I peeked out of Lance's room later on in the night and noticed that the lights were out and the only illumination was the TV's flashing pictures. I saw the back of Justin's head sitting on the couch. I walked over to it and leaned against the arm. He acknowledged my presence and looked up.
"Hey Joe." I followed the feet that were propped up on his lap and saw that Lance was asleep on the couch. Justin noticed my questioning look. "He wanted to go to bed, but you were still his room." I nodded.
"I'm sorry. About earlier. I didn't really mean a lot of the stuff that I said and I didn't mean to direct my frustrations to you."
"You have nothing to be sorry for. You've got enough on your mind without all of us hounding you and trying to take care of you. I mean, we are your friends. But hey, I'm not saying anything." It was then I realized, he was being sarcastic.
"Justin-"
"You offended me and not only that, you embarassed me in front of my friends. I know you're going through a rough time, but so am I. I mean, what do you expect us to do? Just leave you alone? Let you stay locked up in a bedroom, not sleeping, not eating, not doing anything at all? Well, you're wrong." He was right and I wasn't about to argue.
"I know and there's nothing left for me to do but say I'm sorry. Today has been a really long, hard day on me. And on all of us, and frankly I just want to forget everything that happened today."
"Oh really, how are you going to do that?"
"I was just on my way to the kitchen to get my painkillers and I figure those should make me pretty sleepy. I can wake up tomorrow with a brand new head on my shoulders and try to make the best of my day." Justin smiled up at me.
"Good for you."
"Yeah, good for me." Justin flipped the TV off and put the controller down on the table next to him.
"I think I'm gonna go to bed. Can you maybe help me up?"
"Uh, sure." I lifted Lance's legs up so Justin could slide out from underneath. Once he was up, I gently put his legs back down. He stirred slightly as I grabbed a blanket from the back of the couch and spread it over him. "Hey Justin." He stopped at his door and turned back to me.
"Yep?"
"Are you going to the hospital tomorrow? I told Chris I'd come back and I never did." He inhaled deeply.
"Yeah, sometime during the day. I'm not sure when, though. Want me to tell you when I leave?"
"Yeah, wake me up. That is, if I'm asleep. Which reminds me, I never got my painkillers." Justin chuckled and went into his room, shutting the door. I sighed. Where did I put them anyway? The kitchen...bathroom. I don't know.
I finally found the pills. In the kitchen. I got myself a glass of water and dumped a few in my palm. As I brought them to my mouth to gulp them down, I hesitated. Did I really wanna fall asleep? If I had the dream again, I would die. In my dreams and in reality. But I needed sleep, even if I was tortured in my sleep, I'd still get rest. I nodded and dumped them down my throat, taking a big swallow of the water.
I left the bottle on the counter and turned to go to bed. I wondered if I should make an appointment with a therapist. Get help before I get too depressed and confused. Admit I'm scared in the beginning rather than wait until I'm back in the hospital of exhaustion. Maybe what I needed to do was go to one of those people that calms you by filling your head with pleasant thoughts and peaceful music so you can have those thoughts in mind and dream a dream. Not a nightmare. Or maybe I could do that myself.
JC had a bunch of CD's of peaceful music. I'm sure he wouldn't mind if I borrowed one. I crept into his room so I wouldn't wake him and searched aimlessly in the dark for his bag. I pulled out his CD carrying case and winced at the loud noise it made as I unzipped it. He mumbled something in his sleep as I flipped through the CD's. I had a choice of either Sounds of the Rainforest or Chopin. I returned the case to his bag, not zipping it because of the noise and made my exit just as quietly.
I placed the CD in my Discman and put the headphones on my ears. The contraption on my head wasn't very comfortable and I regretted leaving my CD player on the bus. The sounds of Chopin came into my ears, seeming to still my emotions. I took a deep breath and tried not to move and knock the music away from my senses. It wasn't long until the music lulled me to sleep.
Of course when you finally get the wonderful feeling of falling asleep, you have to wake up. You have to go through the grossness and sickness of waking up. You eyes hurt from being closed so long, you muscles are too relaxed to begin moving, and your throat is dry from lack of verbal use. I hated waking up.
