“Zac!! Zac, wake up!”

Zac bolted up in bed, breathing hard. Isaac, who had been shaking Zac’s shoulders, stepped back just in time to avoid a collision. Taylor peered at Zac worriedly.

“What’s going on?” Diana asked, her voice frantic as she rushed into the room. Walker and a trail of kids followed her. “Zac, are you okay?” she demanded.

Zac willed his breathing to slow down and ran a hand through his sweaty hair. “Yeah, I’m okay.”

“You didn’t sound okay,” Isaac commented.

“Yeah, they probably heard you screaming all the way in China,” Taylor piped in.

“Did you have a nightmare, honey?” Diane asked, sitting on the bed.

Zac thought for a moment. “I guess so,” he said slowly.

“What was it about?” Jessica asked from the doorway as she comforted Zoë.

Zac shook his head. “I don’t know, I can’t remember it. I didn’t even know I was screaming.”

Walker looked at his son, concerned. “You didn’t know?”

Zac shook his head again.

“Are you going to be okay?” Diane asked, taking his hand.

“Yeah, I’m going to be fine. Nightmares aren’t real, right Mackie?” he said to the little boy who had snuck up to the bed.

“Right!”

Diana smiled at Mackie. “Okay, then, I guess we should all go back to bed.” She kissed Zac’s forehead and stood up, picking up Mackie. She turned to the crowd at the doorway. “Come on, back to bed.”

Taylor followed her and closed the door after everyone was gone. He went back over to Zac’s bed and sat on the side that wasn’t occupied by Isaac. “You can’t remember it?”

“No.” Zac rubbed his face. “I can’t believe I was screaming. That’s the first time I ever screamed.”

Taylor nodded. “I know.”

Zac had started having the nightmares a couple of weeks ago. He’d wake up in a cold sweat, breathing hard and scared to death, but he could never remember the dream. He’d cried out once, waking Isaac and Taylor but no one else. He’d confided to them about the dream, and they’d told him to wake them up every time he had it. So he did.

Isaac chewed on his lip. “This is so weird. Why can’t you remember it, and why do you keep having it?”

Zac sighed and fell back onto his bed. “I wish I knew.”

“Think you’ll be able to sleep?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, we’ll stay up until you fall asleep, okay?” Taylor said.

So Isaac and Taylor camped out on the floor around Zac’s bed, talking and telling jokes until the first streams of light filtered through the blinds. One by one they drifted off to sleep.

“You three are up late,” Diana commented as Isaac, Taylor, and Zac walked into the kitchen. “You missed breakfast completely; lunch is about ready, though.”

“Lunch? What time is it?” Taylor asked, rubbing a hand across his forehead.

“Almost 12:30.”

Taylor ran his hand back through his hair before bringing it back down to his side. “Man,” he said, sinking into a chair, “I promised Chris I’d by at his house by 1.”

Diana sighed. “Taylor-”

“Mom!” Taylor cut her off. “I’m not a little kid anymore; stop worrying about me! I can take care of myself!” He stalked out of the room.

Zac and Isaac shifted uneasily, unsure of what to do. They knew that Taylor had left to avoid another lecture about his eating habits, but they didn’t know why it bothered him so much.

Diana turned back to the stove and dropped her head into her hands.

“Mom?” Isaac took an uncertain step forward. “Are you…okay?”

Diana didn’t even turn around. “Yes, I’m okay.” She drew in a shaky breath. “You boys go on up to your room now.”

Isaac glanced back at Zac who just shrugged. “Are you sure?”

Diana nodded, so Zac and Isaac turned around and went back the way they had come. They found Taylor staring out the window.

“Tay, what is your problem?” Isaac demanded, clearly irritated. “Why did you go and upset Mom like that?”

Taylor faced them. “You wouldn’t understand, so I’m not even going to explain. And don’t give me that ‘We’re brothers, you should be able to tell us this stuff’ bull crap,” Taylor said, his eyes narrowed in anger. “Just stay out of my life, and everything will be fine.” Taylor pushed past them and ran down the stairs.

