And with each mile
CHAPTER 30: DISSENSIONS
Rating: NC-17
Genre: Zaylor / Hancest
Pairing: Zac & Taylor
Credits & many Thanks to: Honor @beyondthethorns
About the story: Zac & Taylor's relationship broke up when they got caught kissing by the press and their career were over in a split of a second. To continue a normal life and to take a break from his brother, Taylor starts to study at a College in London but the long distance between them can't stop their feelings for each other.
I want to warn you that it might seem like the story suddenly got very serious. I apologize for the somewhat serious turn the story has taken, it needed to be done for the sake of the characters.
Anyone who knows me knows that I will deny, until I’m blue in the face, that I’m a sulker. Anyone who knows me will also tell you that I am in fact a sulker, hardcore. I can sulk like no one else. I’ve got the posture down perfectly. I sit down on the chair, slink down, fold my arms over my chest, and glare at the ground until I feel that I’ve gotten the sulking out of my system. That’s what I was doing when Zachary returned to the hotel, except my sulking was more justified than sometimes because I genuinely was worried that Zac had skipped town and went back to America.
He stepped into the hotel room, wearing my leather jacket and carrying two coffees. He looked at me and walked over, setting them on the desk.
“Where the hell were you?” I said suddenly, not usually the type to confront like that but I was scared and nervous! I thought he’d fucking left me! Exactly like he had four years ago.
Zac tossed a printed page out onto the desk next to me. I frowned and moved to read it, lifting it up. It was something from American Airlines.
“I was on the phone with the airport,” he said flatly.
I fucking knew it. I threw the page down and shook my head, standing up and walking over to him. I wanted to hit him. He was still the scared little 13 year old he’d been when it all started. He had no balls. He was scared of commitment and affection and fuck him! He was leaving me because he’d had me. That was it. He’d gotten what he wanted from me the night before- his little twink blow job experience and now he was ready to move on to the next piece of ass he could find. Fuck him!
Instead of hitting him, I grabbed my leather jacket that he was wearing and dug into the pocket, pulling out my cigarettes and lighter. If I wouldn't get some nicotine asap I would kill him.
“What the hell were you doing??” I asked, stepping back and pulled a cigarette out of the pack.
I wanted to calm down. I wanted to hit someone…. I NEEDED to calm down. I was desperate for some kind of mediator for my anger. I put the cigarette between my lips and struggled to light it. Jesus Christ. I couldn’t even light a fucking cigarette anymore. My hands were shaking in nervousness. I threw the cigarette down on the floor with the lighter and walked towards the bathroom. Fuck it. I’d splash cold water over my face. That would make me feel better.
Instead of answering me he responded with a counterquestion.
“Where are you going? What the hell is going on with you? You don’t even know what happened yet…. Did you talk to Mom or something?” Zac asked genuinely confused.
I frowned and turned to him. “What the fuck does Mom have to do with you leaving me??”
He frowned back. He looked even more bewildered. “I’m not fucking leaving you, what are you thinking? Stop jumping to goddamn conclusions Taylor. Sit down on the fucking bed and let me talk before you start acting like a psychopath how about, huh?”
I was confused now too. Maybe he wasn’t leaving me…. I sheepishly walked over to the bed and sat down on the edge of it, crossing my arms over my chest again, still having to sulk a little bit until I knew what was going on. “Why were you on the phone with the airport?”
“Did you even read those tickets? It’s two tickets back to Tulsa. The trip is over, fuck it, Dad’s dying.”
I was silent. I didn’t say anything. Dad’s dying. Dad’s dying. Dad’s dying. I’d heard him, but I wasn’t understanding it. Dad’s dying?! Dad didn’t die! He was Dad! Dad's don't die! Did they? What the fuck was going on! “What?” I managed to utter, the word barely coming out.
Zachary shrugged and walked over to where my suit case was. He knelt down and grabbed my clothes scattered around it, stuffing a pair of jeans in and trying to zip the bag up. “Dad’s dying. We’ve got to go home and watch him die, Mom says. I’m wondering if she’ll want me to tape record it.” He rolled his eyes as he said this.
