Chapter 47: Life at 13



Here it was, the day I turned thirteen. The day that I became a teenager. My first day in hell, as Kat would say. I opened one eye. Tay and Ike were gone. I looked at the clock.

"TWELVE FIFTY-FIVE?!?!?!" I jumped out of bed. I threw on some clothes and ran downstairs. No one was to be found. "MOM? DAD? IKE?" I looked in the living room. "TAY? JESS? AVIE? MACKIE? ZOË?" I called. No one answered. "Maybe I'm getting a surprise party and they are all waiting for me to tromp down into the basement." I talked to myself aloud. I made sure to stomp hard as I went down the steps, when I flipped on the lights, I expected lots of people to go "SURPRISE!" but only found a skate at the bottom of the step. "Hmm...I wonder if they left a note." I ran back upstairs and looked on the kitchen table. Zac, your mother and I took the children to grams, Ike is out doing whatever, and Tay is going to take you out to lunch with Kat, Joey, Tim and Joey's mom for your birthday, be sure to thank them when its over. They'll pick you up about one o'clock so be ready. We let you sleep because its your birthday. Happy 13th Birthday son, Love dad. It was a normal dad note, short, sweet and to the point. I looked at my clothes, decided I was okay, and heard Tay walk in.

"Hi guys!" I ran out from the kitchen and into Kat's arms.

"Happy first birthday in hell Zac." She kissed me. I appreciated it. "Oh! I have a present for you in the back seat of the car!" she yelled. Everyone looked at her and laughed. "NOOOO! Not that." She thought for a minute, "Although that wouldn't be too bad of a birthday present, would it Zac?"

"Not at all." I smirked.

"How has your day been so far?" Joey asked.

"Well, I woke up about, um," I glanced at my watch. 1:03. "eight minutes ago, so I've pretty much just put my clothes on, but I guess it's okay so far."

"You think you slept in long enough?" Kat laughed.

"Nah, I'll probably fall asleep in the car. So, where are we headed?"

"We're going to the Woodland Hills Mall," Taylor announced.

"Okay...but we've been there a hundred times before...." I pointed out.

"Yeah, but there's lotsa stuff to keep my Zachary entertained," Kat smiled, latching onto my left arm.

"Since when did you start calling me Zachary?"

"Since I wanted to, Zachary."

"Okay. Fine by me."

We all piled into the Baldwin family van. Joey, Tay and Tim started chatting right off about something that I couldn't distinguish from what Kat was blabbing in my ear. I had a feeling that they were talking about me, so I decided to determine it. I slowly moved closer until I was as close to them as possible without them thinking I was listening in. Kat then started pulling on the back of my pants, trying to keep me away from them, obviously. Unfortunately, I hadn't thought of the fact that they were huge on me. When they started pulling down, I quickly grabbed them, and pulled them back up, swatting Kat's hand away. I was still trying to listen to the conversation, yet I was being quite unsuccessful since I had the nuisance of a girlfriend trying to keep me away.

Finally, she pulled my pants down to my knees, exposing the plaid boxers I was fashioning underneath.

"I'm sorry, Zac!" Kat exclaimed, putting her hands up to her mouth, embarrassed at first, but then she cocked her head, smiling. I quickly tried to pull them back up and when I was successful, I sat back down beside Kat. “Darn it,” I heard her mutter.

“What?” I asked, knowing full well what was coming next.

“Well, that view was pretty good...I was thinking about finding my camera...”

“Don’t tell me you brought THAT camera,” I laughed.

“Yep. THAT camera. It’s brought a lot of really good, interesting, pictures into our lives,” Kat smiled deviously.

“What’s that look for?”

“What look?”

“That one that you just got. It’s like the ‘I’ve got a secret’ look, but a little different.”

“It’s probably the ‘You have no clue’ look,” Kat laughed.

“Maybe it’s the ‘We’ve been waiting for you guys to get out of the freakin’ car for the past two minutes’ look!” I suddenly heard Joey interject. We were sitting in front of the JC Penny’s entrance. I quickly got up and jumped out of the van, kind of embarrassed that we hadn’t been paying attention and were keeping everyone waiting. Kat followed me and we waited on the sidewalk as Joey talked to her mom about when she’d pick us up. After a minute, I saw the van pull away and Joey grabbed Taylor’s hand and signaled us to follow her.