I glanced at the digital clock by the bed, and groaned in realization. It read 1:13. The sun was shining through my window so I knew it was in the afternoon. I wondered if anyone else had just slept through the morning without a second thought as well as I had.
I slowly sat up and threw the headphones that were still wrapped around my head in frusteration across the room. I put my hand to my head and noticed that it still ached. I had gotten almost twelve hours of sleep and my head still hurt. What's up with that?
I yawned and rose up from my bed and tiredly walked to the door and opened it. There was no one in the living room when I came out. I heard rustling in the kitchen so I followed the sound. JC was in there moving around making breakfast or could have been lunch, I don't know.
"I'm sorry, did I wake you?" I yawned and shook my head at his comment.
"No, I was up. Where're the guys?" JC walked over to the sink to wash off a knife before answering.
"Justin went to the hospital and Lance went to the store since we're running low on food around here." I smirked.
"Justin left without me? He was supposed to wake me up so I could go with him." JC shrugged.
"I dunno. I think he felt bad about waking you up since you were so tired. But I'm heading over there as soon as Lance gets back if you wanna come." My face fell. I wanted to talk to Chris.
"That's OK, I'm not a baby. I can go on my own." He seemed confused by my answer. He probably thought that there'd be no question if I was going with him or not. "I really want to talk to Chris so if that's OK, I'd rather not wait." He shrugged again.
"That's fine."
"Do you know when he'll be out of the hospital?" I asked, furrowing my eyebrows. He shook his head slowly.
"No, but soon probably."
"Cool." Cool? God, what was I thinking? "I guess I'll go now."
"All right." JC smiled when I didn't move. We were both silent. I know I should have made my exit right then, but for some reason this silence made me uncomfortable and I felt weird just leaving. That's never happened to me before. Silence has never made me uncomfortable. It was then I heard JC's amused giggles coming from his mouth. I realized my stomach had growled to interrupt the silence.
"Um..." I stuttered.
"You want to eat something before you go?" JC saved me. "Chris ain't gonna die on you. There's plenty of time for you to talk to him. "
I smirked gently. He offered me a piece of his toast that was caked in peanut butter. I never really like peanut buttered toast, but I was so hungry at the time, I didn't care. I took the piece gratefully and almost swallowed it whole.
"Did you know that if you eat a lot of peanut butter, you can lose weight?" That made me laugh. He could say the stupidest things.
"Are you hinting to me that I'm fat?"
"No, I was just saying...you know, since we're eating peanut butter. You're not fat." You can always tell when JC's lying. You can see it in his eyes. My laugh grew louder. "I'm serious."
"I didn't say anything."
"You laughed. And when you laugh, it means you thought I was being funny. I'm serious. I know plenty of people that are fatter than you are." I shook my head, humorously. "I'll shut my mouth."
"Thank you." JC finished the rest of his toast and we went to the living room to sit down on the couch. Apparently, I was gonna stay. JC looked at his watch.
"Lance should be back soon, why don't you go get dressed so you'll be ready to go."
"OK." I started walking out of the room when I spotted JC's Rubiks cube sitting on an end table behind the couch, among other things. I smiled. "Hey JC?" He turned and looked at me. I tossed him the cube that had not yet been solved again. "I'll be back in ten minutes."
He may not have shown it, but I know he was glowing with happiness inside that someone had actually cared about his talent for solving the stupid thing.
I absent-mindedly played with a loose thread on my shirt as I sat next to Chris in his room. Justin had just left, leaving me and Chris alone. Chris, by now, was able to sit up and just watched TV. He tried not to let his boredom become evident, but I knew that he wasn't really interested in infomercials for non-stick cookware.
"Chris, how did you feel?" It came out of my mouth before I could stop it. But hell, it was the reason I had wanted to talk to him in the first place. He turned his head to look at me, confused. Not taking his eyes away from me, he clicked the TV off with the remote. "How did you feel?" I repeated.
