Here it is people, number three. I'm sorry it took so long, school's horrible. The material contained herein is completely fictional and is not meant to imply anything about anyone involved. As always, if reading material about homosexual relationships bothers you, then BOY are YOU in the wrong place. I'd like to thank Sean, Rob, Matthew, ahem Shannon, and DLS (in no particular order). Also a big thanks goes out to all the people who had heart enough to write me after that last chapter, and to those who are now reading this even though I've taken well over two weeks getting it out and am a horrible person. And so without further ado . . .on with the show.
Lucky Me -3-
An awkward silence befell the kitchen, and all that could be heard was Joey's crunching. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Chris eye-balling me, and he was making me nervous. Justin walked in while rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. He dragged his feet over to the fridge and brought out a can of coke to start his day off on the right foot. It was only after he'd been leaning on the counter, while attempting to wake up, that he noticed JC's eye.
Justin's eyes nearly popped out of his head as he rushed over to his best friend. "Man, JC, who did that to you?"
JC feigned a grin and said, "I did it to myself, Just." Justin furrowed his eyebrows. "No really," JC continued, "I did."
"Yeah," Chris interjected sarcastically, "he fell out of bed."
Justin looked at his best friend quizzically. "You fell out of bed?"
JC sighed. He detested lying. And having to do it now, especially to his best friends, made him angry. "Yes," he snapped, "I fell out of bed. Now can we all just get on with our lives?" JC stormed past his friends, out of the kitchen, and up to his room. I followed him.
The other three guys looked to Lance for some sort of explanation on their friend's unexpected behavior. Lance tried to sink into the floor as he said, "I need to, uh, go have a shower." He grinned nervously and quickly exited the room.
Chris, Justin, and Joey looked at each other and collectively shrugged their shoulders. Chris thought, "There's something goin' on with the three of them, and damned if I'm not going to find out what it is."
I caught up with JC just as he entered his room. "What's wrong, JC?" I asked his back.
He turned around and said, "Can you just leave me alone for a bit, Luke? I need to sort some of this out. I just need some time to think," he explained as he sank down onto his bed.
"All right, JC. I understand. And thank you. Ya know, for keeping my secrets."
"No problem, Luke. But why didn't you want anyone to know? Why do you care if the guys know you're gay? Why didn't you want me to tell Lance about Jason's hitting you? I don't understand."
I hung my head and said quietly, "It's really complicated, JC. But thanks for doing it anyway." I looked up at him and attempted a smile, but it didn't turn out that good. JC nodded, and I left the room. As I proceeded out of JC's room, I smacked right into Lance who hadn't been looking where he was going any more than I had.
"Oh, sorry Luke," he said as he reached up and scratched the back of his head. "Is JC okay? That wasn't like him."
"Yeah he's fine. He just needs to work some things out. At least, that's what he said." I shrugged my shoulders and looked back to the floor. "I don't think he liked lying," I almost whispered.
"Yeah, JC really does hate it when people lie." There was an awkward silence for a while before Lance said, "Hey Luke, we need to go get your car, don't we?"
I furrowed my eyebrows as I tried to shift gears in my mind. "Uh, yeah we do. I forgot about my car. It's still at the auditorium. Would you mind taking me there?" I asked with my eyes still glued to the floor.
"No problem," Lance smiled. "Let's go." I followed Lance down the stairs. He stopped by the kitchen to tell the rest of the guys where we were going, and soon we were on our way.
We got into Lance's 4Runner, and he pulled out of the driveway. The weight of the past 24 hours began to catch up with me. I didn't cry, I was past crying. I was just trying to deal with it all. I unknowingly slumped down in my seat as I thought all the thoughts that were in my head. I was completely unaware of Lance, or the fact that he was periodically looking at me with a very worried expression on his face. He wasn't blind, he could see that I was depressed, and he wanted, more than anything, to be able to take that pain away from me. Lance hated seeing people in pain. But he didn't say anything for fear of depressing me even more.
Twenty minutes of the half-hour ride was spent in silence until Lance got up the nerve and whispered, "Luke, what's wrong." Lance expected me to burst out crying again, but I didn't. I took a deep breath and calmly said,
"My whole life is falling apart."
