JC walked up to the house and paused outside the door. Taking a deep breath he rang the bell and stood with his hands in his pockets observing the neighbourhood. When the door opened he turned to see a young boy.
"Hi. Um is Alanna there?"
"You're in that boy band aren't you?"
"JC cringed at the term that had become so common to them over the past few years. Something they had been trying so hard to get away from. "Er yeah that'd be me. I'm JC."
"I'm Ryan. My sister told me about you. She toured with you didn't she."
"Yeah she did. She talked about me?" he asked, curious to know what she'd said about him to her family. It couldn't have been bad because the kid was showing no ill feelings towards him.
"She just told me your names and stuff," he shrugged.
"Oh," he said slightly disappointed. "So is she here?" he asked.
"No she went to New York."
"New York? She wasn't supposed to go until the end of the week." Well that was what Lance had told him. She was supposed to be meeting with some songwriters and then she had an interview for a future addition of a magazine.
"She left last night. She went to see my sister," he explained.
"Katie?"
"Yeah. You know her too?"
"We've met," JC said, trying to keep the resentment out of his voice.
"Cool."
JC stood in silence for a second while Ryan swung the door back and forth. "So I guess I'll let you go then."
"Do you want me to pass a message on?"
JC shook his head. "No it's okay. It was nice meeting you Ryan."
"You too."
JC walked back to his car trying to understand why she would go to see Katie. Only weeks before they had had the showdown at the arena.
"Ryan who is at the door?" Anne Scott asked as she joined her son in the doorway.
"JC, but he's gone now."
Anne looked up and watched the car back out of the driveway. "What did he want?"
"He wanted to talk to Al. I told him she'd gone to New York."
"No message?"
"Nope. Can I go play basketball with my friends now?"
"Yeah but dinner is in an hour."
"Okay," he shouted as he followed the retreating car down the driveway.
~*~
Alanna sat alone in her sister's apartment waiting for her to arrive home from class. She had flown into JFK late the previous night and the sisters had not had the chance to say anything other than hello to each other.
Alanna had taken the decision to come out to New York early after she'd received JC's flowers the day before. She needed to get away, to think about what she was going to do. Things needed to be settled with Katie before she came home for Christmas and seeing as she was to be in New York at the end of the week this had seemed like the ideal opportunity.
She had missed her sister but she was not looking forward to the talk they would have to have. Katie had hurt her immensely. Alanna was finding it extremely hard to even think about forgiving her. Something needed to be worked out before Katie's visit home though. Family time was now extra important to Alanna with all of the time she was spending away from them. Coming to an understanding with Katie to prevent a family feud seemed a small price to pay in the long run. Katie's betrayal would not be forgotten in a hurry though, that was one thing Alanna was certain of. She intended to let her sister know all of this before she left. It would be an interesting few days if anything.
She was startled out of her thoughts by the door slamming. She had been so deep in thought that she hadn't even heard the door opening or her sister enter.
"Hi," Katie said as she dropped her keys on the table.
"Hi." Alanna watched Katie make a big production of taking her coat and gloves off. She was obviously trying to ignore the tension and put off their little talk. Once she had kicked her shoes off and had no other source of delay she cautiously turned and looked at Alanna.
Alanna raised her eyebrows in question and Katie sighed. "What do you want to know?"
"Wow Katie, I'm impressed. You cut straight to the chase there," she said sarcastically.
Katie didn't respond, just sat there nervously biting the inside of her cheek.
Alanna looked at her and point blank asked, "why?"
Katie sensibly decided not to play dumb and ask what she meant by "why?". She knew what Alanna meant. What would be harder to figure out though was her explanation to Alanna. "I don't know," she said quietly.
Alanna regarded her in silence at first. "You don't know. You don't KNOW?"
Katie jumped slightly as Alanna's voice grew in volume. "You probably won't believe this but I never set out to hurt you,” she said quietly, her eyes not able to meet her sisters.
"Then what the hell WERE you doing?"
"I don't know okay," Katie said as she began pacing the room. "I don't know why I was stupid enough to do that and even stupider to do it with Nathan. The fact that he was my sister's boyfriend didn't even enter my mind at the time. I was hurting, I'd just broken up with Sam and there he was making me feel like I wasn't unwanted anymore. As soon as it was over I regretted it, not only because he was dating my sister or even that he was dating full stop but also because I brought myself down to that level. I brought myself down to an all time low of letting myself sleep with a guy just because he came out with a few lies to make me think that I wasn't ready for the trash heap just yet." Katie took a deep breath before finally looking at Alanna.
