These are very old and pretty bad but I figure they're not doing anything but collecting dust in my folders:



His (Taylor's) skinny leg bobbed up and down. I could tell this was embarrassing for him. “Yeah but it’s not the same. You feel the same way about me as you do about Zoe, even though she throws up her peas on you.”

I could not help but laugh at his show of nerves. “I do not. You are all…” Struggling for a word, I paused- “special to me. Not only do I love you all in different ways, I’ve always had a bond with you, Taylor. You must know that.” My voice sounded earnest and my words were true but he could not hear them. If you looked close enough, you could see the black cloud above his head.

His blond hair curtained his face. “No I didn’t know.”

“Come on, you and I have the bond of best of friends. We always have. I can always turn to you if I need a laugh or a smile. Not only that but who else tells me when I’m being a jerk?”

He looked into my eyes. “Well, Zac-”

I cut him off. “Let me rephrase: who else do I listen to when they tell me I’m being a jerk?”

He smiled and admitted. “Good point.”

We stood silent for a few moments, each wrapped in each other’s thoughts.

I purposely bumped his arm with mine. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. I just get a little crazy sometimes.”

“Who doesn’t?” I added a bit louder than necessary. “Anything you need or want and I’ll do it. You know that. All you have to do is ask.”


~*~*~

“How long have you wanted this?” We stood so close; I could feel his breath on my face.

“Honestly?” I cringed as I saw his eyes widen. “Since the moment I saw you. You have such an air of…” Words failed me. My mind wouldn’t function but then he kissed me and it didn’t matter. I remember staring into honesty.


~*~*~


“I want to give up.” A weight immediately lifted from my shoulders.

He wasn’t ready to let go. “I thought you loved me - loved me enough to walk with me through this.”

“I thought I did. I do but I want my life back. I hate that people look to bring me down and try to hurt me. It’s really too much. I just want to be me.” The last word floated in the air between us. His mouth hung open a fraction – as if I had stunned him mid-sentence.

Struggling to try to explain, I realized that I couldn’t. “Liz is getting married. I want that.”

“You want marriage?” His voice rose to an embarrassing level.

To counter his raised voice, I lowered mine. “No, I want normalcy. Just Sami.”

His mood shifted. His words cut now. “I’m sorry” but he wasn’t sorry and I could hear that. “I can’t give you that.”

“I know and that’s why we’re doing this. I can’t be associated as ‘Isaac’s friend-’”

His hands flew up in frustration and he yelled. “Not this fight again!”

“No, no. This is just me wanting to be me.” I stepped forward to press my hands against his chest, as if I had a calming touch.

~*~*~

The bright lights in the dressing room made me squint. “Hey, what are you doing in here?”

The blob of sweat and hormones didn’t move. It only emitted a noncommittal grunt.

Other than the figure in front of me, the room was empty. Nothing hung on the walls, vacant hangers dangled, and only the occupied armchair sat in the center of the room.

Zac’s hair spread up behind him and shone against the dark fabric of the chair. His mouth hung open slightly. “What’s up? Are you okay?” Dried sweat clung to his skin and gave it a car polish sheen.

It moved and opened its eyes to slits. “Just resting, I wanted to stretch out before I had to go back to the metal box on wheels.”

Sitting on the edge of the chair, I turned to him. “I hear you there, buddy. It’s not my favorite place either.”

I sniffed the air for added emphasis. “You probably want to shower first, right?”

“I want to but I can’t even move right now.” Even his voice sounded tired.

“Hang on a minute.” The bathroom two doors down had a paper towel dispenser. I ran a few towels under the faucet and walked back to the dressing room. Pulling his arm up, I unhooked the clasp and slid his watch off his wrist. He sighed as I wiped down his arms. “You rock Sam.” The dark circles under his dark brown eyes were hard to look at. “I know I do.” I gently pulled his chin down and wiped his face and neck. He leaned forward and braced his elbows on his knees. I pulled his mic pack out of the waistband of his pants, disengaged wires and slipped the headgear off. The accoutrements formed a pile on the edge of the chair. “Mike will kill you if you break that. I’m supposed to give it to him as soon as I get off-stage.”

“I know. I’ll give it to him in a minute.” He made a weak hand motion before his head fell back against the chair.

I finger combed the knots out of his hair and transferred my hair elastic to him.

His steady breathing told me he fell asleep. I picked up his sound equipment and moved back to lean against the chair.

Mr Hanson found us a while later. He scooped up Zac and brought him to the buses. I know this is their dream but I can’t help but feel like they’re still so young. Too young.

Isaac and I share a genetic trait that I knew about years ago. Apparently, he did not.

