Ryan sniffed loudly, pulling a Kleenex to her nose. The tears had finally stopped, but she was still upset. She just couldn't figure out what had gone wrong.
Lois sat beside her on the large plush sofa, watching her closely.
When Justin had stormed out, leaving Ryan alone in his house yet again, she didn't know what to do. But she did know that she couldn't stay there, so she decided to go over to Lois'. Joey had been there when she arrived, and was not too happy at Justin when he opened the door to find Ryan crying. When Lois came out of the living room and saw her, her heart broke. Only Justin could turn something like what she had planned into this. Jackass.
Joey offered to go home, leaving the girls to their men-bashing. As Lois let him out, Ryan heard him whisper something about chocolate and body paint, which made Lois giggle and turn several shades of red before kissing him and ushering him out the door.
The two girls had not said much since Joey had left about an hour ago. Ryan cried. Lois comforted. Ryan had given Lois a brief summary of what had happened between her and Justin, and Lois didn't need the full report to know whose fault this was. Obviously, it was his. He was being a dickweed and couldn't get over his own male ego long enough to realize her concern was for him and not to undermine his ability to care for himself.
Sniffing again, Ryan looked down at the Kleenex in her hand, fumbling with it mindlessly.
She didn't regret standing up to him when he assumed that she was admitting she was wrong in confronting him. She knew she was right, because he was doing everything she accused him of doing. Everyone knew that. But she just couldn't understand why he was being so hard to get through to about this. All anyone cared about was Justins well being, and all he seemed to think was that they were trying to control or baby him.
"I don't know how this happened." Ryan whispered softly as she looked down at the Kleenex in her hand. "I mean, how did this get so screwed up?"
Lois rolled her eyes. "Oh lord, honey. Men always know how to screw un-screwable stuff up. Its one of their many talents." she smiled encouragingly at Ryan. "Justin will realize what a moron he is being, and this time it will be him apologizing with dinner. And a whole lot more stuff, if I have any say in it." Lois pondered for a moment.
Ryan didn't even smile. She knew Lois was trying to make her feel better, but it wasn't really working. All she could think about was what Justin had said and how he had yet again stormed out and ran away from his problems. As if running away from her confronting him about it would make it disappear and somehow make it not true.
Lois looked at Ryan sadly. She thought for sure that her little dinner plan would work wonders for fixing the mess that Justin had caused the night before. Lois didn't really think that it was Ryan who should be apologizing, but if they waited for Justin to admit he was wrong, they would be old and gray and too senile to remember what it was he was supposed to be apologizing for in the first place.
As a woman, Lois felt she shouldn't have to apologize. It was automatically the mans fault, and they should just accept it and move on. After a little begging and sucking up, of course. Joey had already been trained well in this department. When he had eaten all her Ben & Jerrys the other night, Lois came home to find her freezer full of Cherry Garcia. Yes, she had trained him well.
Thinking she needed to break the tension, Lois smiled. "Wanna hear about what happened at WEG after you left?"
Ryan shrugged. She didn't really care, but anything was better than sitting her sulking. Even if anything was having to listen to yet another day in the life of Lois.
"Mmkay." Lois smiled as she adjusted her place on the couch. "Todd called me up again, saying that he needed the drafts for the first costumes by the end of the day. We already worked those out before I took you over to Justins after lunch, but I didn't want him to know that. I like being a pain in the ass, so I told him that they weren't done. He got all mad, saying that he needed them now. I know that's crap, because Johnny said that they haven't even set any dates for the tour yet and that I had at least another two weeks before I even had to have my ideas put together. So I got all up in his face. Well, up on his phone, and starting bitching about how I cant handle having some little man like him hanging over my shoulder all the time." Ryan actually smiled a little at the thought of Lois ranting at Todd, when in reality she knew there was nothing to rant about. "Then," Lois continued. "I told him to eat white out."
Ryan looked up at Lois confused. "Eat white out?"
"Yeah." Lois shrugged. "I couldn't think of anything mean to say fast enough, and I happened to have a bottle of white out sitting on the desk so before I knew what I was saying, I told him to eat white out."
Ryan smiled. Then smiled a little broader, before actually laughing out loud.
Lois joined in with her laughter, feeling better now that Ryan was actually smiling instead of sulking over stupid fro boy.
They giggled between each other for a moment before Ryan pushed herself back into the couch. "Ugh" she whined. "I don't even want to think about Justin anymore."
"Good!" Lois perked up. "We can have a girls night! Joey stocked the freezer with ice cream, Ive got old reruns of Will and Grace on tape, and tons of other junk food. We can have facials, Biore our noses, paint our nails, and bleach our teeth!"
