"He knows, Gracie... he knows."
Justin listened, but she didn't respond.
"Gracie? Are you there?"
"How?" he finally heard her say in a teary voice.
"I don't know... but he does and..." His eyes caught a glimpse of a spiral notebook barely showing under JC's pillow and he stopped talking. "Listen... Gracie, I have to go..." he said slowly, not taking his eyes off the notebook. "But I'll call you back later... on your cell phone. Don't answer your other phone in case it's him. I need to talk to you first."
"Justin, wait. I'm... scared," she said softly. "What's going to happen?"
"Hang in there, Gracie... hang in there. I gotta go. Bye."
He let the phone slip from his hand. It bounced a little on the bed and then everything was still. Slowly, he reached under the pillow until his fingers touched the spiral. He pulled it out and read the cover.
'Private.'
Justin's eyes widened as he looked over at the door, wondering whether JC had his key with him. Could he take a chance?
What would JC do if he caught Justin reading his notebook? What COULD he do?
Nothing. Justin had his fingers wrapped too tightly around JC for him to do anything. He was in control.
With a slight smile on his face, he pulled the notebook to his chest and walked out the door.
As JC took the last sip of his vanilla latte, he happened to glance down at his watch. "Ugh..." he groaned, getting up from his seat and throwing away his cup.
It was two thirty, and the guys were due at the venue in an hour. He dashed to the elevator and pressed the up button about ten times. "C'mon, c'mon..." he chanted with each push.
Finally, the doors opened and he flew inside, repeating the same thing with the number twelve button.
Suddenly, he heard two girls whispering behind him and he froze. "Oh shit..." he said softly under his breath so they wouldn't hear.
Justin looked both ways before he ventured out into the hall. He walked quickly back to his room and stopped in front of the door. Because Chris had taken his key away, he couldn't get in.
"Chris..." he said after knocking. "Come on, Chris, you've gotta let me in. We have to be at the venue soon."
There was no answer, but the door opened and his suitcase was pushed out. Before the door closed, Justin caught it. "Chris, wait. We need to talk." He nudged the suitcase back inside with his feet and closed the door behind himself.
As the door clicked shut, he looked up... and saw Chris staring back at him. When he went to walk forward, he forgot that the suitcase was there and he tripped over it, falling flat on his face. "Ouch..." he said, pushing himself up and staring at the spot of blood on the white carpet.
Chris let out a chuckle. "No matter how depressed I am, it's ALWAYS funny when you make a total jackass out of yourself."
Normally, Justin would be angry, but under the circumstances, he wasn't. "Funny," he said, rolling his eyes and picking up JC's notebook.
He went to the bathroom to wash off his cut again and when he emerged, Chris refused to look at him.
"Will you please listen? Will you let me explain?"
Chris didn't answer and Justin interpreted it as a yes. "You know that I was hurt... didn't you? Chris, I was SO angry at you."
"When?"
Justin, thrown off by Chris' one syllable question, paused. "When?" he echoed. "Chris... I... I... it was a long time ago... and..." He fell on his bed, putting his face in his hands. "You're never gonna understand," he mumbled.
"Obviously not THAT long ago because if it WERE that long ago... I'd know."
Justin put his hands down. "Chris... I don't know what was wrong with me. I wasn't thinking straight and... and you can't blame Gracie for this. It wasn't her fault. You should have heard her when she found out... Chris she was just as devested as you are."
"How can this not be her fault, Justin? HOW? Did you RAPE her?"
"NO! How could you THINK that?" he yelled. "NO!"
"Okay! Sorry... but Justin, that doesn't make any sense. How can it not be her fault if you didn't-"
"I didn't!" Justin interrupted. "I told you that I didn't! It wasn't like that. You've gotta understand that all I wanted to do was hurt you at the time. I was angry... but I didn't want to hurt Gracie. I swear."
Chris looked over at him for a second. "I still don't get it. HOW can it not be her fault? She was there... wasn't she?"
"Yes, she was there... and she thought you were too."
"WHAT?"
"I was pretending to be you, okay?" he finally spat out. "I told her that we had switched places again and she believed me. She had no idea."
Chris' eyes were wide. "How could you do that? Why didn't you tell me if all you wanted to do was hurt me? How was I going to be hurt if I didn't know?"
"She convinced me not to tell you. She said that she couldn't lose you... that we should just forget about what happened." He stopped and looked up at Chris, right in his eyes. "I'm sorry, Chris... and I'm glad you hit me. I deserved it. You can hit me again if you want to."
"No," Chris sighed. "I hurt my fist last time. It still hurts and I think it might be bruising..."
