Taylor Hanson
The song felt pretty inappropriate for that particular day, and to match the irony of it, my tone was not exactly one of happiness and gaiety. Instead, as I would hear later, I sounded more like I was singing at a funeral, which didn't seem like too far from the truth that day.
"Taylor, don't you know any more of that song than that part?" Isaac asked, trying to joke around though I knew his attitude about the day was the same as mine.
"Nope," I said, my voice sounding mechanical even to me. "On the doorstep..."
He sighed and walked over to the window, observing the gray skies outside. He had been doing that a lot over the past couple of days. It had become his thinking corner. I dared not disturb him though I had been longing for someone to really talk to about this impending day. The day I was going to go with the Lowells for almost three months. An idea I was not at all at ease with.
Parker seemed a little bit uneasy about the situation himself, oddly enough since it had been his idea in the first place(though I don't doubt someone else would have thought of it if he hadn't spoken up about it). He seemed to walk on eggshells around my family and myself, talking only very quietly and as little as possible, which didn't seem to be in his nature. I felt a little bit detached from the thought that this was as hard for him as it was for me, though I knew it was true.
It wasn't that we had ended up hating each other or anything. In fact, we had become friends over the past few days, somewhat at least. But I couldn't help but feel a sense of betrayal to Isaac, Zac, Jessica, Avery, Mackenzie, and Zoe every time I talked to him in a friendly manner. I knew he could sense that and that it made him feel awkward.
"Do the Lowells have e-mail?" Isaac asked abruptly.
I knew he was just asking to get me to stop singing. I had already told him a thousand times over that they did, even written down their e-mail address for him several times. Still, I answered anyway, glad for at least some bit of conversation.
"Ike, they live in a small town, not on a deserted island," I said.
"Huh?"
"You just make the question sound as if you're wondering if they have electricity where I'm going," I said, looking at him as I snapped my suitcase shut.
"You never know," he said, meaning it as a joke though there wasn't any humor in it.
I rolled my eyes at him. "Okay," I said sarcastically.
"Here, I wrote down our e-mail address for you," he said, handing me a scrap of paper.
"Isaac, I know our e-mail address," I said.
"I know, but I was bored and didn't want you to forget," he said.
I looked up at him seriously. "I won't forget."
He smiled weakly and didn't say anything.
"Ike? Tay?" my father's voice came from outside the room accompanied by a knock on the door. "We're...We're, um, getting ready to leave."
Isaac nodded though he knew our father couldn't see it. Even without the satisfaction of a verbal answer, we could hear him move to the next room and knock on the door to tell of our impending departure.
I picked up my stuicase by the handle and made ready to walk out of the hotel room door for the last time and lose any sense of security I had left. Isaac's hand on my shoulder stopped me momentarily.
"I'm going to miss you," he said quietly, almost to himself.
"Me, too," I said, turning around and wrapping my arms around him. As we hugged for a long moment that could have lasted forever for all I cared, anything to keep away the moment when I would have to watch my family drive down the road toward the airplane that would bring them back to Oklahoma without me, I began to question what my last statement had really meant.
Too soon, we let go of each other. I quickly turned away from him, not wanting him to see the tears in my eyes. I didn't want to cry in front of him even though I knew that, particularly on this day, there wasn't much shame in crying in front of Isaac. I felt the need to be strong for my family, or perhaps only for myself, and crying certainly wouldn't indicate strength.
Isaac and I trudged down the hall in a manner suggesting two soldiers on their way to their own executions. My stomach lurched with every step, I nearly threw up in the elevator. As we passed through the door of the hotel to the parking lot where, through the glass doors, we could see our family and the Lowells waiting for us, it was all I could do not to cling to Isaac the way a young child clings to a security blanket or to a favorite stuffed animal for comfort. I could almost see the gallows in the distance.
My family, all except Isaac, practically formed a single file, waiting to say good-bye to me. Mackenzie, holding Jessica's hand, was first in line. He looked up at me innocently and his hand left Jessica's and took mine, squeezing it reassuringly as if he knew exactly what was going on, although I knew he didn't really. I bent down and hugged him tightly, glad for the reassuring gesture.
Next came Jessica, who handed me something, only giving me a small smile with no explanation. I looked down to see what was in my hand and found a photograph of the whole family that we had had someone take of us at Darien Lake. I smiled and embraced her as well.
"Bye, Tay," she said softly.
"Bye," I said.
Avery was the next in line. I was in the middle of lowering myself down slightly as as to hug her as well, but she surprised me by saluting me instead, the way Isaac, Zac, Jessica, and I had taught her to do when we played little war games together not all that long ago.
"At ease, solder," I said as I reached down and hugged her tightly, appreciative for the comic relief.
Zac followed Avery.
"I love you man," he said, his voice shaky instead of full of the humor it normally possessed when he said this phrase. He wrapped his arms around me and said quietly into my ear, "And you don't you forget it."
"Okay," I said back. As we pulled away, I noted the shirt he was wearing and raised an eyebrow.
"Uh....Something to remember you by?"
"Yeah, sure," I said, rolling my eyes and smiling slightly. Sighing, I moved on to the hardest of all the good-byes: my parents.
"If you ever feel the need to come home...," my father said.
"I know, just call you and you'll have me on the next plane," I said with only as much sarcasm as I could muster with the knowledge that I might actually need to do this if bravery didn't permit me to stay for the full three months.
"And don't think we're just leaving you in the hands of some random strangers," he added, though he had told me this a thousand times as well. "We know Gina. She's a good person."
I nodded, knowing that I'd never be convinced or comforted by this.
"We love you, baby," my mother, pulling me to her. My father wrapped his arms around both of us.
The hug was rather prolonged, but it didn't seem to last long enough as we pulled away from each other before I lost the courage I had summoned to go through with what was coming next. My parent smiled encouragingly at me, though it was obvious that they were worried.
"I guess we should be heading out," my father said, clearing his throat to hide the wavering of his voice, though he was already crying. "We'll see you on the B shift, okay?"
I nearly smiled at his usual good-bye saying, but the tears welling up in my eyes, among other things, prevented me from doing so.
"Okay," I said.
"All right then, everyone that belongs to me except Taylor, in the van," he said, pointing toward the rental van.
No one moved.
He rolled his eyes.
"Okay, if your name isn't Taylor, Parker, or Gina, in the van," he said, smiling in spite of himself.
Everyone hesitantly piled into the van. All I could was wave as they drove down the road in the opposite direction Gina, Parker, and I would be taking.
I felt a hand go on my shoulder and turned around to be faced with Paker's sympathetic eyes. That was when I truly lost it and began to sob uncontrollably. Parker hugged me to him as I buried my face in his shoulder. To my absolute surprise, nothing about this felt strange or wrong to me.
So...What do you think?
Index
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Four