“Hello Zac!” I looked up and saw Megan standing over me. “May I join you?” Her British accent seemed stronger than usual; then I remembered that she had gone home to London to visit family.
I smiled broadly, “Sure! I’m always up for company. How was the trip home?” Alone! I wanted to be alone! I needed to think through a strategic plan as to how I was gonna get Libby away from the socialites that were mingling.
She nodded, and took a sip of her wine, “Wonderful! It was so lovely to see my family again. Although I’ve missed Isaac something terrible, it was nice to get out of New York for a bit.”
It was my turn to nod. How was I going to get away from the British broad? “That’s great…” The bathroom! “Uh, I really need to use the bathroom, will you excuse me for a minute?”
She smiled and waved her hand, “Not at all! Go on!” I grinned and got up heading for the bathroom. It always seemed like the perfect place to think.
Before I reached it, Libby grabbed my hand and led me into the bedroom before anyone noticed. She quietly shut the door, “We need to talk and we need to do it now!”
I looked at her wide-eyed, she was more of a mess than I was; damn she was a hell of an actress! “Uh… yeah, you think? Why on Earth did you kiss me?!?” I pointed my finger at her; “You just went and made things worse. Taylor is my brother. This isn’t right. We are supposed to be platonic friends who occasionally joke about sex. I can’t, nor do I want to hurt him and I don’t think you do either. So hurt me please so that I can get angry and forget the strong urge inside my gut that is screaming to just throw you on that bed and force you to surrender to my needs!”
She bit her lip and I could tell she was trying desperately to force back the laughter in her throat. It didn’t work and all I could do was stand there helpless while she tried to keep the laughter as quiet as she could. Once she stopped, she gave me this helpless look, “You are so incredibly cute.”
I stood there amazed that she could actually find humor in the situation, it was as if she was enjoying watching me get all screwed up and confused. “It’s not funny.” I moved closer to her and place my hands gently on her hips, “Lib,” I looked down at the floor between us, and back up to her blue gems, “I can’t even begin to describe what it felt like to have your lips on mine, and now I don’t know if I want to let you go back to Taylor. I don’t think I could stand the thought of him anywhere near you. So you need to tell me right now that you love him. And if you do love him like I think you do then we can’t let what happened earlier today to happen ever again. If it did I’d refuse to let you leave me. Letting you go for the third time in my life would be too much.”
She swallowed hard and looked down at my hands, “The first time you let me go wasn’t my decision. That was yours.”
I nodded, “Yeah, well I’m paying for it now. Please, just tell me how much you love him. If you love him enough than I’ll find a way to be ok.”
She had tears in her eyes again, and her lip was trembling, “I kissed you today because I have been wanting to hear what you said to me for as long as I’ve known you. When you did, it felt like my dreams were coming true for me all over again. You made everything inside lift up, and I kissed you to try and bring myself back down. I thought that I’d get a dose of reality. In all honesty I got something that I wasn’t expecting. I love you Zachary; I really love you. But…” She paused; I hated buts. “ I do love Taylor too. It’s a different kind of love. It’s secure; I know it’s always going to be there. My love for you is new and full of this passion and it’s raw. I’ve been chasing raw love all my life, and now that I’ve grown up I want that security. I need to feel like I can take care of someone and that they can take care of me. I get that with Taylor.”
I dropped my hands and nodded, my whole body went numb and cold. I had asked her to hurt me, but I never thought she actually would. “I could offer you that security if you gave me that chance. Passion and security can come together, it makes love stronger.” She shook her head, and turned to walk out of the room; I wasn’t giving up yet. “He doesn’t treat you right. He’s got his head up his Ass and doesn’t see you. He hardly knows you. If you asked him he’d never be able to tell you your favorite kind of Ice Cream: Cookies and Cream. He never knows where you like to go to get away from the city. He takes you camping while you’d rather be at the beach. His way of surprising you would be to give you something, when all he’d have to do is sing and that’d be all you need. I know all of these things because I went out of my way to learn them. I want to make you so…” My voice hitched in my throat, as she came closer to me and once again kissed me. Only this time it was much lighter, I tried desperately to hold on to it. I didn't want to let her go. “Happy.”
She blinked back her tears, “Thank you Zac. Thank you for loving me that much, but I can’t do this. You said it yourself, I can’t hurt Taylor.” She touched my cheek and walked out of her room.
I sat down on her bed, and stared blankly at the picture of her and Taylor on her bedside table. Taylor had his arms wrapped possesively around her and the two of them were smiling brightly. I had taken the picture last summer during our annual block party back home. You could see chinese lanturns strung overhead in the background. The two of them had been dancing and they looked so perfect together. For some reason I felt like capturing the moment on camera. Maybe it was to remind me of what I had lost. Or maybe it was just because it seemed right. Whatever the reason was, I had taken this perfect picture of the two of them. The dancing people behind them looked as of they were still moving. The only thing in the shot that had really stopped was the two of them. My brother's eyes were shining and he looked like there wasn't anything in the world that he wanted other than her. He actually looked how I desperately wanted to feel; loved by the only girl in my world.
Soon, there was a hand on my shoulder, looking up I saw Ike standing above me. "Dude, what happened?"
I looked up at him, with tears spilling from my eyes. I had been concentrating so hard on the picture I didn't even realize I had been crying. “I want to go home.”
Ike nodded and handed me a Kleenex for me to wipe my eyes on, “Yeah, I can see that, so lets go and get you there.”
I shook my head; I hadn’t meant the apartment, “No Isaac. I want to go home, to Tulsa. I need to get away and work this out, and I can’t do it here.”
He sighed, “What would you tell everyone? You can't just leave Zac, we are in the middle of recording."
I looked down at my hands, and then back up at the picture infront of me. "I don't really care what gets said to them. I just want to go home."
Isaac looked at me as if I was crazy, "Dude, it would set us back way too much."
I turned to face him, "I have been putting our music first all of my life, I really don't care if it will set us back. Would you rather me push the deadline back a few weeks, or unable to concentrate at work?"
He scratched the back of his neck, "But she's just a girl Zac. It's not like this is a life and death situation."
I closed my eyes, trying desperately to get my emotions in check. The last thing I needed was to look like a blubbering idiot all night. "I know it sounds lame, and even childish" he nodded, and I sighed, wishing I could get him to understand. "Ike, you have no idea what it's like to go to sleep at night knowing that your brother is lying next to the only person you have ever really cared for."
He turned and looked at me; and I could tell he was desperately trying to figure out what was going on inside me head. "Explain it to me Zac."
I looked at my hands, and thought about how to put how I felt into words. "Someone has taken Megan away from you and has told you the only way you are allowed to see her is on a television screen. You can see her, hear her, talk to her; but you'll never be able to touch her again. So, you are constantly fighting with yourself, and once in a while you try to reach for her. Your arms always coming back empty." Isaac looked at me with worry written all over his face. "That's how I feel on a daily basis."
He sat there for a minute or two and tried to digest my words. "You really need to go home don't you?"
I nodded, "Yes, I do."
He stood up and walked over to the window and looked out over the buzzing New York night life. I knew he was worried about the album, and what was going to happen with it, but I also knew that he was beginning to understand me. "Ok."
We got up and told everyone that I was feeling sick, and needed to go home. Libby stood there with a glazed expression on her white face. She had tears growing inside her amazing eyes, and I knew that as soon as I left they’d be wiped away and a plastic believable smile would be there instead. She knew that I wasn't sick.