Coming out of the room, he immediately smelled coffee and bacon and felt his mouth dry out slightly, but part of him craved greasy food in spite of how his stomach flipped. One fried egg sandwich and he was sure he’d be alright but the one thing standing in between that was Ken. Actually, Ken was sitting between him and the fried egg sandwich. Awake, dressed, showered and having his morning cup of coffee, looking over the financial section of the paper.
“Good morning, Sunshine,” Chris said cheerfully coming down the hallway behind him.
“Yeah, hey, morning, Chris,” he said, feeling the pain of his voice echo in his head.
Ken looked up and smiled, putting his mug and paper down. “Morning, Tiger.”
“Yeah, hey.”
“Take a seat.” Ken pushed the chair next to him with his foot and Zach sunk down. Minutes later, Chris put a mug of coffee, a glass of orange juice, and a bottle of aspirin down in front of him. “Fried egg?” He drank half the juice down with some aspirin, nodding.
“How ya feeling today?”
“Better than last night.”
“Don’t think that would be too difficult considering the state you were in.” He had the stern tone in his voice, a hint of scolding with a touch of lecture that he was so good at dishing out.
“Yeah, can’t say it was one of my better moments. But she had—” He motioned his hands in front of his chest and nodded with a smirk. “And I had plenty to drink that it seemed like it was a good idea.”
“She also cleaned out your wallet, Dink,” Ken replied with a look. “Notice any new rashes or weird itch since you woke up?” Zach smirked and tilted his head. “Hey, you never know! You weren’t quite thinking much last night.”
“Thinking enough that she used protection, dawg.”
“Peanut butter?” Chris asked, putting toast in front of him.
“Chunky?”
“What else?”
“Just checking. Yes, please.”
She went back into the kitchen and Ken turned the page of his newspaper. “So? Any idea why you went home with a stripper and never bothered to get her name?”
Zach arched an eyebrow and grinned. “I never asked.”
“Zach—” Chris put a plate of food down and kissed her husband as she headed back out of the room, winking to Zach with a smile. “I’m just trying to figure out if you know how freakin’ stupid this is now. You do know that, right?”
“Yeah, and it hurt the ego, too.”
Ken chuckled, turning another page. “’Bout time someone did.” He shook the page straight and pretended to keep looking at the stock numbers. “And wouldn’t you know it, she’s the one that didn’t sign the agreement. Get ready to read about it, Zachary Angel.”
“We’ll see. Since she stole my credit card, she may not want to talk.”
“It’d just be your luck, too.” He peered over the top of the paper at him, barely shaking his head. “You’re one hell of a lucky son of a bitch, Punkass.”
“Thanks to you picking me up when I fall flat on my face.” He sopped his toast into the yolk of the egg and licked his fingers. “Thanks for that, by the way.”
“Thank, Chris.” Ken nodded, glancing to him again over the newspaper. “She makes me answer the door.”
Zach stayed out most of the night, driving down by the coast for a long while,
stopping on occasion for food and gas and then continued his way. He thought
about his mother’s death, and remembered Bridget standing in the middle
of the hotel room waiting for him to pick her up for the funeral. She had
her hair cut shoulder length, but her curls made it look just a touch messy.
She’d grown at least a foot since he had last seen her, and part of
him didn’t recognize the teenager in front of him. Part of him didn’t
recognize the woman she’d become either, but this time, he’d
been standing by watching it happen.
What had he expected Trevor and Bridget to do? Would he be any happier if they broke up? His entire family would be broken apart if that ever happened. It wasn’t that he was thrilled when he found out about the whole romance.
Standing in the kitchen waiting for the popcorn to finish in the microwave, the movie blared from the living room, but there wasn’t much noise otherwise. When he went back in, both of them were pulling apart and Bridget was settling back into her corner of the couch with a grin. Trevor wasn’t looking at anything and they both looked too innocent that they had to be guilty of something.
“Okay, what?” He sat in the middle of the couch and turned his head either way to look at them both. “What’d you do?”
“Nothing,” Bridget answered quickly – too quickly. Trevor just arched an eyebrow and shrugged.
“Bullshit,” Zach said, eyeing his sister carefully. “You’re up to something.” He ate a handful of popcorn, trying to pay attention to the movie, but kept looking at them suspiciously. Then he’d catch her looking over to Tred, and on occasion, he’d catch Tred looking over to Bridget. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing.”
Tred echoed Bridget quietly. “Nothing.”
“Then why are you looking at each other like that? Are you secretly dating and I don’t know about it?” he teased, but Bridget looked at Tred, and Tred seemed to lose all the color in his face. “Okay, guys, I was kidding.” He pressed his fingers into his chest and just kept turning his head to look at them.