I blinked a little. Was he making this into a joke? Maybe it WAS a joke- a big trick of Zachary. “What happened?” I asked softly.
Zac picked my suitcase up and tossed it onto the bed next to me. He was acting cold. He wasn’t acting like himself. “I don’t know, some kind of cancer. There’s like 100 different kinds of cancer, I didn’t ask which kind and quite frankly I don’t care. He’s dying so what else is there to know?”
I didn’t know what to say. I felt so alone at that moment even though he was standing there with me. He wasn’t dying. Our father was dying.
“I’m just pissed off that our trip is canceled now. No Paris, no Rome, no Greece, and no refunds on hotels that you insisted on reserving ahead of time. Great plan eh, Tay? Maybe we can come back after the funeral. I don’t know. The trip is fucking gay anyway. Fuck Europe.”
He wasn’t fucking dying! He was 52. People don’t die in their 50’s! My grandpa lived until his 80’s! We had good genes!
“Great timing Dad. Couldn’t you have at least waited to start dying until we got a little more use out of our fucking train tickets?” Zachary mumbled, walking to the bathroom and grabbing our toothbrushes. He walked back and shoved them into the side pocket of my suitcase.
He wasn’t…. he wasn’t dying.
I shook my head and stood up, grabbing my phone and walking towards the door. “You’re a fucking asshole. You don’t care about anyone but yourself.” I stormed out of the room and walked down the hallway as quickly as I could to try and find a public bathroom, a broom closet, an empty elevator. I needed to be alone. I needed to call my Mom. I needed my Dad. I needed to cry.
~
~
Zac hadn’t said a word to me since I walked out of the hotel room, and to be perfectly honest with you, I didn’t give a fuck. I was mad at him. I was mad at Europe too. I was mad at the fucking plastic tray in front of me that was crooked and kept causing my drink to slide. I was mad at the fat guy in front of me who kept glancing over his shoulder and giving me a bad look when I accidentally kicked the back of his chair.
I was mad at his ridicilous video game sounds that I could hear through my earplugs when we sat on the plane a few hours later. Hanson’s are better than anyone else at turning sadness into anger, and Zachary and I were both pissed off to the extreme, and mostly at each other. It was convenient and easy to hate each other at that moment. I didn’t plan to say a single word to him for the rest of the plane ride back to Oklahoma. I was done with him for the day, for the week actually. I would have said for life, but even then I realized that was kind of dramatic so I vowed not to speak to him for a week. That was more realistic.
My mom had cried on the phone, and it had made me cry. I’d been embarrassed to cry in front of my mother at age 19, but I couldn’t help it. She seemed thankful that I cried with her. I wanted to be strong and hold her up, but I couldn’t so breaking down with her was probably the next best thing. At least maybe she didn’t feel so alone like I did. She said he had stage 3 colon cancer. He hadn’t been to the doctor in 3 years, and it had been slowly forming for awhile. He had to go through surgery and then chemotherapy. Chemotherapy. That was a word you only ever heard on those little plastic cups at the front of grocery stories with kids pictures on them, asking for money for their leukemia funds. You never thought about chemotherapy being a reality.
And still, even after all the details were told and the tears were cried, I didn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe it.
I was trying to be very diplomatic about it, calm and reasonable, but I was an emotional wreck. My father had always been one of the most important people in my life, not surprisingly. I wouldn’t exist without him. I just wouldn’t survive. My family would be gone. There would be no family without my father.
Zac didn’t seem to give two fucks. He sat playing with his portable game console there, laughing when he won a level. He was fucking ridiculous.
When we walked through the front door of the house, no one greeted us. No one asked why we were arriving the same day, at the same time, me from Europe, Zachary supposedly from LA. The house was quiet and it didn’t feel like our real house. How does the world change in one month? I’d been in London for a month and suddenly I felt like I was in a strangers house. Mom had replaced the ‘God Bless This House’ sign by the stairs with a family portrait and I’m pretty sure that Mom started using a different kind of cleaning product, because it certainly didn’t smell like our house.
I had abandoned my own apartment before I went to College in London because I actually was planning to study for several years and left my stuff at my parents house, their garage for the most part.
