"19 year old Zac Hanson was found late Monday night critically injured five miles from his West Tulsa home. Police have stated that the circumstances surrounding his injuries are unknown, and that while attempted foul play is not expected it has yet to be ruled out. Hanson, who is currently being held at Hilcrest Medical Center's Intensive Care Unit, was the youngest member of a local pop band that had several nationwide hits in the late '90s."
Letter 1-
Zac-
Where do I start? Tuesday morning? That's not right, not the beginning at all. But there's no one day when I can say we became friends, it was such a slow thing; I sort of knew you all of my life, and you were just there. We used to go to the same babysitter when we were little, and, according to our moms, when people tried to separate us we cried. But then my family moved a thousand light years away, or six blocks in the world of a three year old, and we forgot each other. You were always there, though, hovering in the background, somehow just a hairsbreath out of my world for thirteen years. We're all intertwined, like we couldn't really get away from each other, like we had to become friends sooner or later, like fate or nature or God set us up to inevitably meet. Think how much time we wasted when we could have been friends! Now I remember when I knew… when I realized you were like me. It was at that stupid barbecue.
Usually I hate parties, and to this day I can't imagine what compelled me to go on that night. It was the worst sort of get-together, too, the kind held in Richardson's park down by the river, the kind that always turns into some sort of drunken free-for-all. Angie must have talked me into it, just like she was always talking me into things. It's good, in a way; without her I'm not entirely sure I would ever try anything new. Without her I never would have re-met you.
I could hear the throbbing bass of some old song, I think it was"This is how we do it" by Montel Jordan, even before I could see the huge bonfire that had been lit at one of the more remote campsites. The sight for that night's party was a gritty flat expanse already filled with people milling around, big red plastic cups clutched in their hands. As soon as we pulled up in Angie's old Volvo we were greeted by Charlie Perkins, and I vividly recall thinking that I was about to embark upon the most torturous evening of my young life.
The crash of our slamming car doors had barely silenced when Angie, my best friend, my sister by choice, flipped her long black hair over her shoulder and smiled that secret smile she saves for Charlie, flirting shamelessly. Funny that the two of us are so close and yet we're so different. She leaned against him when he stood close by, touching him whenever she could. Maybe that's the big disparity between us: Angie touches and I don't. Ice Queen, I was once called by Charlie, not that I really minded. What he thought of me wasn't important, but I hated myself for my body's reaction to him. Just the sight of Charlie's shaggy black hair and impossibly green eyes left me mute and struggling for some escape, full of the knowledge of his beauty and the fear of it all at once. He's gorgeous, always has been, but his harsh, empty eyes and the way his perfect lips are always twisted into a smirk send off alarms in my head that just can't be ignored. He used people -- uses people -- and Angie was standing in line to be his next hit. He's the real icy one, I thought as I watched him tug on the hem of Angie's shirt and plant a little kiss on her cheek, his cool gaze never leaving my face. Maybe I don't touch physically, but this is a boy who doesn't touch emotionally.
You could never be like that, even though you are just as as physically exquisite as Charlie, because you're not afraid to make contact. You're all about touching people, aren't you? Angie tried to get me to come along with them, to join in the dancing, but I wasn't interested. The two of them floated off into their own world, a place where not even best friends can belong, and I watched them stand in the greasy smoke of the bonfire, eating juicy slices of watermelon. If I had asked right then Angie would have left, driven me home, and probably never spoken of it again, but I didn't want to do that. Even though I wished there was some other truth to the matter I could see the way her eyes lit up around Charlie, just as I could see the blush that reddened her cheeks as he protectively placed a hand on the small of her back, leading her through the amassed crowd.
I wandered away, saying hello to the people I couldn't avoid, and headed towards the distant mirror-like smoothness of the river, wishing I could throw myself into the water to cool hot skin and chase away the thickly humid August air. I remember thinking that the stars, burning constant and bright in the night sky above me, seemed so low I could almost touch them. I would much have rather been all alone right then, left to enjoy the soft buzz of crickets and the sparkle of those silvery heavens, but Angie must have decided that I wasn't having fun and joined me in the small wooded area I had deemed far enough away from the party to hide in.
"Lydia," her voice was so familiar, with its soft curves and gentle emphasis on the fist syllable of my name, but in my estrangement she served only to remind of the trap this town had become. I didn't like it in Tulsa at all, and I felt like I was the only person who had the audacity to doubt the excellence of our hometown. After living here for almost 16 years I didn't think I could bear another cycle of sweltering summer and frozen winter bracketing my mundane existence. There was no way out for me, either. College was still two years away and the foreseeable future would be spent treading water, trapped stationary and against my will in a mold of endless sameness. "Come on," Angie continued as Charlie made his way to her side again.
"Maybe this will loosen you up a little bit," Charlie shrugged his broad shoulders and smiled at me before returning his attention to his group of football playing friends. They had tagged along, following the crinkling noise of the plastic baggie he held in his hand. Even though Charlie stood too far away in the dark of the night for me to see its contents clearly, I knew that the ziploc bag was filled with dark green leaves, and I also knew that in his other hand Charlie was clutching a shinny chrome bong.
I must have stood there, like a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming vehicle, for too long. The outsiders who had joined us at the edge of the river were all talking loud and pushing each other around, but they barely registered in my mind. All I could see was Charlie, and that gleam in his eye, the one that accuses me, without words, of being a baby, of being silly, of not being good enough to be Angie's best friend.
"Thanks Charlie, but I really don't feel like it." Finally my voice returned, scratchy and foreign, and I was able to stand up for myself. I didn't want to smoke, didn't want to inhale the earthy richness of the plant, didn't want to act dumb, didn't want see the world twisted from its effects. I struggled to stand tall against the gaze of the amassed spectators, wondering how it is that even at 16 years old I could feel quite this confused, quite this lost, quite this weak. I didn't even presume to think that anyone was judging me on this one event, not Charlie or his cronies or even Angie, because they had made their minds up about me a long time ago. I was totally different from them in every way imaginable, and we all knew it. None of this has changed, but I have. Now I'm okay with the fact of my seperation from the people I grew up with. Even grateful. And it's all thanks to you Zac. Do you know that? You saved me from wanting to be just like them, to fit into their crowd, to disappear their fathomless sea of mediocrity.
"More for us," Charlie assured me with one of those smiles, the kind that made my knees a little weak and my heart beat a little faster no matter how I tried to ignore the forceful message of my heated blood. He raised one perfect, black eyebrow in my direction and smirked for an instant before returning to his fawning admirers.
"I hate you," I muttered defiantly under my breath, watching his tall figure and Angie's smaller one dissolve into the crowd until they were no longer differentiable.
"He's kind of a jerk, huh?" You stood in front of me, outlined by a starry silver shine. Looking back I like to think I recognized you. I mean, lord only knows I should have. We took baths together when we were little kids; bizarre to think of it, but after she met you my mom sure loved to whip out those pictures of us naked in the tub. And even if my memory somehow managed to shut out my playmate at the babysitter's, how could I have forgotten your sweet face? I would have thought that Angie's two year obsession with Taylor in elementary school had turned me into a veritable Hanson zombie. I saw you plastered on her walls, blocking out the delicate pink flowers that her mom had stenciled there, and I heard your voice a billion times a day for years. Years! But somehow you just slipped out of my mind, presumably replaced by state capitols and multiplication tables. What a waste of brain cells.
Okay. Fine. So I had no idea who you were. That's why I was so guarded when I growled my quiet "yeah" in reply.
"You shouldn't let him push you around." That's exactly what you said. Word for word, and I just looked up at you, feeling pretty indignant. I had gone through this huge emotional struggle against the darkside, and here you were calling me a wimp.
"I didn't."
"I guess not." You didn't sound convinced, but I didn't really care. The mud was soaking through my worn canvas Vans and making my feet tingle with cold, so I walked, not caring if you came, just trying to escape the too-loud music of the party. After a second I realized that you were with me, though, thoughtfully watching the way the blacker than black mud sucked around the edges of your shoes.
"You don't go to Jefferson, do you?" These parties by the river tended to be frequented only by kids from my high school, so this was a pretty logical question.
"Nah." You kicked at the accumulated muck on your shoes, speaking slowly and deliberately. "I'm home schooled, but I go to church with some of the kids here. They invited me to come."
"Home schooled?" It's not that uncommon in Tulsa, but it still seemed weird to me, weird for parents to decide to narrow their children's world so much.
"Almost all my life." You were so quiet right then, not at all like I know you really are.
"Wow. I would go crazy spending all my time at home like that. Or my mother would kill me. I can't decide what's more likely." I pondered the possibilities as the distance between us and the party increased. We were lucky for the brilliant spotlight of the moon that turned the night to day, or we probably would have gotten lost out there with only the distant glow of the bonfire to illuminate one tiny corner of the horizen.
"I was going to go to public school last year, but it didn't work out." Too bad I didn't know how those words hurt you. I could hear your tone tense, and see the way your easy stride stiffened, but I just watched you as one might watch a lab experiment in freshman bio.
"It's not all it's cracked up to be."
"So I hear." You were looking up at the sky, drinking in its rich velvet smoothness, and for an instant the only noise was the teasing of a faint breeze rustling through late summer leaves. "When I was little I used to try and count the stars."
"That would take a few lifetimes." I laughed a little at the thought of a miniature version of the boy beside me spending time at such a dream. You are so tall, and so strong, that it's hard for me to think of you as a little kid.
"Maybe I've already been counting for lifetimes, though." Odd answer. But I didn't think you were weird for it, instead I saw you cast in a reflective glow that I liked. A lot. It sounds stupid, like a cliché from one of the bad romance novels our moms would swap back and forth, but as soon as we started talking I felt comfortable. Like the events of the evening hadn't really been that big of a deal, like it was all forgivableWe walked side by side for awhile on the banks of the river, listening to the distant roar of the interstate, not talking at all. We didn't have to fill the enveloping silence; it wasn't hostile or scary. Instead we were both enjoying it, I guess, enjoying the fact that we didn't need to play stupid games.
Who was the first one to take off their shoes, I can't be sure, but I think it may have been me. My feet were already crusted with the thick, brown soil, and so it didn't seem to matter. You laughed at me, standing like a flamingo on one leg, untying my laces, but soon you were standing beside me with a supportive hand on my shoulder and slipping out of your worn-to-perfection Docs. The mud was cool and soft between my toes, and I savored its embrace.
"So you don't smoke?" You asked as we resumed our voyage towards where the dark water lapped at the banks of the mud-rimmed river.
"I don't really like it. Angie, the girl who got me to come, does sometimes. She always tries to talk me into it." Your eyes seem to glow sometimes, almost like the bright pinpricks of cats' eyes in the dark, and the night I met you I was shocked by their caramel light.
"My older brother does a lot of that junk, and it bugs me. I mean, he hides behind drugs all the time." You didn't mention Hanson, didn't mention that you had once belonged to what you would eventually tell me was "a little band". I suppose that even then, years after you guys stopped recording new albums, it was probably hard for you to meet someone who had no idea who you were. You probably treasured my ignorance, but man did I feel stupid when I figured it out later on.
The mud was slick, slippery beneath our feet and every once in a while one of us would slide a bit, grabbing on to the other for support. We waded out into the water a little ways, until our bare knees were covered. That's when someone fell. This time I'm pretty sure it wasn't me… but we both went down. If any one saw us from shore they would have probably had quite the good laugh, and we did too. Around most people it would have been mortifying, horrific, nightmarish to suddenly find myself floundering neck deep in murky waters, but your guffawing laugh is quite infectious and I couldn't help but join you.
"That was so your fault!" In retrospect I found the whole situation a lot funnier than it really was, causing these words to be forced out between incredulous chuckles.
"Um… excuse me… whose idea was coming out here?" You seriously go from zero to hyper in about twenty seconds, as I was fast to realize when the splashing began. It was like being at the Jenks public pool in the middle of summer - cool water flew at me from every direction and I busily worked to return the spray by quickly running my flattened hand across the surface of the dark water.