“We’re—” Bridget started.
“Not,” Tred answered, sitting forward onto the edge of the couch and turning to face him. He looked at Bridget and nodded as if he was offering himself up for sacrifice. “We wanted to tell you, but didn’t quite know how to break the news to you without you flipping out.”
Zach dropped the popcorn on the table heavily and turned to Trevor in disbelief. “You’re fucking kidding me, Tred.” Trevor shook his head solemnly without saying another word. Zach looked back to his sister, waiting for her to crack a smile, say they were kidding. Something—but she looked just as guilty. He turned back to Trevor. “You’re fucking kidding me, Trevor. My sister?”
“He wanted to tell you sooner.” Bridget got up from the couch and went over to sit on the arm of the couch next to Tred, draping her arm around him. Trevor sat motionless, keeping his eyes on Zach nervously. “I told him to wait.”
Suddenly Zach knew what was going on behind his back. He knew the things Trevor used to do with his girlfriends. How many times had he walked in on Trevor and his girlfriend by mistake? How many times had Trevor griped about a girlfriend wanting too much time, too much attention. How many girlfriends had he broken up with already? And now he was doing all that to his sister? “I don’t fucking believe this.”
“It’s been a few months, man,” Trevor confessed, taking Bridget’s hand. “And I swear, we haven’t done anything.”
“Damn right you haven’t,” Zach said. “And you’re not going to either because this is a sick fucking joke, right?”
Tred shook his head and looked at Bridget before looking more guiltily at Zach. “No, Zach, it’s not. I’m sorry. I don’t know what the happened, but—”
“We’ve been seeing each other for about four months now,” Bridget interrupted. “I just knew you would totally freak out when you found out, so I told him to wait until we figured out a good way to tell you. But, really, I don’t think there is. Is there?”
“This isn’t quite the way,” Zach said, lifting his hand to them both and staring at the lint on the carpet.
Trevor inched closer, leaning in slightly. “I know you’re pissed, man, but you gotta believe me, Zach, we really have been taking our time and we tried not to even let it start, but it did.”
“Four months?” Zach asked, looking at them.
Bridget nodded and sat between them, resting her cheek on Zach’s shoulder. “He’s been a perfect gentleman, Zach. And he kept telling me no for a long time, but I wouldn’t let him. Don’t be pissed off. I swear, it’s not going to change anything.”
“Yeah, right, I can see that already,” Zach answered, pulling away from her. “Because sneaking around for four months doesn’t change a thing about how much I trust either of you.”
“It wasn’t like that. We just…did date things. Went to the movies and stuff like that,” she argued. “And I didn’t want to tell you because I knew you’d get all freaked out about it like you’re doing now. Look—we’ve been dating for four months and you didn’t know and nothing changed between you, right?”
“I don’t like this,” he announced, pointing to them both. “I don’t like at all.”
“You don’t have to,” Bridget said defiantly. “It already is and I’m not breaking up with him because you say so.”
He motioned to Trevor with his hand and shook his head. “What the hell Bridget, he’s not some puppy you can’t return. This is more than dating! If something goes wrong and you break up, how the hell are you going to face him? How are you going to face her? We have to work together. Hell, live together! You’re going to be able to handle that?”
“We’ll work it out,” Trevor said easily. “It’s not like we were planning on this happening, Zach. It just did.”
The valley was filled with smog and haze again blocking the view of the mountain
range. On the edge of the valley, palm trees stuck through the top of the
clouds, a few lower lining bushes with lush green leaves outlined the edges.
In a way, it made him think he was the only one in the world up there. Some
days it felt as if that was the only break he had from the world. Closing
all the doors, turning off the cell phone, and coming out onto the deck to
look at the haze or fog before it burned away to reveal the world below,
either twinkling in the darkness, or just speckled across the valley in houses
and moving vehicles of daylight.
Zach sat on the railing with his back to the deck, just watching the nothingness until he heard the sliding glass door open and light footsteps across the deck. “Dang, it’s still cold out here,” Trevor said, tucking his hands into the sleeves of his sweatshirt before sticking them into the pockets.
“Not too bad,” Zach answered with a shrug, not noticing the cool bite in the air. “Mostly dampness, I would think.”
“You’re up early, aren’t you?”
Zach looked over to him, his hair still tousled from sleep, barefoot in a pair of sweats he probably just pulled on when he got out of his sister’s bed. “Why aren’t you sleeping at your own place?”
“The fog was thick last night and it was late,” Trevor answered, standing beside him at the railing. “Didn’t think you’d mind, though.”
