"Tay?" Carter sat on the edge of Taylor's bed. The room was cold, Carter hated airconditioning. "Hey." She put her hand on his shoulder and whispered a little louder.
Taylor rolled over. "Hi." His smile was faint, as if he was still asleep.
"Can I ask you something?"
"You couldn't wait till morning?"
"No." Carter sighed. "What do you think of that girl?"
"That one that's obsessed with Zac?"
"Yeah."
Taylor put his arms behind his head and grinned. "She's kind of pretty."
"I don't mean like that. I guess... What do you think Zac thinks of her?"
Taylor gave Carter a strange look and shrugged. "Has there ever been a time that you wanted to talk to me when it wasn't about my brother?"
Carter ignored him. "I have expected her to go up to his room and jump him right there and then he'd throw her out the window and it'd be over." She sighed and tucked her hair behind her ears. "I guess it didn't go that way though. She went up to my room and she said hi. That's what Zac told me. And that she seemed nice."
"And that's a problem?"
"Yeah. Because then they talked and Zac told her that Marie isn't a spanish name. Then she told him that her parents didn't want her to have a spanish name because they knew she would live here someday. I think he was impressed with her."
"So?"
"I mean... I guess I needed somebody to talk to. But, I don't know how to explain everything."
"You could try?" Taylor yawned.
"It's like he's getting tired of me. I've spent my whole life with him and these girls come around and it's like they're something new and different and..."
Taylor grabbed her arm. "Do you really think he's getting tired of you? Or are you getting tired of him and just looking for a reason to end it."
Carter looked down at him. "I don't know."
"If you guys... uhm... Ever went back to being just friends..." Taylor looked away at the wall. "Who do you think you'd wanna be with?"
"Tay I don't even know what I'm saying at the moment, let alone who I want to be with or what I want to do to that person in the future. I'm just confused and I thought you could help, but you're just sitting here putting things in my mind, and now I don't even know what I'm thinking."
"Whoa, chill out. I just made a suggestion that maybe you don't really love Zac, maybe you're like Dawson and Joey."
"They're back together now."
"That's not my point."
Carter sighed and pushed her hair behind her ears again. "Sucks, not knowing what you want." She sighed and looked up. She stared at the blonde figure in the doorway. One hand on his bare shoulder, the other hanging down by his waist. He was staring at the ceiling, his eyes tired and dark. "Zac..." She whispered, almost to herself and not to him.
"So uhm..." His voice sounded choked, like he didn't know what he was going to say. "You come to Taylor when you need to talk about me?"
"Zac..."
"Is that what you do now? You talk to him about the fact that you're not sure we should be together?"
"I never said that!" Carter stood up and walked over to him.
"I didn't tell you what really happened with Marie. I told her that her name is french, not spanish. Then she said, 'I may be spanish, but I can pretend I'm french.' Or some shit like that. Then she grabbed me and kissed me. I pushed her away. You know why?"
Carter shook her head and looked at his feet.
"Because I know what I want. But obviously you don't. So uhm... listen I'm gonna go to bed."
"Zac, please don't. I want to talk to you."
"You could have before, but for some reason you had to turn me down to talk to Tay. You're my best friend, Carter, but you had to talk to him? I thought I was your best friend, I thought you tell me everything. Even if it has to do with... the way you feel or ... how you don't know that you feel, or whatever the hell you were talking about." Zac turned around and started to walk down the hall.
"Zac!" Carter ran after him and grabbed his arm. Zac shook her off and turned around.
"Don't. Please just don't. I really don't want to talk to you right now and I don't know when I will. If you had a problem with me I would have expected you to tell me. That's what we've always been about. I'm going to bed. I'm tired and my legs hurt." He turned around and slammed his door in her face.
Carter turned back towards Taylor's bedroom. He was now standing there, waiting for her to come back, but she walked straight past him. Taylor grabbed her arm and stopped her. "Don't... touch me." She muttered before jerking away and leaving out the balcony door. She walked to her room and turned on her Walkie Talkie... nothing. Zac had turned it off.
Carter took her fist and slammed it against the wall. No response. She did it again. And again. Finally, the walkie talkie flickered on and Zac yelled at her. "What do you want?!"
"I want to talk to you."
"Heh." Zac's silence was sarcastic enough.
"I'm sorry."
"What for?"
Carter sighed. "For going to your brother to talk when I should have gone to you."
Silence filled the air for a few minutes. "It kinda hurt that for the first time ever, you didn't tell me how you were feeling."
"I know." Carter looked up at the doorway to see Zac standing there, walkie talkie in hand. "I'm sorry Zac."
Zac shrugged and sat down on the bed next to her. He put his arm over her waist and placed his head on her chest. "It's ok. Just... don't get so chummy with Tay. I think I may be experiencing symptoms of jealousy."
Carter laughed and kissed the top of Zac's head. "No problem."
"And one more thing... I'm not getting tired of you. If that's what you were worried about. We're just getting started. There's no way I could be sick of you."
Carter smiled and hugged Zac. They had survived their first fight... if that could qualify as a fight.