"Hello?"
"Hey Jessie - Can I talk to Mom, please?"
"Tay?" She asked, "Aren't you..."
"Yeah." I cut her off, "Is she around?"
"Yeah, hold on."
She put the phone down, and I waited about a minute or so before I heard the rustle of it being picked up. My mothers voice then rang through the phone, and I started to cry. I had to turn away from the Stripe.
"Hello? Taylor? What's wrong honey?"
"I miss you." I cried, "I miss you. I was thinking about you last night... and I miss you so much."
"Oh, Taylor. It's okay, baby."
"I'm so lonely here... and all I have are Ike and Alexis... and... Zac's gone... and... An.. Annissa..."
"Taylor - don't cry." She said, "I love you - I wish I could be there for you right now."
"I'm scared... What's going to become of me? Hanson...? Isaac needs me... but - but... I just... What am I?" I choked and struggled, "Mom, I weigh ninety-seven pounds."
"Ninety..." She started, sounding hurt and shocked.
"I stopped eating," I cried, cutting her off. "I stopped eating when Zac died..."
"You... How...?"
"I'm so sorry, Mom."
"It's okay, Taylor. It's okay, baby." She repeated. I wanted to feel her arms around me.
"I'm so hollow inside... I... I can't even sing, Mom. It... it hurts so bad to do it."
"Oh, baby..." She said, "Singing is your soul -"
I sobbed into the phone and she began to sing to me. Her voice was so sweet, and it silenced my tears.
"You and I must make a pact/We must bring salvation back/Where there is love/I'll be there, I'll be there."
I listened intently and closed my eyes. This song, among many others, was like a childhood anthem. I sang it around the house, to my friends, to my sisters, to Isaac... and Zac. It was one of those songs I was just attached to as a kid, and I couldn't stop singing it. It was so warm... so warm to me that she remembered. I felt my lips moving to the words as she sang them to me...
"I'll reach out my hand to you/I'll have faith in all you do/Just call my name/And I'll be there, I'll be there. Come on, Tay."
A vibration was in my throat, "I'll be there to comfort you/build my world of dreams around you/I'm so glad that I found you/I'll be there with a love that's strong... I'll be your strength; I'll keep holding on."
There was a light feeling inside of me, and I realized I was laughing, and I couldn't remember the last time I laughed.
"See?" My Mom said, "Tay, baby - you can sing... just as good as always."
I was smiling, I felt so warm inside, "You can cure anything. I wish you were here, now."
"Tay - Just keep doing your therapy, alright? Keep singing when you're sad... it'll keep your feet on the ground. I'm here if you ever need me."
The Stripe tapped me on the shoulder, which indicated my time was up. "Hey, Mom..." I said, slightly disappointed, "I have to go - I'll try and call again, soon."
"Alright - I love you." She said, and I heard the soft click on the other end.
I placed the phone down and turned with a smile to the Stripe. "Whoa," He said, "You're blinding me with those teeth."
"I feel good," I said, "Like on a cloud."
"It's amazing what a small taste of home can do sometimes, eh?"
I nodded, and right then, I felt like a little kid eating a chocolate ice-cream cone and getting it all over my face. "I have the best mom on earth."
He smiled then escorted me to the game room - where I had free time. I usually spent this free time alone; smoking a cigarette outside or napping - but today I felt like talking... I felt like singing.
I sat down with Mike and a few other kids he was talking to. A PTSD kid, like myself, and the kid who cut off his finger. I smiled.
"Hey - look whose here... and smiling. What'd you just get laid?" Asked the kid who cut off his finger.
I paused, "You know... it's been a while."
"So, what are you smiling about - Jesus - it's like a whole new fucking person these past few days!"
I shrugged, "I just... I feel good today - for the first time in... in a very long time."
That day I told my doctor I was feeling light, and I sang on the way to my shower. I found myself humming and talking to the guy next to me. He had some sort of anxiety disorder that tied back to an accident. I felt slightly ashamed of my body when I talked about why I was there. It was like I was restating the obvious by just existing.
