I walked into the living room a week later and Taylor was zoning. I sat down next to him on the couch. "Are you okay, Taylor?" He didn't say anything. "Taylor?"
"What?" he asked, his head shaking as he broke his stare. He looked over at me. "What?"
"I asked if you were okay."
"My little brother's dead. Of course I'm not okay," he said, huffing. He crossed his arms over his chest and fell over, his head landing on the couch. "Ike, I don't know what to do. I don't know how to get over this. I don't know if I'll ever get over this. I don't have any closure, I don't have anything to take my mind off him, I'm just here. I mean you...you've got a future to look forward to. You've got the wedding to look forward to and your child...you have something to preoccupy yourself with. I don't."
"Why don't you call that Mimi girl you're always talking about? I'm sure she'd like to hear from you and it'll take your mind off things," I suggested. Taylor shook his head.
"I just talked to her a few hours ago," he said. "Mimi reminds me of Zac." I raised an eyebrow. "It's a long story and I really don't want to get into it right now. When I told her about Zac she took it just as hard as you and me. She's a huge fan...I mean she was one of those fans that goes to every show possible, tapes all the interviews off TV and the radio, does whatever she can to get noticed."
"And you like this girl...why?" I asked. He smiled. I was pleased to bring a smile to his face for the first time in a few days.
"No, no she's really awesome. I don't mind that she's that big of a fan because once I got to know her and once she got to know me, we just kind of clicked. Don't say anything to anybody, but she's still fifteen."
"Taylor!"
"Well...fourteen." My mouth dropped. "She'll be fifteen in a couple of days! Her birthday's next week."
"She's fourteen!"
"Well she doesn't look fourteen, you'd never notice if you saw the two of us together. You would have never known if I hadn't told you!" I let out a disappointed breath and turned away. "Oh come on, Ike. Think about this. When I'm fifty she'll be forty-six and it won't make any difference."
"But Taylor, it makes a difference now."
"Oh it's not like I'm going to go and have sex with her anytime soon," he said. "I'm not like that anymore, unlike some people I know who have a four-month-old son and isn't even married yet." He shot a pointed look at me. "And they shall remain nameless..."
"Oh shut up, Taylor, I'm not dating someone four years younger than I am."
"I'm not dating her!"
"Only you would bicker until you found a way out of saying you're dating someone. No, Mimi and I aren't dating, we go on outings where we talk and are romantically interested in one another, but we're not dating. No, you and Rose never dated, you were 'romantically interested' and ended up in bed together by accident."
"Ike!"
"What?" I asked, grinning. He rolled his eyes. "Okay, so you're not dating her. It's all been cleared up."
"Taylor's dating who now?" Rose asked, walking into the room, holding Ryan in her arms.
"Nobody," Taylor answered her. She sat down in front of us and made a face.
"There's this girl he met at the clinic and he says they're not dating. I don't believe him. He calls her just about every day," I explained.
"Sounds pretty damn close, Taylor," Rose said.
"We're not dating."
"But she's fourteen." Rose's mouth dropped much in the same fashion mine had just moments before.
"Taylor! You are such a dog!"
"We're not even dating!"
"Yeah, but you call her every day, you talk about her all the time, you're obviously very much interested in her," Rose said, then paused and turned to me. "We're talking about that Mimi girl, right?" I nodded. "You obviously like this girl a lot."
"Whatever," Taylor said, being stubborn as usual. He was still smiling at the thought of Mimi, though.
"I wish you'd call me every day," Rose muttered. Taylor's smile vanished.
"You know I didn't have the time to call you every day," he told her.
"Oh, that's such bull, Taylor. You know what you were doing when we went out? You were on a break. You were lying around the house all fricken day." Taylor sighed, being caught in his lie. "You didn't like me very much when you went out with me, did you?"
"Of course I liked you. Why else would I go out with you?" She gave him a look. "All right. I didn't care for you very much when we dated, but Rose I didn't know you when we dated. I was so strung out on drugs that I didn't know what the hell was going on. I didn't allow myself to get to know you because I was so messed up." It was the wrong thing to say. Rose grew very angry very fast.
"Oh, so you didn't remember any of it. It didn't mean anything to you?" she asked.