"We're so wet we might as well take it all the way…" You began to swim out into the glassy center of the river, taking long smooth strokes that barely disturbed the water. What possessed me to go along with you is a mystery to this day, but I'm glad I did it. Suspended fully clothed in the water, weightless as a daydream and more free than I'd ever imagined being, I really forgot about the mess. About why I hated Tulsa, why the crowd on shore seemed so foreign to me, why I had to worry. Everything was great right then, as we swam out until we were far away enough from shore to no longer be overshadowed by the low hanging branches of trees, as we swam until the stars came into full focus, scattered across the roof of our world.
Floating side by side, drifting in the current, we talked about everything. About music and TV, about school and our families. I was fascinated by the small tribe of brothers and sisters you had, just as you were fascinated by my status as an only child. "But who do you hang out with?" You had asked, mystified.
"Usually people I met at school or something, like Angie. I've known her since kindergarten. She was the only militant feminist in our elementary school and used to kidnap everyone's barbies." How could I not smile at a memory quite so sweet? "Do you spend a lot of time with your family?"
"Yeah." I wondered if you were not going to say anything else, but at length you continued. "We traveled around a lot when I was younger, and it was really hard to meet people. I ended up hanging out with my big brothers all the time, which was actually really cool. We did a lot together."
Steam rose around us, streamers of insubstantial fluff, and every noise, from the distant cry of an owl to the nearby roar of hip-hop, seemed to echo in the silence, magnified by the water.
"Lydia?" Angie sounded shocked, and probably rightfully so. After all, her best friend, the dark side to her light, was currently doing the backstroke with some stranger. Very out of character, that must have seemed.
"Hey," I called, not moving. Our hands brushed under the water ever so faintly. I wonder if you noticed? I did; back in the beginning I had quite the crush.
"Are you ready to go? I have to work tomorrow morning." Angie laughed softly as I allowed myself to fall away from the support of the river, feet resting on the rocky bottom.
"Well," I said in your direction, wading towards shore and watching the water slide ever lower around me. You stood up, pushing your longish wavy hair out of your eyes, and stepped to my side.
"Zac Hanson." One hand extended, your eyes glinted and your voice smiled in the dark.
"Lydia Redwing." I shook your hand before walking away, grinning to beat the band, as my Grandmother might have said.
"Are you drunk?" Angie asked in a disbelieving tone of voice as we made our way back to her car with me dripping a dark trail of water on the dusty ground.
So that's how it started, how we became friends again. Zac, please be okay. Please.
-Lydia
Zac-
I wonder if I'll give you these letters when you get better? I started off writing them so you'd know what happened when you were unconscious, but it's weird because I keep writing about us. Do you know how important you are to me? Maybe I shouldn't give you these letters after all. It could be weird if you didn't realize… didn't realize that you're my best friend. School starts soon and I don't want to leave. My mom says that it's too late to back out of my tuition, and that you'll be fine by the time I have to move back into the dorms. But I don't want to leave you for longer than I have to. Why do I feel like that? Why am I so scared? You're going to be fine. But you don't look it. God Zac, you look terrible. I try not to see you, all white and pale on the hospital bed. But I can't help it.
It just doesn't seem right that I heard for the first time on the radio. I had been standing in front of my pale stained dresser, getting ready for work and marveling at my reflection in the large, circular mirror that had hung on my wall ever since I could remember. It seemed as if I should have changed somehow, that something about me should have looked different. There should have been some little clue about what had happened last night, a sign that the whole world could see. I couldn't help but feel that an event so momentous should have been marked by some outward symbol of maturity, but I was glad it wasn't. My dusky red brown skin looked the same, my just slightly to closely spaced brown eyes hadn't changed, and the delicate curves of my body looked just as they always had beneath my work clothes.
I was enraptured with myself, wondering how it was that you had seen me. Did you notice the scar on my right cheek? Did you see red, irritated spot on my calf that had been bothered by the wool skirt I had worn to church on Sunday? At that moment I had everything in the whole world, but I just didn't know it. I had two parents who loved me. I had a new semester at school to look forward to. I had you as a best friend.
It was all taken away, all of my future-inspired wonder and happiness, when the sharp voice of the morning DJ said something that broke through my early morning mental fog. Something about you.
Remember how we used to joke about the radio stations never talking about you guys any more? About how they had swept you under the carpet, a dark reminder of their own fallibility? I can practically hear Mary Travers, the sycophant that she is, rambling on about how maybe "I believe that the Hanson's may be headed straight to the top one of these days." You always say she's the same one who decided that you guys weren't right for her radio station only three years later. You may never have said it, but I think it hurt you to be lost like that, to be ignored and vilified. But now you're on every radio station in Tulsa, maybe even in the world.
It was a joke, I had assured myself, laying my brush on my bedside table in perfect alignment with its matching comb. Nothing had really happened to you, it was just a joke or a game being played by an evil minded programming director. Things like that don't happen in Tulsa. Especially not to people I know. The thirty second news brief was over in what seemed to be considerably less than the time it took for me to suddenly feel cold all over, like I had just stepped from the thick heat of July Oklahoma and into the antiseptic chill of an overly air-conditioned building.
"19 year old Zac Hanson was found late Monday night critically injured…" the words circled me, dancing around through my mind leaving frigid trails of uncertainty in their wake. They wouldn't put something like that on the radio without checking their facts first, would they? But I from somewhere in the depths of my mind distant rumors that had sent Angie home crying one day from sixth grade surfaced memories of rumors that you had died. It didn't happen then, I assured myself, and it wasn't happening now. You were probably just getting up, and I wondered if maybe you had been lucky enough to hear your own tragic accident announced to thousands and thousands of listeners of Khits.
No matter how often I told myself this, however, it wasn't working. And when I heard a gentle knocking on my closed door I could feel myself beginning a downward spiral, almost like when I was a little girl riding the big, curly slide in the elementary school playground. I would start off breathless and excited, but as I felt gravity wrap itself around my little body, tugging me ever faster and closer to the brink of control, I would wonder why I had begun the ride at all. The sky had always seemed so blue as I whizzed downward, watching the horizon above me before I finally clenched my eyes shut and gave myself up to the fear. The fear of getting hurt, the fear of never stopping and just soaring into that same blue sky with no way to stop, the fear of the unkown. "Yeah?" I called, probably too softly for my mother to hear from her post in the hallway. She came in anyways, though, and I could see her green brown eyes glazed over and her hands clenched tight at her sides.
"Baby," she whispered, voice trembling. "Diana just called…"
"I heard. I heard on the radio." I watched her for a second, hoping that her lips would part in a big smile, the kind that crinkled up the corners of her eyes and showed the pink of her gums. But instead she just stood there in the doorway, half illuminated by the shafts of morning light that slanted through my open window. "How bad?" My voice surprised me with its emptiness, its total lack of emotion or inflection.
"Diana suggested you come down to the hospital to…" She broke right then, turning her back to me for a long moment before clearing her throat and continuing. "Diana and Walker think you should go visit him."
"That bad." I can't remember what happened then. I sort of expected someone to cry, either me or my mom, but we both just headed, tight lipped and silent, to her car. Somehow the hideaway got called to let them know that I wouldn't make it to work; somehow my mom got dressed; somehow I kept on breathing. You know how much my mom likes you? I think she has these grandiose notions of us growing up and getting married, and right then I think she was maybe more shocked than I was. I knew you'd be okay… I know you'll be okay. So I'm not that afraid.
-Lydia
Zac-
You always look so silly sitting on the tiny, brightly colored plastic chairs in the children's room of the library. I laugh even now remembering all six feet of you scrunched up, knees nearly at chin level, shaggy golden hair tucked behind your ears, cheeks red with excitement. There is just no way you can be comfortable seated like that, but it never, ever shows. You take over the room, fill it with your voice and that wide grin of yours, holding even the most rambunctious of seven year olds totally under your sway.
They had a cake for you today, carrot with cream cheese frosting just like you like, and the small, darkly paneled room had been strung with blue and red paper streamers. You missed your going away party, Zac. The cake was decorated with a thin, spindly rendering of the Eiffel Tower, and the words "au revior" had been cautiously spelled out by a less than steady hand along its side. I don't think the kids understand what it means that you're in the hospital, that you're sick, that you're asleep and maybe you will never wake up again.
I had almost forgotten that you were leaving me anyways, going abroad to spend the next year in a world where the safe anonymynity you have so long ago lost in America could be restored. Your mom and brothers have always given me the impression that even when you were younger you had not really liked the traveling you had to do as a member of "Hanson;" in interviews, hard, sarcastic little Zac had always seemed to have wistful words for home, they have said, smiling indulgently at you. When you finally got your wish to return to Tulsa I guess it wasn't all you had hoped; although you could come home you couldn't slip back into to the life you had given up when the Middle of Nowhere had been released. The girls resolutely lined up along the deep green, snaking line of demarcation between your lawn and 78th street made sure of that.
I'm probably boring you already. Or I would be, if I ever actually gave these letters to you, which I'm still not entirely convinced I will. Anyways, I went to the library today, and I tried to read in your place. Minna and I took turns with your favorite book, that ancient copy of The Last Unicorn, but we paled in comparison; no matter how hard I tried I just couldn't copy your magical tone, your gentle wonder, your complete authority over the words and all their witnesses.
When I got to the part that you always read with the most relish, when Schmendrick first arrived at Mommy Fortuna's, I realized just how hard you always try to reach the children. "No creature of man's night loves cold iron, and while the unicorn could endure its presence, the murderous smell of it," I began, knowing that at this point you would have been looking with wide, exageratedly frantic eyes at the children gathered on the deep green carpeted floor before you, "seemed to turn her bones to sand and her blood to rain." Here you would have paused for just the perfect amount of time to allow breath to catch in tiny throats, and for small hands to reach out to mothers or fathers in gentle, dizzying fear. I found myself stumbling over the words, longing to be done with the story and yet somehow wishing I could stay in that exact moment forever; it was something to think about, after all, the rolling feel of the strange phrases on my lips, and the eyes of the children which, right then, held me as the center of their world.
The West Tulsa public library had been the first place we went together after we re-met that night at the party, and I have always kind of thought that fate was to thank, or blame. I had been innocently wandering through Thompson's Market, searching for the specific brand of laundry detergent my mother couldn't live without, when I heard your voice floating on the heavy, too cold air. Even though I couldn't see you, I knew right away that there was only one person in the world who could put quite the amount of inflection that I was hearing into an argument over whether tootsie roll pops or blow pops were superior, and I stood there, just listening to your reasoning.
"Blow pops are twice as good because even after you finish the lollipop part you still have gum to chew on." You've always been so strong and certain, Zac, and it shows in everything about you. If I had to describe how you talk to someone who didn't know you, I'd probably have to tell them that whatever you say, you say in capitol letters.
"But with tootsie roll pops their mouths will get gooed shut and they won't be able to interrupt," suggested a small voice, no less forceful in its self-righteousness than your own. "And it's educatshional," the unseen specter added in a final moment of lisping inspiration, "because you have to count how many licks it takes to get to the center!"
"Good point, that last one. Tootsie it is, Tootsie." A small bout of giggling had followed, and as the receding clatter of a wire cart replaced your voices, I contemplated hiding. Yes, Zac, hiding; not everyone is like you. I was unsure, not positive if you would even have remembered me, let alone be able to pick me out at random. More than a week must have passed since that dark swim we had shared, and I was pretty sure I'd die of embarrassment if I went up only to find that the event that had made my weekend had not even registered for you. Even if you did remember me, I was still worried that you'd be embarrassed, that you thought I was a dumb baby like everyone else did for not smoking, and had just tried to make me feel less left out in an attempt to get sainted or something. There was also the even more dire possibility that you had been tricked by the magical, silvery moonlight into thinking I was pretty, and that your illusions would be uncomfortably shattered in the harsh fluorescent light of the grocery store.
