The Tangles of My Heart

“Sorry I’m late,” Matt mumbled as he took a seat at Vinny’s side.

“You were with Anna, weren’t you?” Danny asked, laughing triumphantly when Matt shrugged but blushed all the same.

“Who’s Anna?” I asked, peering at them over the top of my menu.

“That girl you kept calling Taylor,” Matt reminded me with a smirk when he saw the obvious discomfort on my face.

Zack, Rian, and Alex instantly looked at me. “Look, if you just saw her, you’d make the same mistake I did,” I muttered defensively, flipping through my menu some more.

Matt narrowed his eyes at me. “What if I told you that Anna has a sister named Taylor?”

Zack, Rian, and Alex were still staring at me. I tried not to flip out…key word, tried. I shrugged, but it was more like a convulsive muscle spasm that ended up spilling Holly’s drink all over Maddie somehow. “Shit, shit, shit, I’m sorry,” I said as I quickly tried to soak up the drink before more of it could get onto Maddie.

“Oh, sweetie, you’re so clumsy,” Holly laughed as she patronizingly patted my head. I jerked away from her touch, though. She didn’t really notice. “Maddie, come on, let’s go to the bathroom and clean you up…” Maddie was too nice to say no, so of course she let Holly walk her to the bathroom.

I did my best to clean up the mess, despite the scrutiny from my friends and the bewildered looks on our crew member’s faces. “Can I help you?” I sighed when I couldn’t take their glares any longer.

“What if it’s her, Jack? What if it’s your Taylor?” Zack asked quietly, his eyes settling on me to gauge my reaction.

I rolled my eyes, pinching the bridge of my nose and breathing slowly in an attempt to slow the beating of my hopelessly hopeful heart. “It can’t be. And if it was, I wouldn’t give a fuck anyways…”

What a lie.

“Who are we talking about?” Holly asked as she returned to the table with Maddie in tow.

“No one, Holls,” I promised Holly, wrapping an arm around her shoulder and shooting everyone a warning glance. Holly didn’t know about Taylor, and I planned on keeping it that way.

Dinner was awful, and I’m not talking about the food. I knew I was in for it later, but I easily avoided all their questions by locking myself in the bathroom of our hotel. Holly thought I was sick, so I took that excuse and ran with it when I was really just playing games on my iPod while sitting on the bathroom counter. Holly said everyone was asking if I was ok. I knew they were really asking if I was ready to talk about, or maybe even to…Taylor.

Someone knocked on the bathroom door again. “I said I don’t feel good,” I yelled through the door.

“Jack, open up, I’ve got Anna and her sister on the phone,” said Zack, knocking on the door some more.

I instantly leapt up from the counter, but I managed to stop myself at the door. I wasn’t really going to do this again, was I? Oh, no, I wasn’t. Oh. Oh, yes, I was. Dammit.

I opened the door to find Zack standing there with his phone sitting in his hands. It was ringing, and it was on speaker. Zack looked at me, but I kept a pretty good poker face on. Having to deal with Holly taught me well. “Hello…?” a female voice answered uncertainly.

“Anna?” Zack asked hesitantly.

“H-Hi…”

“Sorry, this is, um… a…friend of Matt’s, and I was just wondering if your sister’s there?”

“Oh, sure, hold on a sec,” Anna said cheerfully, and after some shuffling noises, a few minutes later, my ears heard something that I was sure they’d never hear again – Taylor’s voice.

“Hello?” she said civilly, but in that tone of voice that she picked up when she was tired or overwhelmed or not feeling up to dealing with other people or talking to other people but she was tolerating it because she was being polite. Needless to say, I knew that tone well. “Anyone there?” she asked, and Zack just simply held the phone out to me.

My mouth went dry as I took the phone into my trembling hands. There were so many things I would’ve loved to say to her, but now that my chance was here, no words would come. Go figure. “Ok...You have five seconds to respond before I hang up on you...”

“Taylor, don’t be mean!” Anna hissed in the background.

“I do not need Matt hooking me up with one of his friends, alright?” Taylor said aside to Anna.

I nervously licked my lips, taking the phone off speaker and holding it up to my ear. “Taylor?” She gasped and fell silent…before she hung up on me anyways. I exhaled slowly before handing the phone back to Zack. "...Well fuck me sideways, but that does sound like Taylor," I said with a bitter laugh, walking over to the bed and flopping onto it.

I promised myself I'd never think about Taylor again, much less allow my buried feelings for her to resurface. Buried implied they were dead. Why couldn't they stay dead? Why couldn't I make up my mind? Fuck. Taylor was like a bad dream that I could never forget, that continuously haunted me, that intermittently tortured me...

"Did she know that it was you?" Zack asked after a moment's pause.

"Did you not see how fast she hung up on me?" I scoffed. "Why...why did you even make me talk to her? I've got Holly. I shouldn't be talking to other girls."

"Well, why did you take the phone from me? You didn't have to."

I scowled at Zack as he simply smirked. He knew he was right, and he knew I knew that, as well. "Bro...I fucking hate you sometimes..."

"So you're gonna look for her, right?"

"Zack, stop. I can't do that to Holly. I don't cheat on my significant others."

Zack rolled his eyes at my reference to Taylor. "Are you sure that she's the one?"

…I couldn't tell if Zack was talking about Taylor or Holly at that moment, but... I couldn't deny that I was mentally leaning more towards Taylor. "I'm not sure of anything right now....I just wanna get some sleep, alright?"

Zack reluctantly left the room, and I left the hotel before Holly came back to our room. Sure, it was really fucking late, but I needed the walk on the beach to clear my head, to untangle all my crazy thoughts.

I ended up falling asleep on the beach, though, using my shirt as a pillow of sorts. It was so nice and peaceful and quiet, and the stars looked like a thousand diamonds strewn across a blue blanket. Probably not the best idea, but my ideas were never that great to begin with...

It’s a both a blessing and a curse to be such a heavy sleeper. Because, the next morning, I woke up with the sun searing my skin. Sunburn? Fuck. My. Life. I inched towards the shoreline until the water started to wash over me, soothing my flaming skin...for now, at least...

Shit, I really fucking hate sunburn!