Do not read this if you are unsure of the meaning of the word fiction, or feel it is your moral obligation to infect the world with hate. (That should cover anyone under 18, objected to gay material, and anyone assuming I know anyone from N'sync, or any of their intentions/personalities/orientation etc.)
Ok, this chapter is the epitome of emotion and drama, because I decided to get everything over with in one chapter. I hate stories where the main characters are always crying like babies, but I also hate stories with no emotion, so I'm going to try and get all the emotional drama over with in this one chapter, and then get to some real plot in the next one. Bear with me, and I can assure you that the whole relationship will not be spent with one crying scene after another. If you have any suggestions or want more info on any character, I'll try and put some in, but I won't know until you tell me. I'm not psychic. scottiescot@hotmail.com
P.S. Thanks to everyone who has written. I really appreciate the feedback:)
My whole world stopped at that moment, like I'd just stepped into a vacuum. My heart literally stopped beating for a few seconds. All I could see was the woman I loved with her arms wrapped around Justin, her lips wrapped around Justin, her face an expression of happiness and pleasure. I felt sick. I felt the world tilt, and I vaguely remember sliding into Joey as I blacked out.
I didn't really black out, but I did get dizzy for a second. I rubbed my eyes to see if what I was seeing was real. It sure looked like it. They were pretty busy.
I stormed over to the pair of them, with Justin's hands squeezing Jen's ass, MY Jen, and I did the first thing any boyfriend would do. I pulled him back and decked him.
I was so angry, I thought I would explode. I wanted to strangle Justin. What an asshole! He was already dating Britney Spears, the pop Princess, and he had to have Jen. What the fuck? After I hit him, he fell to the ground, and I nearly launched myself on top of him, but Joey and Josh had run after me. I might have really hurt Justin if Josh and Joey hadn't immediately grabbed my arms and held me back. All I saw was red.
"What the fuck do you think you're doing!?!" I screamed, trying desperately to free myself from Josh and Joey.
Lance had helped Justin up, and was looking at me with a frightened look on his face. Justin's hands were clutched to his face, and blood was literally pouring out from behind his hands.
"Who the hell do you think you are, you mother fucking pussy shit! I am going to kill you!! Let me the fuck go!" I ripped away from Joey's grip and advanced on Justin, but Jen stepped between us.
"Austin, stop." She said it just once, and very quietly, but I immediately calmed down. I stopped wanting to kill Justin and instead focused on Jen. How could she do this to me? What had I done? What on earth happened last night? Was our stupid little fight enough to convince her to be with someone else? And when I looked at her, really looked at her, I didn't see anything. Her face was expressionless. Not angry, not sad, not apologetic for kissing another guy. Nothing.
I stared her down. I couldn't think of a damn thing to say, and I was wondering what I had done to deserve this from her. I wanted to pretend this was all a dream, and that she was still waiting for me to call her at her dorm. But the truth sunk in. While I had been having fun with Josh, she hadn't been waiting for me to call. She hadn't been thinking that she might have been wrong, for once. She had gone out with Justin. Why else would she be here, kissing him goodbye? I didn't want to see her face, ever again, because all I would see whenever I looked at her was Justin kissing her. But I couldn't sop looking at her.
"Why?" I said, and as the short word came out, I broke apart inside. Outside, I showed no emotion. Reality check, my girlfriend had cheated on me. As much as I wanted to believe that maybe she hadn't, maybe this was all a misunderstanding, I had seen what I had seen. Tears fell out of my eyes, but I held in the sobs that I felt in my heart.
"Austin, I'm so sorry," she started, biting her lip, and staring at a spot on the ground. She was stalling.
"But why?" I repeated, and I felt a hand on my shoulder. Josh. I felt like I had run ten miles, my heart was pounding so hard.
"Look, Austin, I've been unhappy for a very long time..." Jen began, pacing herself, probably so that she could cause the most pain. Tears fell silently down my cheek, but I held as much as I could inside, something I had learned a long time ago.