I had been so wrapped up in my worries that I barely noticed the cluncking of a trolley with a bum wheel coming in my direction until a red and gold vision blurred past my face. It had been you, of course, balanced cautiously with both of your feet on the bottom shelf of your cart, whizzing past at speed. I thought I was safe when you sailed by, apparently not even noticing me, and so I simply watched your receding back, laughing to myself as your feet contacted the industrial linoleum of the sparkly clean floor for a fraction of a heartbeat, propelling yourself nearly out of my site at the end of the long isle. You left a trail of childish giggles in your wake, a sound that moved the world to make me smile.
My fears were renewed by your enthusiastic "about face!" and the way you turned the cart back in my direction only to continue your speedy journey, this time, though, bathed in your eyes I felt the irregular flutter of my heart growing louder and louder, and a burning blush work its way to singe my cheeks. "Lydia Redwing, yes?"
I've had three years to try and figure out what happened next, but I still have no idea. "If you were seven years old would you prefer Tootsie Roll pops or Blow pops?" I didn't even have time to tell you that you were right about my name before you asked this question in a perfectly reasonable tone of voice, like you had just inquired of an old friend about the weather. You and the passenger of your cart, the sweetest looking little girl I've ever seen, both watched me, waiting for some sort of response.
"Tootsie?" I hazarded as you leaned forward, elbows on the handle of the cart, to stare your little sister in the eye.
"You were right, tootsie." There was already a huge bag of the suckers in question resting on the girl's lap as she sat in the child seat of the cart, dressed in pink overalls, her curly blond hair swept up in a tiny baseball cap.
"Stop calling me tootsie!" She laughed, pushing with one small hand against your forehead.
"Her name's actually Zoë," you had smiled up at me, stepping away from the cart to stand so near to me that instinct dictated my blind step backward. This charming move seemed to uphold the natural law I had recently discovered: when ever you and I met I was destined to make a fool out of myself. You remember what happened? I certainly haven't forgotten. That kind of humiliation really stays with a girl. The thoughtless step caused me to run into the pyramid shaped display of detergent I had so recently been examining, thereby sending the heavy boxes crashing in an uncontrollable landslide to the ground.
Embarrassment just isn't the word. It doesn't even begin to cover the sinking sensation in my stomach, or the way my eyes began to burn as I turned to stare in disbelief at the huge pile of boxes that had fallen victim to my decided lack of grace. Right then it could have gone either way. I could have simply freaked out and left the building faster than Elvis tempted with a peanut butter and banana sandwich, and believe you me, I thought about it for several seconds, or I could have calmly accepted my clumsiness and tried to carry off the situation with the least amount of chagrin possible. The laughter is what stopped me, I guess, the way you held it in, snorting just the smallest amount imaginable and making a rather pained face.
"You, Zac Hanson, have the worst effect on me! First mud and now this!" I was lost, giggling then guffawing then just laughing until my sides hurt and my eyes began to water. It was such an absurd situation, such a moment of potential embarrassment, but your grin and the way your eyes crinkled at the edges took it all away. We leaned together, weak from mirth, and you wrapped an arm around my shoulder. The gesture was so natural, so comfortable that I didn't even think about how weird it was, didn't even contemplate the last time I'd let someone I barely know touch me. I enjoyed it too much, I guess.
"You two made a huge mess," Zoë had finally inserted, as we began to calm down, no doubt for show in the face of the store employees who were beginning to discover their destroyed handiwork.
"You two?" You had demanded with false indignity, "I think only one of us came in here swinging like King Kong at the Empire States building!"
"Sure, abandon me, why don't you?" I knelt and began to gather the boxes, working at returning the display to its former state of glory, as a woman in a red apron with "Thompson's Market" embroidered across the chest came to stand hostilely above me.
"I won't abandon you," you smiled, joining me on the floor.
"That's nice to hear," I whispered, desperately trying to use all of my attention to carefully align a row of boxes to form the base of the pyramid.
"Kids!" The store employee hissed, stepping briskly away, no doubt to summon reinforcements.
"So what are you doing today? After practicing your building skills, I mean?" You had asked, working by my side.
"Crawling under the nearest rock, thank you."
"Come with us!" Zoë had demanded from her position in the cart, tossing the lollipops over her shoulder and holding up her arms, a signal for a lift to the floor.
"We're going to read at the library," you informed me, helping your little sister down and allowing her to place a few detergent box bricks on the ever more organized pile.
I didn't even know what hit me. You entered my life like a hurricane, calling off all the bets and filling every little bit of me that had once been empty. You always make me laugh, and ever since that day in the grocery store I knew that you'd never leave me, taking somehow for granted that you'd always be there to be the light to my dark. At some point I agreed to go with you to the library, and I found myself twenty minutes later stepping out of the passenger side of your parents white van, staring at the foreboding huddled brick structure of the west Tulsa library.
"We come here all the time," Zoë explained, wrapping a slightly sticky hand around mine and skipping her way up the cement path to the front door. It smelled like every library I've ever been in, like old paint and books hidden out of the sun for to long, but inside was a different world. It was bright and cheery, and, to my shock, full of little kids. No fewer than thirty of the under ten set were patiently waiting, covering every available surface.
Minna met us at the door, and all I remember thinking was how tiny she was, and how dark her hair seemed to glisten. A smile was twisting her simple features into beauty, "they've been waiting for you." She always seems to glow, doesn't she?
"Minna, this is Lydia. Lydia, Minna. She's been the librarian here for as long as I can remember, and sometimes she lets me have the honor of reading during story time." Zoë had already been lost in the crush of children, discernible only because of her too-loud voice and sparkling laugh that could never be missed, no matter how many voices were layered upon it.
"Nice to meet you, Minna." I shook her hand, marveling at its strength.
You stepped away from us, giving my shoulder a quick squeeze. I had forgotten. That was twice you touched me that day, two unremarkable instants that I would have thought would reside in my memory forever. "Duty calls, ladies." The sea of children split for you, only to eagerly reform in your wake.
Did you ever know what happened then? It was funny in retrospect, but at the time the silence between Minna and I was deafening. Eventually you folded yourself into a seat in front of the room, and finally she spoke: "Zac's never brought a little friend here before," followed by a suggestive wink. She thought I was your girlfriend, I guess, and she wasn't the only one. A small group of girls, some my age and a few even older, were congregated near your seat, and as soon as I looked away from Minna, oddly embarrassed by her assumption, I saw that they were eyeing me. Very bizarre Zac, very bizarre. They were there because of who you were, I would eventually realize, a group of practically grown women somehow not able to let go of a precious dream of childhood. That would be you, precious dream. Silly, huh? They only knew you as the little Hanson, as a wildman behind a set of drums, but this was enough for them to follow, chasing a reality that had been all too effectively created for them.
"Um, we're not. You know. I'm not, we're not. I'm not his little friend." My stammering phrases had doubtlessly been punctuated by the kind of ineffectual hand gestures I'm so prone to, but Minna had just kept smiling that warm grin at me.
"Indeed." You began to read then, and I was swept away by the rush of your words invading the air, taking it over for their own purpose. The room fell, utter and complete, into hush. You had been telling the story of the Last Unicorn back then, a little bit every week, and that day you read about the outlaws' camp. I practically have it memorized, the part where the magician summoned their dreams in the form of Robin Hood and his merry men. "He's a myth," you intoned in the voice of Captain Cully, "a classic example of the heroic folk figures synthesized out of need, and so a legend grows around a grain of truth, like a pearl."
Cully's men abandoned him, and you cried out as that man, "fools, fools, and children! It was a lie, like magic! There is no such person as Robin Hood!"
An hour might have passed, and I don't think I breathed once in all that time. It wasn't like that today, Zac. Not at all. Which is why you have to stay at least a little longer. You have to go read one more time to those little kids, the ones who filled the air with another kind of silence in your absence.
Dear Zac-
My mom and I had another fight today. A bad one. I don't even know why, really. Well, I kind of do, I guess; she brought up the fact that I desperately need to start packing. She's right, because school starts Tuesday. My tuition is paid; Oklahoma City is a long drive from here, and I'm a Sophomore Business major who can't afford to miss even a day of classes for any reason. But she's wrong, because I won't go back. How can I? How am I supposed to leave you?
That's pretty much how it started off. Me saying that I wasn't going to go, and her saying I had to. I have no excuse for what happened then, for the way I yelled, for the way I slammed my door in her face. It was so stupid, and I knew it whole time, but once I got started it felt to good to stop... like I was on fire and the only thing I could do to make the pain go away was inflict it on someone else. So I said things I didn't even know I thought, things so mean I can't even bear to look at her now.
What's wrong with me Zac? Why am I like this to the only person who really cares about me? It's all messed up, my life, and honestly and truly my mom is the only person who is even trying to understand. Angie has come over every day since we heard, and we've hung out together, but it's totally different. We sit in my room or walk around the neighborhood, but we never really talk. It's just her looking at her feet and never daring to say anything real, never daring to be my friend because she can't handle admitting what happened.
I wish I could rewind the world to last week, before all this happened, to that last day we spent together. I wish so bad it hurts.
I can't go downstairs because she's there, and I don't know why I'm writing this. I know that if you were here you'd let me whine until I finally had to pause for a breath, and then you'd do something to make me laugh. Somehow that laughter would make it all better. It wouldn't change the world, maybe, but instead it would drag me back to reality, and make the argument seem like not that big of a deal. But that's not going to happen, is it?
God. What's going on with me? I'm crying. Such a baby. I can't go back to school because if you -- when something happens I want to be here. I want to be the first person you see when you wake up and then I want to smack you around for scaring us all like this, you jerk.
We used to fight a lot when we first met. Do you remember that? It was almost as bad as fighting with my mom, because as soon as I knew you, you were a part of me like she is. Only for us to belong together we didn't need the involuntary bonding of genes, or of sixteen Christmas mornings, of nightmares, or fathers that leave. We just fit together like best friends should, immediately and totally. That's why our fights were so harsh, I think. Because I cared about you so much before I even could name a reason.
For some reason as I sit up here in my room, scribbling away this note you probably couldn't even read if did give it to you, the fight that stands out the most was that time in your backyard. It could only have been a few weeks after we first met. We had been at your house that day, alone with Taylor and Isaac.
It's always cool to see you three together, because you're like shades of each other. I don't know how to explain it, really, but if the world was a box of crayons, I think each person would have their own color. I bet I'd be a burnt umber or one of those other random shades that little kids don't really notice, but you guys would be the most brilliant blues. Taylor would be periwinkle, you navy, and Isaac midnight. You don't get it, and neither do your brothers, probably because something like that you have to be on the outside to see. Maybe you always have to be on the outside to realize there's an inside.
I remember sitting in the cool green shade of that big oak tree behind your house. It was too hot to breathe, almost, too hot to think, too hot to do anything but stretch out on the sharp chill of the grass and take deep breaths full of the sticky sweet smell of the honeysuckle that rings the flat expanse of your yard. Taylor was telling a story, but I don't remember… scratch that. I do remember. He was telling me about the way you talk in your sleep. "I swear he was ordering a hamburger last night," Tay had laughed, uprooting a handful of recently shorn grass and throwing it at you. "Well, at least I hope he was because that's the only 'juicy sweetness' I want to think my little brother has been exposed to." He must have been twenty then, home on summer break from the Berkley School of music, and he was so beautiful. Not handsome like you or Charlie, not strong and straight and powerful, but more delicate. If he had lived in the nineteenth century I think he would have been elegantly wasting away from some romantic disease, his smooth skin flushed with consumptive blush, or perhaps gone artistic green.
I think my mom has come upstairs. I should go apologize, but I don't know what to say. I'm not sure why, but Taylor's comments that day had made you mad, and as you ran your hands through your tangled hair I could see you shoot him an annoyed gaze. "Shut up," you had muttered, the resentment in your tone only half pretend.
