I sat up, and my body immediately fell back into the mattress. The familiar fatigue set in, and, with that, the ache in my muscles. It seemed like I always felt like that. Especially after shows—it was like putting salt on a wound sometimes, doing shows so often. But I loved playing, more than anything. I swear, I could just sit in a room with my drums for the rest of my life, without food or water, just performing songs. I could. It would give me an opportunity to grow, too. Or maybe just to escape from fame for awhile. Sometimes, I think I might just do that. Lock myself in a room with my drums, and just play until I die. It’s been a long time since I’ve been in a secluded area, where I’m not being bothered. Even if I could live like that for a day—I think I’d be able to enjoy life a little bit more.
“Zac?” Taylor’s voice filled my mind suddenly, startling me. I was so startled that I lost the vision of me in my room, something that made me angry. I couldn’t even think without being interrupted. “Zac, what are you doing still sleeping? We have to be at the venue in twenty minutes. You’re so slow.” I yawned and climbed down from my bunk slowly, without saying a word to him. The carpet shocked me when I set my bare feet on it. That made me think about home. In my bedroom, we had nice, wooden floors, the kind that didn’t shock you. I liked that.
“Oh, for Heaven’s sake, Zachary.” Mom. She stood behind Taylor, holding my sister Zoe (who was probably too old to be held anymore), combing the kid’s hair. Mothers. They were always combing their kids’ hair.
“Didn’t I tell you to get up over an hour ago? What is it with you lately, honey? Since we left that last venue, you haven’t been yourself.” Taylor sighed. He didn’t like Mom interrupting him when he was lecturing me. He enjoyed getting on my case about everything, you could tell. He sat down on my other brother, Isaac’s bunk, waiting for his turn to get to me.
“I’m fine, Ma,” I replied, running my fingers through my hair to smoothen it out. Zoe, the baby of our family at three, grinned at me. She had the smallest, whitest teeth I had ever seen in my life. She could’ve been a baby supermodel. Mom didn’t like that idea much. Nobody ever liked any of my ideas.
“Alright. I guess I can let you go then. I’ll remind the kids not to turn any water on, so that you can shower. And I know how you like to spend hours in there, but we don’t have time today, okay?” She didn’t wait for me to reply. I hated it when people did that. What’s the point of asking a question if you don’t want the answer? “Good. I’ll be in the kitchen if you need me.” The kitchen. That made me laugh. Our kitchen was a boxed in space with half of everything: half of a stove, half of a sink, half of a refrigerator. If you could even call what we had half.
Taylor was still sitting there when she left the room. He immediately started in with me again. “She’s right, you know.” I shook my head. “’Bout what?” He shrugged. “The way you’ve been acting lately. You’re different now, Zac. I don’t know what went on, you were off with Abby so much. Since then, you’ve been a little too quiet.” I took the change of clothes I had gotten out and put under my mattress the night before, and started for the shower. “Too quiet compared to what?” I asked, throwing the clothes on the bathroom floor. “Too quiet for Zac Hanson.” I turned the shower on, hoping to drown out the sound of his voice. The stubborn kid that he was, he kept talking, raising his voice above the sound of the water.
“What did you guys do all that time?” The question caught me. I didn’t know why. It was a simple question, but it made me think. I turned to him and smiled at the memories of sitting on the beach with my best friend, having conversations about nothing. Only one thing came to my head, one thing that expressed perfectly what I was trying to say.
“We lived.”