"You can hit me with your left hand," Justin suggested. "Maybe you can push me down the stairs or something."
"Stop," Chris demanded. "I hate being mad at you... I don't want to be, but Justin, I am and there's nothing you can do to change it.
"Just hit me REALLY hard. That'll fix things."
Chris frowned. "No, it WON'T! Stop saying that! How in the hell would that fix things? Don't you remember? I've already hit you really hard. It didn't work... trust me." He sniffed, smoothing down his shirt. "Do you even KNOW what you've done to me? Do you know how this feels?"
"Yeah, I know how it feels. Remember last year, Chris? You did the exact same thing to me, remember?"
Chris gasped, surprised at Justin's words. "Bull shit, Justin! That was totally different. You've never loved her. Admit it!"
Justin felt like he'd been socked in the stomach. All of his air was knocked out and it hurt ten times worse than the blow to his jaw just an hour ago. "How in the hell would you know?" he choked out. "Maybe she was my first love... maybe I never told you because I knew how you felt. Maybe it felt like you ripped my heart out of my chest and stomped on it. Maybe I was so hurt that... that I didn't even care about the consequences... maybe..." He was so choked up, that he couldn't finish.
Chris stared at him. By the time he had finished, there were tears falling down his cheeks... and for the first time, Chris realized how much pain Justin was really in.
Justin's face was bright red and tearstained... and when he looked up at Chris, he could tell that he'd rendered him speechless. "You're not the only one hurting," he whimpered.
Chris got up, walked over to Justin and put his arms around him. "I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't know."
Slowly, JC turned around, plastering a smile on his face. Before either girl could say anything, the elevator jerked to a halt. JC grabbed the railing that ran along the perimeter, his eyes wide.
One girl, not even realizing that the elevator had stopped, was grinning.
"JC? Is that really you?"
The other girl, obviously older, elbowed her. "I told you to be quiet!" she hissed.
"Hi..." he tried to smile, but couldn't keep his mind of the immobile elevator. "I think the elevator might be stuck."
The elevator jerked again and JC sucked in his breath. "I've had nightmares like this," he said in a loud whisper. "You don't wanna know how they end."
"No..." the older girl agreed. "I don't."
The smaller girl was still smiling at JC. She was clutching her purple backpack with her mouth half open, obviously wanting to say something.
"Hi..." JC said to her again, trying to smile.
"Hi!" she said. "Aren't you supposed to be at the Bradley center?"
"Um... yes," he answered. "But unless they get us out of here, I won't get there in time." He gulped. "If at all..."
Chris hugged his best friend until he felt that Justin would be okay and then he pulled away, watching Justin wipe his eyes. "Come on... it's okay. We can get through this," he assured him. "C'mon..."
"I'm sorry, Chris... I mean it." Justin sniffed, turning his eyes up to Chris.
Chris fell into place next to him on the bed. "I know. Listen, Justin... I really hate what you did, but that doesn't mean that I hate you. You know that, right?"
"I... I hope so," he faltered.
Chris gave Justin a playful shove in the shoulder. "I've never hated you. Now, come on. Let's try and move on."
"Chris, just tell me one thing. How did you find out?" Justin watched as Chris reached into his pocket.
"Someone wrote me a letter. "I don't think I even finished reading it."
Justin took the letter from him and read it while Chris looked over his shoulder so he could read the rest.
'I'm sorry that you had to find out this way, but in order for us to piece together and move on, everything needs to be resolved and the lies need to be exposes. I hope you don't hurt too much.
Sincerely,
Your true friend'
"My true friend?" Chris repeated when Justin had finished reading. "I wanna know who wrote this."
"Someone who likes you a lot more than they like me, obviously." He paused, reading the last paragraph over. "I bet it's JC. He hasn't been too happy with me lately."
"I wish I still had the envelope. It was hand written. Remember?"
Justin dug in his pocket and held the crumpled envelope in front of Chris' face. "You mean THIS envelope? I found it in the hallway."
"Yeah." Chris snatched the envelope from Justin's hand and looked at the letters. "I wish I were a forensic detective," he said with a chuckle. "Then we could be like those guys on TV who run around trying to solve cases using the tiny bit of evidence they had collected."
"Like that envelope?"
"Yeah. We could get samples of everyone's hand writing and compare and contrast."
"Who says we can't? We have eyes. This'll be easy. Plus," he reached across the bed and grabbed JC's notebook. "I've already swiped an example from our prime suspect."
Chris put on a straight face and tried not to laugh. "Righty-O, Watson!" He grabbed the notebook and opened it up to the first page. As his eyes scanned over the first few lines, they widened in shock. "What is this anyway?"