“Whatever.” Zach still scanned the view, waiting to notice some kind of shift or change.
“Zach, I don’t know what you want me to do here.” Trevor turned to rest against the railing and folded his arms to keep warm. “I know you’re not exactly thrilled about the engagement, but outside of taking it all back, I don’t know what you want me to do.”
“Take it all back,” Zach said plainly, glancing at him with a half smile when he saw Trevor’s shocked expression. “As if that would ever happen.”
“What is the issue, man? Really—what did I do?”
“You’re sleeping with my sister, Tred.”
“Hello? That’s been going on for some time now, and you didn’t seem to mind it nearly half as much as you do now. If anything, I’d think you’d be a little more relieved that we’re taking this seriously and not just screwing around.”
“Part of me thinks Bridget needs to screw around a little more, okay? It’s all a little too much.”
Trevor turned to the side and studied Zach’s profile, waiting for Zach to turn and look at him, but he didn’t. He just kept his corn blue eyes scanning outward, not really focused on anything. His hair was still flat against his head from where he had slept, the other side of it sticking up in different directions. It was much too early to be this serious, but it was the only time he had been able to corner Zach since he came home. “Too much for who? You or Bridget?”
“Tred, she’s not ready.” He found himself eye to eye with Trevor when he turned his head. “She hasn’t had a chance to be Bridget. Why do you need to rush her into marriage? Why couldn’t you just let things go as they were?”
“Because things move forward, Zach. Things are supposed to change and grow. And I love her. What’s wrong with wanting to take the next step? It’s not like we haven’t been making plans, really. She’s moving in after the tour.”
“She was supposed to have been moved in now, right? But you postponed that because she’d been using. What makes you think she’s gotten the help she needed since then when she’s not gone to another meeting, or met with her therapist? Are you her therapist now, telling her what’s healthy and what steps she needs to take?”
“You’re not her therapist either, Zach. And because you think she needs to see a doctor doesn’t mean she has to. Have we talked about it? Yeah. Did I tell her how to handle it? Hell, no. Did I tell her what I thought she might consider, yeah, because we talked about it which is a lot more than what you’ve done, I might add.”
“What the hell do you mean by that?”
“I mean that she’s your sister, and she has issues, and she’s going to continue to have problems in her life and the answer to all of them isn’t to send her to some therapist. Sometimes, she just needs to talk to someone that isn’t paid to care,” he snapped bitterly. “And if she talks to me about it it’s because I make myself available to her and don’t just automatically decide she needs therapy unlike you.” He pushed up from the railing and took a step back, scanning the hazy white of the horizon before speaking. “Damn it, Zach, you don’t even give her a chance to explain herself. You don’t give her time to come to you and explain. You just accuse her, and make up your mind and that’s that, isn’t it?”
“I asked her!” Zach slid off the railing and stepped over towards Trevor. “I totally asked her what the hell was going on when I found those pills, but she insisted she wasn’t taking them when I tried to talk to her about it. She insisted, Trevor. What the hell else was I supposed to do? Sit around knowing she had them and hope she came to me? She may be living in your house now with those damn pills, taking them, and then what? Am I supposed to go behind her back and tell you that she has them? Is that what my option was? I say nothing and hope for the best while I wait for her open up to me?” He opened his arm out desperately. “What if she never does, Tred? What if I didn’t confront her? Call someone that could speak some sense to her? How the hell am I supposed to live with that?” His eyes stung with tears suddenly and he wiped his eyes furiously with his fingers. “I have enough mistakes to live with, I’m not going to stand by and not do everything in my power to get her the help she needs. And right now, marrying you isn’t the kind of help she needs, okay?”
Trevor stepped over and put his hand on Zach’s shoulder, trying to get Zach to look at him. He kept avoiding his gaze, tears still hanging in his eyes while he bit his lower lip. “Zach, come on, look at me,” he said quietly. “I am going to watch out for her, man. I’ve been. She’s not in any kind of trouble. She’s doing okay. I swear to you, she’s okay.” He squeezed his shoulder, but Zach still refused to look at him, keeping his head towards the fog. “Zach, there is no one on this earth that I could love more than Bridget. I’m going to be there for her when things get rough, and if she needs professional help, I will make sure she gets it.”
“I want her to—“ Zach started, shaking his head with a quick glance at him before stepping away from him. “She’s never been on her own, Tred. She needs to know she can make it on her own and she’s never going to find out now. She’s never going to give herself that chance. She’s going to move in with you and start taking care of you and just never—“
“We’re not getting married tomorrow. She’s not going on tour with us this time, you know.” Zach stopped pacing the length of the railing and looked at him curiously. Trevor slowly shook his head. “She’s going to talk to Ken and see if he can recommend a talent agency for her to work in to be a P.A. And before you say anything, no, I didn’t even make that suggestion. She’s been thinking about it since you’ve been pushing her to get a job.” He stuck his hands in the pockets of his sweat jacket again and buried into his shoulders with the chill. “She thinks she’ll be really good at it thanks to you.”