"Touchy ground, is it?" Despite everything that's happened, I can't help but like Tay. I think it's because I can sometimes see a little of you behind those dreamy blue eyes, a little of that cleverness that makes you so special. Isaac had silently watched the pair of you, an expression of gentle amusement on his face. He was already married then, I think, and at 22 he seemed so grown up. It was odd to be around him, and to know that Emily was pregnant and he was practically a daddy.
"At least I don't drool in my sleep. That's just plain nasty." The defiance in your voice had faded a little, replaced by playfulness.
Taylor laughed for an instant before acquiescing, "You're right. You want to see some real drool, though?" Two seconds later he had you in a headlock, and the two of you were struggling, a blur of blonde hair and deeply tanned skin.
"You have yet to get used to the Hanson brothers, eh?" Isaac's voice was soft, and leisurely assured, the kind of tone that takes to offense just as slowly as it does to happiness. I had raised uncertain eyebrows in his direction, helplessly searching for an appropriate answer. "We're a little, unusual, I guess." He pulled himself closer to me on the grass, making it easier for me to hear his words over the furried growl of your laughter as you turned the tables on your older brother, pinning an always-weaker Taylor.
"I've never seen any siblings like you guys," I think I probably sounded almost apologetic.
"Most siblings aren't as close as we are. Homeschooling does that to people, and so does four years of adolescence spent in an ivory tower." Isaac began pulling at the grass, focusing on something other than the human beings present. An Isaac habit, I was soon to realize.
"Ivory tower," I repeated contemplatively to myself. I had figured it out by then, known who you were and understood your history even more precisely than through the animated stories of your childhood that you loved to tell. Isaac watched me, consideration a thick veil across his deep brown eyes.
"That's what you have to understand about him, Lydia. He isn't from the same world as you." What a bizarre thing to say. At that time I was annoyed, and stretched out on my back in an attempt to break his fixation on me. Right then I thought he was saying that you were better, that what you had done when you were younger had made you so distant from my world to be as far out of my reach as the rose-edged clouds I saw floating in the suddenly darkening sky above us.
Taylor had finally given up with a gentlemanly flourish in my direction, and the two of you relaxed, sliding in close to once again complete our rough circle on the green of your lawn, the circle that seemed somehow too full with four bodies. "What are we talking about?" You had asked, smiling that smile that makes your whole face light up and your eyes crinkle up at the edges. You have always grinned wide, never afraid to show the teeth that you fought so hard to maintain orthodontics-free, despite their imperfections. When Ike smiles he does it faintly, keeping his mouth shut. I've realized this is a symptom of his constant thought, while you just give yourself over to the laughter, the wicked grin, and the deep guffaw that somehow always seems to follow you through life.
"I was just telling Lydia about your real family… the one on Albertane." Isaac had informed you teasingly.
"Ah! Ma and Pa!" You laughed. Who would have thought that you would still be okay with it all? I mean, you had been eleven years old when you wrote that silly song, and I know that you can't help being a little embarrassed by it, but I also know that you would never wish it away. The Albertane years were a part of you, and you embraced them even though that was all the rest of the world bothered to see in you. The Mmmbop brothers, the washed up ones. Too bad they don't know that you're really only beginning. I have never been so sure of anything in my life as I am that someday in the future there will be more Hanson on the top of the charts.
"Too bad they never came back for you, even after all these years.." Taylor mused in jest, flopping backwards, propping himself on his elbows. Back then he played the role of art student, dressed totally in black from head to toe. His current outfit of tight black t-shirt and black pants made him blend into the incrementally increasing darkness.
Isaac must have left then, but I can't really remember why. Something about picking Emily up from work maybe. It seems like that's all Ike ever did back in the early days of our friendship -- talk about Emily or be with Emily -- and he slips from my memory of the evening, quiet as ghost, unremarked as a shadow.
We continued to talk, just the three of us, as the night closed in and the air dimmed with chill. I should have gone home, but I didn't want to. It was too comfortable right there, watching all those sweet little mysteries that are your mannerisms: the way you flip absently at your shaggy hair, probably a remnant from your days of flowing locks; the way your hands never seem to stop moving when you talk, always flying in an illustrative dance around whatever point you want to make; the way sometimes your eyes catch the light and glint orange against the dark tan of your face.
"You guys want to smoke up?" The words came from nowhere, interrupting the pleasant reverie I had built around you, and Taylor pulled back into focus for me as he stood to grab his battered red backpack from the patio that runs along the back of your house.
I had screwed up my face at you, expecting to meet glances and share my distaste, but instead you were suddenly enraptured by the grass you were industriously ripping up from the roots. "I have some of the good stuff…" Taylor returned to our verdant triumvirate, fishing through his bag for an instant before pulling out a short, obviously hand-rolled cigarette.
"Um. I don't think so, thanks," I murmured as your brother looked to me for support.
"Come on, you don't get weed like this every day, and it's not the same to smoke alone!" I never really understood how Taylor can be like he is. No matter how crude a sentence he may construct, coming from him it doesn't seem so bad. If Charlie had said those same words to me I would have been completely repulsed, doubtlessly adding one more reason to my lengthy mental list of why he was all wrong for Angie. But Taylor, or probably more precisely, the way Taylor could smile so sweet as to blind, made me want to give in.
"Really, no thanks." Your silent presence encouraged me, and I swore that if I hadn't buckled for Charlie, the boy who knew how to push buttons I didn't even realize I had, Taylor was certainly going to make no headway into getting me to smoke. I just don't get it. Smoking is so stupid. It takes nasty; it burns; it makes the truths of the world go uncomfortably wrong. But those reasons, the last especially, are probably exactly why boys like Taylor… and I guess boys like you… smoke it.
You still hadn't said anything, but I was sure you'd turn him down just as I had. Wasn't it you who had stood up for me at the party only a few weeks before? I would have bet my life that Zac Hanson was above all that.
"No man, I don't want to either." You sounded less than convinced, and I watched the you both glow golden in the dusk as you staring each other down, suddenly aware of the quiet chirping of local wildlife and the distant hum of the interstate.
"You're such a baby." I don't think I've ever heard anyone sound quite as disgusted as Taylor did right then, quite as nauseated to look at his own genetic flipside and see it going against him. "Come on, Zac. Don't be a loser." He had lit the roach, and was hungrily sucking down the dark smoke that made me feel queasy even from my position several feet away.
"Nah, giving it up for lent." I don't even know what I was thinking then. I know I was mad, though, and even now, years later, I can feel myself tightening up just remembering the quiet way you tried to stand up to your brother.
"Zaaaccc, come on." Taylor held out the cigarette to you, clutched between thumb and forefinger.
"If he doesn't want to, he doesn't have to." I finally interjected impatiently, giving Taylor what I imagine was my most matronly stare.
"Oh, that's right. I forgot that Zac doesn't make his own decisions. Never has." He took another drag, his angelic face turning indulgently petulant.
"Just give it to me." You had snatched the joint from Taylor's hands, taking a long and experienced toke. "I'm not a baby."
It wasn't my place to be there, I guess, stuck like a fly in the honey of your sibling rivalry. This fact, recognized in retrospect, wasn't enough to stop me, though. I stared at you, awash in thick dismay. It had been so easy to slip into looking up to you unquestioningly, to trust in the tender strength that almost always surrounded you, to believe that a boy who spent his time reading to kids in the library and playing the knight in shining docs to uncertain teenaged girls could do nothing wrong. But there you were, giving in to your older brother because he called you a baby.
"Lydia?" You offered sharply, leaning towards me to pass off the cigarette.
"I don't think so, I'm leaving." I felt then just like I did earlier today when I was fighting with my mother, like I was bathed in sizzling volcanic lava, scalding from within with anger and frustration.
"See you," Taylor took the joint back from you and pulled in another hit.
"Come on Lydia, don't go." You had pleaded. "Please." You knew exactly why I was mad, and exactly why I didn't want to stay around, but it didn't stop you from once again accepting the fat cigarette from your brother. Its burning tip glowed in the murky air, sending a faint streamer of smoke shimmering up towards the rapidly appearing stars.
"Oh my god. I don't even believe this," I remember muttering before climbing to my feet.
"Lydie? Stay…" You looked at Taylor for a second, no doubt noticing as I did that he was already reclining a tad too dreamily. "We'll just do a little. It will be fun." I'm not sure who you were trying to convince.
"Zac, just give it up." I answered, preparing to blow the situation out of proportion. That's exactly what happened then, and probably in most of our fights, but this one stands out to me especially, maybe because it hurts so bad to have your illusions shattered.
"You're the baby." You said it, I know you did. Even though in the future you'd
play innocent, I know those words crossed your lips. And that was all it took to send me off.
"I'm the baby? The one who gives up and smokes pot just because I can't tell someone no? I think I've proven myself able to handle such situations. You're a weakling, Zac Hanson. Anything your brothers do you have to do too!" I was probably shouting, and I wouldn't be surprised if half of your neighborhood heard me, but at that point I didn't much care.
"Whatever. You know that's so not true. You're shocked to discover my world doesn't revolve solely around you and what you think." We were both a little too close to the truth in what we said. The unity you and your brothers share is a great blessing, and you see it as that, but when its dark side appears like this you can't step away from the bond and see how it can hurt you. If Taylor did something wrong, something like this, you always allowed yourself to be sucked into it too, unable or unwilling to distance yourself from your brother. And me? I wouldn't have admitted it even to myself then, but it made me uncomfortable to see you around your family like that, fit into a jigsaw puzzle life that held no open spaces for me.
"I don't want your world revolving around me. It's too screwed up. Lord forbid anything ever steps between the almighty Hanson brothers. You're not going to make it out of your family alive if you don't start doing what you believe instead of what he tells you!" I was half way to where my car waited in your newly paved driveway before the words had even fully been pronounced, ready to never look back. But I guess that's the thing, isn't it? I couldn't abandon us then any more then than I can now. You had already slipped into every aspect of my life: you used my toothbrush, you called my mother mama, you knew all my friends, and half of my wardrobe was already in your closet! That was what it was like to be overcome by the Zac Hanson tornado, to be carried away into your peculiar brand of Oz that always smelled like bubblegum and felt like the heated rush of winning at your favorite racing game in the arcade.
I was too full of myself and my righteous indignation to notice the betrayal on your face, or the way you flew to your feet and ran to step in front of me. I definitely feel for anyone who is stupid enough to piss you off, though, because when your bulk ground to an obstinate halt in front of me I was seriously afraid. You would never hurt me, and what really made my heart clatter to a frozen standstill in my chest wasn't your six feet, or even the muscles you've attained from many years of football and soccer, but instead the cold look of pain in your eyes. "Take it back." That was all you said. "Take it back." Like we were second graders on the playground and there were some magical words that could make it all go away, and could make it all get better.
"What do you mean, take it back? We both it's the truth!" My anger was withering away as I watched you shake a little, hovering somewhere between tears and physical violence.
"Take it back."
Taylor was chortling on the grass, having apparently been smoking through our argument and enjoying the chain of events he had set into motion very much indeed. I don't know if you've noticed, but to many years of singing, of abusing his vocal cords, of living a little to fast and a little to long, has stolen from him the ability to really laugh. Instead what issues from his mouth is a raspy hawing like a sixty-year-old with emphysema. We stopped to look at him and the shadows that gathered around him, casting his fine features in sketchwork and charcoal.
My glance swiveled to you as you watched him, Zac, and I saw a little bit of Taylor's earlier disgust in your face. It's like what one of you is the others are too, automatically and completely. Taylor didn't like to see you being what he felt was childish because in your actions he saw himself. And right then, in your mind you were sitting on the grass, laughing with the broken voice upon which you had built so much of your world.
"I'm sorry." I whispered, before you turned to look back at me. "I'm sorry." It felt funny to talk at a normal decibel level after my unaccustomed bout of screaming, like I couldn't be heard by anyone but me.
"Just remember," you had said, gaze wavering between me and your still laughing brother, "just remember that there's no Robin Hood."
It took a second for your words to work there through my mind to find meaning to me, but when they did, I wanted to cry. Because you were right, because there was no Robin Hood, but mostly because I knew that that fact would never stop anyone from looking for him.