"What do you mean?" He asked.
"When it happened. When we were attacked. Have you forgotten about it?"
"Of course not. I haven't forgotten, but I don't like to think about it."
"So you're not having trouble sleeping,or basically living? 'Cause I...I can't get past it." Chris, always the wise one, smiled.
"It happened only a week ago, Joe. For some people, it can take a while to move on from something like this. As for sleeping, I only sleep because the doctors put a bunch of drugs in my system and I can't help it."
"But don't you ever picture it all in your mind? Don't you ever have nightmares about it or wonder what happened to us after we lost consciousness? Don't you ever get scared that it might happen again?"
"Sure, I picture it and have nightmares about it. But I'm not scared that it will happen again because I know that you and I would never do something as stupid as that again. We've both learned our lesson."
So he didn't know exactly how I felt. He seemed to happy to realize that we could have been killed if Amma hadn't called the police. Amma. The girl came into my mind again. I knew then that I had to get in contact with her and give her a bigger 'thank you' for saving us. I knew I'd have to look her up later.
"Are you OK?" Chris spoke again, as if testing our whole conversation to make sure I was OK. "I mean, are you gonna be OK?"
"Yeah, I'll be fine. Last night was hard, though. I wish they wouldn't have sent me home. I could have used those so called drugs you were talking about." He laughed, but I was being serious. "So when do you get out of here?"
"I asked the doctor earlier. He said probably tomorrow, depending on how I feel. But even if I feel like crap, I'm still coming home."
"What about here? In New York? Do you know when we leave here?" He thought for a second.
"Don't know why you're asking me, but I figure we'll probably stay here for about another week and then catch up on the tour. Can't take any risks while I'm injured, can we?" I shook my head.
"No, we can't." I yawned instinctively.
"Tired?"
"Yeah, even though I got a lot of sleep last night."
"I thought you said last night was hard and that you couldn't get to sleep."
"I couldn't, but when I did, the guys let me sleep in until one o'clock."
"Hmm." He grinned, thoughtfully. "Do you ever wonder why we're always called 'the guys'?" I narrowed my eyes at him and cleared my throat.
"What?"
"Well, it's always 'the guys' this and 'the guys' that. When did we become the guys?" He had a good point. I did always refer to the rest of them as 'the guys'. People that knew us always referred to us as 'the guys' and our fans referred to us as 'the guys'.
"We should change our name from NSYNC to The Guys." We had a laugh about that. I'd have to tell 'the guys' about this one. I was relieved that Chris was well enough to joke around like this. When I saw him yesterday he looked terrible.
Justin then poked his head through the doorway, comically. Or at least I thought it looked funny.
"Any of you have a dime?"
"Umm...let's see. I think I left my change in my other hospital gown." Chris said, sarcastically.
"Funny, but what I meant by 'any of you', I meant Joey."
"Then why didn't you say, 'Joey, do you have a dime'?" Justin ignored Chris and looked over at me, silently asking the question again with his eyes. I stood up to reach in my pockets and pulled out a handful of change. I picked out a dime and put the rest back. I started to give it to him, but pulled back.
"What's it for?" I asked, inquiringly.
"Joe, it's ten cents. Are you really gonna miss it?" I raised my eyebrows. "I wanna call Lance at the hotel and it's thirty-five cents. I have the quarter and I need the dime, now can I have it."
"I guess so." I dropped it in his hand and he left the room without thanking me. "Do you want to sleep or something?" He closed his eyes and lied down.
"Well, if you're just looking for an excuse to leave, then sure. I want to sleep." He couldn't wipe that big, dopey grin off his face. "Are you just looking for an excuse to leave?"
"Maybe. You really don't look all that tired."
"Exactly, so why would I want to sleep? You can leave, just send someone else in. I need to converse with people 'cause there's nothing on TV." I nodded.
"OK. I'll see you later." I reluctantly turned around and walked out, passing a doctor going in on my way out. I went into the waiting room, hearing the last parts of Justin's phone call. I sat down next to JC and motioned with my hand for him to get up. "Chris wants someone to talk to, so go."