"Things haven't been working out between us for a long time, and you know that. We're fighting all the time, over stupid stuff, and I thought maybe it was better if we took a little break from each other for a while."
She might as well have pulled out a sabre and pierced my heart, for as much as I wanted to hear that.
"Why didn't you tell me this before you went out with him?" I said quietly. She looked down at her feet again.
"I'm sorry..." she began, but I wasn't through with her.
"Sorry for what? For leading me on? For making me miss practice yesterday so that you could suck on his tongue? Or are you sorry for breaking my heart, and making me look like a complete idiot on front of everyone?" I spat.
Instead of looking more apologetic, she snapped her head back up, her expressionless face now etched in a glare.
"I'm sorry that I never broke up with you a long time ago!" she said, her eyebrows dangerously crossed over her flashing dark eyes, which didn't look so beautiful anymore.
Josh squeezed my shoulder, but it did nothing to stop the wave of ice that swept over me. I had never heard her speak this way, ever. She wasn't even sorry that she had killed a part of me, a part of me that I would never get back.
I didn't start pleading, like I always did. I didn't start saying that I would change. I didn't start telling her I loved her. I didn't do anything. I couldn't. I felt like a statue, and I was uncomfortably aware of everyone looking at me.
I abruptly turned around and walked slowly back to the hotel, not bothering to wipe away the tears that had long since stopped falling. I didn't look back at Justin to see if he needed help; I didn't look back at Jen. I didn't look back at Josh. I just kept walking. I heard Joey and Josh call after me, but I just kept walking, my face expressionless, my walk slow and deliberate. In high school, my nickname had been the Rock, and I was trying my best to seal everything away, and keep everything to myself, like I had always done. Jen could only hurt me if I let her.
But as soon as I passed the through the back door of the hotel, and had walked through into the lobby, I choked. I couldn't just forget about her. I had shared everything with her. She was the most important person in my life! Without her, I was nothing. A shell. A lifeless hollow.
I couldn't walk all the way through the hotel. I wanted to, I just wanted to get the hell out of there. Thank god that the band was just about to leave, and I never wanted to see any of them, ever again. Including Josh. His best friend had fucking been with my girlfriend. This was about a thousand times worse than him telling me he was gay. He and I had gotten too close, and I didn't think I could handle it if he decided to bail on me too, just like Jen and everyone else in my life. The best thing to do was just to bottle everything up inside, and pretend that nothing was wrong. Pretend that Jen hadn't meant anything to me, and that her cruel words weren't ripping me apart inside.
The reason I couldn't walk through the hotel was because there was a mob outside of the glass doors, and a troop of security trying to keep them in line. They were pressed against the doors, and I could see signs and tons of excited faces, a thousand girls hoping for a chance to see N'Sync before they left in an hour or so. It made me want to vomit when I saw signs saying, "I love you Justin. Will you marry me?" Justin. That rat-faced asshole. He had total strangers carrying signs around, and I couldn't even keep Jen? And she was the most important person in my life? What had gone wrong? Wasn't I as important to her?
Then reality sunk in. I remembered what my mother used to tell me when I was little, when I had been the one to take the blame for her mistakes. She used to tell me that I wasn't important to anybody, and that I had been an accident, and that I had ruined her life. And I got it.
Suddenly, my knees got weak, and I really did feel like I was going to throw up. I fell, catching the edge of the receptionists counter as I did, so at least I didn't collapse. But I retched, and threw up all over the marble floor. I felt miserable, and I was doing nothing to help my reputation with the hotel clerk, who already considered me vermin. She dropped her jaw in outrage, but before she could yell, I felt someone's hands on my back, helping me up. Josh.
"It's ok, Austin, I'm here. Come on, everything is going to be ok," he kept saying, over and over again. He rubbed his hands across my back. I could hardly concentrate on him the way my head was spinning, and I felt another lurch in my stomach. This time, I didn't throw up, but I was thinking how pathetic I was, throwing up in a corner in a hotel lobby, with thousands of people screaming and beating on the glass, now that they saw Josh. Everyone yelling, people screaming, the smell of vomit, and the reality of everything was too much for me. I blacked out, this time for real.