Zac threw his bags down by the front door after he paid the cab driver, and then walked by me towards the kitchen. I carefully set my bags next to his and walked after him. When I got into the kitchen I found my dad sitting at the kitchen table with a bottle of water. He looked completely normal, which kind of surprised me. I expected him to look halfway dead with his hair falling out and his skin pale, but he looked like he always did. My mom was standing at the stole cooking something. I wasn’t hungry though, so I didn’t even bother to look.
Zachary on the other hand looked starving. He was already in the fridge, complaining, “Someone needs to go grocery shopping… you have nothing good.”
My mom turned to me and grinned, tearing up a little which kind of scared me and caused me to step back a little. She set her spatula down and walked over to me, wrapping her arms around me. “Ohhh you look older!”
I laughed a little, barely, but it came out like a laugh. “I do….? You just saw me a month ago.”
“How about me? Do I look older?” Zac smirked, although he’d only been gone for a week and he knew he looked he exact same. He was just jealous Mom wasn’t making a fuss about him. Selfish bastard. Zac grabbed a jar of pickles and opened it, digging his fingers in and pulling a pickle out. He took a bite of it and then dropped the rest of the half eaten pickle back into the pickle juice, making a disgusted face. “What kind are these? Sick,” he said, putting the cap back on the jar and putting it away.
I gave my mom a final tight squeeze and stepped back from her.
“You shouldn’t have just left school to come home without thinking about it more,” she said.
“I did think about it. I hate school,” I said. There was no way in hell I’d sit there and continue doing papers and projects if…. if this was really happening at home. I walked over to my dad and patted his shoulder. “Hey,” I said, sitting down in a kitchen chair across from him.
He smiled at me kind of weakly, and that’s when I saw a difference in him- in his spirit. “How was the flight?”
Horrible. Painful. Uncomfortable and awkward. The bastard sitting next to me ate his fritos too loudly and played his stupid action video game 4 hours nonstop which brought me to a white heat and used both of the arm rests. But I couldn’t say that. They couldn’t know we’d flown in from Europe together.
“Did Zachary get in any fights with flight attendants this time?” my dad laughed. My brother was notorious for fighting with flight attendants. “That was a long flight for him- back from Europe. I’d imagine that there had to be at least a few arguments on a flight that long.”
Okay, so I didn’t need to tell them- they already knew. What the hell….?
I paused and studied my father. I cleared my throat and glanced at Zac who had paused his raid now too and was looking at him. “How did you know we were on a flight together?” I finally asked him.
My father shrugged and smiled. “Just a suspicion. That and Zachary’s cell phone calls were being made from London. There’s such thing as a Verizon Wireless bill you know.”
Zac sighed kind of sheepishly and shut the fridge, going to the pantry and looking inside. “Yeah well, it doesn’t matter now anymore since we’re home anyway.” He pulled out a box of cookie crisp and dug into it, pulling out a handful of little bite size cookies before shoving the box back into the cabinet. I hated that about my brother. He’d eat two bites of everything instead of sitting down and having a normal meal like a normal person.
My dad continued to smile. “You two could have tried a little harder by arriving in different cabs or something you know. You completely half assed this, I hope you know. I’m unimpressed.”
I smiled against my will and slunk down into the chair more. I would have enjoyed his attitude about it more if I wasn’t angry with Zac and regretting everything in Europe…. And if my father wasn’t possibly…. possibly dying. It suddenly felt hard to enjoy much. “You’d have found out some how anyway, see? We knew it wasn’t worth the effort.”
My dad smiled and sat back in his chair a little more. “Zac you’re not even going to say hello?”
“Hello,” he said simply, grabbing a rice krispy treat out of a box and walking past everyone in the kitchen, heading towards the front door. “And goodbye,” he said simply, not making eye contact with any of us. He went into the living room and stood behind the couch talking to Jessica who was watching television. He was clearly asking her for a ride back to his apartment. I listened carefully but could only make out a few words like ‘gas money’ and ‘lets go’.
I fucking hated him. I fucking hated him for not looking at me, not looking at my father, I hated him for being so self absorbed and full of himself. He didn’t care about anyone but his goddamn self. I sighed and watched as Jessica dragged herself up the couch and got her shoes and keys, heading outside to bring Zac home. Everyone did whatever he wanted them to on command. He got everything he wanted. He was a spoiled fucking brat. I sighed and shook my head, looking down at the table as I heard the front door close.