A new kid was jerking off in the shower across from me. This irked me. I didn't quite know if that was even allowed, but since no one seemed to be doing anything about it, I decided not to pursue it. He told me that he had something of a sex addiction, but he didn't quite understand why he was sent here. I stared blankly, but in my head I was thinking about Angel.
He invited me to join him, and I told him no. He told me I had nothing to be ashamed of, and that I was well hung for an 'anorexic pretty-boy fuck.' I told him that I would pass out. He laughed.
I didn't.
I turned away and looked self-consciously down at myself. I was, in fact, afraid of getting hard and feeling weak to the point of fainting. I didn't even weigh enough to run down the hallway without fainting. The disturbing wet dreams I had every now and then took me hours to recover from. If I was that weak waking up in the morning, I was afraid of how weak I would be with all of the blood rushing out of where it needs to be and into my penis. I hadn't even had the desire to ... to think about sex since Annissa died, much less jerk off.
I was suddenly embarrassed by my 97 pounds, and I wrapped my towel tightly around my waist when I left the bathroom.
"Mike?" I asked when we were sitting on my bed later that night, with a cigarette in my hand.
"Yeah?"
"Does it ever bother you that... I mean... do you ever feel that maybe... maybe you don't weigh enough? You know - to do normal things."
"Maybe a little..." He said, "But I don't need a lot of it... exercise, sex, and all of that bullshit."
"Oh." I made little donut puffs with my smoke and looked down at my body, and the scar across my stomach. "You know," I said, "The last thing I did with Annissa was have sex with her."
He looked up, a bit surprised at my random revelation. "What made you think of..."
I pointed, "The scars. I have cigarette burns all over my legs and... and my hands from when Zac died, and I have this on my stomach. Milestones, or something."
"Where'd the scar on your arm come from?"
"We both did that, one day... to ensure that we wouldn't forget when I traveled. Go fucking figure, I didn't think she was going to kill herself a month later."
"Why did she kill herself?"
I averted my eyes, and sucked bitterly on my cigarette. I remembered what my mom told me earlier. To sing when I was sad - something I had picked up on doing years ago, and dropped as soon as music became a trigger, rather than a relax-or. I stood up and began to hum a tune as I walked aimlessly about in the hallway, forgetting where I was (or wasn't) supposed to be. Forgetting that my ribs and scars weren't hidden away.
Somehow I found the music room, with an out of tune upright piano sitting in the corner. I sat down, cigarette between my lips, and began to play, singing my soul, because it was the only thing I could remember how to do, at that very moment. My cigarette dropped to the floor.
Mike had followed me down the hall where I sang to the out of tune piano. My voice was raspy from disuse, and smoking so much. Strange words came off of my lips and a new song was writing itself.
A group was standing around me, but no one was stopping me. I stopped when the chords were too discordant and the words became muddled and I resolved to crying. I dropped my head and hid my burnt hands in my hair, which came out between my fingers.
I felt a hand on my shoulder and someone lead me back to my room, where I stood ashamed in front of the mirror, pulling out my hair. Wondering and wondering how much thinner it could get. How much more sickly can I be? How my emptiness overtook me. I couldn't stop the shadows that followed me and crept up behind me day-to-day. What was smiling? What was laughing? Something, a dark cloud, ate up and left me with my misery. I shivered and inside I wanted to scream and tell it all to go away. To leave me be. It's killed me already. I'm already fucking dead. But instead I curled up in my sheets and the lights were turned out.
Visitors came on Saturdays.
Isaac and Alexis would visit me and bring snacks and other things they thought I might need. We had awkward conversation, then they would leave. I hated having uneasy conversation with the two closest people to Me.
"So..." The conversation that day would start out. "How are you doing?"
"Better." I'd respond, uneasily. "I've been gaining a few pounds. I'm up to 105... They gave me meds to help my attacks."
And they say, "That's good." Everything feels rehearsed and neat. I would love to get up and scream to ruffle the neatly pleated conversation.
What really happened, that time, differed. I looked around nervously, and said, "The doctor says if I keep doing well I'll be able to continue self-treatment at home. And... and just keep coming for therapy."
And then, Isaac admitted to his own faults. He seemed a bit uneasy when he said it, his eyes traveling from me to the wall, then to the floor. "I went and got some therapy," He told me, "I'm sorry for being such an asshole."