When I woke up, I had been moved. I was back in Josh's hotel room, and his cute face was etched in worry. He looked as bad as I felt, but I probably looked even worse. My vision was still blurry, and the only reason I could see Josh so clearly was because he was leaning right over me, trying to see if I would wake up. He had been crying, I could tell, but I didn't want to see him. I wanted to get the hell out of this hotel. I wanted to go home.
"Austin? Can you hear me?" he said tentatively, his voice sounding strange and distorted in my head. I tried to sit up, but couldn't.
"Austin, are you ok? Can you hear me?" Josh repeated, but I ignored him. I wasn't blaming him for what had happened; it wasn't his fault. It was all my fault. Everything was my fault. If I hadn't wanted to be friends with Josh so much, I would have paid more attention to Jen. I shouldn't have waited so long to call her. I shouldn't have been so rude at the concert. I shouldn't have yelled at her when she was trying to be mature at the interview. I shouldn't have been so rude that I pushed her away into the arms of another guy.
"Austin, I know you might not want to talk to me right now," said Josh, "But I want you to listen. Please?" I said nothing. I didn't feel like ever talking again, because everything I said sounded wrong, and everything I did was stupid.
"This isn't your fault, Austin. I can see you already blaming yourself, and it isn't right, because this was not your fault." He said it so sternly, I almost believed him.
"Everything's my fault," I replied, and I heard my voice. It was no longer high-pitched, like it had been in the parking lot, yelling at Jen and at the brink of emotional collapse. It was my defeated tone. The one I used when we had just lost a game; the one I used when I had to tell my dad that I got a D in Algebra; the one I used for two years after my mother left. It was the voice of no hope.
"Don't say that, Austin. You didn't cheat on her, she cheated on you! I am just as angry with her as I am with Justin. I can't believe that he would do something like this!" said Josh.
"I just talked to Jen, Austin," spoke up a new voice. I swiveled my head around to the left. It was Joey, looking much less happy than I had ever seen him. "She told us all that you were smothering her, and that she had thought you both were ready for a break. That bitch said she didn't realize that you weren't," he said bitterly. How little he knew.
"No! It's my fault! She's perfect, I just wasn't good enough! Don't ever call her that!" I screamed, but I still felt unshed tears in my eyes. I refused to let them see me cry.
So Jen never really loved me. She kept finding excuses to break it off, starting all of these little fights, hoping that I would eventually give up. But I never gave up. I depend on her. I need her to keep me going. I love her. When Joey called her that, it reminded me of all the other times people had called her that behind her back, asking me what I saw in her. I defended her, always, and people gradually saw that we were good together. Or so I thought. I wanted to defend Jen this one last time, because I had heard everyone call her names. I had thought that everyone else was wrong. She was perfect. But I had let her get too close. And I knew why she didn't want to be with me. It wasn't because she was bad, or anything. It was me. I wasn't worth being around. I had infected her, and I was poison. My mother had always told me so.
"My mother had been right. I shouldn't get too close to people, or they'll hurt you, every time. It's better just to stay away," I said dully, more to myself than to Josh and Joey. They looked at each other.
"Austin, that's not a good way to live. You have to be close to other people, it's a part of life," said Joey. I didn't answer. I was simply wondering how long it was polite to continue lying there, wasting their time, until the mob left and I could go home.
"Not for me," I said bitterly.
"You never told me about your mother," started Josh.
"And I never will," I abruptly interrupted. This was enough. I didn't need their sympathy, or their pity. I could get along just fine on my own. I sat up in the bed.
Josh's eyes grew wide, and he looked really upset. Joey forced me back down on the bed. Even though I was probably stronger, I was still dizzy and weak, and fell back.