“You shouldn’t take it personally,” my father finally said.
I looked up at him and squinted. What did he know about our relationship? He didn’t even support us being together. “What?”
“You shouldn’t take it personally,” he repeated. “The way he’s acting. You know how he is. He’s angry.”
I shook my head and stood up. I was angry! Why did he always get to be the angry one! When did I get to be the pissed off jack ass! He always got to be! I wanted to be unreasonable and rude for once! “What the hell does he have to be angry about?”
“The same thing we’re all angry about. He’s not going to cry Taylor. He’s going to pretend everything is fine and let his anger build up. He doesn’t know how to deal with it,” my father said. I didn’t know how candidly he would speak about this. Generally he tended to be pretty closed up about his feelings, so I didn’t know how much he’d talk about the fact that he might die.
I shook my head and paced around the kitchen a little. “Who’s angry? I’m not. I’m just annoyed with how he’s acting. I’m not angry because everything is going to be fine. You’re going to be fine.”
My father chuckled a little and looked up at me. “You've always been the optimist Taylor. But I don't think I'm going to be fine.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. How could he say that to me? Kill my faith? Rob us of hope? “You don’t know what’s going to happen.”
“It doesn’t seem like I’m going to get better Tay. I want you to know that,” he said firmly. “I don’t want you praying for a miracle.”
I stared at him mercilessly. He didn’t want me praying for a miracle? What, did he want us to fucking start picking out his casket? There was no point in having any hope at all? My father, a God loving church goer of 52 years didn’t want us to even pray about this? Instead of responding to him, I turned to my mother. “Do you hear this?”
She sighed and flipped over what looked like some kind of grilled sandwich. Then she set the spatula down and looked at me, shrugging. “Taylor, I don’t know what to tell you. You can pray, but…. It is what it is.”
“It is what it is!?” I yelled. They were ridiculous! He was just giving up?! “It is what it fucking is?!”
“Watch your language,” my dad said seriously but with much less severity than usual.
“It is what it is?” I asked both of them again, stepping backwards towards the front door. “This family is just giving up now? Just forget it? It’s not worth praying about or hoping for? You find out he’s sick a few days ago and you’ve already given up?! That’s pathetic!” I was furious. I was seething. I balled my fists up and stumbled backwards against the wall behind me.
“Taylor this has been going on a lot longer than you know,” my mother said, shaking her head. “We found out it was critical this week, but we’ve been trying to work this out for a month or so. It’s more complicated than you’re making it Tay.”
My mouth actually dropped open and hung there for a moment. I felt stunned. I didn’t know what to say. “You let me go to London knowing that Dad was sick? You didn’t fucking tell us?”
My mom looked at my dad and sighed, turning back to her sandwich. My mother always did that- buried herself in maternal and wifely duties to avoid serious issues. She went back to flipped her sandwich, almost manically, over and over again. “You didn’t need to know at the time.”
“No, that’s messed up, that’s messed up! We deserved to know! Who knew??” I asked frantically. I would kill Zachary if he knew.
“Just your mother and I,” my father said, licking his lips and standing up, walking towards me. “Come sit down and talk to us, don’t scream. I know this is scary.”
I backed away towards the front door. I was scared of him- I was scared to get any closer to him at that moment. “No,” I spat, turning and walking towards the front door. I needed someone. I needed someone so desperately and the person I really needed, I was furious with. I pulled the front door open as I felt my eyes stinging a little bit. I wasn’t going to fucking cry. Not if they didn’t give a shit. I wasn’t going to be the only one to give a shit. “Alright you just die Dad! Let me know when it happens, I’m not going to sit around praying if I’m the only fucking one!” I shouted, stepping outside and slamming the door.
I leaned against the door and closed my eyes. I carefully let myself release one sob, one for myself, because at that moment it was me I cared for. I wasn’t scared for my father, I was scared for myself- that I would be 19 years old and fatherless. I watched as Jessica’s car started to pull down the long driveway and suddenly, before I knew what I was doing, I was sprinting.