"So he screwed us both over. That doesn't excuse the fact that you slept with MY boyfriend. How could you Katie? How could you do that to me?" No longer did it hurt that she'd slept with Nathan. The thing that hurt was that her sister could do something that at the time broke her heart. Now she knew she was better off without Nathan and in fact Katie probably did her a favour in helping to get rid of him in some sick and twisted way. The fact remained though that Katie had broken an unspoken promise between sisters. A promise to be there for each other through thick and thin. Another factor in the bond between siblings was forgiveness. Siblings have the ability to forgive without so much as a "sorry" being spoken. Brothers and sisters would argue and all would be forgotten in minutes. It wasn't the same with friends. Apologies would be made before things were really sorted out; it was just the way it was.
As much as it took she would not back down on her end of the deal. She would try everything in her to try and forgive, maybe not forget though, what she had done. If she ever dared to do anything of that nature again God help her.
With a deep breath Alanna prepared to do perhaps the noblest thing she had ever done. "If you promise never to have any kind of relationship with Nathan..."
"I promise," Katie cut in quickly.
"Let me finish," Alanna demanded.
Katie shut up and sat down opposite Alanna.
"You have to promise to never hurt me like that again. If you do I can PROMISE you that you are out of my life," she threatened. "If you can promise me that then I won't ever mention this again, we both forget it ever happened and try and patch up what's left of our friendship."
"I promise, oh God I promise," Katie began to sob.
Alanna turned her gaze slightly away from Katie. She was finding it extremely hard to look at her cry and not break out with the "it's all your fault" speech. "Okay. Well I'm gonna take a walk,” she said standing up. She looked back at her sister. “Don't expect us to be best friends Katie, cos that isn't gonna happen. This is going to take time."
"I know, I know and I totally understand."
Alanna nodded. "Just as long as we've got that straight. I'll see you later," she said as she grabbed her coat and left the apartment.
"Yeah later," Katie said as the door closed. She breathed a sigh of relief. She was one lucky girl.
~*~
"Hi mom."
"Hi I was just calling to see how things were going in New York. I must say I was surprised that you left to go see your sister. I thought you were intent on staying home during your break."
"Yeah I was. When I saw Katie the other week we had a bit of a disagreement." Yeah if only her mom really knew.
"You did? What happened? Why didn't either of you say anything?"
"Mom don't worry about it. It was just a stupid sister thing. I just got a case of the guilts and decided to come patch things up," she said hoping her mom would buy it. She was partly telling the truth after all...or so she tried to tell herself. "Everything is fine now."
"Are you sure?" her mom asked, concerned.
"Yep sure. So what's going on there?" she asked changing the subject. "Sorry to run out on you so quickly."
"It's okay, I got to see you for a week. I'm beginning to realise that is a long time to get to spend with you now," she said sadly.
"I'm sorry," Alanna said equally as sad.
"It's okay I understand. So anyway you wanted to know what's happening here?" she said more cheerfully.
"Yep I sure do," she said settling back into the armchair in the apartment’s living room.
"Well we had a visitor today."
"You did?"
"Uh huh."
"Who?" she asked, smiling at her mother's attempt to make her curious.
"JC."
The smile was wiped from Alanna's face and was replaced by shock. She cleared her throat. "JC? JC came to the house?"
"He sure did."
"What did he want?"
"To see you."
"Well duh, I thought he might wanna hang out with you mom," she said sarcastically. Alanna immediately felt bad. "Sorry." Her state of confusion was no excuse for her to be taking things out on her mom. "Did he say what he wanted to see me about?"
"Well I didn't talk to him but your brother said he didn't leave a message."
"Ryan spoke to him?" she cried.
"Yeah I was out back."
"Great," she muttered.
"Is there something you're not telling me?" her mom asked curiously.
"No it's nothing mom, don't worry about it.”
"So you'll get back to him?"
"Yeah I will. So what else is going on? How's dad?" For now the subject of JC Chasez was dropped.
Chapter 29
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