"It's okay." I said. There was some silence and Isaac squirmed in his seat.
"Hey, where's the bathroom here?"
"Around the corner, I believe... The visitor's bathroom is, at least." He stood up and began walking in the given direction, leaving me alone with Alexis.
"Your Mom said you called..." Alexis said.
"Yeah, I did." I blushed. "When were you talking to her?"
"We talk all of the time," She said, "For the past few months - she knew about the baby before I told you guys... She said it would be better to give you time, because neither of you were handling the situation very well."
"She knew?"
"Yeah, she calls to ask how I am... and makes sure I'm healthy and all of that stuff - I think I talk to her more than my own mother." She laughed, slightly.
I smiled, "Sounds like Mom..."
"Isaac said he wants to start working soon, again. He really misses singing with you, Tay. He's just too scared to ask... I think he... I don't think he knows how to act around you."
"Zac always understood me..." I said, "That's why he was important, because he was the missing link between us... I guess we all helped each other understand the other, but Isaac... he doesn't understand me."
"He's scared for you though, Tay. He's scared of what's happening to you, he didn't know what to do. I mean, your panic attacks are really intense - He didn't know how to react."
"I know, I know..." I said, "I just don't know... I just can't do it, anymore. I can't go back into that studio and work - not now."
Isaac came back into our midst, and we discontinued the conversation. "Those bathrooms are really clean." He noted, "I was impressed."
I looked up at him, "Clean? Must be better than ours. But then again, we don't have doors."
"No doors?"
"Yeah, because of kids like me who binge and purge, and then all the cutters and kids like that." He shuddered visibly. I smiled slightly at him. I thought about what Alexis just said. "Hey Ike, do you want to sing?"
"Sing?"
"Yeah, sing... Alexis too, Alexis will sing." I motioned toward her, "She can sing, right?"
"Me? Oh, no, no, no, not with you."
"You sing with Ike! Come on... what can we sing." I hummed a note, "I've heard you sing, Al, you have a great voice - you and Zac always sang, no?"
"Yes...but..."
"So you can sing with us... Right now. Just something small before you have to go, cause I want to sing... See here's the chord, we'll sing... we'll sing... Ugh. Anything, I just want to sing, please?"
He sighed, and we hummed a chord, and went into a small portion of a Beatles chorus. "Blackbird," which reminded me of Zac, and the time we sang by his hospital bed... with a guitar and the hope that he was going to be okay. Such a different time.
I went back to my room that evening singing "Blackbird" down the hallway. I liked the way my voice echoed down the hallway... Especially when the rooms were quiet, and it carried itself away.
"You have a nice voice." Mike told me when I was snooping about the room with my Discman, for the first time since I got there.
I took my headphones off, "What?"
"I said - you have a nice voice."
I coughed and blushed, "I've seen better days... it's scratchy... and ..."
"Taylor, you have a nice voice... You should sing more often, I like listening to you."
I shrugged, "It's been a long time... I mean, I ... I stopped singing, cause... It... it just... I mean, as it is, I haven't even listened to or sang any of my own music for 6-7 months now. I have all of the CDs in my bag, but I can't even listen to it... It's like those days didn't even happen. Or maybe... these days aren't happening. And I'll wake up tomorrow and know it was all a bad dream. And Zac is two rooms away."
He creased his eyebrows, "I don't know what to say. I don't even think I understand what that feels like... I mean... you had fucking everything in the palm of your hand."
My heart jumped. I never saw it that way. I never thought I had everything, and now I felt I had nothing... negative nothing. We didn't have the power as Hanson anymore, but it wasn't like I was going to be starving poor anytime soon. But in my days as Taylor Hanson I was lonely, addicted, and depressed. Things haven't changed - just that now there's burns on my fingers, and hoarseness in my voice. "I have my money... I have my brother. I didn't lose anything but Zac."
"I haven't even got that." He sighed, "My mom's dirt poor, costing her all she has to keep me here - but she doesn't want me home until I fix my 'Eating Disease' as she calls it. My sister's working to feed herself."
