8 Seconds

By:  Julie

 

“How do you think Jace took it?” Justin asked.

Chris shrugged as they pulled into the driveway. He parked the car, and got out.

“What the hell…?” Justin asked, seeing the ambulance and the police cars parked near the private beach.

“I’d say he didn’t take it well,” Chris said.

The door was knocked from its hinges. There was a hole in the wall behind it from JC slamming it open when he left the house. The phone was shattered on the floor, from him throwing it against the wall. Things had been swept from shelves and tabletops, demo CDs shattered on the floor near the overturned keyboard.

Lance had gone to Wyoming to ride. They’d fought when Lance had left, and he’d left JC alone at their home back in California.

JC had always loved Lance. From the very beginning, when Justin and Chris had dragged him to see this amazing bull rider at a rodeo down in Texas two years before. The man had a reputation for drawing some of the hardest bulls and riding them the full eight seconds, riding them to wins and prize money.

Not much ever interested JC except music. Until he met the young blond bull rider named Lance Bass.

The life they lived together from then was like a dream. They had the beautiful home in California, JC had his music, and he’d travel with Lance while he rode.

Until JC decided that he wanted Lance to stop riding. Lance was coming out of the ring with more injuries every time he rode. JC just wanted to keep him, was all.

In Cheyenne, Lance drew a bull that supposedly no one had ever ridden. This was the kind of thing that had made him famous, and had drawn Justin and Chris to see him, in turn bringing JC into his life. Lance was determined to ride it, simply because they believed he couldn’t.

Lance couldn’t even remain on the animal.

He was thrown in only four seconds. While he was lying stunned on the ground from the fall, the bull’s hooves had slammed into his head. He had died instantly.

“He died quickly,” Chris said to Justin, when they found out. Justin had immediately wanted to go to JC, desperately needing to know how his friend had taken the news of his lover dying.

JC had torn the house apart when he’d heard. He’d torn apart everything they’d worked for, all the things he’d worked so hard on. Everything he and Lance had lived for.

The neighbors said they saw him headed for the beach. They hadn’t known what was going on, hadn’t known what had happened then. JC had found his own way out, his way back to Lance.

Before Lance had left, they’d fought. JC hadn’t wanted Lance to leave, hadn’t wanted him to ride. Lance had declared that he WAS going to ride, that it was his life, and he had to do it. Those words broke JC’s heart.

He had wanted Lance to live for him. Everything JC did, he did for Lance, and hearing Lance say that the rodeo was his life tore JC apart.

He hadn’t meant it when he said it, but Lance’s words had hurt him so much, JC had said that he didn’t give a damn if Lance rode, wouldn’t care if Lance died, wouldn’t cry. And Lance’s eyes had filled with tears, and he had left, leaving JC’s words between them.

Justin could imagine everything the neighbors told him and Chris. In his mind, he could see JC rushing into the water; see how JC would find that to be the only way back to Lance. In his ears, he could hear JC’s sobs, he could hear JC screaming Lance’s name when they told him that the love of his life had been thrown and stomped.

Justin could even, looking out toward the beach, where they were searching for JC’s body, see his friend standing there, looking out across the water, his feet sinking into the sand, leaving prints. Justin knew they wouldn’t find JC’s body. As far as he was concerned, JC wasn’t dead, so there could be no body.

They’d see them in their dreams, holding hands and walking along that beach, or they’d see JC sitting at his keyboard with papers scattered around him, writing songs devoted to how much he loved Lance, while the blond watched him with those crystalline green eyes. Justin could almost see them together on Lance’s horse, sand flying up behind them while JC laughed and held onto Lance for dear life. Chris could see them inside the rodeo grounds, Lance on the frantically bucking animal, arm in the air, while JC leaned against the railing.

Lance won, every time.

JC had loved him unconditionally, enough to follow him into death. It was just a cruel twist of fate that had it happen the way he did.

A fate that rested on whether a man could stay upon the animal for eight seconds, and a fate that, when a man was thrown, rested on the fall of the hooves.

Lance and JC’s fates had taken the wrong twist.

But they were together, no matter what.

The End

Tell Julie what you thought of this story!