Cleaning out the refrigerator only took a few minutes, but soon, they had everything put away... and nothing left to do. Justin craved action. Anything to take his mind off of JC's death would do. ANYTHING.
As if Becca were reading his thoughts, she asked, "What do we do now?"
He looked away from the cupboard's contents and into her eyes. "Do you have any ideas? I'm fresh out."
She thought for a moment. "Well, I never got my PIE..."
He felt ridiculous, insane... and almost every other adjective a person could throw in there. They were sitting in a restaurant at five-thirty PM, ordering slice after slice of pie. He didn't think he had ever been so full in his entire life and he highly doubted that he ever would be again.
He scooped the first forkful of his coconut cream slice into his mouth and felt like groaning with pain. He could hardly swallow. "I can't eat any more pie!" he moaned, giving Becca a pitiful look. "I think I'm gonna explode..."
"One day," Becca started as she cut off a piece of her French silk slice. "I'm going to try every single type of pie here. Can you believe that I ate three whole slices in just one sitting?"
Justin leaned back into his side of the booth. "You think three is a lot? I had five and a HALF!"
She laughed, looking down at his plate. "That is NOT a HALF! That small piece you ate shouldn't be counted as ANYTHING!"
"Whatever! I still win!"
"Win? This wasn't a contest!"
Slowly, he sat up and stared long and hard at the large remainder of his coconut cream slice. "I'm going to eat you," he muttered. "I'm going to eat you."
"You're insane," Becca told him. "A complete and total psycho!"
He picked up his fork and after breaking a big chunk off, he lifted it to his mouth.
"If you get sick from eating all that pie, I'm NOT cleaning up after you," she informed him. "Your face is the color of that moldy piece of cheese that you took out of your refrigerator today."
He dropped the fork and it went clattering to his plate as he sank back down into the booth. "Ugh... I don't want to be sick..."
Becca threw a wad of bills on the table and then helped him out of the booth.
"No..." he groaned, reaching for the pie as she pulled him away from the table. "We can take it home and eat it later!"
Becca noticed that they were getting a few stares, so she pulled harder. "It's okay, Justin, we can always come back for more pie."
He gave up at the door, when a wave of nausea hit him. "I don't feel so good," he mumbled as he closed his eyes in a n attempt to regain his equilibrium.
She put her arm around his waist to stead him. "Next time you're limited to three slices."
"Aww... only three?"
The drive back to Justin's place was silent except for the soft sounds of the radio. Becca had insisted on driving, even though she didn't really want to. Besides, Justin was too busy complaining about how much his stomach hurt to be a safe driver. She breathed a sigh of relief as she pulled into the driveway.
"Oh..." Justin moaned as he stumbled out of the passenger door. "I need to lie down."
"Go ahead," Becca told him, tossing him the keys. She watched him go inside and then gave a big sigh. She dug her own keys out of her pocket and opened the trunk of her little, silver car. Sitting there were two suitcases and a pillow. She picked everything up, the pillow underneath her arm, somehow got the trunk shut and then walked to the door.
She found Justin collapsed on the couch in a not so comfortable-looking position. He had the side of his head propped up against the arm rest, causing his neck to be at an odd angle, while his arm and leg hung over the side. "Do you want something to drink?" she offered, but only received a grunt. "Does that mean no?" She guessed that it did because he just closed his eyes and said nothing.
She walked to his coffee table, grabbed the remote and turned the TV on. She sat down on a chair that was perpendicular to the couch and just sat there while Justin fell asleep.
"I've got a question for you..." JC snarled as he paced back and forth across Justin's living room. "Why did I die?" He stopped in his tracks and looked over at Becca, who was staring at the television screen. "It doesn't make any sense to me," he whispered. "If that ass thinks I'm going to give up on my family and friends, then he has another thing coming to him."
He looked down at a sleeping Justin and wondered what he was dreaming about. It must be nice to be safe and alive, resting peacefully on your living room couch.
Suddenly, Justin turned over with a groan, causing Becca to jump slightly. He sat up, one hand on his face and the other on his stomach.
"What's wrong?" JC asked as Becca went to sit next to him.
"I ate WAY too many slices of pie..." he answered. "What are you doing here?"