“She hasn’t said anything to me about it.”
“You haven’t given her a chance. All you’ve done is avoid us or mope around.”
“I tried talking to her the other day when I came home and she was waiting for me.”
Trevor nodded. “Yeah, and she said you had a good talk.”
“She didn’t say anything about waiting, or getting a job, or staying home.”
“She told you to stop protecting her,” Trevor reminded him. “And she didn’t want you to tell her it was or wasn’t a good idea until she’d done some more research on it. She wants to make her own decisions based on her own thoughts, so she didn’t tell you.” Zach went back to the railing and just held on to it. “You gotta let her grow up, man. Stop going through the motions and just let her do it already.”
The fog was shifting, forming a thinner layer of cover, dropping in on itself to expose the top of the mountains, rooftops, and multi-layers of foliage as he looked down the property slope. The world was coming out of hiding right in front of him.
“Zach, she’s already made up her mind. She’s always done precisely what she’s wanted to do. You know it, and I know it. Right now, if you keep passing judgment on her choices, you’re only going to push her further away, and I don’t think that’s something you want to do.”
He looked over at Trevor, unable to respond. Every part of him knew he was right. If he kept doing what he was doing, he was going to drive her away. She’d made the effort that one night, waiting for him to come home. He had to let her keep coming to him, maybe in small steps, but he couldn’t keep telling her which one’s to take, and when. She never paid attention to him when he did anyway, but that never stopped him from trying.
“Either way, Z, I’m not the enemy here. I love her, and I’m going to keep loving her and be there for her. I’m sorry you don’t want to see that, or acknowledge that, but that’s just the way it is. I know we’ve had some fucked up things between us in the past, but we were both fucked up and aren’t even close to being the kind of people we were then now. She’s not that person anymore. She’s got a head on her shoulders, she’s driven, she’s smart, and she’s not going to let anyone tell her what she should and shouldn’t think or do. Never has from what I remember. And you know what other thing hasn’t changed?” Zach just kept looking at him without speaking. “How much she loves you – more than anything or anyone else in her life. Always has.”
A little voice in the back of his head echoed with the sound of her tiny, distant voice. Zach? When are you coming home? When are you going to be here? Zach, I miss you. You promised you were coming home this time…this break…this vacation…this Christmas. I know mommy won’t let you come home, but if you tell the man flying the plane that your little sister is waiting for you, maybe he’ll bring you home anyway…. She was still waiting for him to come home in a way. Still waiting for him to walk in the door and play with her and not tell her what they should play, or how they should play it. She just wanted him home and he’d never been able to do that for her.
He was going to have to do the one thing he’d never been able to do before, and that was trust himself. He had to believe that he’d make the decisions and right choices when she asked him for support, and stop trying to make them all for her before she even got to them. She’d already made one of the smartest decisions she possibly could.
“Why’d she go and pick you?” he asked, cracking a smile and confusing Trevor. “Of all the people she could have chosen, she picked you?”
Trevor could only blink at him, shaking his head just slightly. “Huh?”
Zach went over to him and rested a hand on his shoulder. “Of all the people she could have chosen, she chose the one person I trusted most in the world. One of the few people that I know who could watch out for her, and take care of her if I couldn’t do it.” He hugged him then, patting him firmly on the back. “I love ya, man. Take care of her.”
“I will,” Trevor answered, confusion still stuck in his voice.
Zach released him and headed back inside. “Go back to bed, it’s barely sunrise,” he told Trevor, leaving the door open for him to follow.
Bridget mumbled ‘you’re cold’ when Trevor climbed back into
bed. His skin still held the chill from the outside dampness and air and he
buried deep under the blanket to get warm. The mattress was warm with their
sleep, and when she curled next to him, resting her head on his shoulder, the
chill seemed to leave. Last night they just stopped by to pick up a few things,
and they ended up going through old photo albums and videos until it was too
foggy to drive back.
Her room looked much bigger now that she had taken most of her things over to his place. The closet left open, empty, her bureau and dressing table cleaned of everything. Nothing sat on top of them like before, when they were busting with cosmetics and knick-knacks, and articles of clothing. The room didn’t feel like hers anymore and she wondered as she blinked around if that was what bothered Zach so much. It looked like she had moved out of his life for good and left nothing behind.
In the daylight, she wondered…had she?