Zac licked his lips nervously as he looked at Isaac out of the corner of his eye. Taylor was certainly overreacting these days. Isaac stood there, looking shocked. He cleared his throat. “Uh, Ike? Does Tay seem different to you? He wasn’t always like this, was he?”

Isaac shook his head and down on the bed. “No,” Isaac whispered, “he wasn’t.”

Zac sat down next to him. “He never smiles or laughs anymore,” he said. He didn’t realize he had said it out loud until Isaac agreed.

“I know. And when he does smile, it’s that fake, overly bright smile that the fans just eat up.”

Zac sighed. “Oh, well, he said it himself. We should just let him live his life.”

Isaac stared at Zac a minute before slowly shaking his head. He stood up, not looking at Zac again. “Not if he’s ruining his life.” He left the room.

Zac sighed as he held the wet washcloth to his bleeding arm. He took it away after a minute, but had to put it back as the blood continued to spill to the surface.

“Zac! Lunch is ready!” a far-away voice called.

He glanced at the closed bathroom door even though everyone was downstairs. He closed his eyes, cursing silently as the washcloth started to turn vaguely red. He pressed harder, trying to stop the bleeding. The minutes crept by.

“Zac! Lunch!” Diana tried again.

Zac opened the door. “Okay! Be right there!” He shut the door again and tried to hold the washcloth in place as he searched for band-aids long enough for the cuts that lined his arm. Finally, he sighed, resorting to toilet paper as his mom called again. Frantically, he wrapped it around his arm several times and went to his room to put on a shirt with longer sleeves. He ran down the stairs and joined his family. “Sorry,” he said.

“What were you doing up there?” Jessica asked.

“Oh, I was, uh…uh,” he stammered, racking his brain for an excuse.

Isaac, noting his brother’s distress, jumped in. “Jess, don’t be so nosy.”

“You can’t live in this house and not be nosy,” Jessica said, but concentrated on eating.

Zac shot Isaac a look of gratitude. Isaac turned away.

“So, where did Taylor say he was going?” Walker questioned.

“Uh, to his friend’s house,” Diana answered as she cleaned up Mackie’s spilt milk.

“Whose house? Which friend?”

“Walker, stop it.”

“What? I would just like to know where my son is. I never see him anymore.”

Diana gave him a look as she sat back down. “He went to Chris’s.”

Zac watched the brief exchange, curious, and even more so when neither his mom nor his dad said anything else to each other. He quickly finished his lunch and was excused. He ran up to the bathroom and tended to his arm. When he was done with that, he went back downstairs to get something to drink. As he got closer, he could hear Taylor talking.

“What, do you want to smell my breath or something?”

“Taylor, there’s no need for that tone of voice.” That was his father.

“We’re just worried about you.”

“Mom, I told you I ate! Why don’t you believe me?”

“Look at yourself, Jordan! Don’t you see how skinny you’ve gotten? Everyone notices it!” His father never called Taylor ‘Jordan’ unless he was upset or angry.

“It’s not my fault! It’s the way I was built. I’m just naturally skinny.”

“You may be, but you’ve lost weight. You can see the changes in your body if you look through pictures taken at concerts, and especially so if you watch interviews.”

“It’s not my fault!” Taylor repeated. “If you were as active as we are then you would know that you can eat your own body weight and still lose!”

“But we never see you eat at all! All you ever do is drink coffee.”

“Maybe you just don’t pay enough attention.”

“Alright,” Diana said, breaking into the heated conversation, “if you eat tonight, and eat a reasonable amount, then we’ll get off your back. Deal?”

“Whatever.”

“Okay, good.”

Zac moved away from the door and wandered into the living room, thinking about the conversation he’d just overheard. So his parents were worried. Why? Nothing could really be wrong with Taylor…could it?