I'm going to go apologize to my mother now. She didn't deserve what I said to her.
-Lydia
Zac Hanson today underwent an operation that a spokesperson from Hillcrest Medical Center reported may save his life. According to Dr. Jose Torres, newly appointed Hillcrest chief of Surgery, "we have done everything we can. All that is left now is to wait, and to hope." 19 year old Hanson is listed in critical condition.
Letter 5
Zac-
When my Mother and I finally found the Intensive Care Unit at Hillcrest it had probably been an hour since I heard. Nothing seemed quite real, though, and it wouldn't until we rounded an antiseptic corner to find Charlie sitting in a barren waiting room, his elbows on his knees and head in hands. It was then that I Knew, in that one second as he raised his glance in response to the clatter of our shoes in the silent, chill air I realized the truth. His eyes were red and puffy, his perpetually flawless hair ruffled and his mouth a narrow, bitter red gash torn in the white of his face. Charlie who was always in control, Charlie who never seemed to really care about anyone, was sitting vigil right there in the pale room, hot tears barely dried on his cheeks.
He sat in one corner of a small cluster of chairs, a low glass topped table by his side covered with a litter of coffee cups and tissue. My mom went to him first, I think, recognizing him from one of the hundreds of times that the four of us -- you, me, Angie, and Charlie -- had spent long, careless afternoons watching videos sprawled across her living room. At the time I hadn't even taken pause to wonder what he was doing there, but eventually I realized he must have been working his usual morning shift in the hospital kitchen when you had been admitted, and perhaps some of his pallor could have been traced back to the all white uniform that was required of him there. Charlie looked stunned, horrified, and nauseated all at once as my mother approached him, saying his name softly, a delicate whisper designed to not startle.
I think she asked him how he was. Funny, huh? That life goes on even though time seems to stand still, that we keep on breathing even as the Earth seems to have frozen in its rotation.
"The Hansons are down the hall," he answered her query, slouching backwards into the molded plastic of his chair. "I just came out here to… get some air." Most of what I've written in these letters has been self-indulgent whining, probably not fit to show another human being, but I want to remember that moment just as it was: the way weak beams of sunlight struggled into the room through a set of heavily shaded windows, the way the stenciled green border that ran across the beige walls wasn't quite even, the way I suddenly felt like I understood Charlie as I never had before. The expressions that flashed across his face mimicked the constant cycling of my emotions, the sadness, the fear, the hurt, the worry.
"We'll just go in and see how things are going," my mother spoke for the both of us, taking my shoulder and leading me down the wide hallway in the direction Charlie had gestured. Everything was a blur when we left him, as if I was trapped in a movie and someone had finally become frustrated and decided to fast forward. Doctors and nurses flashed past us as we walked, little more than streaks of white or deep green. Paintings which hung at regular intervals on the walls seemed to blur together, forming two parallel lines smeared across my line of sight, composed of fragments of sunflowers and seascapes and moonlight.
If there's one thing I would never expect your family to be it is silent, but on Tuesday that's exactly what they were, sitting inert as mannequins in a slightly smaller waiting room than the one Charlie had been seeking refuge in. The walls here were whiter, the furniture more formal, the brightness of overhead fluorescence making the whole thing seem to be a backdrop to some melodramatic play.
Your mother wasn't there when we first arrived, instead it was your father who was watching over Zoë and Mackie as they did their best to entertain themselves with a single coloring book filled with pages that I could see even from the doorway were yellowed with age.
I found my voice there, among some of the people that I have over the past two years come to consider a part of my own family. "Mr. Hanson," I said to get his attention, my voice too loud even at a whisper.
"Walker, Lydia, call me Walker." Even in a time of crisis like that, he appeared to be totally calm. The only marks that betrayed his worry were two red splotches that blossomed on his cheeks, that and the faint stubble on his face that made it obvious that your father had left the house that morning without taking the time to shave.
My mother and I stood awkwardly for a second, uncertain of what to do. "Come sit down," your dad indicated the empty chairs beside him. "We haven't been able to get in to see him yet, but the doctors are saying that he's stabilized for the moment. Diana is trying to get in touch with Isaac, and Taylor is already booked on the next flight from school." His voice didn't shake as he brought us up to speed on the situation, but he didn't tell me the one thing I really wanted to hear. He didn't say, "this was all just one big joke, you know. Zac's going to come popping out from behind that couch over there, and he's going to think it's so funny that you actually believed any of this." He didn't say, "it's just a scratch. We're waiting for the nurse to get him one of those green and black camouflage Band-Aids like the ones Diana buys for Mackie."
The three of them watched us sit down, eyes round with worry, and we began to wait. That was the worst part, I think. The waiting. There was nothing to do, and even if there had been it's not like anyone would have been able to concentrate on a distraction for more than two seconds at a time. Zoë and Mackie didn't seem to really know what to make of the situation, and their muted discussion over the appropriate shades with which to fill their current project seemed dull and muted.
I had sat next to your dad, and after a few seconds of staring straight ahead he began to talk to me in that calm, soothing voice of his. "Are you starting to get packed for school? Zac's been putting of getting ready for Paris, and it's driving Diana wild."
"I have a few days before I really have to get my act together, and today was my last shift for the summer at work, so I'll have some free time to pack," I answered. I think he was trying to take my mind off the situation at hand, in a typical Mr. Hanson sort of way. I had never seen him worry, or get worked up, or put himself first, even in a time of crisis like the one that had us in its grip right then.
I suspect that he would have continued on that path, but your mother entered the room in a mist of glistening blond hair and soft perfume. "Lydia, Cathy, I'm glad you were able to come. I don't know as we can really do anything here, but I know how much it would mean to Zac if you were here when he woke up." She too seemed calm, but when she reached out to touch my hand I could see her nails had been bitten ragged, nearly bloody. A look was exchanged between your parents, and your Mom took a seat on the other side of your Dad. "Emily's brother is going to fly them down in his plane," she informed him quietly. "They should be here around the same time as Taylor."
I wanted to think that what was happening wasn't all that serious, and the demeanor of your parents made my fiction seem almost plausible. Could they be so relaxed if you were really hurt? Wouldn't they be crying, or fighting with the doctor, or dedicating a song to you on Delilah? Aren't those the things that people do when they're sad or afraid? It seemed to me that they shouldn't take up a conversation about gardening, as did your mother only a few seconds after entering the room. "The shoots from that honeysuckle bush you gave me are growing so well," she began, directing her comments to my shaken looking mother.
"I'm shocked that it's doing so well by the porch like that. I wouldn't have thought there would be enough sunlight," Walker had interjected when her words died in the air, withered, unanswered, and uncertain.
"Well, you know we used to have the bush out behind the garage when Lydia was younger, but it never really took there." My mom finally picked up the ball, looking uncertainly at me. She knew your parents well enough, but times like this are too different. People change under stress, dealing with it in ways often totally unexpected. I remember the day after my Grandmother died last winter how Aunt Irene had given her mother's house its most thorough cleaning ever, washing all the hidden places beneath counters and over doorframes. Even though Grandmoo would never see any of these things, never see her house glistening with care, Aunt Irene had done it. She and my mother would sell the house less than two months later, but during that time she continued the ceaseless regimin of cleaning that would have made her mother proud. Irene had wanted to hold on to the past, to cling to whatever vestige of normalcy that could be found. That's what your parents were doing then, I think, trying to fill their minds with the immaterial, the passing, the unimportant, in hopes of avoiding the dark realities that lurked all around them.
A doctor entered the waiting room then, his pristine white scrubs seeming to blend into the monochromatic walls. He held the dark wooden door to the hallway open with one hand and surveyed our little group, a tentatively nervous look on his weathered face. "Mrs. Hanson, Mr. Hanson?"
Your parents stares were their response to his query, making them look a little like deer in headlights. They must have known something that I didn't, even then, and the terror on their faces was enough to twist my stomach into stinging knots and send waves of sharp pain running beneath my temples. They were scared. Really scared. And they didn't want to identify themselves to the doctor because they were afraid what he had to say.
"I'd like to talk to the two of you in private, if I could." They rose hesitantly, your father smoothing his wrinkled khakis, apparently on their second day of wear, and taking your mother's hand tightly before walking towards the doctor.
They stepped into the hall, and I don't think they knew we could hear. The door was open a crack, though, and their words floated in, despite my best attempts to remain shielded from them.
The doctor's first solemn words were that you only had a fifty percent chance of making it through the day. I will never forget, however much I wish I could, the way your father whimpered, trying to block the noise by biting on the edge of his fist. The doctor, looking barely older than Isaac, apologized. The damage was too great to repair, but that if you continued to live and remained stable for the next day or two, they could attempt an operation to relieve the dangerous brain stem swelling that had been caused when you hit your head.
I tried so hard not to listen, not wanting to know these horrible things, cursing fate for the first of many times that day. Why you? What was it about you that had stood out like a lightening rod, telling god or nature or whomever it was that handled such things that you were ripe to be a victim? I could write his exact words here, if I could bear to relive them. All the conversations in these letters have been seasoned with my imagination, but each and ever syllable that that doctor uttered to your parents will never leave my mind. I can hear them now, a threatening whisper prowling through my thoughts, a whisper I would do anything to stop.
The doctor stepped away for a second, his attention stolen from your parents by one a nurse stepping up beside him and whispering something I couldn't hear. That was the worst moment, I think; your father took your mother in his arms then, finally breaking, finally crying, clinging to her desperately with neck bent and forehead on her shoulder. Your mom was so brave, more so than I can imagine any human being ever having been in the history of the world. She just stood strong for him, her eyes clenched tight, her pale hands tracing delicate patterns on your dad's shaking back. Her soft voice slid to me, "it will be all right. God will watch over our baby."
Maybe she was right, maybe your God did decide that it was about time he give you some protection, because you continue to draw breath even now, three days later. You live on in that sterile hospital room, your skin paper white, a thick blue plastic tube stuck through a hole in your neck, allowing you to breathe. I'm almost glad you haven't woken up. That's such a horrible thing to say, but even as it's horror strikes me, I know that if seeing you like this is scary for me, it would be a million times worse for you. Your beautiful hair has been shaved off. Your perfect face has been… but I don't want to write this. The mercy of your coma is that it may protect you from realizing what has happened, and if you ever do read this, you won't want to know. And I want to forget.
It's called cerebral edema, what's wrong with you; I don't think anyone wanted me to know, as if those words would bear some meaning. If it remained a mystery, though, I think it would have almost made it worse. Some unseen, unnamed specter would be threatening to take you away. And how could I stop it if I can't understand it? I couldn't, I can't. And I don't think the doctors can, either. They look at us as we sit in that same waiting room all day, putting forward their professional expressions and crisp words designed to be just comforting enough. When they're alone, though, white coats amongst white coats, I can see their faces change, stiffen, harden, and I can hear their words slip into murmurs reminiscent of those of the first morning: "negative prognosis" and "85% chance of failure."
-Lydia
Letter 6-
Zac-
The Barrys from next door had to go to Maddie's basketball game tonight, and they couldn't really bring a two year old with chicken pox. I was volunteered by my mom to baby-sit for little Minnie when they couldn't find another sitter. The tiny red-haired girl was so desperate to itch that it litterally hurt to watch her, and she spent most of her time in a hot oatmeal bath. Do you remember when Zoë came down with them last summer? She was all I could think about tonight, and I kept remembering our firefly escapade. Remember how she watched them glow as she was trapped in her room that night? There aren't many big brothers who would do what you did, and I don't know if there are many big brother's best friends who would be so proud of them for it. Capturing a firefly is no easy task, after all.
"I can't catch it, Zac!" I remember laughing as I nearly lost my balance desperately swinging a running 360, in hot pursuit of one of the hundreds of luminescent insects that had apparently made your backyard their home for the summer. "It's too fast! And I hate bugs."