JC sighed and pushed himself up out of his seat. I overheard the sound of the payphone being put back onto it's cradle and looked to my left where Justin came back and took the seat JC had vacated.
"So what's up with Lance? Why'd you want to call him?"
"Just wanted to talk because JC was being boring. And when I went back to Chris' room the first time, I heard you guys talking and didn't want to interrupt so I waited until an appropriate time."
"Oh, so what did you guys talk about?" I asked, curiously.
"Well, I mentioned if he wondered why people always call us 'the guys'. I just don't get it."
"You really did listen to our conversation, didn't you?"
"Oh yeah." He said, gruffly.
"Is there a phone book around here anywhere?" The thought of Amma came back to me. I was gonna look her up, wasn't I?
"Yeah, by the payphone. Why? Who you wanna call?"
"Uh, no one." I went to the payphone anyway, and grabbed the 'A-L' edition of the New York City phone book. As heavy as it still was, I managed to get it up on top of the counter under the phone and opened to 'Curtis'. "Amma, Amma, Amma." I whispered to myself, scrolling down the first page. Found one. But I thought it had to be a mistake because she lived with a guy.
Matthew and Amma Curtis.
She was the only Amma Curtis and she was married. Well, I guess that rules out calling her up and asking her for a date. I looked around me and tore the page out and folded it up and stuffed it in my pocket.
"J?" I turned the corner where Justin was sitting.
"Yeah?" He sat up from his slouched position.
"I think I'm gonna go." I ran my hands through my hair and then slipped them into the pockets of my jacket.
"OK," He held his hand up."Wait a minute. I know you're gonna be mad, but I have to ask. Have you eaten anything today?" I rolled my eyes and leaned against the side of the wall.
"I had half a piece of toast before I came here. If you want, I'll have some lunch when I get back."
"Whatever." He turned his head away from me.
"Yeah, whatever." I chuckled. I knew he really did care. "I'm not mad at you."
"You're not? Because last time I asked you about that, you got mad."
"Yeah, and I aplogized for that. I was just having a bad day. But," I walked over in front of his chair and put my hand on top of his head, moving it from side to side, playfully. "You're looking a little pale so you eat something soon, OK?"
"OK."
"In fact, how about later, Lance and I pick up some fast food and come over here so we can all eat dinner together. We can sneak Chris a cheeseburger or something." I saw his lips move into a big smile. Yeah, I knew that would cheer him up to see me eating for himself. "All right, I'll see you later." I patted his shoulder and turned for the hallway.
When I got back to the hotel and went up to my room, I noticed something missing. Then, I figured it out. Lance's stuff was gone and mine was all that remained. I took my jacket off and threw it on the bed, and popped my shoes off.
I searched the suite for a while, finally finding a note posted on the refrigerator:
Guys
Got another room for me and Chris when he gets out of the hospital.
It's right down the hall in room 435.
Lance
I cracked a smile when I noticed that he had called us 'Guys'. That was always gonna stick with me. Why did I have to be so damn observant?
So room 435. I walked out into the hall and looked at the number on our door. Room 412. It really was a long ways down the hall. I looked across the hall at all of the odd numbered rooms and went down it until I found 435. I knocked on the door.
"Who is it?" I heard him yell.
"It's Joey." I answered cautiously. I heard the door unlatch and he pulled the door open, wearing only a pair of jeans.
"Sorry, I didn't want to open the door have a maid see me with my shirt off." He let me in and closed the door.
"Well, why's your shirt off anyway? And why's it so hot in here?" Guess I answered my own question.
"Exactly. I turned the air on and it's taking a while for something to come out." He went and sat down in a chair next to the vent that controlled the temperature and leaned in, I'm guessing to see if any air was coming out yet. "So how's Chris?" He straightened up and sat against the back of the chair.
"Really good. He's sitting up and talking and everything. He said he'll be leaving tomorrow so we can all return to our normal lives. Isn't that great?"
"Yeah, of course. How was he...um, mentally?" I rested up against the edge of a desktop and crossed my arms over my chest.