Rating: NC-17
Genre: Zaylor / Hancest
Pairing: Zac & Taylor
Credits & many Thanks to: Honor @beyondthethorns
About the story: Zac & Taylor's relationship broke up when they got caught kissing by the press and their career were over in a split of a second. To continue a normal life and to take a break from his brother, Taylor starts to study at a College in London but the long distance between them can't stop their feelings for each other.
I want to warn you that it might seem like the story suddenly got very serious. I apologize for the somewhat serious turn the story has taken, it needed to be done for the sake of the characters.
Anyone who knows me knows that I will deny, until I’m blue in the face, that I’m a sulker. Anyone who knows me will also tell you that I am in fact a sulker, hardcore. I can sulk like no one else. I’ve got the posture down perfectly. I sit down on the chair, slink down, fold my arms over my chest, and glare at the ground until I feel that I’ve gotten the sulking out of my system. That’s what I was doing when Zachary returned to the hotel, except my sulking was more justified than sometimes because I genuinely was worried that Zac had skipped town and went back to America.
He stepped into the hotel room, wearing my leather jacket and carrying two coffees. He looked at me and walked over, setting them on the desk.
“Where the hell were you?” I said suddenly, not usually the type to confront like that but I was scared and nervous! I thought he’d fucking left me! Exactly like he had four years ago.
Zac tossed a printed page out onto the desk next to me. I frowned and moved to read it, lifting it up. It was something from American Airlines.
“I was on the phone with the airport,” he said flatly.
I fucking knew it. I threw the page down and shook my head, standing up and walking over to him. I wanted to hit him. He was still the scared little 13 year old he’d been when it all started. He had no balls. He was scared of commitment and affection and fuck him! He was leaving me because he’d had me. That was it. He’d gotten what he wanted from me the night before- his little twink blow job experience and now he was ready to move on to the next piece of ass he could find. Fuck him!
Instead of hitting him, I grabbed my leather jacket that he was wearing and dug into the pocket, pulling out my cigarettes and lighter. If I wouldn't get some nicotine asap I would kill him.
“What the hell were you doing??” I asked, stepping back and pulled a cigarette out of the pack.
I wanted to calm down. I wanted to hit someone…. I NEEDED to calm down. I was desperate for some kind of mediator for my anger. I put the cigarette between my lips and struggled to light it. Jesus Christ. I couldn’t even light a fucking cigarette anymore. My hands were shaking in nervousness. I threw the cigarette down on the floor with the lighter and walked towards the bathroom. Fuck it. I’d splash cold water over my face. That would make me feel better.
Instead of answering me he responded with a counterquestion.
“Where are you going? What the hell is going on with you? You don’t even know what happened yet…. Did you talk to Mom or something?” Zac asked genuinely confused.
I frowned and turned to him. “What the fuck does Mom have to do with you leaving me??”
He frowned back. He looked even more bewildered. “I’m not fucking leaving you, what are you thinking? Stop jumping to goddamn conclusions Taylor. Sit down on the fucking bed and let me talk before you start acting like a psychopath how about, huh?”
I was confused now too. Maybe he wasn’t leaving me…. I sheepishly walked over to the bed and sat down on the edge of it, crossing my arms over my chest again, still having to sulk a little bit until I knew what was going on. “Why were you on the phone with the airport?”
“Did you even read those tickets? It’s two tickets back to Tulsa. The trip is over, fuck it, Dad’s dying.”
I was silent. I didn’t say anything. Dad’s dying. Dad’s dying. Dad’s dying. I’d heard him, but I wasn’t understanding it. Dad’s dying?! Dad didn’t die! He was Dad! Dad's don't die! Did they? What the fuck was going on! “What?” I managed to utter, the word barely coming out.
Zachary shrugged and walked over to where my suit case was. He knelt down and grabbed my clothes scattered around it, stuffing a pair of jeans in and trying to zip the bag up. “Dad’s dying. We’ve got to go home and watch him die, Mom says. I’m wondering if she’ll want me to tape record it.” He rolled his eyes as he said this.
I blinked a little. Was he making this into a joke? Maybe it WAS a joke- a big trick of Zachary. “What happened?” I asked softly.