"And I hate bugs?" You had laughed in response to my horror at the prospect of actually touching one of the creatures, however beautiful they may have been. "They're fireflies, Lydie. They're like stars, right here in our reach. They're perfection! You can hardly be afraid of that." There was awe in your voice, a humbled tremor that I don't think you were aware of.
The older I've gotten, the more I think of your words that night. It wasn't about the bugs, and never really was, just like it wasn't about the straight A's in French class, or the thousands of albums you sold, or even the money in the bank. Not for you. Instead your world revolves around seeing the good in everything, and taking joy in the little triumphs of the world, in the gossamer, silken shimmer of a colony of bugs going about their lives in the backwoods of Oklahoma. Life was your perfection.
Above us in the cobolt heavens hung the real stars, never more distant for me than on that night. The fireflies, the biological lightening streaking through the sky, teased us with their untouchable closeness, as did their distant cosmic counterparts. I finally gave up in my attempts to actually capture the bugs, and rather simply delighted in the feel of the grass against my feet, already slick with dew, and the removed hum of your mother's easy -listening station, floating to us on the timid, hot July breeze.
You stood still in one place, the Crocodile Dundee of the firefly world, waiting for the tell-tale glow of one of the bugs to alert you to it's location, but I didn't follow suit. Instead I flitted about, dreaming of making my own light. Your calm, measured attempts to catch them were the way to go, there was no doubt in my mind, and so I'm sure you understood my utter shock at finding one of our targets hovering on a flower before me, a tiny lightbulb fighting against the resolute night that fell all around. For an instant I stopped, watched the lazily circuitous path of the seemingly captured day, and held my breath in giddy uncertainty.
"You can get it, Lydia. Just put your hands around it, softly…" You whispered from behind me, and I felt you stepping close. The sky was so big, so inlaid with diamonds of starshine, that I wasn't sure if I should even try. This light here wasn't so different from what that which was above: it was delicate; it was independent. I didn't want dirty it with my touch. But Zoë was upstairs, fighting the insatiable yearning to scratch that I could vividly remember from my chickenpocked days, even years later. I remember thinking that for her I would do it, so we could bring the little miracle to her bedside, so she could see the its wonder, too.
I did as you said, stretched out my arms inch by cautious inch, until I could cup the firefly within my hands. Its feet were soft on my skin, and for an instant I could feel the panicked flutter of its fine wings. "Don't hurt it." You voice was even softer now, despite the predator's need for silence being at an end. From the picnic table you collected the old mayonnaise jar your mother had given us, and we wound our concentration around the safe transference of the tiny life. I remember the look on your face, barely visible in the dim yard, and I remember the way you held the ancient looking glass container with one hand, using your other to steady mine.
"I won't hurt it," I think I answered. Funny that about that night I remember no particulars. It's like a dream to me, the way the moon was rising from behind your house, the way we cast shadows in its radiance. Usually I recall entire bits of our conversations, whole afternoons of video games sprawled on the beige carpeting of my living room, complete mornings playing Marco Polo with Mackie and Zoë in your parent's pool. All that I know is that we somehow introduced the firefly to its temporary home, and that you let me carry it into the house. I wasn't afraid any more; instead I was fascinated by the thick body of the insect, and the way it lit up from within every few seconds.
I have since learned that the myth of mermaids began when sailors came across manatees, lying languidly near Florida coastlines. I wonder if Faeries had begun like that? With a tempting glimmer in the dark, with the gentle beating wings on skin. I wouldn't be shocked, because there's something magical about the sight of a firefly, and maybe even a hint of the frightening in the inability of the ignorant to understand them.
Zoë was already in bed, her bright yellow big bird nightgown bringing out the summer brown of her arms and legs. I don't think your mom said anything as we flipped on Zoe's lightswitch, instead coming to stand outside the teletubby-covered door, watching with a smile on her face as you sat beside your sister's sleeping form. "Zoë… we have something to show you."
She awoke slowly, stretching and yawning, her first unconscious act to scratch at one of the hydrocortisone covered spots on her arm. "Huh?" You two have always looked a little alike, with your impossibly blonde hair and velvety soft brown eyes, but I don't remember any time that it was so plain to see as when you stared with obvious delight at the flickering firefly. "You caught it for me?" She too was awed, and I knelt in front of you both, holding the jar aloft to allow you better views. "Wow…" Zoë wasn't even initially afraid of the bug, I guess because any girlish tendencies toward fear were drowned out by her innately Hanson sense of wonder.
"I didn't realize how big they were…" I watched the animal pawing at the glass, stumped by the unknown barrier.
"That's probably the biggest I've ever seen," you answered, nose nearly pressed up against the side of the jar. "And I've been catching these things since you were in diapers."
"Um… then you were in diapers too!"
"Well, duh. That's the point." An exaggerated eyebrow raise later you grinned, your face distorted with the whims of the glass.
"If you don't want to traumatize the firefly too badly you should return it to its home," your mother had interjected from her position at the doorway, an armful of clean linens balanced on her hip.
"We can't keep it?" Zoë asked, apparently envisioning a new pet.
Your mom was about to say something something, but you stepped in. "It would miss its family if we kept it. Can you imagine some strangers taking you away from us? You would be so sad."
Zoë would probably have nightmares that night, her thoughts impregnated by your scarily true assessment of the plight of our captive. "Then we have to bring it back to its Mommy." Her voice was full of martyrdom as we watched the bug finally settle, quivering in one corner of its small prison.
That's what we did, the four of us. You, your mom, Zoë and I carried the jar to the backyard and stood barefoot on the chill hardwood of the patio with the firefly on your picnic table between us. At first the creature was hesitant to fly away, and clinging to the glass. Finally, though, you picked up the jar, shaking it gently towards the stars above. The firefly gave in, floating to freedom, briefly circling an enraptured Zoë before disappearing.
We all stood there for a few moments, and I remember marveling at the seemingly countless pinpricks of brilliance that danced all around us. "Thank you guys for bringing him to me," Zoë stood between you and I, grabbing our hands when your mother finally demanded that we return her to bed, "and thank you for setting him free."
Minnie Barry is no Zoë, though, and I'm certainly no you. There were no fireflies tonight, only a babysitter who could barely keep from crying.
-Lydia
Letter 7-
Zac-
This time last year we were getting ready to accompany my mom on her yearly visit to Aunt Irene's in Old Orchard. I've spent at least a few days from every summer of my life there, watching sunsets over endless glittering expanses of the Gulf of Mexico and bonding with the aid of ridiculously girlie movies rented by my mom and her only sister. They're all the family I have, and after becoming for all intents and purposes the eighth Hanson child I had really wanted to introduce you to this part of my life. I wonder if you saw ghosts of mom or Irene shadowing my smile the way I can see your father behind each and every crooked Zac Hanson grin?
I think you had fun there. Old Orchard has always been a sort of second home to me, and I would have sworn I knew its every road and diversion just as well as I knew those of Tulsa. I would have sworn, that is, until last summer. With you there everything seemed different, more intensely alive, more exotic, more fun. The sun never could have been as bright, the water never such a shocking breath of life against my skin, as it was that week we spent together eating leisurely breakfasts at noon on Aunt Irene's deck and swimming in the green ocean until we were wrinkled, exhausted, and burned.
For some reason, when I think of that week my mind is always drawn to our last day of vacation freedom together. The sweetness of being near you, of being able to say absolutely whatever was on my mind and be assured that there was someone who would understand, was all the more powerful because we were beginning to realize that the semester we were about to spend apart, you at ORU and me at OKU, would be brutal.
I remember trying to teach you how to do a handstand as we had walked home one last time from the old fashioned wooden boardwalk where we had spent so much time, playing video games and eating greasy-sweet funnel cakes. "Just bend forward, put your arms out, and push with your legs," I had struggled to explain, following my own instructions to perform a textbook maneuver which left me hovering above the beach, balanced precariously. I kept pace with you momentarily, walking forward with my palms flat on the silky cool sand.
"Okay, Nadia, I get the point. Stop rubbing your expertise in already," you laughed, watching my awkward progression at your side.
"This defiance of gravity is brought to you by five years of gymnastics and one of ballet," I had assured you while attempting to gracefully right myself. Of course, being Lydia and all, my landing wasn't quite what I had hoped. A small sand-slide and a few nasty words later, I was seated in an ignoble heap just inches away from the meekly lapping remians of waves which had risen high at their pinicle.
"Five years of gymnastics and one of ballet, huh? I must be pretty gifted because I bet I could fall like that without having so much as touched a leotard in my life." You had chortled at me from your position standing upon the sea-smoothened dunes. People swarmed all around us in the haze of the humid afternoon, playing volleyball, swimming, building sandcastles, the air sweetened by their coconut tanning lotion and heated by the low hanging sun.
"I did that on purpose, thank you very much. It's time for a rest break." I asserted, reaching out to knock the back of your knee with one hand, throwing you out of balance and prompting you to take a seat next to me.
"You know, being a ballerina and all, I bet you're an amazing dancer." Your bare shoulder brushed mine, and I can still so vividly remember silently admiring the way your skin glowed orangey-tan from long days spent outside.
"You've known me for like three years. Have you ever once seen me dance?" I had asked, sure that you were baiting me.
"Actually, I don't think so." You sounded genuinely puzzled.
"Do you suppose there's a reason for that?" I had stretched out my legs to intercept the slight caress of a dying wave, watching the ocean and smiling to myself.
I do that a lot when you're around, smile, that is. Maybe a person only has so many smiles in the course of a lifetime. Do you think? Maybe at birth a god or the God assigned a number, a figure encapsulating the total potential for happiness in a life. It could be that only so many Christmas mornings, first kisses and new houses can fit into this allotment, and when they're gone, maybe it's over. Maybe the point of living is lost. If asked before I met you I would probably have said that fate hadn't afforded me many of those smiles, or maybe that I would have to live a long, long time before using them all up. Now I'm not so sure. Ever since I've known you I have smiled -- to myself, to little kids on the bus, to deep green trees living peaceful lives sturdy and still. You, Zac, must have had an extraordinary number of smiles granted to you, a number dizzyingly high in comparison to the average human. Even if… even if you've run out, you have still smiled more than so many people could ever dare dream of.
"A reason not to dance? You're actually an amputee and you've just hidden it well?" You threw a tiny handful of sand at me, sand it seemed I would be picking out of my hair for weeks.
"Think Elaine Benis from those Seinfeld re-runs. There's a reason why I only did ballet for a year. The lady who taught me finally got sick of me tripping around and ruining her exquisitely planned parents' night shows." I had explained.
"You couldn't have been that bad!"
"Interesting that you can still say that even after seeing my stunning performance of less than two minutes ago?" I didn't like where the conversation was going, not at all.
"It's not like anyone cares what you look like! Clubs are so dark and sweaty that no one would even notice you shuddering or hurting yourself."
"So you say now."
"Then it's settled. We're going dancing tonight."
"Um… where?" I reasoned, praying that practicality would win out and allow me to avoid attempting to shake my groove thing. "There aren't any under 21 places around here."
"But of course there are. Right on the end of the pier. Remember? We saw it our first night here when Irene had an ice-cream craving?" Of course you talked me into it, whittling my resistance further and further down as we continued our trek home.
It's not that I really dislike dancing, or even that I'm as whiney a pain in the butt as I seem to be coming off in these letters, but whenever you're around you constantly stretch my limits, getting me to try new things and break out of the quiet and shy archetypal character I've always acted as in my life.
When we had arrived at the small all-ages club several hours later, the sun had long since disappeared from the sky to be replaced with the tiniest sliver of a silver moon. The dance floor was so beautiful.. set behind a bar, hidden from the shore by the squat building which forced the eye towards the quicksilver black of the sea that surrounded it on all sides. The air had been stifling and the smell of the sea amazingly strong, overcoming even the odors of flesh and cigarette smoke. A wooden railing, laced with brilliant white Christmas lights along its length, was the only separation from the water offered by the pier, and I remember thinking that I would be amazed if people didn't frequently find themselves floating after performing a particularly athletic dance move. Music embraced us as soon as we stepped onto the floor, as thick and palpable as the dark of the night. Fifty or sixty bodies moved in time with the buzz of a dance mix, looking almost like a continuation of the quivering sea.