Ryan laughed at Lois. She looked so excited at the mention of the teeth bleaching that she didn't have the heart to turn her down.
"Sure. Why not."
"Great!" Lois jumped up from the couch, pulling Ryan towards the stairs. "I have these awesome flannel jammies you can wear! Put 'em on while I gather the girly fixin's!"
A few hours later, Ryan was laughing hysterically along with Lois while Jack did his famous 'Jack 2000' dance across the TV screen. They had been doing girly things for the last two hours, eating ice cream, chocolate, chips and any other junk Lois could find in the house while watching what seemed like every episode of Will and Grace ever made.
"Ahhh, dude!" Lois squealed excitedly. "Look at my strip!" She held out her newly peeled Biore strip at Ryan, smiling proudly. "Ha! Sucks to be you, you little blackhead buggars!"
Ryan only laughed at her. Only Lois would talk to things she pulled from her skin on a Biore strip.
Lois had a bleaching strip on her teeth, making her words slurred. But that didn't stop her from rambling away about Joey, or laughing at whatever crazy thing was happening on TV.
Popping a chocolate in her mouth, Ryan turned to Lois. "So, you and Joey have been going strong, eh?"
Lois smiled immediately at the mention of Joeys name. "Yeah. He's great. I honestly don't know why we didn't get together sooner."
"Probably because you used to lock him in his change room when he was bad." Ryan pointed.
"He ran my underwear up the flagpole outside the venue in Denver! And locking him in his change room was NOT the worse thing I did to him in return. He just didn't tell anyone what else I did to him." Lois stated.
"Really? What did you do?" Ryan couldn't help but be curious. Lois was one of the greatest people she had ever met, but if you pissed her off, you better run and find a really good hiding place.
Lois started laughing at the memory of what she had done to Joey. "Okay, but you have to promise not to tell him I told you."
"I promise"
"Promise for real!"
"I promise, okay!"
Lois looked Ryan over carefully before nodding. "Mmkay." She laughed for a moment before starting her story. "Well, remember about a week after he ran my underwear up the flagpole, he stayed in the bus one day every time we stopped somewhere for food or whatever. The other guys just a said he wasn't feeling good and was sleeping?"
"Yeah"
Lois fought to control her laughter so she could finish her story. "Well, the night before, I hopped on his bus at one of the stops while he was sleeping. I peeked into his bunk to find him sleeping, all twisted up in a weird position."
Lois started laughing, and Ryan just looked at her confused. What the hell did she do to Joey?
"Well," Lois sputtered a little before continuing. "He was sleeping on his stomach, his butt sticking up and his hand was on his butt. So, me being the ever prepared Lois, took out some crazy glue."
"Oh no." Ryan covered her mouth. She had a feeling that she knew what Lois had done.
"Yup." Lois nodded proudly. "I glued his hand to his own ass! And not his underwear, either. His bare butt! Thank God that boy is a sound sleeper. He didn't wake up or even twitch when I was putting the glue on his hand and sliding it down onto his butt."
Ryan started laughing hysterically as she remembered that day.
Joey hadn't come out of the bus all day. Every time they would stop for food or gas, everyone would always get off the buses to stretch their legs and get some fresh air. Joey was usually the first one off his bus, so Ryan thought it was odd that he never came out. Lance just said that he wasn't feeling good, but he would always be snickering or have a little smile on his face when he said it. Chris would always just burst out laughing so hard that he couldn't say a word. After lunch that day, Lance had sent his body guard into a small hardware store across the road from the gas station they had stopped at to find something to unstick Joeys hand from his butt. It must have worked, because by the time they got to the hotel late that night, Joey was up and moving around. His hand was red, and he was walking a little funny, but at the time no one thought anything of it.
"Oh!" Lois bounced excitedly, interrupting Ryans giggling. "Its time to take off my tooth strips!" Opening her mouth, Lois peeled the strips off before grabbing a little mirror she had brought down from the bathroom to examine her teeth. "Aah! Its so cool!" she grinned proudly. "They're like, neon now!" Looking up at Ryan, Lois spoke in an official voice. "When Lois smiles at you, do not look directly at the teeth. Severe retinal damage may occur."
Yet again, Ryan lost herself in her laughter.
She couldn't thank Lois enough for making her feel better. She had been so lost and depressed earlier, and now she was laughing and carrying on like nothing had happened.
Just then, an image of Justin flashed through her mind. Her laughter calmed, and she found herself wondering what he was doing at that very moment.
"Ugh, Justin!" JC whined from his spot on the couch. "Quit doin' that!"
"It wasn't me!" Justin defended, turning to give JC an innocent smile.
"Well, it sure as hell wasn't me, and we're the only two in the room!" JC glared at Justin as he crinkled his nose.