"I'm-" JC started
"Remember?" Becca cut him off. "I'm staying here for a while."
He gave her a look that said, "Duh... I was talking to JC," but then gave another groan as five different kinds of pie shifted around in his stomach. "Will this ever go away?"
She put her arms around him. "In a little while you'll feel better. Don't worry too much."
Justin closed his eyes and rested his head against hers. He forgot about JC being in the room and tried to relax.
It was amazing how such a tragedy could bring other people closer together. Sure, he and Becca had been friends before, but never so close that they had ever put their arms around each other.
Suddenly, he remembered JC and he opened his eyes.
"Justin," JC said. "It's okay."
He closed his eyes again.
"Justin," Becca said softly. "Tell me if you're gonna puke, okay?"
He chuckled a little as he wiped a small tear from the corner of his eye. "Okay."
He had done something to help, hadn't he? He told Justin that it was okay. Maybe if he hadn't, then Justin would have pulled away from her. Never, in his years on earth, had he ever imagined that he'd be setting up his best friend with his wife. In a way, it didn't make sense, although not much of anything made sense anymore. He still felt like he was in a big, fuzzy dream, but there was something about the fuzziness that was different. Maybe he had forgotten what a dream was like and what it felt like to be sleepy...
A ghost never sleeps. His eyes are open twenty-four seven. He sees things that the living can't see and it isn't always pleasant. JC's afterlife wasn't an exception. When people didn't know that someone was watching them, they tended to act differently than they would if they knew they had eyes on them.
Becca didn't know that he was there, so she didn't hesitate to brush the hair away from Justin's face as he slept on the couch. She was sitting on the floor and leaning over the cushion, just watching him sleep. JC doubted that she would ever watch him in such a way while he was awake. He watched closely as her fingers brushed over his cheek.
"You'll be better soon," he heard her whisper, tears lining her voice. "After a while, this will all go away."
JC wondered if she was talking about Justin's stomach ache or about the death. He stepped closer.
"It'll be okay," she said, taking his limp hand and holding it between her own.
"Becca," JC said when it turned silent. "I know you can't hear me, but I just want to tell you to follow your heart. I don't want you to be sad. If you want to love Justin, you can."
"I just keep thinking about JC," she told the sleeping Justin. "Do you really think he's not in heaven yet? Sometimes I wonder where you get your crazy ideas... JC was the best man I've ever known in my entire life and if he's not in heaven, then I wonder what'll happen to me... to you, to everyone. If heaven's standards are so high, then there must not be many people there, you know?"
Of course he didn't answer her and she sighed. "I wish you could see things the way I do. I don't really understand some of the things you say and sometimes, when you're looking off somewhere, I get worried about you. You're either totally into something or way off in space. It gets confusing."
To JC, it sounded like Justin had problems concentrating when he was around, and he didn't doubt it for a second.
When Justin opened his eyes, he saw that Becca had fallen asleep on the floor. Her head rested next to him on the couch cushion. She had his hand woven between hers so he didn't move much, afraid that he would wake her up. It was completely dark outside, but the street light lit the living room softly. He glanced over at the clock that sat on his mantle and realized that he'd been lying there on that couch for over four hours.
He decided that Becca probably wasn't too comfortable in her awkward position, so he squeezed her hand. "Becca?" he said. "It's past eleven."
Her eyes snapped open and she took a deep breath as she looked around. For a brief moment, the world seemed fuzzy and unreal, but just as fast as the feeling came, it was gone. She let Justin's hand slip from her own, but still sat there, just staring at him.
I don't know what to do," she said. "There are just so many things a person can do to keep their minds off something."
"It's hard to sleep, and I just run out of energy... and... when I have no energy, I can't sleep. It's like this never ending cycle."
"It'll end," he assured her as he sat up. "Climb up here with me." She did and he put his arm around her. "Think about the baby," he said. "Think about what the baby will look like. DO you think it'll be a boy or girl?"
"I hope it's a boy," she answered. "Then I'm going to name him after JC."
"That'd be perfect," Justin agreed as a small smile crept to his lips. "JC would like that."
"Although, a girl would be nice too. I really don't care, I guess. I just want a healthy baby."
"Everything will go fine. Just be sure to take care of yourself."
