I sat in the car looking over my new home, Rose sitting by my side. She gave me a smile and a nod, mentally pushing me into the driveway. I pulled up in front of the house and turned off the car. I insisted that Rose didn't see the house until it was done. The decorator matched Rose's plans almost exactly, and what the decorator didn't follow, I think Rose would love this end result much better. Rose begged me to see it before our wedding, and I decided I'd let her.
It was Monday, and we were getting married on Saturday. All the final adjustments were in; everything was perfect. All we had to do was be excited. We decided not to go on a honeymoon. Ryan was too young to be left alone for so long or to travel. When he got older we decided we'd find somewhere to go as sort of a delayed honeymoon, but we'd rather settle in first. I was upset that I had to leave to go back on the tour so quickly; we'd leave the week after the wedding. Rose said she was okay with it. Now that she had Ryan she wasn't going to spend her days lying around watching TV. After we finished the tour my brothers and I could settle to work on a new album, which meant I'd be around a lot more. We just had to get through the end of the tour without killing each other. (Directing that to Zac, who'd gone through his fifth psychiatrist and Mom said she was not going to bother to send him to another one.)
"Honey, don't you think this is a little much?" Rose asked, laughing slightly as I covered her eyes. We'd left Ryan with Alicia because I knew the moment Rose got to see the house she wouldn't want to be holding onto anything. I began to walk her up the front step and into the house. "Don't let me trip."
"Don't worry, I won't let you fall."
"I don't know if I can trust you on that," she joked.
"Well you better learn because we're going to be married in five days." I bit my lip as I realized that five days was less than a week. I was nervous about it but Alicia told me that Rose and I were pretty much married anyway, the only difference was that we'd be living in a different house and Rose's father would actually let me sleep in the same bed as her. It helped a lot for the nervousness, but I couldn't rule it out completely. It was still a really big deal for me.
"Are we there yet?" Rose asked.
"Calm down, let me just open the door, okay?" I opened the door and let her inside the house. As soon as I uncovered her eyes, she screamed.
"Oh, oh honey it's so beautiful! Oh my God I can't believe this is my house!" She grabbed my hand and ran around the downstairs. She tried to look over everything as quickly as she could. I was waiting for her to go into sensory overload, but she seemed to be handling it quite well. "It's all so beautiful," she said, stopping in the middle of the front room. "Honey, I know I told you I didn't want anything extravagant but I'm so glad you didn't listen to me."
"Rose, this is listening to you."
"You are so rich I could kill you," she said, walking up to me and poking me in the chest. "It makes me sick sometimes."
"It's your money too," I said, putting my arms around her waist. "As of this weekend everything I have is yours."
"It is, isn't it?" she asked. I nodded. "Well, I'll try not to spend it all in one place."
"What makes you think you're going to spend it at all?" I asked. She shrugged.
"I probably won't, but I'm just letting you know." She pulled away from me. "Come on, there's a huge ass house here that you have to show me." She began weaving in and out of the various rooms of the first floor, taking in how beautifully decorated it all was. She stopped in each room, looking over how the interior decorator captured exactly what she was looking for. When we finished the first floor, I stopped her before she went up to the second floor. "What?"
"I'm not letting you in the master bedroom because I don't want you to see that until after the wedding." She gave me a look.
"Why not?"
"Because you're not even supposed to see the house until after the wedding but you're so damn annoying you made me give in. I have to stop you somewhere. So you can see the other rooms, but our bedroom is off-limits."
"But..but honey..." she said, moving over to me. She put her arms around my neck and protruded her lower lip slightly.
"No. I'm not letting you. I spent a lot of time making that room just right and you're not going to see it until I want you to see it." I kissed her forehead and began to walk upstairs.
"You are so mean."
"I know." Giggling, she grabbed my hand and we ran up the stairs.
I'd hit an all-time low. My mother did her best for the past four months to keep all sharp objects out of my view so I wouldn't get any ideas and it worked so far. I hadn't done anything more than the usual. I still used my razors, but the pain was so controlled that I could create a drop of blood and be pleased again. That was what I'd been doing lately, trying my best to convince myself that I didn't want to end my life. I was slowly losing the battle. I didn't know when or where, but eventually I felt like I was going to lose my battle and end up killing myself.
My low happened when I got hungry and realized the stash of snack foods in my room was depleted, so I had to go downstairs and actually make myself something. It was very weird. In the past few months that I'd been home I have not had to come out of my room for food because I always had something with me already. Upon stepping into the hallway, I was more worried about running into somebody than actually having to make my meal.