"Well, maybe it was the fart fairy." Justin nodded.
"Or maybe you ate too much salsa and your body is rejecting its own organs!"
JC couldn't understand how one man could stink so bad. He mentally cursed himself for letting Justin open the salsa.
"Whatever, dude." Justin pouted as he turned his attention back to the TV.
The two men sat in silence for a long while, before JC looked over at Justin again.
"What! I didn't do it!" Justin automatically defended himself.
"No, not that." JC dismissed. "You gonna tell me why you are here?"
"What? I cant come over and visit a friend for no reason?" Justin looked over at JC, a mocking look of hurt on his face.
"No, you can. But when I already know that you did something to piss Ryan off last night, and now you're here farting up my living room, I figure that there is something bothering you. Other than the salsa."
Justin looked back towards the TV in silence. Damn it. Why did JC have to know him so well? Couldn't he just be daft and oblivious to everything like Chris or Joey?
"Well?" JC said, looking at Justin while waiting for a response.
"Well, what?" Justin shrugged.
"What did you do?"
"What makes you think it was me?" Justin defended.
"Because it usually is." JC stated confidently.
Justin pouted again. "I overreacted."
"Oh, big surprise there. You never do that, Ju." JC said sarcastically.
"Shut up." Justin whined. "We got in a fight last night, because she said some things that I didn't want to hear and I stormed out. So then I go home tonight to find a romantic dinner all set up and everything, and she apologized for making me mad."
"She apologized?" JC asked, shocked. "I didn't know women could do that!"
"Neither did I." Justin commented before continuing his story. "So anyway, everything was great. We made up and stuff, and had dinner. Then she said she was sorry again, and I said that it was okay and that I know she didn't mean anything she said. Then she said that she did mean it all, and I got all mad and stormed out again."
"So, in the last two nights, you've gotten pissed because she told you the truth that you didn't want to hear, you overreacted and hurt her, and stormed out because you didn't want to face the fact that maybe she was right?" JC said as he went through the events Justin had described.
"Well, when you put it that way" Justin said quietly as he stared at his feet.
"It makes you sound like a jackass?" JC asked, looking at Justin knowingly.
Justin was quiet for a moment, tapping his toes together. "Yeah." he finally whispered.
JC nodded proudly at himself. He knew the kid too well sometimes. Justin had a tendency to over react and do or say things without thinking about the ramifications first.
"What was the fight about?" JC asked, realizing that Justin never did mention what Ryan had said to make him angry in the first place.
Justin was silent, as he tapped his toes together harder. He didn't really want to tell JC what she had accused him of, knowing full well that JC would automatically agree with her.
"She, um," he said before clearing his throat. "She said that she knew I was experiencing pain in my chest and leg and not telling anyone." Justins voice was so quiet, JC had to strain to hear him. "She said that I wasn't taking care of myself properly and that I was pushing myself too hard and was only going to end up causing more problems if I didn't back off a little."
"Well?" JC said plainly.
"Well what?" Justin turned to his friend questioningly.
"Well, are you doing everything she accused you of?"
Justins eyes dropped. He hated to have to admit this. "Yeah." he said quietly.
"Then why are you here sulking that she confronted you on things that you know yourself you are doing, instead of taking what she said to heart and doing something about it?"
JCs blunt question caused Justin to stare at him. He knew that he was pushing himself too hard. He knew that he should be more careful because his body wasn't completely healed and he was probably causing more damage than good by pushing as hard as he was. But he didn't want to hold everyone else back any more than he already had. He didn't want everyone elses lives put on hold because of him, and he didn't want everyone to worry about him anymore. They had all be at his side for the past two months, constantly taking care of him. Now he wanted to prove to them that he could take care of himself. That he didn't need them to watch over him and that he was over everything that had happened. And he wanted to prove it to himself as well.
"I don't know what to do, man." Justin admitted as he slumped down further into the couch.
"Just admit that you need more time. Admit that you are hurting, that you need to take it easy and take better care of yourself. Admit to us and to yourself that you need help" JC paused for a moment to allow Justin to think about what he said. "And admit to Ryan that you were wrong."
Justin smirked a little at JCs final statement. How in the world was he going to make this up to her now? He was concerned enough after last night about how to fix the things he had done, and now he had gone and done them all over again.
"Admit it, huh?" Justin asked as he stared at his hands which were now picking at a cushion on JCs couch.
"Just admit it, J." JC encouraged.
They sat in silence for a moment. JC watching Justin quietly as he picked at his couch.
Finally, Justin looked up at JC. His face was tired and sad, his eyes watering.
"Jayce?"
"Yeah?"
Justin sighed deeply as he finally spoke the words everyone wanted to hear.
"I need help."