"What are you asking, Lance? Was he having a nervous breakdown and acting like he's lost his sanity, like me? Is that what you're saying." He sighed and began to bite his fingernails.
"You know that's not what I meant. You're not having a nervous breakdown and you have not lost your sanity. I just wanted to know how he's taking it."
"Well, you could go down there yourself. You don't need me relaying the message." Lance hunched forward and put his head in his hands.
"Why are you being like this?"
"Like what? Cold? Mean? Demented? Are you scared of me, Lance?" God, I don't know what I was thinking. Here I was, being that same disturbed person who snapped at everyone who said something to him.
"Joey." He whispered.
"You know we were having a nice conversation until you brought it up. It's your fault. You know I'm sensitive about the subject." It was then I heard a stiffled cry come from his direction. I guess I forgot that he's sensitive to everything. No one is supposed to yell at him. "Oh, Lance. I'm sorry." I said, sincerely.
He looked up at me. I could tell he was threatening to cry or resisting the urge to cry. It wasn't that bad, though. I hadn't done too much damage to his emotions.
"I didn't...I'm sorry. I've just been through a little stress this past week and I'm not handling it very well. Don't cry." He wiped at his eyes.
"I'm not crying. I'm just a little tearful." I smiled and pulled him into a hug.
"You wanna do something? So we can get our minds off of things until dinner?" He looked at me, puzzled.
"Dinner? What are we doing at dinner?"
"Oh yeah, I told Justin you and me would pick up some fast food and go to the hospital tonight to eat dinner together. And Chris has both JC and Justin there to talk to, so you and I can just relax for a while." I explained. His confused expression softened.
"OK. So what do you wanna do?" I shrugged.
"We got any games?"
"Board games?" I realized I was still kneeling in front of him and moved to sit on the couch.
"Sure."
"More like boring games." I rolled my eyes.
"That was tacky, Lance."
"I know, but what do you wanna do?" We sat there in silence thinking for a few seconds before he blurted out the first crazy idea that popped into his head. "Oh, oh, oh! I got it. When was the last time you made a water balloon?"
"Umm, I can't say that I've ever made a water balloon."
"Are you serious?"
"Well, you know me. I don't participate in dorkish habits. Besides, Lance, where would we get balloons?" He bit his lip and then got up to run in the kitchen. I sluggishly followed him. When I said I wanted to do something, this was not what I meant. I mean, come on. Water balloons? "What are you doing?"
Lance opened up a cabinet and scanned it for a box of large Ziploc bags. He found them and pulled one out and then continued over to the sink to fill it with water.
"What are you doing?" I asked again. He ignored me and twisted the bag around so it had some kind of closure. He made one more and gave it to me. I thought he was gonna answer me, but he proceeded in leaving the room and went back into the living room. "Lance! What the hell are you doing?"
He turned around and laughed at my frusteration. "OK, come here." He walked out onto the balcony. "Since balloons are a lot weaker, they pop easier. So because we have plastic bags, we have to drop them from a bigger height. So we just stick it out and drop it." And he did that. He stuck it over the ledge and dropped it, falling to the ground below.
"Or you know, you could just do this." I held my bag over his head and squeezed it with both of my hands until it popped, soaking Lance's body from head to toe. He froze in shock.
"Joey, have you forgotten that I'm not wearing a shirt?" He started shivering uncontrollably. I guess I had forgotten, but someone down there on the ground got nailed because of Lance.
"Umm...no?" He grunted and opened the door to the balcony and went back inside the room. "I'm sorry, it's just that you shouldn't be doing that. It's rude."
"Oh, I see. So you did it to me?"
"You needed to be taught a lesson since you do this so often."
"I don't do it that often."
"Oh really? When was the last time you did it?" He paused to think for a minute.
"It's been a while. A couple months at least." I rolled my eyes and pushed him towards the bathroom.
"Take a hot shower. You'll feel better."
"Nah, I thought if I took a cold shower, I'd feel better." He ran into the bathroom before I got a chance to slap him.