"No...no I didn't say that." She got up and began to walk away. "No, don't walk away. Rose! I'm sorry!" Taylor got up and ran after her. It looked like it could be interesting to watch, but I shouldn't interrupt. When the two of them fought, it was usually loud and nasty.
When I never heard anything, I started to get worried and decided to check it out. I didn't want her to hurt Taylor. I walked into the kitchen. Taylor and Rose were quietly talking over a cup of coffee. I paused. They both looked up.
"We were wondering when you were going to come in here," Rose said. "Sit down, I poured you a cup."
"Weren't you two fighting?" I asked, confused.
"Yeah," Rose said. "We were. We're better now."
"How long has it been?"
"Oh, just a few minutes," she continued. "It was quick and brutal. I yelled, he yelled, I didn't like what he said so I hit him..."
"Oh, that's why it's over so fast." Fights always ended when Rose hit someone. She never meant it but when it happened, she'd apologize quickly and then work things out quickly and quietly. I sat down and noticed for the first time that Taylor had his hand pressed against his eye.
"Let me see," Rose said, pulling Taylor's hand away from his eye. It was red and he had a little cut that was bleeding into the tissue in his hand. "Oh, I'm sorry."
"It's okay," Taylor said. "I deserved it." It made me wonder what Taylor said. He was not a person who was quick to admit he was wrong. "I'm surprised you only hit me once."
"Well I had Ryan with me," she said, taking a sip from her coffee. "I didn't want him to see me being too violent with you." She looked over his eye. "Go clean yourself up, you're bleeding like crazy." Taylor got up and walked out of the room. I didn't waste any time to butt in.
"What'd he say?" I asked.
"And why should I tell you?" she asked, smiling.
"Oh, come on, you know I want to hear it. Please? He'll be back before you know it." She thought about it then shook her head. "Oh, come on Rose."
"All right," she said, lowering her voice. "We were yelling at each other and he said 'I'm sorry if you weren't good enough for me to remember.' "
"Really?" I asked. She nodded, giving me a mug smile. "Well he doesn't know what he's talking about."
"Oh, honey, that's so sweet," she said. She picked up her mug and brought it to her lips. "He's still better than you," she muttered before taking a sip.
"Hey!"
Later that day Taylor and I went home to pick up a few things. Taylor hadn't brought much of anything to Rose's house and was quickly out of clean clothes. Rose insisted she wasn't going to do any laundry, so Taylor finally decided to go home. I figured it would be better if went together. It turned out it only affected the both of us more than if Taylor had gone alone.
Walking into the room, I immediately recognized the smoky scent of Zac. I looked around and saw one of his shirts lying on the floor. His bed wasn't made and I saw a box of half-empty Twinkies on top of his nightstand. Taylor quickly ignored it, sniffing and wiping at his eyes, and went into the closet to get some clothes. I continued to look over the room. I hadn't really paid attention to how different the room was. Zac really personalized it. With Taylor away at the clinic, Zac had the room to himself. I was surprised he didn't try to take over the six weeks that Taylor was gone. He must've had other things on his mind.
I stood by the doorway. I couldn't go in further. Taylor had to; he was here for a reason. I knew it must be extremely hard for him, but I couldn't bear the pain with him. It was just too much for me, so I stood by the door like a fool, gripping the doorknob and waiting for Taylor to say we could leave so I could get the hell out of there. The room was like a flood of memories, holding me under and filling my lungs so I couldn't breathe.
"You okay, Ike?" Taylor asked.
"Yeah, I'm fine. It's just being in the room again..."
"I'm trying not to think about it." I nodded. At least he had something to preoccupy himself with.
Taylor packed a week's worth of clothing before we toppled out of the room. I shut the door behind me--it was like a curse to be in there. We both ran downstairs and to the front door. The faster we got back to Rose's house the better. However we were stopped before we made it to the door.
"Boys? What are you doing here?" It was our mother. Taylor huffed but I was a little bit more tolerant.
"We just stopped by to get some more clothes for Taylor," I explained. "And we have to get back. Rose was making dinner and..."
