JC stares at AJ as he bounces his head along to the music coming from the TV from the movie Pulp Fiction. JC was ready to take the tape and burn it when AJ wasn’t looking. He had seen the movie about ten times since he had gotten into rehab. Yeah it was good the first five, six, maybe even seven times, but now it was just too much and the that AJ could recite lines from it exactly was scary enough.
“AJ can we watch something else?” JC asks as AJ turns his head to stare at him.
“Like what?”
“I dunno anything.”
“Ben…”
“Not Ben Hur. I swear I will watch this movie instead of having to sit through three hours of that again.”
“Sounds good to me,” AJ says turning his head to face the TV as Uma Thurman and Jon Travolta start to dance around during Jack Rabbit Slim’s twist contest.
“AJJJJJ,” JC starts to complain.
“You know what hell is?”
“Huh?”
“Hell is coming back to life as a pigeon.”
“What?”
“I mean they’re too fat to fly anywhere cool and the whole day all you do in spend your time eating food off the ground old people through to you at the park.”
JC stares at AJ for a few seconds then shakes his head. Yeah leave it to AJ to come up with a random like that during the oddest time possible. He seemed to come with the weirdest things possible and was never afraid to voice them.
“AJ.”
“Yeah.”
“You frighten me.”
“I know I have that affect on a lot of people,” AJ says and turns to JC and smiles.
JC looks across the table at an all too familiar face, but at the same time the face seemed so distant and different then the way he remembered it. He had the same blue eyes and the same pout that he always got whenever he didn’t get what he wanted, but he was different. He had gained a few pounds and his hair was growing back out which made him lose the look which AJ said resembled a holocaust prisoner because of how pale he was and how skinny along with the shaved head. It was Justin, but at the same time it wasn’t. The person across from him smiled and laughed too much too his liking. It seemed as if he was high and JC wasn’t about to rule out that guess. Justin looked younger then he really was which is hard to imagine since Justin can seem like a sixteen year old at times.
“How are you man?” Justin asks smiling a little.
“Good. Good…are you high?” JC asks before even noticing what came out of his mouth.
“No,” Justin says as his brows scrunch up and he pouts a little, “Why would I be?”
“I dunno you’re different…you’re…”
“Happy?”
“Are you?”
“Yeah,” Justin smiles, “Are you?”
“That’s the scary thing,” JC sighs, “I don’t know if I am or not. I mean I am happy to be off that shit for right now and making amends with Polly is a great feeling, but I don’t know if I’m happy.”
“How come you never told me I was never in love?”
“What?”
“With Britney. I thought I was in love, but I wasn’t. You knew it didn’t you.”
“Of course we all knew it.”
“Oh,” Justin says looking down at the table and folding his hands on top of it.
“I’m sorry Justin.”
“Huh?”
“For anything I ever did to you I’m sorry. Mostly for stuff I probably did and I can’t even remember right now. I know I caused you living hell when I over dosed and I know I really am destroying everything we tried so hard to build up.”
“It’s ok Jace,” Justin says smiling, “I owe you as much of an apology as you owe me.”
“Not even close Justin,” JC shakes his head, “Not even close.”
Justin frowns, “How’s Polly?”
“Good.”
“I miss Polly. I liked her. She always put up with my shit when I was younger and never yelled at me. She bought me coffee all the time from Starbucks when you guys said I couldn’t’ have any.”
“That was her?”
“Yeah, she never liked Lance and Joey though for some reason.”
“She wasn’t very close to Chris either.”
“I know that’s why she said she liked talking to me even though I was younger then her by a good amount of years.”
“I screwed up big time with her.”
Justin nods.
“I apologized to her already, but I don’t think that’s enough for what I put her through.”
“Every can change in a New York minute, Jace.”
“What?”
“That’s what Vanessa always tells me. She says life is more or less just ten big days that change your life for better or for worse. I think you’ve used up a lot of them already and me too. I think she’s right too. I mean it kinda is true. You’re whole life changed over the course of what ten minutes at the most and mine did too.”
“Yeah I guess she is kind of right.”
“Scary huh? She’s like my own little Buddha. She gives me the best advice ever.”
“I know what you mean.”
“Huh?”
“You ever talk to AJ McLean?”
“Yeah once and a while. Why?”
“He’s the type of person that would say that.”
Justin nods.
“You’re different, Justin.”
“What do you mean like my hair?”
“No, YOU are different. I don’t know what it is, but your different.”
Justin smiles, “I love her. I’m going to marry her and we’re going to live in the suburbs with three kids and a Great Dane for a pet.”
JC shakes his head and laughs a little, “You do that Just. You do that.”
“JC?”
“Yeah.”
“Can you keep a secret?”
“Yeah anything, Just.”
“I’m going to be a dad,” he says smiling.
“What’s wrong with you?” AJ asks JC sitting down next to him on the grass outside the center.
“I can’t talk about it,” JC says looking down and twirling a blade of grass between his fingers.
“Why?” AJ asks staring at him from behind his red tinted glasses.
“I can’t.”