So now I was alone and I had nothing to do. I sat down on the couch and flipped the TV on. I wasn't expecting to find anything on because recently, TV hadn't been very interesting to me. Which was a good thing. I think everyone should try to not watch so much TV. Although, people who say that try to persuade you to read. I don't like reading that much. Probably because I'm a slow reader.
I then remembered Amma. I had put the paper from the phone book in my jeans pocket, rather than my jacket pocket which was good so I wouldn't have to go all the way back to my room.
I kept trying to convince myself that the reason I wanted to see Amma again was to thank her again and give her something to show my appreciation, but I think what I really wanted to give her was myself. I liked her, and I knew that. But I kept trying to make myself think that it was for a different reason. Because she was married. Somehow, I thought if she saw me then she'd dump her husband and come to me since I'm cute and I have all the money. And I'm willing to take her too. Who knew?
I looked down at the paper that was now in my hand and wondered if I should call her. What if her husband picked up? What would I say? I thought the best thing to do would be to go to her house in the middle of the day when her husband would probably be at work, which was just another excuse to see her again. I obviously could have just called her in the middle of the day, but like I said, I liked her. Liked.
Bacon and eggs smell good. Really good.
We were having a celebratory breakfast on account of Chris' return back to the hotel. Our home, basically. However, I don't remember a celebration when I got out of the hospital. But I didn't want to sound superficial and shallow so I let it go.
Anyway, bacon and eggs smell good. Everything looked beautiful in front of me, but yet I still wasn't in a real mood to eat. I didn't quite understand why I wasn't in a mood to eat, though. There were smiles all around, even on Chris' face so why couldn't I be perky? What was wrong with me.
Discussion around the table didn't seem to interesting to me. Actually, I didn't even know what it was about so I couldn't really say much about the conversation. Ever so often, I'd look up to see Lance staring intently at me. Of course, when he noticed my gaze, he'd quickly turn away as if he wasn't looking. I still felt bad about the whole water thing, but even after that, he was still concerned about me.
"Hey Joey. You want any more?" He finally asked. Well, that wasn't exactly what he wanted to ask, I knew. He wanted to ask me if I was OK.
I looked down at the food still on my plate and wondered why I'd want more if my plate was still full. "No thanks, I'm still working on what I have."
Chris looked at me sympathetically. Not him too. He was sitting right next to me so he spoke quietly so he wouldn't be heard above the other three's conversation.
"Come on, Joey. Everything's fine. Eat. It'll do you good." Right after he said that, he stuck a piece of bacon in his mouth and crunched on it loudly. I knew what he was trying to do. He was trying to make me want it, but I simply wasn't hungry.
"I'm not hungry. Can't I go to my room?" I was fine with being around one of them, like with Lance yesterday. And we hung out and got wet'n stuff. But all four of them just sitting there, staring at me because I was so quiet was too overwhelming for me.
"No, you can't go to your room." I knew Justin, JC, and Lance heard us. They pretended not to. But it wasn't like we were all the way across the room.
"Why not?"
"Because you shouldn't be alone."
"What if I'm tired? Sleeping is just as important as eating."
"Because I know you won't sleep." Lance jumped in. Where the hell did he come from? Last time I checked, this was between me and Chris. I was getting aggravated. Now everyone was gonna beat up on me. What did I ever do to them?
"Shut up, Lance." That was wrong. I shouldn't have said that. "I don't feel like eating. I ate last time at dinner so you know I'm not starving myself. What's the problem?"
"The problem is you're getting them worried." Chris spoke to me as if they weren't in the room. "And I know that if you keep acting like this, I'm gonna get worried too. So stop it. Stop yelling, and stop picking fights with us all the time. It's getting old."
That really pissed me off. I gritted my teeth and pushed my chair back, rising angrily from the seat. Thankfully, we were in the suite Justin, JC, and I were staying in so I just walked right to my room and shut the door.
Chris didn't know anything. Chris didn't know how I felt. Chris didn't care about me. Chris only cared about the rest of them. Not my well being.
Chris was supposed to understand.
continued
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