Zac picked my suitcase up and tossed it onto the bed next to me. He was acting cold. He wasn’t acting like himself. “I don’t know, some kind of cancer. There’s like 100 different kinds of cancer, I didn’t ask which kind and quite frankly I don’t care. He’s dying so what else is there to know?”
I didn’t know what to say. I felt so alone at that moment even though he was standing there with me. He wasn’t dying. Our father was dying.
“I’m just pissed off that our trip is canceled now. No Paris, no Rome, no Greece, and no refunds on hotels that you insisted on reserving ahead of time. Great plan eh, Tay? Maybe we can come back after the funeral. I don’t know. The trip is fucking gay anyway. Fuck Europe.”
He wasn’t fucking dying! He was 52. People don’t die in their 50’s! My grandpa lived until his 80’s! We had good genes!
“Great timing Dad. Couldn’t you have at least waited to start dying until we got a little more use out of our fucking train tickets?” Zachary mumbled, walking to the bathroom and grabbing our toothbrushes. He walked back and shoved them into the side pocket of my suitcase.
He wasn’t…. he wasn’t dying.
I shook my head and stood up, grabbing my phone and walking towards the door. “You’re a fucking asshole. You don’t care about anyone but yourself.” I stormed out of the room and walked down the hallway as quickly as I could to try and find a public bathroom, a broom closet, an empty elevator. I needed to be alone. I needed to call my Mom. I needed my Dad. I needed to cry.
~
~
Zac hadn’t said a word to me since I walked out of the hotel room, and to be perfectly honest with you, I didn’t give a fuck. I was mad at him. I was mad at Europe too. I was mad at the fucking plastic tray in front of me that was crooked and kept causing my drink to slide. I was mad at the fat guy in front of me who kept glancing over his shoulder and giving me a bad look when I accidentally kicked the back of his chair.
I was mad at his ridicilous video game sounds that I could hear through my earplugs when we sat on the plane a few hours later. Hanson’s are better than anyone else at turning sadness into anger, and Zachary and I were both pissed off to the extreme, and mostly at each other. It was convenient and easy to hate each other at that moment. I didn’t plan to say a single word to him for the rest of the plane ride back to Oklahoma. I was done with him for the day, for the week actually. I would have said for life, but even then I realized that was kind of dramatic so I vowed not to speak to him for a week. That was more realistic.
My mom had cried on the phone, and it had made me cry. I’d been embarrassed to cry in front of my mother at age 19, but I couldn’t help it. She seemed thankful that I cried with her. I wanted to be strong and hold her up, but I couldn’t so breaking down with her was probably the next best thing. At least maybe she didn’t feel so alone like I did. She said he had stage 3 colon cancer. He hadn’t been to the doctor in 3 years, and it had been slowly forming for awhile. He had to go through surgery and then chemotherapy. Chemotherapy. That was a word you only ever heard on those little plastic cups at the front of grocery stories with kids pictures on them, asking for money for their leukemia funds. You never thought about chemotherapy being a reality.
And still, even after all the details were told and the tears were cried, I didn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe it.
I was trying to be very diplomatic about it, calm and reasonable, but I was an emotional wreck. My father had always been one of the most important people in my life, not surprisingly. I wouldn’t exist without him. I just wouldn’t survive. My family would be gone. There would be no family without my father.
Zac didn’t seem to give two fucks. He sat playing with his portable game console there, laughing when he won a level. He was fucking ridiculous.
When we walked through the front door of the house, no one greeted us. No one asked why we were arriving the same day, at the same time, me from Europe, Zachary supposedly from LA. The house was quiet and it didn’t feel like our real house. How does the world change in one month? I’d been in London for a month and suddenly I felt like I was in a strangers house. Mom had replaced the ‘God Bless This House’ sign by the stairs with a family portrait and I’m pretty sure that Mom started using a different kind of cleaning product, because it certainly didn’t smell like our house.
I had abandoned my own apartment before I went to College in London because I actually was planning to study for several years and left my stuff at my parents house, their garage for the most part.
