17 years earlier In this type of situation, the only appropriate action seemed to be pacing back and forth; at least for JC. He had about a dozen different calls to make to people around the country, but as he fiddled with his sleek, black cell phone, he could not think of one person who could understand his dilemma better than the one who had put helped put him there in the first place. She was about ten feet away resting peacefully and he needed to be somewhere else but in that room at the moment. Seeing her hooked up to wires and becoming a pin cushion when the nurses came in to stick her with needles every couple of hours was enough to make JC want a hospital bed himself. Yet, he found himself tip-toeing quietly into the small private space that he was able to provide for her every few minutes to make sure she was still breathing. When he held a trembling finger under her nose to check for warmth, she would slap his arm and he knew she was still okay. Interrupting his thoughts, his cell phone sprang to life and vibrated for attention within his sweaty palms and he ran into the hallway to answer the call.
“Yeah?” he coughed into the receiver.
”How is she?”
“The same as a few hours ago,” JC smiled weakly at the sound of his fiancé’s voice. “Dilated half-way so we got a while to go. But she’s confusing the shit out of me…one minute she’s begging me not to let go of her hand and the next she’s threatening my life if I stay in her sight for another second.”
“Hormones, Hun,” Lisa Marx smiled into her phone. “I’m actually at the airport right now and should be boarding in an hour or so. Think you can make it ‘til I arrive?”
“Well,” JC said, peaking into the hospital room again before moving out of the way for another nurse who was there to do some monitoring. “I don’t have a choice. She’s my best friend, even when she wants to kill me. The nurses are starting to hate me, too. Apparently using a cell phone in a hospital is the epitome of being the ultimate asshole.”
“It is,” Lisa joked. “Okay, Jace. I’m turning my phone off now because believe it or not, more than half of the calls I’m receiving are from your entourage wondering where the hell you are.”
JC’s shoulders tensed. “And you didn’t spill the beans, did you?”
”Of course not,” Lisa said slowly. “Although I don’t see what the big deal is telling your people that your best friend is in labor and you want to be there for her. I mean, you haven’t even told me what the big deal is with all this sudden need for privacy.”
“It’s just this whole thing,” JC mumbled. “I like to keep my life separate from that life, you know this already.”
“I’m your fiancé as well as your music producer,” Lisa said quickly. “Which life do I fit into?”
JC felt the rapid degree drop in the conversation and decided to use the hospital to his advantage. “You know what I mean, Lisa, but hey, call me when you land. A very angry doctor is tapping his toe at me. I lo...see you soon.”
“Oh...kay.” Lisa studied her phone in confusion before flipping it shut while, across the country, JC exhaled loudly. He shook the wandering thoughts of the awkward phone call out of his head and after a second of hesitation, he ducked into the private room. His rubber soles squeaked softly against the tiles as he sunk into his mauve-colored chair at the right hand of the bed. His sleeping friend was at rest with her arms limp at her side and JC swept her small hand up with his large one and patted her knuckles lightly. He began to nod off, his head too heavy with thoughts to hold upright, when he heard her tiny voice slice the silence.
“Hold my hand.”
“I am holding it, babe.”
“Well, squeeze it. Let me know you’re here.”
JC leaned over the hospital bed rail and pushed Pax Giovanni’s mocha waves of hair back against the pillow before kissing her forehead softly. “How can you not know that I’m here? I’ve been here with you since 4am yesterday and I’ve been asking if you’re okay every five minutes.” JC watched as she shifted her weight beneath the starched, frigid sheets, visibly uncomfortable. “Are you okay?”
“Ugh,” Pax sighed after a moment, letting go of JC’s hand long enough to hold the sides of her very pregnant belly and let a moment pass before she continued. “Yes. You’re right. Just hold my hand and shut up.” She winked her chocolate eye at her dear friend before letting out a childish giggle.
“Your tummy shakes like a bowl of jelly, Santa,” JC joked before moving to avoid a hand swat. “So, do you have any idea what to name the little shit yet?” He gazed at Pax’s moist with sweat neck as she laid back and closed her eyes. Her thick, long eyelashes rested in place and he knew that she hadn’t thought of a name for her child, and she was too tired to hold long conversations. “It’s okay,” he said, grinning. “I’ll think of a name for him. I was thinking of Max; it'll match with your name how cute, ha-ha." He snickered alone. “But that's kind of weird, isn't it? The type of thing that'll just screw him—"
“Ares,” Pax said, her round eyes opening lazily to peer at JC. “I want to name him Ares. He was a Greek mythology character; a god of war. Something like that.”
“You’re expecting your new born son to pillage out of there with a sword or something?” JC asked curiously, signaling with his head to her stomach.
“Well,” Pax mustered enough strength for a shrug. “That’s what it feels like he’s doing.” The room was quiet then. The soft light was directly above Pax’s head, giving her light brown skin enough light to glisten as she perspired. Her contractions were coming and she felt waves of rip-like pain making her tremble between the legs. She was being torn in two. This was all part of childbirth, all was to be expected. “So was that Lisa on the phone?”
JC nodded, staring off into the distance.
“Will she be here soon?” Pax studied JC’s demeanor. “Have you talked to her yet?" The silence angered her. "JC, what the fuck? What about everything we've been planning? She still doesn’t know that you’re about to be a father, does she?”