"Not so fast," he said. "We're not just going to go let one of our friends, who's obviously in pain, go wandering around the city by himself," said Joey.
"Don't worry about me, I'll be fine," I said stubbornly. I felt just as threatened by them as I had when Tony had forced me to spill the beans at practice today. Well, I didn't owe them anything, so I wasn't about to break open the Rock.
I tried to get up again, but Joey pinned me with his forearms. He was really strong, and I couldn't push him off, either because I was too weak, or because I didn't want to have to hit any more members from N'Sync.
"You are not going anywhere. Go downstairs and tell Johnny we'll be a little late," said Joey to Josh, taking charge.
"No, don't," I said, in an even bigger commanding voice. Josh stopped halfway to the door, hesitating on which one of us to listen to.
"Go!" said Joey, waving Josh away. He disappeared with a last sympathetic look at me, that was reminiscent of the concerned looks I had gotten form the team earlier. Was that today? I felt like I had been at practice a million years ago.
"Look, any friend of Josh's is a friend of mine, ok. And what that bitch did to you was wrong. Even if I had never met you before, I still would think that you just don't do that to someone, embarrass them in front of everyone, and not even feel bad about it. What on earth could you possibly see in someone so cruel?" exploded Joey. Obviously, he had waited for Josh to leave so that he could say what he really thought. I realized that I wouldn't be able to change his opinion of Jen, and he probably assumed that the best way to get me through this was tough love. Well, obviously he knew nothing about me. I had been down that road, and I knew exactly how to shut him out.
"You don't know a damn thing about me, so don't even think you can try and help me. I don't need you, so just leave me the fuck alone," I said carefully and quietly. I had been right: he looked shocked by the sudden hostility. I got up off the bed, and stood up. He stood with me.
"Austin, don't do this. I am here to help you, ok? Can't you see the truth? That she played you?" he said, sounding worried.
"What do you know?" I said in a deathly whisper. His plan had backfired. Instead of getting me to admit that I had been wronged, I had turned the tables. He had thought that I was emotionally weak enough to believe anything. Well, he was in for a big surprise. I knew all the tricks: how the hell do you think I survived a childhood like mine?
He tried grabbing my shoulder as I turned to leave. Big mistake. I knocked him to the ground with a solid hip check, and he fell like a crumpled leaf. I hadn't hurt him at all, but I knew he wouldn't let me leave otherwise.
As I left the hotel room, I saw Josh at the end of the hall, talking to Lance. They both looked up at me, Josh in surprise that Joey had allowed me to leave, Lance worried that I was going to go on another rampage like I had on Justin. I stalked past them, ignoring them both, and headed for the staircase, deciding not to waste any energy waiting for an elevator. One of them might try and talk to me.
Unfortunately, Josh followed me. "Austin, wait," he said. I was so tired of hearing him call after me like that, that I just ignored him. I started down, forgetting momentarily that I was on the tenth floor and that it would be a long walk down. Even longer if Josh insisted on following me. What the hell was their problem? Hadn't they seen what had happened between Jen and me? The same thing happened whenever anyone got close to me. I was bad, and nothing would change that.
As easy as it would have been to just walk away from everything, never seeing the band again, never seeing Josh again, I just couldn't do it. It hurt too much to realize that I could never be with someone. I had slipped by letting Jen get too close, and she had rejected me. I wasn't about to let that happen with Josh.
If I just stayed at the proper distance, everyone would be fine, although it would kill me inside. It was better that I was down, than everyone else. I had learned that from the team.
Josh wasn't going to let me go that easily. But he didn't use Joey's approach. He walked up behind me and grabbed me. He just hugged me. And held me.
At first, I thought that he was trying to push me, but since I am three inches taller and at least 30 lbs heavier, I knew that he wouldn't do something so stupid. I almost didn't hug him back. I could have just stood there, not feeling anything, but I couldn't. I wanted a hug; I needed a hug. I hadn't had a hug in so long. I missed it. I needed him. I needed Josh.