I hurried into the back door of the concert hall with a battered cardboard box of T-shirts in hand, head bowed to avoid the annoying drizzle that had not stopped since I woke up. I passed off the box to Jessica, standing behind the counter, and shook the water droplets off my shoulders. With hands raised to flatten my rapidly-expanding hair, my hood slid off my head to rest across my back.
“I guess this isn’t letting up anytime soon” I murmured to no one in particular. Isaac and a burly, non-descript security guy walked down the hallway toward us, heading outside to the bus. I smiled slightly while trying to reposition the hood in a vain attempt to stop the frizz that was already reeking havoc. Isaac turned, coffee cup in hand, with a quizzical look on his face. He didn’t say anything but the look froze on his face; as if he wanted to was trying to connect a thought in his head. The security guard stood, staring off to the door, not paying attention and clearly bored. My eyes slid to the left and right, awkward under his scrutiny. “Your hair? What happened?”
My left hand automatically shot up to smooth down the tiny spiral curls that I knew would be there. “Yeah. I hate it when it does this.”
His look turned from quizzical to a confused grimace. “It always did that?”
I blanched. What the hell did it look like? Was I Medusa? My look of panic must have shown on my face but Isaac rushed to explain. “No! No, it’s not bad. That’s not how I wanted it to come out.” His words clumped together, fast. We were still unsure of how to approach each other, scared of offending the other. “I just…didn’t know.”
I shrugged my shoulders, squelching my anger at his candor. “What can you do?” I would not get into another silly squabble with him.
I walked past and into the rain, head bowed, shoulders slumped.
How could he not know my hair freaked out in the rain? God he’s so clueless! I couldn’t even get angry, really, it was more annoyance. How many months I spent with him with bad hair.
“Sam!” Isaac had walked up behind me while I bent down to slide another box from the compartments under the bus. “Hey, I’m sorry. That’s now what I meant.” “It’s okay.” The wind was beginning to pick up, which meant more rain in the face. I turned back toward the door, careful not to trip in a large puddle. Isaac would not let up. His guilt propelling him to follow me back inside.
My annoyance rose inside my chest, pressing against my ribs. “Really, it’s not a big deal. I have crappy hair. I get it. It’s been that way since I was a kid.” I gave Jessica an evil eye but she became very interested in a sheet of paper, not willing to get involved. Smart girl.
“Your hair is curly.” He said it as fact, as if it needed clarification.
“So is yours” was my swift, if unnecessary, reply.
“Yes, but-“ He stopped. “I know that. I’m just saying that yours isn’t. It took me by surprise is all.” He sighed, a bit defeated. “Isaac” I leaned against the box on the table to
explain, “my hair has been a pain in my rear-end since I can remember.”
“I never knew that.” I stared at him, eyes wide. “Well, obviously it’s not something we discussed regularly.” He still looked confused. “It’s just odd that I didn’t know.” He almost whispered the words. That stopped me. I raised a shoulder and dropped it, trying to stop my awareness of him. “It’s not a big deal. I was more conscious of it when we dated and, also, back then I was able to pull it into a ponytail or braid so that it wouldn’t be as…big.”
He reached up to touch an errant curl. “All that time I spent trying to unsuccessfully keep my hair in check. I thought I was the only one.”
My pulse picked up speed inside my veins. “Nope.” The word caught in my throat.
I couldn’t look at him. Part of me feared that. My eyes shifted to look into his and my body became very aware of how close Isaac was. I feared that he could feel my temperature rising. My behavior, though not unusual, was appalling. I wanted to glance at him, to see if he was struggling with the same issues. My eyes darted to his. He looked bemused. Was that a good thing or a bad thing? He reached around and pushed the hood away from my face. His eyes brightened a bit and the corner of his mouth turned up. “Curly hair,” he murmured. This was blowing his mind. “Do you have any idea how much time I spent trying to corral my hair?”
To keep myself from leaning forward and leaning into him, I twisted my fingers together into knots. It didn’t really help. He was so close and he smelled so damn good – so clean. I did my best to calm my whirring mind. Isaac’s wide eyes stared at the halo of fluffy curls that surrounded my head. My natural reaction is to deflate an awkward situation with sarcasm but I didn’t want to. The moment was too powerful. It was the first time that we’d be able to actually speak to each other without it disintegrating into huffy silence or petty squabbles. My big mouth got the better of me though: “I just can’t believe you don’t remember.” It was meant to be light-hearted, a joke. It didn’t come out that way though. I regretted the words even before I saw his face fall. The underlying message was unintended but now it stretched the silence between us.
He crossed his arms and leaned back. Not a good sign. He face closed up and his clipped words cut me. “I remember a lot, but I guess that memory faded.”
Why? Why wasn’t I born with the ability to keep my mouth closed? I let the air out of my lungs; I didn’t realize that I had been holding it since Isaac touched my hair. “Will I ever learn to shut up?”
He laughed at that; big, out-loud laughs that shook him.
I couldn’t help it. I smiled in response. It was so good to see him laughing. “I am sorry. That came out much worse than I meant it to.” I touched his arm, trying to emphasize the point. The gesture was meant to be reassuring but all that flashed through my mind was, You’re touching him! A sudden rush of heat coursed through my body and I felt my cheeks flare. Clearly the boy still had an effect on me - a not-so-subtle effect on me. This is going to be harder than I thought. My eyes stared at my pale hand on his tan arm.

This feels right.

Now would be a good time to let go.

“Sami?” Isaac’s quiet voice broke through.
I looked up into his warm, brown eyes and again had to fight the urge to lean into him. The memory of nestling into his chest, my nose against his neck under his chin caused the embarrassing flush of my cheeks again.
Isaac leaned in with a low voice to my ear, “at least we know that we can have a conversation without resorting to name-calling.”
Recovering myself, I murmured back, “And here I thought trying to contain my anger for you would be my biggest hurdle.”