I walked into the kitchen and to my relief there was no one there. What caught my eye as I flicked on the light was the shiny butcher knife lying on the counter. What the hell was it doing here? We had the kids and their little friends running around. They could see it lying on the counter and pick it up and oops my foot is gone, and then there was me. I was standing in front of it, looking around, my hands shaking because I was trying very, very, very hard to not pick it up and kill myself with it. I silently hoped somebody would walk in because, although I didn't want to see or talk to anybody, whoever it was would notice the knife and get it away from me as quickly as possible.
A minute later my hand was on the counter, inching closer to what was surely my death. No one walked in. No one even passed by. I didn't want to kill myself but I wanted to kill myself. I didn't know what I wanted. I was so stricken by this decision and it'd been so long...�I hoped I'd be able to decide, but it'd been months and I still didn't know what I wanted.
Closing my eyes, my right hand found the handle of the knife. It was wooden and smooth, slightly cool to the touch. The metal would be freezing if the handle were this cool. I opened my eyes again and my left hand reached on the counter. A finger trailed on the blade. Instant pain shot through the nerves on my hand to my brain and throughout my body as the blade broke the layers of skin and I began to bleed. It was sharp. It was really sharp.
"Zac?"
Oh thank God. It was Ike. Why was Ike in the house? He had so many errands to run with the wedding being just three days away. We had to go to the final fitting that night. I didn't want to go but I was being forced. I didn't want to go to the wedding at all but I was being forced. I just want to stay home, in my room, curled up in a little ball so I didn't have to worry about forgotten butcher knives that were left on the counter and seemed to be singing my name.
"Zac, what are you doing in here?" He didn't see the knife. How could he not see the knife? It was right there, my hand wrapped around it and my finger bleeding everywhere. How could he not notice that I was transfixed on it, waiting for the signal so I could kill myself with it? I didn't want to talk to him, I didn't want to say a word to him, but I had to stop this. I couldn't do this with him right there. I had to say something.
"Help me..." I whispered, a tear rolling down my face.
"What--Oh my God!" He immediately grabbed the knife out of my grip and put it away. I didn't see where he put it because I didn't want to see where he put it. I sunk down to the floor, still slightly in a state of shock. Ike grabbed my hand and inspected my finger; I tried to look at him but tears were blurring my vision. "Okay, it's not bad, I'll get you a band-aid and you'll be just fine." He disappeared and I withdrew into my comfort position, wrapping my arms tightly around my legs and resting my chin on top of my knees.
Ike came back with a bandage and some anti-septic. He yanked my hand away from my leg. I didn't look at him as he took care of my finger and then put the first aid products on the counter. The tears poured out of my eyes and I could see clearer, and it was just in time for my mother to walk in the room. Ike stood up.
"Did you leave the knife on the counter?" he asked.
"Yeah, why?"
"Well Zac was four seconds away from killing himself with it." My mother looked down at me but I didn't see her because I was crying into my knees.
"He hasn't left his room in weeks! How was I supposed to know that he was going to come down here?" she asked, kneeling beside me. "Zac, Zac honey, look at me." I shook my head. "Come on, sweetie, look at me." I shook my head again. "I'm sorry, sweetie, just get up off the floor, it's all dirty. Come into the living room."
"No!"
"Isaac, help me out here."
"Zac, you can't just sit here on the dirty floor. There's no room in here, you'll end up hyperventilating. We can go upstairs if you're worried about people coming in." I shook my head again. "You're going to have to move sometime. Unless you want everybody gathering in here to sit and stare at you."
"Fine, I'll move!" I got up and left the room, going as quickly as I could to the stairs. Mom stayed behind and Ike followed me up the stairs and into my room. I climbed onto my bed and put my pillow over my head.
"Zac..."
"Go away!"
"Zac, what happened in there?" I felt him sit down on the edge of my bed.
"I said go away! Nothing happened in there, I just had a problem. You helped me out of it. Thanks. Now leave me alone." I wanted to curl up in a little ball in my corner until he went away but I knew he wasn't going to since he saw what happened.
"I'm not going to leave you alone. Zac, I'm sure you knew someone was going to walk in and catch you doing that. There's a lot of people in this house, someone was bound to walk in the kitchen at some point."
"I was hoping someone would walk in and catch me," I told him. "I was hoping someone would walk in, see the knife on the counter and get it away from me before I could do anything to myself." I didn't want to say it to him but I said it to him anyway, my voice muffled from under my pillow.
"Zac, I really do think you should get some help for this." I took the pillow off my head and looked at him.
"I did get help! Mom took it away from me!"
"Mom had her reasons for making you stop going to Joy. She may not have been right but it's her decision to make. Now she even sent you to many other psychiatrists and you blew them off when they were just trying to help you."