So I held him, held him for dear life as a wave of emotion overcame me. I couldn't leave him: he was too good, too pure for me to hurt him by freezing him out. I could freeze out Joey, but not Josh. I just couldn't do it.
"You're a good person. You don't deserve this," he sobbed into my shoulder. I sobbed along with him, wanting to believe.
"I won't let you go, Austin. You can't shut me out, I won't let you," he said, and I believed him. I didn't want to go, I wanted to stay in this stairwell, hugging JC Chasez forever.
"Talk to me. Get it all out," he said gently, cupping my chin with his hand. No one has ever done that to me before, and I responded in a flood of tears, I sobbed and sobbed and sobbed. Not just over Jen, but everything I had been holding inside for so long. All of my fears and emotions that I had never dealt with, and had bottled up inside, everything. I just let it all go. And I started talking, when I had been told my whole life to keep quiet. At some point, we found ourselves sitting down on the stairs, and I leaned completely into Josh, hugging him tightly, holding him for all I was worth.
"Why does it hurt so much?," I asked. "Why? If I'm such a bad person, why do I feel so hurt?" I sobbed, and he held me in his arms, and rocked me back and forth.
"Who told you you're a bad person, Austin? Who would tell you that? Did Jen..." said Josh, but I shook my head. Jen hadn't told me that I was bad. She hadn't told me that I was a burden on her. Jen hadn't told me I was worthless. She sometimes said I was lazy, but never once did she come home in a drunken rage, telling me that I was the Son of Satan, and that I had been the bastard that was the bane of her existence. Those lovely sentiments were the words of my mother.
"Jen would never do that Josh, do you know why?" I said, my words interrupted by loud hiccoughing cries. "Because she knew," I answered myself.
"She knew about what?" coaxed Josh gently, still rubbing my back.
"She knew 'hic' about me, and what happened, and I 'hic' trusted her. She would never say that 'hic' to me," I insisted.
"Then who, Austin?"
"My 'hic' mmmm" I mumbled, still afraid of spilling. I had to be careful. If Jen had rejected me after I had opened up to her, I was in danger of the same thing happening with Josh. Don't say anything... a voice whispered in my head, and it sounded familiar. Slightly slurred from vodka, husky from a life long addiction to cigarettes, but I recognized it just the same. Mom.
Before I could finish, the stairwell door opened, and Joey and Lance were framed in it, both looking as white as ghosts. Josh waved them off. They quickly scattered, possibly realizing that if they had stayed any longer, I would have shut off completely, and however close Josh had gotten to opening me up would have been completely forgotten.
"What happened?" prompted Josh in a whisper, as if we hadn't been interrupted. "Why don't you want to talk about your past? I know you don't because you closed off on me last night, remember? I know we've only known each other a day, but I am going to be heartbroken if you don't trust me enough after all of this," he said seriously. I believed him. I had no choice. And I couldn't stop now. I had to get it off my chest and move on, or I would never recover.
"It's hard," I said.
"Keep going. You're doing great," said Josh encouragingly. I pressed my head even further into his chest, not seeing him wince.
"My mom told me not to get close to people, because they would only hurt you. It was the only piece of advice she ever gave me in my life." I began. Josh waited for me to continue.
"She hated me. She told me I was the reason that we were poor, and that I was the reason that she drank, and I was the reason that her life was miserable. She told me that every single day of my life, until she dumped me off at my stepdad's house when I was twelve, and disappeared." I said, remembering. I have had a lot of bad things in my life, but being abandoned by my mother was I think the worst. As much as I love my dad, I have never figured out why my mother hated me so much, and why she gave up.
"What about your dad? Did he let her tell you this?" asked Josh.
"I never met my real dad. My mom told me once when I was ten that he was truck driver, and that it was a mistake and never should have happened. I don't know anything else," I said meekly.
"What about your stepdad?" said Josh. He looked so innocent, his eyebrows etched together in concern, his eyes wide open, and I thought maybe I could see tears in them too.