Lance blinked and tried to take this in. He tried to decipher its meaning, but couldn't. He had to know a little more. He gently prompted me, "What do you mean?"
"I mean my whole life. Jason doesn't love me anymore, the guys don't seem to like me, and JC probably hates me for making him lie. My whole life is just falling apart," I said as I raised my hands in a symbol of defeat.
Lance could see that I was really distressed, but he also knew that I was making my situation harder than it had to be. He said, "Luke, I know it hurts losing Jason. I mean, I don't know, but I can imagine. But it will get better if you let it. If you accept it, and you want to get over it, you will. I promise." Lance stayed silent for a little and let me his advice soak in. He continued, "The guys will warm up to you. They're good people. They just need to get to know you better. And as for JC," he paused. "JC likes to have everything organized. He thrives on everything running smoothly, and when it doesn't, he has to stop and think about how to get everything back to right. You being here has thrown a wrench in his gears. That's all." He looked over to me to see if he had helped.
I said, "Well, if it's upsetting him, maybe I shouldn't be here." I sighed.
Lance's face hardened, and he looked back to the road. "I'm not going to dump you on the street, which is what I'd be doing since you don't have anywhere to go." He paused and his face became a little softer. "I'm also not going to let you leave when you're so vulnerable. I just wouldn't feel like a decent human being if I did that." He sighed, paused again, and his face became stern again. "No, you're not leaving, Luke. That's the end of it. You're just not." Lance pulled into the parking lot of the auditorium, and parked next to my car.
I got out of his 4Runner, and drug my feet over to the driver's side of my car. I leaned against the door and got swallowed into my own world as images flashed through my mind. Lance came around to where I was standing to find me staring off into space. He sighed `What's wrong with him?' he thought to himself. He shook my shoulder lightly to get my attention and said, "Luke, you really okay?"
My eyes focused onto him, and I sighed. "Yeah, I'm all right." It came out forced.
Lance was almost in tears. He knew I wasn't all right, and yet he didn't know what he could do for me. He came closer to me and wrapped his arms around me. He whispered in my ear, "You'll always have me if you need me. I'll always be here for you."
My breath caught in my throat, and I fought back tears. I wrapped my arms around his waist and pulled him to me as my tears began to silently flow. He just hugged me tighter. We stayed that way for a long time. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, I unwrapped myself from him, dried my eyes with the back of my hand, and said, "I'll follow you back." I turned around and climbed into my car. Lance sighed as he walked back to his 4Runner. He didn't believe that I was okay. But he didn't think it would be right to keep asking me, so he left it alone.
JC sighed deeply as I left his room. He went over to the mirror, and he took a good look at his eye. It was very swollen now, and it was purple. And it REALLY hurt, a lot. He remembered the scene with Jason. How he had felt overpowered. Jason was a lot stronger than himself, not to mention drunk with abusive tendencies. And even though Jason HAD been stronger, JC had defended himself. JC had gotten out of there with only a black eye. It gave him a sense of strength. A feeling like he could do anything. He laughed at himself, he knew he couldn't do ANYTHING. But it was still a nice feeling.
JC kept staring at himself in the mirror as he thought, `I can understand why Luke wants to stay in the closet, but why wouldn't he want Lance to know about what Jason did to him. Lance knows everything else about him. I just don't understand.' He sighed. "Well," he said aloud to his reflection, "I guess that's not the point. The point is that he asked me not to say anything. So, I'll just have to trust him." He nodded to his reflection and smiled at himself. He felt at ease again.
Chris came storming up the stairs and pushed JC's door open so that it hit the wall with a loud BANG pulling JC out of his revelry. He looked to Chris and had to keep himself from laughing. He could practically see the smoke coming out of his friend's ears.
Chris fumed, "Okay JC, I want to know what's going on here, and I want to know now."
"What are you talking about Chris?" JC's eyes narrowed.
"About Luke. I want to know where he came from, why he's here, and how you got that black eye," Chris says pointing to JC's swollen eye.
"I told you, I fell out of bed," JC said feigning exasperation.
"You weren't even in bed last night, JC. I saw Luke closing the door to your room. You didn't sleep in your bed last night, and so I KNOW you didn't fall out of it. So I know you're lying, and I'm pretty sure it's got something to do with Luke. Now tell me what's going on."