Once inside, we went straight out into the mall. Before going anywhere, Kat suddenly stopped me and put a blindfold on me.

“What?!” I cried as I was plunged into darkness.

“We’ve got a surprise for my Zac and you can’t see it yet,” I heard Kat laugh.

“So I get to walk through the mall blindfolded?” I asked skeptically. “Exactly,” she giggled. Then I felt her put an arm around me and begin to lead me through the crowded mall. I had completely lost where I was after only about 2 turns, and after the five minutes it took to arrive at our destination, I had absolutely no clue where I was. I could hear Tim, Joey and Taylor giggling and Kat shushing them.

“Okay...I just want to say Happy Birthday to the biggest poopie head of them all!” Kat laughed as she ripped off my blindfold. In front of my was a giant blown up picture of me with underwear on my head with Kat’s birthday wish at the bottom. I could feel my face burn up slowly until it was completely red.

“Told you that camera got a lot of interesting pictures...” Kat whispered to me.

“Oh, this is it...You’re going down!” I tackled Kat and pinned her to the ground, laughing the whole time. Once she was pinned, she looked kind of scared.

“What are you going to do to me?” she asked, half-jokingly.

“Kiss you until your brain pops out!” I smiled as I leaned down to kiss her. I kissed her for only a little while, when I heard someone clear their throat. We ignored it, but the throat got cleared again.

“SCUSE ME!” I heard Taylor shout. “I don’t really think security would appreciate you two getting it on in the food court floor, so why don’t we just eat cake instead?”

“Good idea,” Joey agreed, retrieving the cake from a box on the table. They lit the candles that were in a weird formation. They were in a semi-circle around the top of the cake. I thought that was very strange that they just didn't put them in the middle. They sang, I made a wish that Kat and I would be together forever and then I blew the candles out. Right after they were all extinguished, I felt a few hands put force on my head, and my face went into the cake. I picked my face up, saw a flash and then yelled at Kat.

"You guys are ruining my birthday on purpose, aren't you?!?!?!?!" I yelled, then I cleared my face of and flung the gooey, dripping mess of cake off my hand and on to Kat's face. We all had a small food fight. We got cleaned up and then we left to look around the mall. We were surprised that only a few Hanson fans had the need to come up to me, say Happy Birthday, get autographs, then leave. I was especially surprised, and I was scared as to what other pranks they would pull on me. "I wanna go home before anything else bad happens to me." I groaned as we entered a Dillards. Kat kissed me.

"Is that friendly enough persuasion?" she asked.

"No." I retorted, knowing exactally what would happen. She kissed me again and it was much longer this time.

"Still no?" She looked at me. I nodded. Then she gave me one of the greatest kisses of all time. "STILL no?"

"No, I was persuaded the whole time, I just wanted to see how good it could get." I smiled. She punched me in the arm and then kissed me again.

Chapter 48: More Life at 13

Onto the next part of our plan. I hated seeing Zac like this, but I loved it too. We took him into Dillards and told him that he got a shopping spree. He just started picking clothes up left and right. He got into the dressing room and began trying things on. As he was, Taylor had made sure the door couldn’t be locked earlier, and he swung the door opened as I snapped away with my handy-dandy embarrassing contraption, a.k.a.: my camera. Zac turned beet red, slammed the door closed, got his clothes back on, and stormed off. Not even I could catch him.

“ZAC! WAIT UP!” I yelled. He finally stopped. I was about twenty feet from him when he did. He was sitting on the rim of the fountain they had in the middle of the mall. He was throwing pennies in left and right, probably wishing for the day to end. I decided to tell everyone to stop after this, since Zac didn’t seem to be enjoying it all that much anymore.

Zac had his back to me as I approached him. I gave him a hug and he pushed me away. That stung. I had never meant this day to go this far. I watched as Taylor approached him.

“Zac, please don’t be mad, we were only playing.” Taylor said, putting his hand on Zac’s shoulder. Zac turned around with a giant smile on his face.

“You guys are such suckers. You actually thought I was mad.” He laughed. Taylor sat down next to him on the rim of the fountain.

“You mean, you weren’t mad?”

