(no subject)
Title: The Better Days
Genre: Gen
Rating: PG-13
Chapter: 10
Summary: When your whole world turns upside down in a minute, how do you handle it? How do you go on when you're missing a huge piece of yourself? This is Zac's story as he tries to survive the worst thing that's ever happened to him.
My beta, writingfanson, is teh awesome. Reviews make my life!!! :-)
It's my birthday! So have a birthday gift! (I feel like a hobbit. :-) )
I wake up that night from dreams of Kate, crying and sick. Automatically I start to reach for Kate, and then it hits me like a train that she’s not there. This is when it’s the worst; when I wake up fogged from sleep and think my wife is sleeping beside me and then realize again that she’ll never be beside me again. It’s like she dies again every time I wake up…I double over in the bed, clutching at my stomach, before diving up and beelining for the bathroom, where my Taco Bell spatters into the toilet. I need my Katie…I need her so bad I can’t breathe, and she’ll never be here again. I whimper as I curl up on the bathroom floor, crying quietly. I’m so tired of this…I’m so tired of everything. Why can’t my love be here with me?
I feel like a ghost, haunting through the walls where Taylor has his happy little family. I’m just drifting along, without anything to anchor me to life. My family helps a little, but my family aren’t my soulmate. She was my heart and the air I breathed and trying to go on without her feels like I’m dying myself. Moaning a little, I drag myself off the floor and hang over the sink, breathing heavily, tears streaming down my cheeks. I run some water and rinse my mouth, gazing at my reflection in the mirror. I look like a corpse myself, far too pale, hair a mess, deep bags under my eyes.
The freaky little voice starts up in my head again, something about all the medicine behind that mirror there and it would be so nice to rest, just rest…I shake my head violently, smashing the little voice against my skull. It’s been like this for a few nights now. No, I tell the little voice again as firmly as I can, I don’t want that. I know how it feels to lose somebody, and all the people I’d be doing that to don’t deserve that. My hands shake as I turn from the medicine cabinet and start to head out the bathroom door to curl up under my covers and cry for the rest of the night, as usual.
But I can’t do it. I can’t lie here alone and pretend to be a normal person going to sleep, a person who isn’t suffocating under the weight of grief. I swing my legs out of the bed again and get up, heading for Tay’s living room. I have to make myself keep going past the bathroom. I plop myself down on the couch and flip on the TV. Mindless channelsurfing is better than endless agonizing.
After thirty or so channels, it hits a music video channel. And to my surprise I hear my own voice coming from the TV. “With the nightly kisses, with the hits and the misses, if you can make it on your own then go…” There I go, running through a street, running as if I’m running from the worst thing in the world. But the worst things in the world, you can’t run away from. My eyes overflow again as I listen to myself sing, and this is the weirdest feeling ever, crying my eyes out to my own music. My mind whispers “bathroom, medicine cabinet” again, and I flinch violently, pressing my hands to my ears and squeezing my eyes shut. I can’t do this. Shaking, I get off the couch and tiptoe down the hallway to Tay’s and Natalie’s room. Hopefully Tay will understand my waking him at one o’clock in the morning…
I slowly edge the door open, revealing the two lumpy shapes on the bed. “Tay?” My voice is shaking hard. One of the lumps shifts a little. “Tay?” I whisper again, and in the faint moonlight I can see the shine of blue eyes.
“Mungh?” Tay mumbles, and blinks, and makes out my form in the doorway. “…Zac? Are you okay?” he whispers worriedly, sounding a lot more awake instantly.
“No,” I tell him softly, and my voice breaks. “Tay…I’m sorry…I can’t be alone right now…” I refuse to mention the voice. I sound like a two-year-old again, but that’s starting to be normal nowadays.
“Hey…don’t apologize.” Tay sits up and shoves his feet into his slippers. He sounds really, really worried. I must sound worse than I thought. “Come on…” He heads over towards me, I step out of the doorway, and he pulls the door shut behind him. I follow him back down the hall to the living room.
“Sit down,” Tay tells me, and I do, sliding back onto the couch. He sits next to me, regarding me with a worry-filled gaze. “What’s wrong, Zac? Did you have a nightmare?”
I shake my head, the tears still pooling in my eyes. “I just…it just hits me sometimes, y’know? That she’s never coming back…” My voice breaks as I say “back.” Tay sighs a little and reaches to squeeze my shoulder.
“It’s probably going to keep doing that for a long time, Zac. She was your wife…you’re not just going to forget about her…”
I sniffle a little and Tay pulls a Kleenex from somewhere-is that some kind of rule of parenting, always have a Kleenex on you?-and passes it to me. I swipe at my face. “I know that, Tay. I just…how in the world am I supposed to go on without her?”
Tay’s quiet for a moment, his expression somber. “I can’t answer that for you,” he says quietly. “But you’ve got us…you’ve got your family, and we love you and we’re here for you. You’ve got your music, your fans, and they care about you too. There’s so many people who care about you…lean on us, and eventually it might stop hurting so much.”
I sigh. I want to believe Tay, I really do. I’m trying to believe him. But it’s hard when every breath is just a reminder that she’ll never breathe again. Tears are flowing again, and Tay sighs quietly and reaches to hug me. I let him, curling into his side and sighing. How long am I going to cry at the drop of a hat? It feels like I will forever, because my heart hurts so much.
As I try to stop sniveling, a little voice interrupts us. “Daddy?”
Tay shifts a little. “Ezzie, you should be in bed,” he says to his son, looking at him with a hint of worry.
“I wokeded up an’ now I’m thirsty,” Ezra complained, walking over towards the couch. “An’ Penny’s bed’s wet again, but she’s still asleep.”
Tay makes the tiniest bit of a face. Apparently Penny’s been doing this off and on for a while. I don’t know why she resists Goodnites so much, but apparently she screamed bloody murder when he and Nat tried to put her in one. A not-so-pleasant part of parenthood, but still one I’ll never partake in; I sigh a little. I wouldn’t mind cleaning up wet beds if it meant my wife was still mine and we had a family.
“Okay, Ez,” Tay tells his oldest, getting up off the couch. “I’ll take care of it. Let’s get you a drink…”
“I’ll do it, Tay,” I offer, swiping the tears away. “Go take care of Penny.”
“You sure, Zac?” Tay says, a little worried frown crossing his face.
“Yeah,” I say. “I’m fine. Ez and me’ll chill, right, Ez?”
“Uh-huh,” Ezra says, slipping his hand into mine as I get up off the couch. I won’t have to think about Kate for a little bit with Ez, I think as I head off with him to the kitchen. I’m glad I came over to Tay’s to stay for a while. I really do love my family, and Kate did too. Maybe, somehow, I can get through this with their help.