JC picked up the emergency phone. "Hello?" he said into the receiver. "Um, we're stuck in the elevator."
"Which one?" the hotel worker asked.
"Which one? How am I supposed to know that?"
"It should say right above the phone."
JC looked. "Oh. I guess we're on elevator C."
"I don't know," Justin answered, taking the envelope and looking closer at the writing, while Chris still stared at JC's words in shock. "Check out his capitol letters."
"No, no, no..." Chris said, grabbing Justin's sleeve and pulling him closer so he could read what JC had written. "This is a diary or something. Read this!"
Justin looked down at the words.
'This is the first time I've ever tried anything like this and I'm not sure how it will come out. My life is an emotional mess. Sure, I have great friends, but something is missing. Every time I see a woman that I might be interested in, instead of going after her, I get depressed... like I don't deserve her or something.'
Justin gulped. "Maybe we should put this back. It looks kind of... well, personal. I don't think he wants us to read this."
Chris shut the notebook. "You're right, but how do we get it back to him without him finding out?"
"I don't know. His room is locked."
"Well, we're going to have to figure something out. How do you think he'll feel if he finds out that we were reading this?"
Justin thought about it. "God, how embarrassing."
Suddenly, they heard a loud bang and they both jumped up and rushed to the door. Both were shocked to see a swarm of hotel workers, policemen and a rescue squad all down at the end of the hall.
"What in the hell..." Chris muttered, still holding onto JC's notebook. "What is going on?"
Justin shrugged. "Let's go find out... but go put that notebook away first. What if someone sees us with it?"
Chris opened the door back up and threw the notebook inside. When he turned around to meet Justin back in the hall, that's exactly what he did... slamming right into Justin's back.
"Oof!" he cried, backing away. "Sorry... I thought you would have moved by now."
Justin didn't even care. He just grabbed Chris' arm and pulled him down the hall to where the crowd had gathered. "Never mind. I Want to find out what's going on. Where are the other guys anyway?"
Chris pointed to Joey who stood at the edge of the people with a red sweatshirt on. "There's Joey!"
They dashed down the hall and tapped Joey on the shoulder.
"What's happening?"
"Why are all these people here?"
Joey held up his hands. "Slow down, guys... everything is going to be okay." He stopped and looked at them with worry in his eyes. "JC just... kinda got stuck in the elevator..."
Justin gasped, but when he breathed out, it sounded like a laugh. He remembered forcing JC out of his hotel room. This was all his fault! "He did?! You've gotta be kidding me!"
"I kid you not," Joey assured him. "Why do you think they have all these people here? They're trying to get him out in time for the concert. Sound check was supposed to start..." He looked at his watch. "Five minutes ago. Where have you two been?" he asked, focusing his gaze to Justin's black and blue lip. "What happened to YOU?"
"I fell," Justin answered quickly. Technically, that wasn't a lie... he DID fall.
Chris looked over between Joey and Justin's shoulders and saw that the elevator doors were pried open... only there wasn't an elevator there. It was a black pit. His stomach turned. "JC is... DOWN THERE?"
"UP there," Joey corrected. "For some reason, the elevator keeps jerking up. They're trying to get it to stop."
"Well, we can always reschedule the concert," Justin concluded. "As long as JC's all right."
"Knock on wood, you fool!" Chris demanded. "We don't need a dead JC."
Justin knocked three times on the top of Joey's head with a smirk across his face. "Good enough?"
Chris nodded with a laugh. "Even better."
Joey walked away from him, mumbling, "You guys are so cruel..."
The two of them stuck around for a while longer, watching the rescue squad work to get the elevator to a floor until they realized that nothing was going to happen anytime soon. Slowly, they walked back to their room and Chris handed Justin his key back.
"Well," Justin said, looking back at Chris for help as he opened the door. "What now? Do we forget about who wrote that letter? I mean, what are we going to do once we find out, anyway?"
"We're going to confront the person who wrote it and then make them answer our questions."
"Which would be..." he prompted as he sat back down on his bed.
Chris picked the notebook up from the floor. "Why are you eavesdropping, for starters... and why aren't you minding your own business?"
"God," Justin chuckled, rolling his eyes. "It already sounds like JC. Maybe we should just confront him... I mean, chances are it's him."
"Maybe," Chris agreed. "Just open up to a page. We won't READ it... we'll just look at his handwriting."
Chapter 3
Identities
Chris {Fiction}
Justin {Fiction}
My Fiction
I'll Never Stop {Fiction}
Email me: irishgirl982@yahoo.com