It was Sunday morning when Justin finally arrived in Orlando. He twisted the key in the lock and entered his house. Two weeks off from anything public. As he walked inside and threw his bags to the floor, he knew he had to take this time to find JC. If he didn't find him soon, he'd go insane.
He ran his hand through the curls on top of his head as he looked around his living room. Where to start... that was the most important thing. He needed a lead. Something... anything to point him in the right direction. The problem was that he had nothing to go on. He didn't know where to look first.
The yellow pages. Duh. Of course... he could look up the names of some missing person agency. If he had no clue, maybe the professionals could help him out a little.
Changing his name would have been the smart thing to do, but his name was his identity, and if he changed it, he'd feel like he was hiding... or on the run like a criminal or something. Angel didn't deserve that reputation... and he could never lie to her.
He never intended to desert his family, but in a way, that's what happened. When he and Angel first moved up north, his mom would call every day, begging him to come home. He couldn't. He wanted nothing to do with JC Chasez of Nsync, and since JC had lived in Orlando, he wanted to find himself a new home.
He'd started over, and became a new person. The new JC was known as Josh by everyone he knew in town, and he liked the fact that they didn't know anything about his past.
"Nobody knows but me..." he whispered to the dark as he tried to get through the night. "And nobody can find out what I did to Carrie."
Just saying her name out loud brought tears to his eyes. The pain of it all was still there after all those years, and he still couldn't seem to forget about it.
Angel didn't even know her mother's name. When she asked why she didn't have a mommy like all the other kids at preschool, JC had been honest with her. "When you were born," he'd told her gently, "Mommy went up to be with the angels in heaven... and that's why I named you Angel." ...but he never told her Carrie's name.
He felt SO bad that Angel didn't have a mom, and HATED telling her no when she asked if she would ever see her mommy. Quickly, he'd pulled her close, and told her that one day, when she got to heaven too, a long time from now, of course, she'd see mommy.
JC turned over in bed, letting his tear fall to the pillow. It had been four days since he saw Justin on that show, and he was still thinking about it.
"Daddy!" A little voice called from her bedroom.
JC jumped out of bed, and bolted out of his room. When he got to his daughter's room, he found the little girl standing in the middle of the floor... surrounded by water. He looked down at his feet and watched as the puddle seeped into his toes.
"Oh, God..." he muttered as he stepped through the water to pick Angel up.
"Daddy, why is there water everywhere? I heard this sound... and when I opened my eyes, and looked around it was coming out of the bathroom," she said as he carried her down the hallway and into the living room. He stopped dead in his tracks when he saw another puddle coming from the kitchen.
"Angel, I'm guessing we have some sort of a plumbing problem."
"What's plumbing?"
"I'll tell you later. Right now, we need to pack up a few things and get out. Too bad the insurance company doesn't open till morning."
"Wake up! Wake up! Daddy, WAKE UP!" Angel yelled as she jumped up and down on the hotel bed. When JC finally opened his eyes and smiled at her, she fell back down to the bed to hug him. "When do we get to go home?"
He looked over at his watch. "Honestly, Angel, I really don't know when we'll get to go home. Daddy has to call the insurance company," he said as he reached down to his bag so that he could find his cell phone. "And see what our policy is on flooding."
Right when he was about to punch in the number, the phone rang. He jumped, and put the phone to his ear. "Hello?"
"JC!" his mother's voice rang out through the phone. "Where have you been all morning, and why aren't you answering your phone? Angel's okay, isn't she?"
"Mom, relax. Everyone is fine. I'm fine, Angel's perfect... it's just... just the house. A pipe or something blew last night, and the house is flooded. There was nothing I could really do in the middle of the night, so we just came to a hotel."
"Grandma!" Angel squealed when she realized who her dad was talking to. "Can I talk?"
"A PIPE blew?" Mrs. Chasez echoed. "Your HOUSE is flooded? JC, why didn't you call? You and Angel could have flown down for a while so they can fix it..."
"Mom, I told you... there wasn't anything we could do in the middle of the night besides come here. I haven't even gotten around to calling the insurance company yet."
"Well, you call them, and demand that they write you a big, fat check so that you can get it fixed right away. I won't have you and my granddaughter living in a place like that." She paused for a brief second, and then continued, "Why don't you bring that beautiful, baby girl of yours down to Orlando while they're working on your house?"
"It's not because of you and dad, you know that. It's just that I HATE Orlando."
"How can you hate such a beautiful place? And don't you miss your old friends?"
JC frowned. "Not really. My life is here now."
"I wanna talk to Grandma!" Angel cried again, and he handed her the phone. "Hi, Grandma! Daddy and I got to sleep in a BIG bed with a lot of blankets and..."
JC closed his eyes, and rubbed his temples as he tried to block out all sound. First, his past was catching up to him, and now his future had kicked him out of his own house. Could it get any worse?
Chapter 7
Not A Day Goes By
JC {Fiction}
My Fiction
I'll Never Stop {Fiction}
Email Me