Zac threw his bags down by the front door after he paid the cab driver, and then walked by me towards the kitchen. I carefully set my bags next to his and walked after him. When I got into the kitchen I found my dad sitting at the kitchen table with a bottle of water. He looked completely normal, which kind of surprised me. I expected him to look halfway dead with his hair falling out and his skin pale, but he looked like he always did. My mom was standing at the stole cooking something. I wasn’t hungry though, so I didn’t even bother to look.
Zachary on the other hand looked starving. He was already in the fridge, complaining, “Someone needs to go grocery shopping… you have nothing good.”
My mom turned to me and grinned, tearing up a little which kind of scared me and caused me to step back a little. She set her spatula down and walked over to me, wrapping her arms around me. “Ohhh you look older!”
I laughed a little, barely, but it came out like a laugh. “I do….? You just saw me a month ago.”
“How about me? Do I look older?” Zac smirked, although he’d only been gone for a week and he knew he looked he exact same. He was just jealous Mom wasn’t making a fuss about him. Selfish bastard. Zac grabbed a jar of pickles and opened it, digging his fingers in and pulling a pickle out. He took a bite of it and then dropped the rest of the half eaten pickle back into the pickle juice, making a disgusted face. “What kind are these? Sick,” he said, putting the cap back on the jar and putting it away.
I gave my mom a final tight squeeze and stepped back from her.
“You shouldn’t have just left school to come home without thinking about it more,” she said.
“I did think about it. I hate school,” I said. There was no way in hell I’d sit there and continue doing papers and projects if…. if this was really happening at home. I walked over to my dad and patted his shoulder. “Hey,” I said, sitting down in a kitchen chair across from him.
He smiled at me kind of weakly, and that’s when I saw a difference in him- in his spirit. “How was the flight?”
Horrible. Painful. Uncomfortable and awkward. The bastard sitting next to me ate his fritos too loudly and played his stupid action video game 4 hours nonstop which brought me to a white heat and used both of the arm rests. But I couldn’t say that. They couldn’t know we’d flown in from Europe together.
“Did Zachary get in any fights with flight attendants this time?” my dad laughed. My brother was notorious for fighting with flight attendants. “That was a long flight for him- back from Europe. I’d imagine that there had to be at least a few arguments on a flight that long.”
Okay, so I didn’t need to tell them- they already knew. What the hell….?
I paused and studied my father. I cleared my throat and glanced at Zac who had paused his raid now too and was looking at him. “How did you know we were on a flight together?” I finally asked him.
My father shrugged and smiled. “Just a suspicion. That and Zachary’s cell phone calls were being made from London. There’s such thing as a Verizon Wireless bill you know.”
Zac sighed kind of sheepishly and shut the fridge, going to the pantry and looking inside. “Yeah well, it doesn’t matter now anymore since we’re home anyway.” He pulled out a box of cookie crisp and dug into it, pulling out a handful of little bite size cookies before shoving the box back into the cabinet. I hated that about my brother. He’d eat two bites of everything instead of sitting down and having a normal meal like a normal person.
My dad continued to smile. “You two could have tried a little harder by arriving in different cabs or something you know. You completely half assed this, I hope you know. I’m unimpressed.”
I smiled against my will and slunk down into the chair more. I would have enjoyed his attitude about it more if I wasn’t angry with Zac and regretting everything in Europe…. And if my father wasn’t possibly…. possibly dying. It suddenly felt hard to enjoy much. “You’d have found out some how anyway, see? We knew it wasn’t worth the effort.”
My dad smiled and sat back in his chair a little more. “Zac you’re not even going to say hello?”
“Hello,” he said simply, grabbing a rice krispy treat out of a box and walking past everyone in the kitchen, heading towards the front door. “And goodbye,” he said simply, not making eye contact with any of us. He went into the living room and stood behind the couch talking to Jessica who was watching television. He was clearly asking her for a ride back to his apartment. I listened carefully but could only make out a few words like ‘gas money’ and ‘lets go’.
I fucking hated him. I fucking hated him for not looking at me, not looking at my father, I hated him for being so self absorbed and full of himself. He didn’t care about anyone but his goddamn self. I sighed and watched as Jessica dragged herself up the couch and got her shoes and keys, heading outside to bring Zac home. Everyone did whatever he wanted them to on command. He got everything he wanted. He was a spoiled fucking brat. I sighed and shook my head, looking down at the table as I heard the front door close.