“Ok.”
“Do you think I would have been a good dad?”
“Honestly?”
“Yeah.”
“No.”
“Why?” JC says looking up at him suddenly.
“Raising children takes so much time and you don’t have that being who you are. I mean look at poor Joey’s kid. No offense to Joey or anything, but the man is a male whore. He plays woman a lot and I’ve seen it. This poor kid is going to grow up knowing she is a mistake and I know you are thinking the same thing as me that he is not going to marry the mother. I mean look at Brian and Kevin. They are married and they know their schedule won’t let them have time to have a kid with their wives. Such is life in the Hollywood eye. What can I say it sucks?”
JC nods and goes back to staring at the grass blades.
“So you apologized to Justin?”
“Yeah.”
“Whose next?”
“I dunno. I don’t feel like putting up with Chris’s shit and I called my family and talked to them once Tyler was gone.”
“What about Bobbie?”
“I know that was what I was thinking, but neither of us feel like talking to each other right now I think.”
AJ looks at him from over the rims of his sunglasses.
“Ok I don’t feel like talking to her right now.”
“You’re supposed to be making amends.”
“I know. I know.”
“Do you?”
“Yes AJ.”
“Ok, so you’ll talk to her later?”
“Yeah. Yeah. Did Vanessa talk to you any time lately?”
“Yeah.”
“How is she?”
“Good. She’s doing well on tour and all she does is talk about Justin and she’s what’s the word I’m looking for? Oh yeah…pregnant.”
JC’s head snaps up and he looks at him.
“They all know. Well all of the Boys and her band. We tell each other a lot in our circle you know that.”
“Justin just told me. I can’t believe he was that stupid.”
“He’s in love…”
“Yeah, but still…”
“You were in love once.”
“And look where my kid is now. He doesn’t even have a fucking grave.”
“Don’t be so harsh on yourself. Polly is over it why can’t you be?”
“Is she really?”
“Yeah…I think.”
“Yeah you think.”
“Hey don’t pull that shit with me ok JC. I was there when it happened. Where the hell were you?” AJ says standing up and walking back towards the center.
JC turns his head and stares at AJ’s back as he walks away.
Justin was going to screw up his life just like him and he knew it in the back of his mind. It was always there ticking in the back of his mind telling him to warn Justin about what not to do, but Justin had to help himself. JC need help himself, so he was in no condition to help others. JC sighs and stands up stretching out slightly. He might as well go apologize to AJ while he was still in the apologizing mode. He walks towards the center and in through the back door and stares as Brian Littrell, Kevin Richardson, Howie Dorough and Nick Carter walk up to AJ and all of them grab onto each other pulling each other into a group hug. JC watches from the doorframe as all five of them walk into the sitting room AJ leading the way. Where the hell were his group mates? Yeah he had talked to Justin often, but Chris pissed him off still and Lance and Joey made no attempt to contact him. Life sucked and he was sure of it now.
JC walks down the hallway, up the steps and into his room. When you were in the entertainment business you were never sure who your real friends are, but in times like these your real friends come through for you when no one else would. For JC that was Justin, AJ who he had just recently become friends with and Polly whose life he ruined years ago. From JC’s point of view he led a sad pathetic life and there really was no point for him to even be here.
“Fuck this life,” JC mutters looking across his room outside his window.
“You always were the most self conscious person I ever met,” a soft voice says from behind him.
JC turns around and stares as Polly walks into his room and sits down on his bed.
“What’s wrong now?”
“Life is a bitch.”
“No shit.”
“I shouldn’t even be here. I should be dead or living in the city alone in a small apartment with cockroaches that I would name Ed and Sally and all their children,” he says sitting down next to her.
“Ed and Sally?”
“You’re not helping any.”
“I know its hard trust me I know,” she says staring at him, “besides you have to be here.”
“Why?”
“Because you have a beautiful voice even if it is going to waste in that group.”
JC smirks, “You always said that.”
“It’s true. You could be a wonderful solo artist like Robbie Williams is.”
“Not like this I can’t.”
“Then shave off that whatever you call it piece of facial hair on your chin, because it is annoying the hell out of me, and start over. Stand up dust yourself off and start again.”
JC stares at her and smiles, “Marry me.”
“Not a chance in hell Chasez,” she says.
“Then hold me,” he says staring at her, “Just hold me.”
Polly stares at him with sad eyes then lays back on the bed as he curls up next to her and buries his head into her neck. Polly runs her hands through his hair softly and sighs. Hair that used to be short and cut for fifteen dollars in a small barbershop and he wouldn’t think of putting highlights in it for fear of being called gay. The thing that scared her the most were his eyes. Eyes that used to brighten up every time he smiled and would have this sparkle in them that reminded her of the clear blue ocean on warm summer days. Now they reminded her of a dark blue ocean being tossed about by the winds of a storm. He wasn’t her Josh anymore. He was something that the record industry had pushed him top be until he broke and he broke hard. He broke into a million pieces. A million pieces that he would crush into powder and take back into himself in hopes of becoming whole again.
