She was okay, wasn't she? Why did he need to go over there and try to make her feel better when he already knew that it wouldn't work? He looked back at JC and gave a shrug that said, "I have no idea what to do."
"Go over there and say something funny. Make her smile... make her laugh. Anything, Justin, just make her stop crying!"
He turned back to Becca and sighed. She heard him and looked up. "How long have you been standing there?" she asked, barley able to say the words without starting to cry all over again.
"Only for a second," Justin replied as he took a step forward. "I had to make sure that you were okay."
"Go!" JC urged.
Becca put her face back into her hands. "I'm FINE," she muttered.
Justin sat down next to her. "But you're not. You're upset and frustrated and you don't know what to do next. Let me tell you something, Becca, you're not the only one who's scared and confused. I am too. I think that we need to concentrate on making sure that this baby doesn't feel that way after he or she is born. We need to get past this and think about the future."
She leaned his way and he took her in his arms. "You're right. I don't want my baby to feel what I feel. I want her to be happy. I want her to KNOW her daddy, but I don't want her to be sad that he's not here."
"I know that you'll never love me the way you loved JC, but maybe this baby won't have to miss having a dad in her life." He brushed a few tears from her cheeks and pulled her close. A small smile surfaced. "You think it's a girl?"
She pulled his hand over her stomach. "What do YOU think?" she asked, turning the question around on him.
"I don't know, I mean, it doesn't really matter to me, I guess. Are we still naming him after JC if it's a boy?"
Becca nodded. "We can call him Josh if you want. I just think that JC's son should have his name, you know? It would kind of be like... he's living on."
"I know what you mean, but what about if it's a girl? Do you have any names picked out? Did JC say a name he liked or anything?
"Anna," JC spoke up.
Justin lifted his head. "What?"
"I didn't say anything," Becca told him, turning in his arms a little so that she could catch a glimpse of the expression on his face. "Did you think I said something?" She didn't wait for him to respond. "Because I was just thinking of names and JC always said that he liked the name-"
"Anna..." Justin put in and Becca froze.
"How did you know that? Did he tell you that? Have you talked to him about this before?"
Justin held her closer and let himself plant soft kisses on her face. "Last year," he said, brushing his lips against her temple. "I just remembered... we were at my parent's cabin, fishing out on the lake when the topic came up. He asked me... he said, 'Justin, have you ever thought about having children?' I wish I would have told him the truth, but I didn't. I LIED to him, Becca, I lied to my best friend."
"What did you tell him?"
"I told him that I hadn't... that the thought had never even crossed my mind. I said that I wanted to be a bachelor forever." He took in a deep breath and rested his head against hers. "That was a lie too. I wasn't blind, Becca, I saw him with you and I knew that you guys were happy and I wanted that too... it's just that..."
"That what?"
"It's not what you think. I didn't want to take you away from him, it wasn't like that. I was just... God, I really feel horrible about this."
She held his hands in front of herself, resting softly at the middle of her stomach. "It's okay, Justin, you can tell me."
"I was jealous," he finally admitted. "He was SO happy and SO in love.. and there I was with nothing. He never rubbed it in or anything, you know how he was... it was ME. I was the problem. He had everything so perfectly in place and my life was a mess. I was so incomplete compared to him... so I lied. Besides... I'm sure he didn't want to hear my sob story."
"He thought you were happy..."
Justin nodded. "Why should I bring him down with me? Two unhappy men are worse than one."
"He would have listened to you. He would have tried to help. Justin, you were his best friend and we both know how much he cared about you. You know he would have done anything to help."
Justin smiled at the thought of JC's never fading loyalty. "I know, trust me, I know."
"Then why didn't you tell him?"
"Maybe... maybe because I didn't know it before as much as I know it now. And... it KILLS me to think about it. I feel awful because I didn't know how great of a friend he was until he was gone. You know what I think, Becca? I think that we were both really lucky to have him in our lives, don't you?" He felt her muscles relax again.
She closed her eyes. "You've never been so right before in your life."