"You know, at first I didn't even care. Without JC, there was nothing left to live for, but now that a little time has passed, I've got to realized that JC would want me to live... and I've got something REALLY important to live for." She let her hand slide across her stomach and then leaned closer to Justin. "And in a way, I'd still be living for him."
Justin felt another batch of tears come to his eyes. Why was it that Becca was moving on so much quicker than he was? It didn't make any sense to him... unless... Becca had closure, and he, well, he didn't.
"Are you okay?"
She must have heard him sniff. Could he lie? What would be the point of lying? What was the point of the truth? Of anything? He couldn't answer. Silence was the worst lie, yet the best truth and he knew that she knew immediately.
"Is there something you're not telling me?
"About what? What would I have to keep from you?"
"I don't know... I just get this unsettling feeling that something's not right, that there's something you know that you're not telling me."
He had his left leg bent, and when he caught her picking a speck of lint from his jeans, his perspective transformed. Then, more than ever, the past week felt unreal. It was like a horrendous nightmare that hadn't ended when he woke up. He was trapped inside of it forever and there was no real way out short of killing himself, but if he did that, then he'd ruin JC's plan and Becca would be all alone. Sometimes people said that a man who commits suicide is a selfish coward and now he knew that in a way, that was true. In order to kill himself, he'd have to be thinking about ONLY himself. If he was thinking of others in his life, then he'd stay alive for them. He could never be that selfish. Just thinking about that made him feel differently about the subject... although, he still felt like he was in a deep hole. He still hadn't come up with a solution, and he still didn't have a rope to climb out with.
In that second, he realized that he was making things worse by dwelling on his unhappiness. Hell, it was obvious that something was wrong with him if he was contemplating suicide.
After that last thought, he focused his eyes on Becca's face and found her staring at him... studying his expression. He had to say something. "I just can't think of what it is that I'm not telling you," he lied. It was a good lie though. He knew that she wanted JC back more than anything, and this was all part of making sure that he came back.
Becca pressed the side of her face against his chest and sighed, "I don't know. Maybe it's all in my head. Things haven't been too clear lately, you know?"
"I know," he agreed. Nothing had been clear lately.
The grounds were almost completely quiet as JC stood there in the dark, just staring. Small lights softly lit the winding roads and cast a slight shadow behind his stone. The carved letters sank into their surroundings in the dark. He felt nothing, though he could see the wind blowing roughly through the trees and could kind of hear it's muffled sound.
He's said that they'd find a way, he'd said that they'd make it no matter what, but now, as he stood in front of his own grave stone, he thought about his family, his wife, his unborn baby, his friends... everyone. They were what mattered, not him. He was dead... almost completely gone.
He was a memory.
It was Monday morning and Becca was already ready for her ten o'clock appointment... two hours early. Ten minutes ago, she had peeked inside Justin's door and found him still snuggled up in his five comforters with his head in his many pillows. She figured that she'd wake him up in a while. Last night she'd heard him talking again and it worried her. She was even considering asking him to see a doctor about it. Talking frequently to your dead friend COULDN'T be healthy.
She had her hands wrapped around the warmth of JC's coffee mug, that she'd brought along, and as she sat in front of the living room fire place, she sipped at her hot chocolate. The flames were fading, but she didn't have nearly enough energy to get up and put some more logs on, so she just stared.
If Justin didn't get up in... she looked at the clock on the mantle, in ten minutes, she'd wake him up. He knew that she couldn't sit by herself for too long in the mornings without it ruining her whole day.
Was it so wrong that she missed JC? Did it make her a bad person if she missed him every single second of every day? Maybe she should move on. Well, she knew one thing for sure. She couldn't continue on, just missing him all the time, for much longer. It hurt her soul and she knew that feeling that way wasn't good for their baby. It couldn't be.
Her eyes hurt when she looked away from the fire and back at the clock. The ten minutes were up and she set JC's empty mug on the coffee table before standing up and heading toward the stairs.
She found him in the exact same position as she had twenty minutes ago. Something small inside of her went off and caused a tiny smile to appear at the corners of her mouth. He looked so content while he slept... like he didn't even know that JC was gone... like he hadn't heard the news yet.
Chapter 10
Almost A Memory Now
JC {Fiction}
Justin {Fiction}
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