"Now what?" I had asked, nervously eyeing the people who had made a small space to allow us to step onto the worn, weather scoured-wooden dance floor.
"Now we dance." You had screamed over the music, breaking into something that could indeed probably have been loosely defined as a dance. You weren't really good at it, despite your former occupation as a drummer, but you totally gave yourself over to the beat, moving freely and without thought.
This had apparently been all that I needed to loosen up, because before long I was right there beside you, throbbing with music in the protective shadow of the night, abandoning rationality and just moving, regardless of what anyone may have thought of my gyrations.
We must have separated just enough to give people the impression that I was alone, because before the end of the song I found myself the partner of a stranger. The next morning I remember my mom inquiring if "any boys had asked me to dance." They hadn't, I told her, but this didn't mean I had remained with you for the entire night. Maybe when our parents were young, boys had really asked girls to dance, maybe that was my mother met my father. But now, though, it's different. Eye contact is permission and partners are traded in the blink of an eye -- turn left and you're facing someone new, turn right and another man is hungry for attention.
It must have been the crowd's awareness of the impending end of summer that late August night which had made it so crazy. You had, being with all probability the best looking boy in the club, wound up dancing with two pretty blondes, alternating between them as the mood struck you. "Hey," you had whispered in my ear as chance drew us near, your voice barely distinguishable. "I bet I can pick up more girls than you can pick up guys." You were kidding, I'm sure, but I didn't even care. Right then I was so involved with the air on my skin and the thunder of the music for your words to hold much weight.
"Is that a challenge?" I had asked, turning to move with you for several seconds, abandoning my new found friend.
"Most definitely!" You were laughing at my change of attitude, pulling your self in close to grind against me for an instant.
"So we're tied… for now," I teased, wondering if I could really set my reservations aside and play your little game.
"I don't think so, Chiquita. There were two of them," you had emphatically reminded me, pointing to where the blondes continued to dance alone, apparently not even noticing you were missing.
"Fine, fine.." I gave in, even though as we watched the girls shared a long, slow kiss that proved exactly how interested they had been in you as a partner.
"Maybe I should actually get extra points for them." You muttered, mostly to yourself as you settled on a new target across the floor and began to move in her direction.
We must have kept our little contest running for hours, because before I knew it the moon was receding towards the distant horizon, and I was sore and tired. I had had at least 12 partners since we agreed on the bet, and I remember feeling insanely proud of myself. I'm normal looking, I guess, maybe pretty to those who find my straight black hair and dark ocher skin exotically attractive, but under normal circumstances I wouldn't even have considered trying to dance with all those guys. But I owe that to you, of course, you who have a tendency to make circumstances the exact opposite of normal.
I could see you across the rapidly emptying deck, dancing so close with exactly the type of model-perfect girl I've always thought you deserved that I found myself more than a little jealous. She had lifted her long red hair in her upraised arms, exposing a perfectly flat stomach as her already miniscule shirt was pulled up by her stretch. I felt silly for the first time that night as I watched you, thinking that my khaki shorts and yellow T-shirt probably looked glaringly out of place around girls like that.
These feelings were why I think I didn't really mind when I found myself facing a new man, this one several years older than us and reeking unpleasantly of alcohol. Familiar chords began to pour from the speaker system, and I couldn't help but crack what must have been a huge grin as one of my all time favorite songs blasted through the dim night.
"You can dance, you can jive, having the time of your life," Abba sang, erasing my thoughts and agreeably filling my mind. The man I was dancing with was named David, as he informed me with a toothy yell. He must have taken my smile of recognition as an invitation, because by the time the Queen of all trash pop songs got to the line, "anybody could be that guy, the night is young and the music high," his arms formed a strong cage around my waist, pulling me towards him and sending his clammy breath shivering down my neck.
His hair was greasy, his clothes wrinkled, and I had tried so hard to back away without making a big deal of it, and for a while it was okay. I remember looking back in your direction, half hoping you'd come to my rescue and save me from this stranger's pawing hands, only to find you far closer to the redhaired girl than I was to the greaseball, not to mention showing no signs of displeasure at the situation.
I had given up on that route, instead pulling myself even further away from my unwelcome partner, searching through the dark for another set of eyes to latch on to, for another man to dance with. It didn't do much good, though, because David, his short brown hair ruffled and his eyes bloodshot, followed each of my movements until I finally found myself with my back against one of the sparkling railings. The man, who I had at this point realized was blind drunk, slide ever closer. In the dark no one noticed, no one cared as his hands came to rest on my hips, his dark alcohol smell hanging shroudlike around me.
"Um, I have to use the restroom," I had screamed over Abba, using the universally accepted desperate girls' ploy to ditch unwanted attention. He ignored me, though, instead sliding his hands under my shirt, leaving what felt like sticky trails on my sides as he mouthed "you're a tease and you turn him on, leave him burning," with the music. I don't know if you ever knew how freaked out I was at that moment, and I'm not even sure why I was to begin with. We were in public, it's not as if anything really serious was going to come of this guy's wandering hands, but I nevertheless felt panic surging, thick and hot, in my chest.
"Please!" I protested, shoving his him away, repulsed by his touch.
"Don't be a tease," he had pushed me hard against the railing, his lips wet on my neck.
Chest tightening with panic, I had pled "let go!" I've never been so disgusted in my entire life, or felt so out of control. There were people all around, but the wicked shimmer in his dark eyes gave me every indication that he didn't really care. He was hard against my leg, rubbing himself forcibly on the skin left bare by my shorts. Giving up caring about making a scene, I braced myself and prepared to shove him back with all my fury-intensified strength. The music was so loud, the lights so faint, my heart thudding so powerfully with fear and anger, that I felt like the world must have been spinning intoxicatedly around me.
You were there, Zac, a heartbeat after my frustration spiraled out of control, a second after the random man placed a hand high up on my left leg. "Leave her alone!" You had shoved him away from me, apparently spurred on to anger by the desperation that must have contorted my face. I was weak with relief at my newfound freedom, and wanted to do nothing more than throw my arms around you and bury my face in your broad chest, shutting out the rest of the world. That night at Old Orchard certainly wouldn't be the last time I would have to fight this urge, but, until now, it had been the hardest to conquer.
Six feet of Zac Hanson is definitely more than enough to give anyone pause, and the drunk eased his grip on me for the breath it took me to slink away. "She's with me," David had protested, slurring his words and listing dangerously on his feet now that de didn't have me to lean on.
"I don't think so." You cast me a shaky smile, taking my hand and stepping close enough for me to smell your minty shampoo. The nearness of you slowed my pulse, and the steady pressure of your touch was dizzyingly welcome after the gropings of the man who now reeled before us.
"Well I do. She's leaving with me tonight." People had begun to notice, giving up on their dancing and forming a voyeuristic circle around our argument.
"Definitely not." I had replied. I still can't even believe that happened, really. I can't believe that a person like David, the creep, could inhabit the same world as someone like you.
"Come on, Lydie. Let's get out of here." You were preaching to the choir on that one. I was halfway to the sidewalk leading back towards shore when I realized you, who must have been listening to the man's words even as I was too flooded with relief to notice, weren't with me.
"Slut. Freaking whore." The man was shouting as I turned towards the two of you, stepping as menacingly towards me as anyone that totally smashed could.
I remember you standing between us, the twinkling Christmas lights reflected by your smooth hair, a look of extreme revulsion turning your features hard, making you look like a statue, the lost Michelangelo, perfect, strong, and beautifully young.
"You're going to leave her alone, aren't you?" I was utterly unable to move as I watched you stepping towards him, your voice thick with rage.
"Zac, come on. Let's blow this place. He's to drunk to bother anyone, really." I overcame whatever was holding me back - digust, anger, or maybe even fear - and was at your side before the man was able to reply. I could see his eyes fluttering between us, uncertain but vicious.
"Like she didn't want it," I feel dirty even thinking about the way he looked at me, like his gaze imparted a stain on my mind that I'll never be able to get rid of.
"Asshole." I don't think I've ever heard you swear before or since this incident, but you looked like the words you actually said were the most polite on your mind.
"You know how women are, buddy. They lead you on…" I was furious; after totally violating me this guy trying to make me look like some kind of slut by screaming his antediluvian stereotypes over the throb of the unremarkable rap song that had taken the place of Dancing Queen.
You were not amused. I remember being flooded with horror as you stepped towards the man, placing one hand flat on his chest and backing him towards the railing. I was scared by the entire scene, by David, by your behavior, by my inability to defend myself. Standing there, arms and legs tingling with goose-bumps, I thought I was seeing the same fear reflected in your actions. I had never seen you hurt another human being, or threaten one. But right then, you were going to do what it took to make sure that I was okay, and that David would think twice before trying the same thing on anyone else.
The crowd that had built around us, looking worn and frazzled after hours of uninterrupted music, snickered en-masse as they realized what you were about to do. One step in his direction, two, three, and the tipsy guy, looking terrified, had his back to the same four-foot high rail he had had me pinned against only minutes before.
He barely made a splash as you advanced upon him the final centimeter that sent him sprawling into the starlight silvered water surrounding the pier.
You told me afterwards that you knew he wouldn't be hurt, that the water was deep enough to break his barely five-foot fall, but I waited, breathless, for sounds of the man's struggle in the water below. Finally it came, a loud, sputtering "you bastard!"
One of the bouncers we had passed to enter the club so long ago, a strong black man with a smoothly shaved head, had crossed the floor by then, laying a hand on your shoulder. "You should clear out. I bet he deserved it, but we don't want any fighting here"
"We're on our way out," you had replied, your voice back to normal, your fists relaxing from their clenched positions at your side. I swear a lot of the women who had remained at the club till the late hour had to fight to keep from clapping as you left. It made me feel so safe to have the honor of your protection.
I remember how quiet we were on the long walk home, and how shy I felt as we stayed further towards the lights of the hotels that lined the beach than the somehow vaguely threatening dark surf. About halfway to Irene's you took my hand and held it as we walked, not letting go even when I fumbled with the lock on the little vacation house where we were staying.
We never talk about that night, but sometimes I notice me looking at me with that intense caramel gaze of yours, and I can almost hear your words that finally came after we hastily got ready for bed, brushing our teeth side by side in Aunt Irene's only bathroom. You had slept in the living room on the fold out couch every night before that one, but after I put my pajamas on and lay beneath a single, crisp sheet patterned with stripes and tiny flowers I had heard knocking on the closed door of the tiny attic bedroom that had been mine on those summer visits for as long as I can remember.
"Lydie?" you asked hesitantly through the door after a second of still hush.
"Come in." I remember you looking like a little kid going to mommy and daddy's room after a nightmare, a pillow clutched in one arm and the sunflower blanket from the couch draped over one shoulder.
"Do you mind?" You stood, shilouted in the brightness of the hallway, your voice almost painfully tender.
"Course not. This bed is more than big enough for both of us," I answered, unaccountably grateful for your presence. Somehow I could still feel that stranger's hands on me, could still smell the liquor on his breath, and it made me afraid. Nothing had worked to free me from the ill-will of a stranger, not words, not force. He was all around me as you entered the room, closing the door with a soft thud behind you and plunging us into semi-dark.
"I'll sleep on the floor. I'm sorry." I think your fury had left you just as scared as I had been by my inability to act.
"No you won't. Get in here." I held the sheet aloft with one arm, probably to you resembling a B-movie specter. "The world will not end if I share a bed with my best friend." I coaxed, and I remember just wanting you close to me worse than I've ever wanted anything before.
"Are you sure?" You sounded like a baby, younger than Zoë even, as your shadow tentatively approached the bed.
