"
"Taylor, just say it," he said, sternly. I began to grow afraid. He was going to tell her if I didn't. I couldn't let him say it. I plopped on the bed and looked away.
"I...I have a problem," I whispered, a tear slipping down my face. "With eating." I hastily wiped it away.
"What?" she asked, her voice a shocked whisper. I didn't say any more; I knew she had heard me. She didn't know how quite to react and it took her a few minutes, but eventually she walked over to me and put her arms around me.
"Oh sweetie, it's okay..." she said as I began to cry. "It's okay. We'll get you help for this. Maybe you can see the psychiatrist Zac's been talking so much about."
"She is really great, Tay," he said, sitting on the other side of me. I felt better knowing that he was supporting me on this and I realized he did this for a reason. "She's helping me out a lot and she can help you out too."
"Zac, why don't you find your father for me?" Mom asked. I felt Zac get off the bed and leave the room. "Sweetie, why would you ever worry about yourself like that?"
"Because I have to," I said, resting my head on her shoulder. "Everything was messed up. Zac was depressed and suicidal, Ike and Rose were going to have a baby all of a sudden, our career wasn't what it used to be, and I have to be the perfect one. I hate being the perfect one."
"Honey, you don't have to be perfect. No one's perfect. Why, if everyone was perfect than this world would be a boring place to live in."
"Well everyone keeps saying I have to be perfect! I have to be the skinny boy and I have to have the brightest blue eyes and the best hair and God forbid I ever get a zit! If I'm not perfect, the fans don't like me. Record sales go down. I have to look good and sound good and I can't be me because the audience doesn't want to hear from me. They want that Taylor Hanson who does this and this and this and it doesn't matter what I think because I have no say in it."
"We'll get you help and we'll get you better and you're going to be who you want to be, all right?" I sniffed and looked away. "Nobody has the right to make you feel like this. You are who you are and that's why people like you." I looked back at her, my perfect blue eyes wet and red. "I've got dinner cooking and I want you to join us."
"Okay."