"I'm sorry." I mumbled. I felt bad for being so miserable all of the time, so selfish.
"It's okay..." He sighed, but quickly covered it up with a smile. "It's all beside the point... Go back to your singing."
I slid the headphones over my ears and music played through again. I stopped the CD and went through my case, found the orange one, and placed it in the player.
"Is that...?"
"Yes," I sighed, softly and tossed my CD book to him. "Go through the rest if you want... I have all of our albums in there and then everything else... and a ton of albums Annissa gave me."
"This is weird..." He said finally, twirling one of our CDs in his hand. "I can't believe I share a room with the kid who wrote the music on this CD."
I hit play on my Discman, and listened to the chords that were so familiar, and behind my eyelids I saw crowds of thousands. Blink - crowd, open eyes - Mike.
Stupid memories came to my mind, and I started laughing... but laughter soon faded to tears and I ripped my headphones off of my head and threw the Discman across the room. It fell to the floor, making a loud noise and the CD rolled across the floor, stopping at my feet. I wanted to pick it up and break it in half, but I couldn't bring my heart to do it, I couldn't touch it. Even though I knew I could get a thousand copies for myself later, if I wanted, I couldn't bring myself to crushing it, to snapping it. The CD I held in my hands was the released copy of the album. Luckily, I kept all of our promos and demos safely stored away at home - but the copy I held was the very first copy I had owned. I remembered holding the freshly burned CD in my hand, looking at the CD cover for the first time... and thinking 'Wow, I can't believe this is happening.'
I picked it up and twirled it in my hands, the memories of a young, naive version of myself. Thirteen, and hardly dreaming of what was to come in the months that followed. I remembered when fame was fresh and exciting... When I saw the world for the first time... tired-er than I ever had been... but so happy that I couldn't even allow it to bother me that we were working 20 hours a day.
I put it gently on the nightstand and picked up my broken Discman, and sighed softly to myself at what I had done, before withering into tears. I slouched against the wall and cried. I felt helpless and lost, and I couldn't put my fucking Discman back together.
"Tay, man," Mike was walking over to me. I ran my hands through my thin hair, and clutched it tightly. "Tay - hey man - I didn't mean to upset you."
"You didn't upset me." I said. "It's me, actually. I'm just nostalgic, that's all, I guess. I miss it. Just... let me cry."
"I'm sorry..."
"Just go..." I pushed his hands away, "I'm fine... I just need to think." My tears were leaving puddles on the floor... and I watched them landing there. Sometimes it seemed hard to fathom that we were on top of the world once, and I ended up here. Sometimes it seemed like a shock all over again to think that Zac was gone, forever. Annissa's death had a much different effect on me - she came into my life... Zac, however, was always there. And to think that he's never coming back is a vast and incomprehensive idea - it was beyond me. It made me feel like I was reliving the shock again. I was at the wake, wrapping myself up in the arms of those who loved him all over again. I was smoking cigarettes on the roof of my car with Annissa. I was swallowing Valium, and putting on my tie, I was staring at people in a pew, as they stared back at me, shocked when I fell.
I stood and abandoned my Discman, grabbing a new pack of cigarettes and lighting up. I sat on the bed, and I sat sucking on the nicotine, feeling the black smoke in my lungs. My hands were shaking when I brought the thing to my lips and if I closed my eyes I would have been alone, at home, staring at his empty bed - playing and replaying his choking I love you's at the end.
I began to remember our history, and the younger versions of ourselves running carefree across the globe. No one could stop the hurricane Hanson. I remembered our first encounters with the corruption of the music business, and how hard it seemed to cope, and to understand. I remember finding out that the fans wanted me - and how the second girl I ever had sex with (and many, many to come) was a fan. The first girl was a girlfriend of mine who played with my hair. Funny, I can't remember anything else about her.
I couldn't close my eyes when the lights were out. I lay wide-awake for hours, and the hallucinations were almost more than I could bear. I brushed Ani's cheek softly with my hands, but when I would blink she wasn't there. She lay beside me off and on all night, touching me and keeping me safe and comfortable. The sun came up and sprinkled light into our room and we were summoned for breakfast. I hadn't slept all night.