“You shouldn’t take it personally,” my father finally said.
I looked up at him and squinted. What did he know about our relationship? He didn’t even support us being together. “What?”
“You shouldn’t take it personally,” he repeated. “The way he’s acting. You know how he is. He’s angry.”
I shook my head and stood up. I was angry! Why did he always get to be the angry one! When did I get to be the pissed off jack ass! He always got to be! I wanted to be unreasonable and rude for once! “What the hell does he have to be angry about?”
“The same thing we’re all angry about. He’s not going to cry Taylor. He’s going to pretend everything is fine and let his anger build up. He doesn’t know how to deal with it,” my father said. I didn’t know how candidly he would speak about this. Generally he tended to be pretty closed up about his feelings, so I didn’t know how much he’d talk about the fact that he might die.
I shook my head and paced around the kitchen a little. “Who’s angry? I’m not. I’m just annoyed with how he’s acting. I’m not angry because everything is going to be fine. You’re going to be fine.”
My father chuckled a little and looked up at me. “You've always been the optimist Taylor. But I don't think I'm going to be fine.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. How could he say that to me? Kill my faith? Rob us of hope? “You don’t know what’s going to happen.”
“It doesn’t seem like I’m going to get better Tay. I want you to know that,” he said firmly. “I don’t want you praying for a miracle.”
I stared at him mercilessly. He didn’t want me praying for a miracle? What, did he want us to fucking start picking out his casket? There was no point in having any hope at all? My father, a God loving church goer of 52 years didn’t want us to even pray about this? Instead of responding to him, I turned to my mother. “Do you hear this?”
She sighed and flipped over what looked like some kind of grilled sandwich. Then she set the spatula down and looked at me, shrugging. “Taylor, I don’t know what to tell you. You can pray, but…. It is what it is.”
“It is what it is!?” I yelled. They were ridiculous! He was just giving up?! “It is what it fucking is?!”
“Watch your language,” my dad said seriously but with much less severity than usual.
“It is what it is?” I asked both of them again, stepping backwards towards the front door. “This family is just giving up now? Just forget it? It’s not worth praying about or hoping for? You find out he’s sick a few days ago and you’ve already given up?! That’s pathetic!” I was furious. I was seething. I balled my fists up and stumbled backwards against the wall behind me.
“Taylor this has been going on a lot longer than you know,” my mother said, shaking her head. “We found out it was critical this week, but we’ve been trying to work this out for a month or so. It’s more complicated than you’re making it Tay.”
My mouth actually dropped open and hung there for a moment. I felt stunned. I didn’t know what to say. “You let me go to London knowing that Dad was sick? You didn’t fucking tell us?”
My mom looked at my dad and sighed, turning back to her sandwich. My mother always did that- buried herself in maternal and wifely duties to avoid serious issues. She went back to flipped her sandwich, almost manically, over and over again. “You didn’t need to know at the time.”
“No, that’s messed up, that’s messed up! We deserved to know! Who knew??” I asked frantically. I would kill Zachary if he knew.
“Just your mother and I,” my father said, licking his lips and standing up, walking towards me. “Come sit down and talk to us, don’t scream. I know this is scary.”
I backed away towards the front door. I was scared of him- I was scared to get any closer to him at that moment. “No,” I spat, turning and walking towards the front door. I needed someone. I needed someone so desperately and the person I really needed, I was furious with. I pulled the front door open as I felt my eyes stinging a little bit. I wasn’t going to fucking cry. Not if they didn’t give a shit. I wasn’t going to be the only one to give a shit. “Alright you just die Dad! Let me know when it happens, I’m not going to sit around praying if I’m the only fucking one!” I shouted, stepping outside and slamming the door.
I leaned against the door and closed my eyes. I carefully let myself release one sob, one for myself, because at that moment it was me I cared for. I wasn’t scared for my father, I was scared for myself- that I would be 19 years old and fatherless. I watched as Jessica’s car started to pull down the long driveway and suddenly, before I knew what I was doing, I was sprinting.