“No....why should I be? I mean this whole day has been fun!” Zac laughed. I could tell he was lying through his teeth, I was just waiting for him to follow with through whatever plan he had. Tay, Ike, Jo, and I began to laugh. He joined in. Then when Taylor leaned back, Zac pushed on Tay’s chest hard and he lost his balance, falling into fountain. Zac got up, ran past me, grabbing my hand on the way, and we laughed as Tay yelled.

“ZAC YOU ARE GOING TO PAY FOR THIS! I DON’T FORGET THINGS!!!!”

“OH YEAH, WELL YOU DESERVED IT!!! I STILL OWE YOU FOR THIS DAY!!!!” Zac yelled back. He took me down a long, empty hall. There were doors along the wall reading, “Personnel only!” and stuff like that. We headed to the back door and went out. Luckily it wasn’t a fire escape door. We ran to a car. Zac got to the door.

“LOCKED!” He yelled, pulling on a handle.

“Zac, we are not stealing this car.”

“Nope, I am.” He smiled slyly.

“NO....we are leaving.” I grabbed him and began to pull him away.

“Hey, lets go across the street and hang out or something. Or, there is a nice shady little corner over there. No one can see anything.” I smirked. He smiled and looked at the bank sign across the street. Joey’s mom wouldn’t be here for at least an hour, I could have a little fun ‘til then. We walked over to the quiet little corner and began to kiss. Softly at first, just as usual, then a little longer each time until we were all over each other. After about fifteen minutes we stopped. There was a small group of girls surrounding us.

“Hi girls.” Zac said, slowly moving along the wall.

“And exactally what were you just doing with that girl?” A short girl with an attitude asked, crossing her arms, she looked to be the oldest. All of them looked to be 15 or younger.

“I was kissing her. She’s my girlfriend, okay?” I could see that Zac was finally fed up with the “of course we don’t have girlfriends” act. He had told me before that was sick of having to keep his dating status a secret. What made me mad was we had to keep it like that just for a bunch of stupid girls that would cry at the drop of a dime. All the real fans would respect the fact that they were guys with hormones, and they were going to have girlfriends periodically. He had told me this every time we had been caught together and tearfully asked if we were a couple, but he had kept it from the sobbing little girls that always approached us. Now, he was finally saying what he needed to whom he needed to say it. “And if you don’t like it, you can hate me and my brothers, or you can break our c.d. and you can rip up posters of me or whatever. Its stupid to stop being a fan because I actually like a girl! I mean, everyone has a life! Do you know what its like not being able to tell your fans that you are happy so you can keep them happy? I don’t think you do, because if you did, you would know how I feel right now. I feel like a rat in a cage that has to smile and sing and pretend that I don’t know that I’m supposed to do more that that--like be happy!” He took my hand and we took off. I looked back at all the girls. Some of them were in tears, some of them were shocked, mouths dropped to the floor, some were just wincing at his tone of voice. Zac was definitely pissed.

“I’m sorry,” I said quietly as we walked back across the parking lot.

“It’s not your fault, why should you be?”

“It is my fault. I’ve had a fair hand in all this, but I didn’t mean it to go this far. I’m sorry this whole day turned out like this!” I sighed, close to tears. I really had been horrible to him today.

“Thats not why I’m so mad, I am just really sick of not being able to express personal convictions and emotions I want to express because it will hurt our fans. I’m trying to remember that speech so I can send it to the press.”

“Are you really gonna do that?”

“Bet your ass I am. I’ll show it to Ike and Tay first and we’ll revise it, but I’m sure they’re sick and tired of keeping this a secret. Sooner or later it’s going to come out that we’re taken, and I’d just rather have it come from us than for people to see it on Hard Copy. So, you have a piece of paper and pencil?”

“Yeah, hold on.” I had everything in my purse. I pulled out a small sheet of paper and a pen and watched as he began to write.




I reached for Taylor’s hand to pull him out of the fountain. Without warning, he yanked on my arm and pulled me down right on top of him, which neither of us minded, but then he shot up and looked accusingly at me.

“Do you know what I just remembered????” He almost yelled.

“What?”

“I owed you that!”

“What? Why?”

“Around the time we had first met, you and Kat came over and Zac and I chased you into the pool, then you and Kat did something to Zac and I, then you also pulled me into the pool. Do you remember that?” He smiled at the memory. I thought for a moment.