"No they weren't," I said, huffing. "I was not about to spend my time opening up to some square who thinks he's trying to help me when he doesn't know shit about me and the only reason he's doing this is because it's what gets him a paycheck. I'm not spending the time that I don't have anymore to try and look past it either because every single time I go in there they make it harder and harder for me to do that! That first doctor actually told me he thought I was messed up and he didn't know how he was going to help me. I'd been there five minutes and he'd already given up on me!"
"Zac, you have to admit you didn't give them much to work with."
"It was because I knew it was a lost cause," I said. "If I was still going to see Joy, if I would have walked in that kitchen and saw that knife there, all I would have done was wash it off and put it away. I wouldn't have a second thought about it. But you saw what happened! At this rate I'll never be sociable again."
"You're talking to me, aren't you?"
"That's because you won't go away and I don't have the energy to throw you out," I said. "I don't have the energy to do anything anymore."
"Maybe you'll feel better once you actually have something to do. I know being home hasn't exactly been eventful for you. Maybe going back on the road and performing again will help you." My eyes widened. I completely forgot about the tour. Before I knew it I was going to have to get in front of people again. I wasn't going to do that again.
"No!" I put the pillow back over my head. "No, I'm staying home."
"Are you serious?" he asked.
"Yes! I'm staying home and you can't make me go! All those people..." I shuddered. "No, not again. Consider me out."
"What?" I sat up.
"I'm out of the band! I don't want to do it anymore! I want to be normal again! I don't want people to know who I am; I don't want anyone to idolize me. I'm not worth idolizing. I don't want to go out on tour and perform for people who think I'm good but it's all a false image. I can't go out in front of that many people anymore. I can't stand in front of a camera and pretend that I'm okay with it. I hate it! I don't want to be a part of it anymore."
"Zac, you can't just quit now."
"Yes I can! You can't make me do that again, Ike. You can't make me go back in front of that many people again. You can't make me live through that shit again. Why do you think I have so many problems right now? It's because of that whole media and popularity bullshit. Do you know how much it took for me to get out in front of them every night? Do you know that I sat in pitch black for a half an hour, shaking because I was so afraid to be out there?"
"Why didn't you say anything before?" he asked.
"Because I knew you and Taylor were having too much fun with it. I knew you both loved it so much that I didn't want to take it from you. I didn't want to upset you. But now I'm too damn scared to think of the both of you. I'm too scared of what I'll do to myself."
"Well, Zac, we'll talk about this, okay? We'll get Taylor and just sit somewhere and talk about this."
"Fine." Ike got up and walked out of the room. That conversation would never take place. I finally made my decision. As soon as I could get a clean getaway, I was going to kill myself.
On Friday night my family gathered in a hotel event room to hold the rehearsal dinner for Ike's wedding. As soon as dinner finished and people began to chat, I left. My entire family and most of the guests attending the wedding were staying in the hotel. I went upstairs to the room Taylor and I shared on the seventh story of the lavish hotel.
I figured out everything that I needed to do and I was going to do it. My family used to be religious, before we grew too busy for God, but considering I was going to take my own life, I spent most of the past few days in prayer to apologize for what I was about to do. I knew it wouldn't make much of a difference in the end, but I wanted a certain kind of peace with God before I doomed myself to an eternity of damnation in hell.
I hated that I was doing this the night before Ike's wedding, but Friday, November 16th was my day to die. I left the rehearsal dinner complaining of a headache, and retired to my seventh-story hotel room without anybody realizing what I was about to do.
I wrote a note explaining my actions to my family. I really didn't want to write a suicide note but I figured I needed to give them something. It was very long and it took me the past few days to write. I actually did nothing but write my note since I made my decision. This decision was probably not the most sensible decision I'd ever made but I stood by it and I was surely ready to do it. Although it wasn't very sensible, it surely was my most thought-out decision. I spent hours thinking of how, where, at what time. I didn't sleep at all in the past two days; I was too busy thinking out the note and all the details. I didn't think of anything until Ike told me about the hotel and that I was staying on the seventh floor.
I checked the door to make sure it was locked. Whoever had the other key to the door could get in but no random people could just walk in. I looked around for somewhere to put the note. After debating for a few minutes I placed it on the dark green cover of the bed, and it stood out like a sore thumb.
I walked to the balcony, my heart beating out of control in my chest. On the way, I looked at myself in the mirror. No way, I thought. I was not going to kill myself in a suit. It wasn't me. I changed into my favorite pair of jeans and the only shirt I brought with me that wasn't formal. I brought along my favorite shoes just for this occasion.
After changing, I walked out onto the balcony. It was cold. I didn't expect it to be so cold. I liked the cold anyway. I closed the balcony door behind me and walked to the railing. There wasn't anything going on below. My room faced the back of the building and there was nobody out there.
I sat on the railing, facing the inside of the room. I knew if I faced the other way I'd never let myself go through with it because of how afraid of heights I was. All that was left was to tip over.