"I can't." JC's eyes dropped to the floor.
"What?" Chris asked incredulously.
"I can't," he repeated.
"Why not?"
"I promised." He looked up into his friend's eyes.
"JC, we've never kept secrets, and we're not going to start now. Tell me." Chris was beginning to get very angry.
"I told Luke I wouldn't, Chris."
"JC . . ." Chris pleaded.
"Look Chris," JC asserted. "I'm not going to tell you. I'm just not. He asked me not to, and I'm not going to. That's the way it is."
Chris saw that JC was really serious about this. "Well, I guess I'll have to respect that."
"Yeah, I guess you do." JC glared at Chris until he left the room.
Once he was out in the hall, Chris thought, "But I don't have to respect the way Luke's tearing this group apart. And I'm going to do something about it."
Lance pulled into Justin's driveway and I pulled in right after him. I got out of my car, and walked into Justin's house, up the stairs, and into the bathroom. I didn't even bother to shut the door. I just stared at myself in the mirror. Images of my mother came flooding back to me. How she had always been so supportive of whatever I did. She had always done her best to be both parents to me, since my father died. And then, one day, when I told her something I couldn't do anything about, she turns on me and throws me out of the house. She didn't love me after all.
My mind changed over to the first time Jason had ever hit me. It was three in the morning, and Jason still wasn't home. He called me earlier that day to say he's be a little late, but he'd never been this late before. I was getting worried. I was pacing around the living room making his funeral arrangements in my mind when I heard the door open. I ran over to Jason and threw my arms around him. Then I pulled away from him and playfully hit his shoulder. "Dammit, Jason. Where in the world have you been?"
He didn't answer me, he just walked past me into the living room. I didn't notice it then, because I was too focused on his whereabouts, but he was dead drunk. I walked after him, and said, "I've been so worried about you. Where have you been all night? What have you been doing, Jason?" He didn't answer me. "Jason," I said again, "Where have you . . ." I was interrupted my the back of his right hand coming across my face. I was stunned. It didn't hurt all that much, but he'd never hit me before. I just lay there, splayed across the couch, where I'd fallen, with my hand on the place he'd hit me looking up at him.
He looked down on me and smirked, "God Luke, your so pathetic."
The word pathetic' rang in my ears. It was all I could hear. I didn't hear Lance calling my name from outside the bathroom door when he'd seen me there. I didn't hear him come in. I didn't even feel it when he put his hand on my shoulder, nor did I hear when he called my name the first dozen times. All I could hear was pathetic, Pathetic, PATHETIC. YOU'RE SO FUCKING PATHETIC!! PATHETIC!!! PATHETIC!!!'
I snapped back to reality and realized that I was being shaken. My head was lolling back and forth, and all I could think was, `Jason.' I recoiled from the person who was shaking me, who was Lance, but I didn't know that, and I smacked into the bathroom wall behind me. Instinctively, I curled up into the little ball that saved my life countless times with Jason.
Lance stood there stunned. He couldn't speak, or move. He saw me huddled on the bathroom floor, having pulled away when he'd shaken me out of a stupor. He walked over to where I was crouched, and knelt down next to me. He put his hands on my back, the only part of me available, and he said, "Luke . . .Luke . . ."
I stuttered, "Jason, go away, Jason . . . leave me alone."
Lance soothed, "No, it's me, Lance. It's Lance. Luke, Jason's not here. It's Lance."
Somehow, I heard him, and I cautiously uncurled myself. I sat against the wall and pulled my knees up to my chest. I began rocking back and forth. Lance knelt in front of me. "Luke," he said very quietly, "do you want to talk about it?"
I just shook my head furiously.
He said, "You know I'm always here for you. If you ever need me, I'm here. I always will be." I stood up and began walking out of the room, but he got in front of me again. "Luke, talk to me!"
"No, I don't deserve this. I don't deserve you." I ran out of the bathroom, crying. Lance just looked after me.
TBC . . .
I know it's short, guys. Sorry, but it had to be written to explain some things. As always, I appreciate ANY and ALL comments you have to make. Just e-mail me at Lauren2993@aol.com. Love you all, -Lauren