“OH YEAH! I do remember. That’s when Zac got so mad at Kat for throwing a grass covered cookie chunk into his mouth. We never did get around to finishing our cookies and lemonade.” We began to laugh. Tim was not amused since he had never witnessed the fatal events of our early friendship.

“Where are Zac and Kat anyway?” he asked.

“I don’t know. I think they may have went out to the parking lot or something,” I suggested since they had went outside through one of the side exits.

“Well, I’m supposed to meet one of my other friends at two over by the arcade and it’s almost that now, so I’ll see you later,” he gave a small wave and turned to leave.

“Wait, are you going to be riding home with us or not?” Taylor asked. “No, I think Chase and I are going to go home with his older brother or something. If not, I’ll call my mom or hitch a ride on the bus,” he shrugged as he walked slowly away.

“Okay, bye Tim! Have fun!” I shouted after him. I watched him walk away for a second then turned back to Taylor.

“Um, we’re drawing a crowd, Joey. I think it’s about time to remove ourselves from the fountain,” Taylor nudged me noticing the people beginning to form in a semi-circle around us.

“Good idea,” I agreed. We pulled ourselves up and then got out of the fountain. Hurriedly, we rushed out the side door that Kat and Zac had used and found a nice sunny spot to wring our clothes out. I looked at Taylor as he took his shirt off over his head and began to twist it around, trying to remove the water from it. His chest had tiny drops of water slowly dripping down, leaving a long trail of water behind them. It was mesmerizing and I couldn’t resist him. He turned around, trying to ring more water out of the shirt and I took a step towards him. I put my hands on his shoulders, slowly massaging them. For a moment, he relaxed and enjoyed the sensation. Then, he slowly turned around and faced me. He put his arms around my wet waist and pulled me closer. Drops of water were on his lips and cheeks from the wet hair that was hanging and dripping in his face. It was tangled and messy from our adventure, so I slowly put a hand up to it and smoothed it back out of his face. He simply brought his warm lips to mine and gingerly kissed me. I felt his grip on me tighten and he pulled me closer, his tongue exploring my mouth. The feelings that went surging through my body were tough to deny, but I knew that it wasn’t the right place or the right time. I wanted Taylor. When his hands roamed my body and touched me in places I’d never wanted people to touch me before, all I could feel was the incredible urge to lay down and show him exactly how much I loved him.

Slowly I drew my lips away from his after some shorter, sweeter kisses and placed my face in the crook of his neck. “I love you,” I quietly whispered to him.

“I love you, too.”

“Awww, how sweet!” I suddenly heard a surprisingly masculine “girly” voice inturrupt. I shot my head up and looked over at Zac and Kat who were mimicking us.

“I love you, Zachary,” Kat over-acted “I love you, too, Kath-a-ryn,” Zac said dramatically. Then, Zac dipped Kat, giving her the fakest kiss I had ever witnessed.

“What maturity...makes me wonder if he is in fact related to me at all,” Taylor shook his head. I merely laughed at the situation, glad that we were all together.

“Guys, I love you all...and I’m not being stupid or anything, but you just never know when one of us may leave this world,” I sighed, wishing that we would never be apart.

“Aww, that’s sweet of you, Joey,” Kat smiled. She knew how rare it was to tell platonic relations to me that I loved them.

She came over and hugged me and then agreed, “I do, too. You guys are the best things that ever came into my life.”

“I think we’re pretty much all thankful that we have each other, now can we stop the mushy stuff?” Zac pleaded. He never was much of an affectionate towards his friends.

“Sure, Zac. I’m right with you. Where do you want to go now. We promise we won’t pull anymore of those jokes. We’re fresh out of them,” Taylor put up a hand to show his honesty.

“Are you sure?” he inquired. We all nodded in agreement. Okay, then let’s go to Gadzooks. I saw a shirt there the other day that I really liked.”

“Wait, um, Taylor, you and I are a bit wet to be going through stores,” I mentioned.

“Good point,” he nodded as he put back on his wet shirt.

“Guys, there’s a really cheap clothes store over there. Do you each have about fifteen bucks on you?” Kat suggested. We nodded. “Well, then just go over there and get clothes and meet us at Gadzooks in about fifteen minutes, k?”

“Okay,” I nodded in agreement. I then grabbed Taylor’s hand, pulling him towards the vintage store.

Chapters 49-50
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