"My mom was a hooker," I stated bluntly. "She slept with guys for money." Josh gasped in reaction. "She was also an alcoholic, and addicted to everything you can think of. She met my dad in jail," I said.
"He's a lawyer, and was assigned to her case. I don't remember why she was in jail; all I know is that I had been put into a foster home for about three months. She won her trail, I guess, and took me home, yelling that she had almost been rid of me. I was about eleven or so at the time, I guess. The thing is, he isn't really my dad. He's not even my step-dad, because he never married my mom. He adopted me after my mom left me at his house one day and never came back. But before that, he started going out with my mom, but he made me go with them on dates and stuff, and he took me places, like a real dad. He felt bad for me. He pretended to be in love with my mom for my sake, and I'm thankful, but I know I am burdening him. He welcomed me into his home when my mom dumped me. And I love him. But as much as he loves me and I love him, it still doesn't stop the pain from knowing my mom didn't want me.
"My mom treated me like shit. When I was born, she couldn't keep being a prostitute anymore, because I held her back. And she never let me forget it. Usually she yelled at me when she was drunk, but she criticized everything I ever did. She hated me. She made me sorry I was born. She hit me almost every single day, and I had to do things for her, not to make her happy, but so that she wouldn't be angry. But she was always angry. When we finally started living in an apartment instead of shelters or the streets, she made me clean house and make dinner for her. I was five. She used to slap the shit out of me when I didn't have the house straightened up or dinner made. She also worked as a waitress during the day, so I was by myself almost all the time. She never hired baby sitters. She just locked me in my room every afternoon. On Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, she'd be too busy getting drunk to remember me, and I couldn't eat locked in my bedroom, so I had to make a plan to eat as much as I could at lunch on Fridays so that I would make it until Saturday at around noon, when she would finally unlock my door, hungover and looking for a fight." My dad saw this, and tried to stop it. He didn't really love my mother, and she grew to hate him too. He was worried about me, and didn't want to give up on me. Finally my mother saw this as an opportunity and left me with him and disappeared.
"She tried to ditch me my whole life, leaving me by myself at the subway station when I was six. I was lucky that I had remembered to go to a policeman for help, and she had pretended to be so relieved and worried when they brought me home, but beat me up as soon as the police left. She locked me in my room for three days, without food. I had to go to the bathroom in a tin can." I was still bawling, not upset over being forced to go to the bathroom, but because I still felt guilty. I still felt that if I hadn't been born, I wouldn't have been such a burden to my mother. Even though I hadn't seen her in nearly seven years, just thinking about her brought fear to my heart. She had instilled in me a life long virtue of self-hatred.
"Austin, how can you keep this all inside? No wonder you told me you feel so alone all the time! You don't think you're worth being close to! Well, that's not true! You are not alone! You are special! I want to be close to you!" said Josh, wiping my tears away with his thumb. As he did so, I looked into his eyes. Those bright blue eyes were even shinier than I remembered. So full of life. So giving, so full of love I felt myself falling into them. I felt protected. I felt like no one could hurt me as long as Josh was here with me. I felt like something was starting to fill the gaping hole that had been on my soul my whole life. I felt wanted.
As I was thinking this, my lips drifted closer and closer to his, and my eyes closed. As soon as I made contact, I felt electrical currents running through my mouth. I felt like I had just kissed a telephone pole. It was unbelievable! But it broke off. Josh probably thought that he was taking advantage of me. Hell no. Before he could stammer anything, I dove back in, inviting his lips to meld with mine, wanting that moment to last forever. I wanted him so bad it hurt, and I wanted to be with him, forever. I didn't care anymore if that made me gay. All I wanted was Josh's lips on mine, his tongue in my mouth, his blue eyes boring into mine. Forever.
Finally! Chapter 6 will be coming out pretty soon, so stay tuned. As always, my email is scottiescot@hotmail.com if you would like to express your postive comments about my story;) Thanks!