"Just get in here already," I had pushed over until my back was against the blue flowered wall, until there was no escape. I wasn't afraid, though, as you hesitantly stretched out beside me with a squeak of the bedsprings. Even though it must have been 100 degrees in my slope-roofed room you spread the blanket over both of us, only resting when we were covered from toes to chin. I had at this point known you for nearly two years, and my shyness was gone in your presence, leaving me less than shocked as you unthinkingly throw an arm around me as we lay facing each other on the bed, knees bent to brush and faces inches apart. That night was the first time we really touched like that. Our contact had been simple at first, unintentionally brushing hands as we walked side by side, or holding hands to avoid getting lost in crowds, but eventually I think we both grew to find solace in the feeling of holding each other. Of course, later, things would be different. But our last night at the beach would be almost a year away before anything really changed.
"I'm sorry for making you go." You had mournfully murmured, sad and apologetic all at once.
"Zac, don't be. I had fun. One jerk doesn't ruin an evening." I tried to assure you, and after a few seconds I realized it was true. I had had enjoyed that night, despite its ending.
We were silent for a long while before you continued: "you're my best friend. I know that you're beautiful, but sometimes I forget… I don't know… how other guys see you." As I began to adjust to the dark, I could tell that your eyes were closed. Your breath was whispery soft against my face, and smelled like crest.
"Thank you for helping me. And ditching your gorgeous girl." I broke into your words, your stream of verbal confusion that showed no signs of abating.
"Anytime. She didn't know who Abba was. I could never have a relationship with someone who didn't own at least one of their albums." You pulled closer, and I so clearly remember how you felt against me, warm and rhymicaly moving with each breath, that it feels like it was seconds ago.
"You know." I pretended to muse over something for an instant, "I own Abba's greatest hits. On Vinyl."
"Duh. Why do you think I hang out with you?" The moment which had engulfed us since the pier had passed, and the shy nervousness that I had begun to feel around you dissolved as we laughed, finding ourselves once again what we have always been.
"In the future, though, you can feel free to refrain from throwing strangers into large bodies of water, no matter how offensive they may be." I found myself continuing to giggle at the memory of the splash David had made as he hit the no doubt frigid ocean.
"I didn't really throw him. I just intimidated him into falling. A simple process, really." After another long pause, "You really had fun?", a smile I couldn't see lingering in your words.
"Totally! I got twelve points, by the way. Thirteen counting the last guy and 14 counting extra for his depth of obsession with me." I bet our laughter at this point must have been more than loud enough to wake my Mom and Aunt Irene downstairs.
"Thirteen, here. Fourteen if given extra points for the lesbian challenge."
"So we're tied, huh?"
"Yup." By unspoken agreement we had fallen silent, sliding towards slumber.
You called me beautiful. I have never said it back to you. I wonder if when you wake up you'll laugh at my ramblings here? I almost want to ask you to write letters, too. It's so much easier for me to say how I feel on this paper than it is face to face, even to you, Zac, and it makes me wonder what goes on behind those caramel eyes of yours.
I think giving you these notes will be my second deed after you come back to us, right after I tell you that you're beautiful.
-Lydia
Zac-
I don't know how you can stand it here. Everything is so sterile, so cold, so ridiculously and insultingly clean. I don't think that People like you are meant to be tidy; your natural state is as a pulsar of contradictions, of half eaten peanut butter and jelly sandwiches growing old under the bed beside last week's running shorts. If you were awake I would never admit this, of course, knowing that it would only encourage your slovenly ways. Your mom would probably kill me in some imaginative way for reversing years worth of progress in the great clean-clothes battle, but I don't know, that's just how I see you. It seems to take a certain amount of chaos to keep you functioning, and here there is nothing of the sort. Instead there are 50 CCs of amber hued curatives, shiny sharp needles, and efficiently graying women who wear their watch faces to the inside of their wrists.
I've been sitting here, growing ever more accustomed to the horror of your appearance, for several hours now. Your mom has finally gone home for the first time in the three days you've been at Hillcrest, chased out by well meaning nurses who said again and again that there was nothing she could do here. She's gone home to sleep in her own bed instead of the narrow hospital version that's been kept open for her in your private room, gone home to take a shower and get fresh clothes. I don't want you to be alone, though, so I'm going to stay until she comes back. I can't imagine how scary it would be if you woke up without anyone, in this frigid empty room, to find your arms tracked with scars from your recent injections, to find the large white bandage wrapped expertly around your aching head.
What happened must have hurt you so badly to make you disappear from our world like this, to make you retreat into your wounded mind and shut out all outside stimulus. I keep looking over at you, imagining, dreaming, wishing, that I've seen your eyes flutter or your hands move, but each time this happens I find you just a little more ashen and still than the last time I dared hazard a gaze at you. Please wake up Zac, please. We don't know what to do without you, none of us.
I've thought about bringing my laptop and writing to you on the computer like we used to -- email being fast and furiously issued from our respective school accounts, sometimes four or five letters a day, sometimes more. I can't do it, though, instead I treasure the feel of this wide ruled paper in my hands; I value the weathered blue guidelines stretching to its edges in parallel infinities; I adore the constant musical scratch of my pen breaking into the unfailing drone of the machines which are keeping you alive. Right now I need to touch the reality these hastily scrawled words bring me, rather than loose my thoughts in the chill of those phantom electrons.
I don't dare touch you. Isn't that funny? I've touched you a thousand times, occasionally in anger, sometimes in love, often in friendship. But now, when I can't help but think that you need me the most, I can't bring myself to reach out and caress your cheek or brush what's left of you hair from your eyes. So I'll just keep sitting here, maybe hoping that you know that we haven't abandoned you, that you'll never really be alone, and that there will always be people who love you in this world.
Your whole family has been here, you know, but your parents, brothers and sisters were just the beginning of the flood of visitors. Various aunts, uncles, and cousins have appeared, people I've gotten to know at your crazy Hanson Christmas parties, celebrations which encourage one to forget their age and delight in the wonder of exquisitely decorated trees, perfectly wrapped red, green, and golden presents, and luxuriate in the passionate words of your minister. He's been here, too, sitting for several hours with your mom and dad on Tuesday, returning for at least a short stay every day since. Ash has flown in from Colorado, still glowing after his recent wedding, bringing his pretty new wife and their little daughter. Mina came early today, and Charlie and Angie have been here too, as well a bunch of people from your church, both young and old. Christopher Sabec and Mark Hudson, the only people I've ever met from your years in the world of music, have both flown to Tulsa to be near you.
All of your visitors have signed a thin, leather bound tome your grandfather brought on the first day, writing out their good wishes, setting down in shaky script their frantic prayers that you will return to us. It's something you'll like to have someday, I bet, along with the cards from the hundreds of bouquets of flowers that have been pouring into the hospital ever since the news of your accident went national. I bet you never thought you'd be on CNN again, eh? They did a short story on you, even sending a camera crew to tape footage of Hillcrest, despite your parent's anger and the hospital's refusal to let them come inside. Your old fans have been coming by too, in groups of four or five girls, to hold an almost continual vigil outside of the low brick building in which you're lying, clutching white candles in hands shielded from burning wax by paper cup bases. I only wish you could see this attention, even though I'm not entirely sure if you'd like being back in the spotlight. The inescapable scrutiny of the world is, after all, why you finally decided to study abroad this year. Now your face is everywhere, on MTV and VH1 and channel 13 news reports, and when you finally wake up you probably will have no peace.
They've all shared one thing -- that eclectic collection of friends you've cemented together throughout your lifetime -- expressions thick with worry and cringing with grief.
The waiting room is sort of like a confessional, really. I've seen things there that I will never repeat -- maybe not even to you. I've seen grown men cry great hiccuping sobs, just as I've heard the nervous laughter that is another hallmark of the suffering of those who wait for you. When you wake up you probably won't even be able to fathom what this has been for us, because I don't think that anyone who hasn't lived through this slow, downward spiraling heartbreak could ever really understand what it's like.
Yesterday I went for a little walk down the hall, to get a cold Dr. Pepper and to work the pins and needles of numbness out of my tired legs, and when I had come back Taylor was sitting by your bed, one of your hands clasped tightly in both of his. Everyone's taking this badly, everyone looks like they're flirting with hysteria when they see you, but I somehow think that Taylor is the worst off. I've never seen him cry before, never even knew he was capable of it, but now it seems like a continuous stream of tears is always leaking from his weary blue eyes.
I didn't know what to do, if I should have come into the room and interrupted him, and while I was frozen indecisively in the doorway, cut extra wide into the cinderblock wall to allow beds to be rolled in and out of the room, I had heard him begin to speak.
"I love you man," he had whispered, leaning towards you, his face glistening with tears. He hasn't looked anyone in the eye since he had flown in on Wednesday afternoon, leaving LA, the place he'd finally settled after his graduation this spring, but he scrutinized you unblinkingly for several minutes, apparently waiting for a response that he knew was never going to come. "Buddy, please talk to me. It can't end like this…" he was whimpering by then, sliding down to his knees to rest his forehead on one of the metal guardrails that run down either side of your bed.
He looked so beautiful, so exquisite, so miserable as he knelt like an angel at prayer by your bedside, that it was all I could do to not walk in and wrap him in my arms. I've never touched Taylor, I don't think, and he's never touched me. He mustn't like me much, I guess, because he's always touching everyone else. Tay's even worse than you are like that, continually playing with someone's hair, or rubbing their shoulders, or engaging in any one of a huge number of variations of footsie that he has mastered. Most of the world is afraid of touching, I think, afraid of offending, afraid of sharing themselves, but your entire family expresses themselves by feel. It would never occur to Taylor, or Mackie, or Jess, that other people might not like to be touched, or even that it might be inappropriate, because to them everyone is a friend waiting to happen. It's a good way to live.
After a long pause, Taylor wearily levered himself back into his chair whipping away at his tears with an already-soggy shirtsleeve. "What the hell am I supposed to do without you? You keep me honest, little man. Without you I'd have wasted my life on drugs, I maybe wouldn't have lived to graduate from college, I certainly wouldn't be working in the music industry again. I love Atlantic, really I do, and without you I never would have had the guts to even apply. I'm always so afraid of what they will think... because of my name…" I felt so wrong for standing there listening in as your brother spilled his soul, but I couldn't pull away. He's always been so much of a mystery, such a foreign, alien creature that he's never seemed to fit into my world, and I've never imagined reality from his point of view.
I watched him, slowing my breath to silence, entranced by this quiet misery. "I remember how wild and hyper you used to be. Everyone thought that you would be the one to slip and end up being an episode of Behind the Music, but you pulled it off, golden boy. There were probably a bunch of office pools lost over the much debated question: 'which Hanson brother will end up in rehab first?' But you've always been steady, you know?" He laughed for a second, bitter and rueful. "I hope you do know, because I sure as hell have no idea what I'm talking about…"
Sitting there, dressed in the simplest of dark jeans and a grey t-shirt, Taylor was someone I had never met. He wasn't thinking about his hair, or how he looked, or when the next good time would be. He was instead stripped down to his purest element -- his love for you. Other siblings grew up together, but you, you and Tay and Ike, share the dream of an enchanted past. A history that has bound you as no others could be, brothers only closer, best friends, only bester. Your childhood has made you as one, a shared mind, a shared heart, and right now, a shared torture. In his eyes, so brilliant they could put any spring sky to shame, I could see pain that I can only imagine. You are my best friend, part of me, but to Taylor.. you are him. You're his conscience, the driving force behind what is good of him, and in you he sees his redemption, the grounding to keep him safe.
"I love you." His sorrow saturated the air around the three of us, tightening my chest and causing my racing heart to flutter dizzily in me. That was when I knew it could really happen, when I realized that there was a possibility that you won't get better. I've never been sky diving, but I think that now I have an understanding of what it must feel like to fall, naked and unprotected, into a vortex of stinging sound and angry wind, because that's what I felt when your frailty really became clear to me, roaring in my ears and sucking the breath from my lungs.
Taylor still didn't know I was there, and for an instant I guess I forgot that what I was seeing wasn't some melodramatic episode of General Hospital, but the wall of perception