When Justin opened his eyes, he realized that he was still on the couch and figured that they must have fallen asleep there. The conversation he'd had with Becca was still fresh in his mind, and he buried his face in her soft curls. He had a feeling that if he could just hang on... if he could just keep growing stronger, then maybe everything would be okay.
Sometimes, it seemed like when he felt depressed, he was actually closer to getting better, as crazy as it sounded, but when he just held Becca close and thought about the future, he felt like hew as suppressing something within himself. He KNEW that something was down there... something that he couldn't control. That's what scared him.
He turned his head slightly and gazed around the room. Soft moonlight cascaded onto the furniture, creating dark shadows and drowning the unknown from his sight. He pulled Becca closer to himself and wondered where JC was. It wasn't that he was afraid of JC, it was everything else. If JC could be a ghost, then anyone could.
Little beads of sweat clustered on his face as he thought about all the spirits that he couldn't see... looming around him... looking at him... hearing him. He was never alone.
He didn't WANT to be alone. He just wanted to know what was around him. Was that so much to ask? Sure, JC came along every now and then, but it was those silent times... the times when he let his mind get the best of him that JC never showed up.
He HATED thinking. It was a curse to have conscious thoughts. As far as he was concerned, consciousness destroyed a person. Whoever said ignorance is bliss was a pure genius. Just to think about living and not caring about anything... that would mean that you'd never get hurt. Life would be one fun adventure.
The word fun was a joke. Fun was fun, sure... but you couldn't have fun by yourself. You had to find friend, and if you spent enough time with those friends, you were bound to start caring. Caring during life was inevitable and just so... getting hurt was as well. Some people were just a little luckier than others, that was all.
"When was the last time you were happy?" Dr. Sibly had asked him last week.
Such an easy question, yet such a hard answer. You'd think he'd remember, but happiness wasn't black and white. There were those times when he confused being happy with having fun. He had to keep reminding himself that you didn't have to be "happy" in order to have fun. He thought about that feeling deep down... the one that had made him cry so many times before... and he couldn't answer. Had he ever been truly happy?
Dr. Sibly had told him to think back to his childhood... to think about his parents and siblings. Was he happy then?
No, he had never been an extremely happy kid. He'd had friends, girlfriends as he'd gotten older... he'd built a wall between his inner self and the jock-like exterior that everyone else saw. Justin the quarterback was undoubtedly more popular than Justin the sensitive guy who just wanted to be accepted. It took a long time to realize that popularity didn't create happiness. It was fun... but he still wasn't complete.
"Your parents, Justin, were they good to you?"
He could say they were good. Parents were parents. Some were just better at doing the job than others were. Justin's parents were... well, they were there. Sometimes they were there. They were there physically, maybe.
Dr. Sibly had asked if he had any siblings.
"A brother," Justin had told him. A brother who was the most perfect guy on earth. A brother who got straight As in school and had so many good friends that you probably couldn't count them. Justin's friends weren't like John's. John's friends were all members of the chess club and Mom and Dad loved them. Justin's friends were those kids who sat at the back of the room throwing spit balls at each other. He supposed that his parents just thought they were leading him down the wrong path. Hell, maybe they did.
What kind of path was it? If a path led him to a best friend who changed his life completely, then how could it be so bad?
He was probably exaggerating. He had a job, a life.
But couldn't it have been better? What if he had made a few different decisions in his life? Then what would have happened?
He knew. He would have never met JC, he wouldn't be holding Becca in his arms and he wouldn't be the person he was today. How could he regret anything? Sure, he wasn't happy, but there were things in his life that he wouldn't trade for anything.
"It's time," JC said out loud. "I've got to do something about this. I've gotta do something quick." He stood in Justin's kitchen staring at the calendar. He had a month. One, lousy month to get Justin happy.
The sun was just coming up and he couldn't believe he'd stood there all night. It seemed like he'd been standing there for much longer. The clock read six AM, but he doubted that Justin and Becca would be up. Last night had been a pretty hard night for the both of them.
He wandered out into the living room and stared at them on the couch. What could he do to make Justin fall in love?