"Oh, it can wait. Talk to me." I exchanged looks with Taylor and before we knew it we were in the kitchen talking to Mom. I lied about Rose putting on dinner, she said she'd wait until we came back before she started making anything, but I still wanted to get home. I didn't want to be in this house anymore. Everything reminded me of Zac. I didn't know how everybody else could still stay in the house with memories of Zac all over. Every little detail reminded me of how he was gone and he wasn't coming back.
Somehow the conversation steered its way to Zac and why he killed himself. Mom and Taylor began to bicker and show early signs of a major blowout. I could tell already that they were going to start a heated argument and there wasn't much I could do to stop it.
"Well if Zac was in his right mind, none of this would have happened, but Taylor you know he wasn't doing well at all. We all could tell that he had some major problems, some of them he didn't even know about. He had problems opening up to people and personally I don't think he was mentally sound. I mean, he killed himself, obviously he wasn't quite right," she said. I knew she had a hard time talking about this but she didn't let it affect her.
"I wanted to kill myself," Taylor said. "Am I not mentally sound?"
"When did you want to kill yourself?" Mom asked. I'd never heard about this. Taylor had never seemed like he was depressed enough to kill himself. Even when he was on drugs he was still the same around Zac and me. He was angry a lot, but never depressed.
"A couple of years ago. I never actually attempted anything, but I came pretty damn close. I was in a pit of depression for a very long time. I did a very good job of covering it up because I didn't want anybody to know and it turned out that it was all in my head and I did get better, but there was a long period where I wanted nothing more than to just put myself out of my misery."
"Well, Taylor, think about it," Mom said. "You did also spend six weeks in a clinic for a mind-controlled eating disorder."
"So you're saying I'm crazy?"
"No! Not at all. I'm just saying you're, well..."
"Crazy. Fine." He sat back and looked away. "Okay. I'm fine with it. I admit I was out of sorts with the bulimia thing, but at least you let me get help for my problems."
"And I didn't for Zac?"
"No! You knew that Joy was doing a hell of a good job for him and you still insisted that he see other psychiatrists. You saw how happy he was around us when he was seeing her. He had a smile on his face and he was actually talking to the family. He didn't spend any time in his room and all his time with the family."
"How do you know? You weren't even here!"
"It was obvious, Mom! Then I went to the clinic and I come back and he's all depressed again and curled up in a little ball in our room...he told me what happened with Joy and it really upset him, Mom. He was doing so well with her and then you had to go an intervene."
"Taylor, I was just doing what I thought was best for him."
"But how could you not notice? I mean when he was with her he was happy. Killing himself was the furthest thing from his mind. Then when he stops seeing her he's back in that pit of depression and he ended up killing himself because of it. I mean, how could you do it to him, Mom?"
"Don't blame me for this," she said, getting up.
"Why shouldn't I? You killed him and you know it!" he yelled.
"I didn't and you know I didn't. Zac was the one who jumped off the balcony. I couldn't have done anything to stop him."
"Of course you could, you're just too stubborn to figure it out. You'll never admit you're wrong! You'll never admit that you were wrong about Joy and if you didn't make that decision to get rid of her he'd be here right now! Not only would he be here, he'd be happy! We'd be able to go back on tour and get on with our lives and he'd be happy with it! He would have loved to go back in front of that many people instead of deciding to quit the band and kill himself."
"Taylor, I couldn't have stopped it any more than you could have." He opened his mouth for a rebuttal, but shut it quickly. He still felt responsible for Zac's death because he hadn't gotten upstairs in time and he didn't find him in time. Zac's head trauma and broken bones could have been taken care of if Taylor had gotten there about ten minutes sooner, but Zac had been out for so long that they weren't able to do anything. However, the doctors also said that the possibility of a full recovery from a fall like that wasn't big. Zac had done it on purpose so he wouldn't have tried to make any kind of recovery anyway. "And if I had the slightest feeling, the slightest inkling that Zac would have gone this far I would have done something. I love you kids and I would do anything for you. You don't understand how hard it is for me to lose my son."
"No, but I know what it's like to lose my brother. And it sucks because it's your fault." Taylor got up and walked out of the room. Our mother collapsed into a chair and began to cry. I tried to comfort her but she just waved me away, so Taylor and I went back to Rose's house for dinner.