His energy clustered and redistributed in another place. The white room. "Oh, God," he groaned. "Not again..."
"I don't know why you hate coming here so much, JC," Mike was saying as he gestured toward JC's seat. "Please, sit down. We need to talk."
"About what?"
"I AM your guide and you DO need help..."
"Where do I go to get a new guide?"
"Ha, ha..." Mike rolled his eyes. "I think you need a new sense of humor, not a new guide."
"And who said I was trying to be funny?"
Mike sighed. "Never mind. Let's just get to the point here."
"Which would be..."
"You, Justin, Becca... What are you going to do, JC? You've been putting this off for too long. You've got to do something if you want to go back... and it's NOT an option to just sit on your rear end and think about it!"
"I get it! I'll think of something..."
"You've been thinking for two months!"
"I know!" JC was getting frustrated. At that point, the situation seemed beyond help. There was nothing he could do to fix things. "Fine! Why don't YOU tell me what to do then!"
"I'll try, but you know Justin and Becca better than I ever could..."
"Don't you have some sort of file on them, telling you what to tell me in that book that you never lose sight of??
"Are they dead?"
"No!"
"Then I don't have information on them. I'm not the only guide, you know. There are other guides that get information on their dead." He patted his book. "These are mine."
"Okay, whatever. Just tell me what to do."
"Is he in love with her yet?"
"What do you mean, is he in love yet? Once he's in love, I can go back, right?"
"The deal was to make him HAPPY, not to make him fall in love."
"Love LEADS to happiness."
"Sometimes, yes... but the question is, does it for Justin?"
"I would think so."
"Have you heard the phrase, 'In order to love someone, you first must love yourself?'"
JC slumped down in his chair. "Ugh..." he groaned. "I can never win here, can I? Is there anyway you can tell me all of these things at once so that I won't waste anymore time than I already have?"
"Justin..." JC called out quietly as he stepped into the house. He found him at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee. "Listen to me, Justin," he said. "Listen good and hard."
"What?"
"You're a good guy. You were my best friend and you love Becca, I know that. I've never met a guy that I've gotten along with better than I've gotten along with you."
"What's this? A pep talk? What for?"
"For your own good. For MY own good. For Christ's sake, Justin, all we have left is a little over a month! I just got back from..." he gestured toward the ceiling with a slight roll of his eyes. "and... and they say that you need to love yourself before you can be happy."
"Do those... um... not people, but whoever they are up there... do they LIKE it when you take the Lord's name in vain?" Justin said with a smirk. "Are they Catholic up there? Christian?"
JC sat down and thought for a second. "You know, I really don't know. There's a God, I know that... whether He's Catholic or Jewish, I don't know. I don't think it really matters. Honestly, I don't think afterlife is based on religion. It's all about how you SPEND your life."
"So, what's all this about loving myself?"
"It's what you've got to do in order for me to be alive again." He stared across the table at Justin. "Can I talk to you about it?"
"I guess."
"What do you like about yourself?"
Justin crossed his arms. "Now you're sounding like my therapist."
"Just answer the question."
He drummed his fingers on the table as he thought about it. What DID he like about himself? He stared at his hand. "I like my fingernails," he said in a bored voice.
"Your fingernails!?" JC exclaimed. "Why?"
Justin shrugged. "I don't know... there's nothing WRONG with them."
"Justin! My God! It comes from within! Trust me... this has nothing to do with your fingernails. Absolutely nothing!"
Justin huffed, "You see, JC? That's the problem. There IS nothing within. I'm empty."
"You are not! Stop making up things and realize that you're an amazing person."
"It doesn't work that way! Unlike YOU, JC, I don't wake up every morning and think about how great I am and how absolutely perfect my life is. It's the opposite. When I open my eyes in the morning, a smile never comes to my face. Have you ever woken up with tears in your eyes and didn't know why you were crying?"
Chapter 16
Almost A Memory Now
JC {Fiction}
Justin {Fiction}
My Fiction
I'll Never Stop {Fiction}
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