JC sunk into his chair and the friends allowed the question to dissolve into an airborne discomfort. He was engaged to somebody else, and Pax was just his best friend. Now she was Pax, a single mother-to-be after one night with JC Chasez the rock star. And his fiancé was Lisa, a hot-shot music producer and daughter of a rock legend.
And right now, he was JC was the coward who lowered his Red Sox baseball cap and crossed his arms as if to bring his jean jacket closer to his torso in a lame attempt to make himself smaller. He was small. “Hey, I’ll tell you what. We’ll let the kid decide if he likes to be called Max or Ares. See what he responds to. I don’t have a problem with Ares, it’s just naming an infant after a mythological Greek god who lusted for war seems a little, I don’t know…unnatural.”
“We’re all fighting a war, JC,” Pax said, allowing her eyes to rest again as she slightly turned away from her friend. “I’m just trying to give the kid a head start at surviving.”
While she slept, JC thought until his brain could no longer process anything. No, Lisa did not know that the reason he could not tell anyone about Pax and her baby is because it was his baby, too. At the height of his solo career, he didn’t want to be another pop star gone crazy. He didn’t want to be on the cover of US Weekly next to a sad picture of yet another celebrity in rehab with a headline that read “Ex ‘NSYNC-er Has Secret Love Child with a Nobody.” He didn’t want that type of rep, and Pax was anything but a nobody. He watched her sleep and the pangs of guilt inflamed his insides. Sweet Pax had been there from day one, his best friend since she moved to the neighborhood a week before they started middle school in D.C. Lisa was there for him, too. The first woman he’d connected with when he got started in the music business. He had asked her to marry him. Why? Well, now, he wasn’t too sure why.
Pax was special to JC, although they had never been anything but platonic friends. Until one crazy drunken night nearly a year ago when they had gotten plastered in JC’s childhood home at a Christmas party. After the guests left, including Lisa who had to catch a flight back to California to spend Christmas Day with her own family, and the parents went to bed, Pax and JC remained downstairs on his mom’s flannel love seat in front of the fireplace. They talked of the past and the future, especially the excitement of JC’s career taking an extreme turn into success. Soon, the conversation was drowned in hard liquor and Pax’s dark skin was touched with crimson as she continued to throw back more alcohol. “How come Lisa hasn’t a set a date yet?” she asked, her speech slurred as she gazed lazily at JC’s face, not quite focusing on his eyes but rather his eyebrows.
“She keeps setting them up,” JC said, feeling quite the buzz him self. “But I keep knockin’ ‘em down.” He imitated throwing a bowling ball down an alley. “I’m not ready for a date or setting up anything.” He reached for the bottle from Pax’s tight grasp but she reeled it back as if preparing to chunk it at the fireplace.
“But you were ready for a marriage? What?” Pax’s forehead creased in confusion. “What? You’re so fucking stupid! You never know what you want!” She pawed at his chest with a weak hand. “Why don’t you ever just find what you want and take it? Since we were kids, you always had someone make your decisions for you. Especially me!” She stood up at this point, looming over JC like impending doom. “It was always, ‘Oh, Pax, I don’t know what I want. Oh, Pax, I don’t want to dance and sing in front of people. Oh, Pax, should I tour the country and make millions of bucks and fans worldwide.’ Well, you’ve got to grow up a little, take some god damn responsibility.” She brought the bottle to her lips and swigged until they were numb. “God damnit.”
JC felt a disturbance in his groin. Arching his eyebrow, he let a smile creep across his face. “I know what I want right now.” He wrapped his hand around Pax’s arm before kissing the inside of her wrist. He didn’t know if it was the alcohol, because really—is it ever the alcohol? But there was something he’d been wanting to do to her since she walked into the door earlier that night. The vision of her hit him like a ton of bricks once she had been released from his mother's embrace. Walking timidly into the living room, Pax had seen JC and her eyes literally welled up with tears as she hugged him tightly to her. "Too long," were the only words she could muster. It had been about five years since they had actually been able to see each other in person last, and the half-decade sure treated Pax well.
“Oh, please," Pax rolled her eyes and took another swig of Jack Daniels straight from the bottle. “And gross. I’m practically your sister. I’ve known you long enough…” She was cut off when JC caught her lower lip with his mouth and sucked gently. She could feel the top layer of her skin rise in enticement, from the tiny hairs on the back of her neck to the goose bumps on her thighs. She let out a soft moan and pulled back quickly before they made a mistake, but as JC remembers pulling her down onto his lap, raising her jean skirt just a little higher as she faced the fire place, and thrusting into her from behind while she limped in defeat, it did not feel like a mistake at the time. It was the first time they had ever acted on this urge, and even though 9 months later they were in this position now, JC could not regret it. He would soon have a son and he would not regret it. No matter what may ever happen.
Maybe it was a good thing to name this kid Ares, JC thought as he watched Pax writhe in labor pains even when in a deep sleep. He has no idea what kind of life he’s in for.
And neither did JC.
When Lisa arrived to the hospital, she was worried. Her chest was tight with the queerest feeling she had ever experienced in her life; it was a mix of complete terror and unquenchable anticipation. She ran her long, slender fingers through her long blonde locks and her green eyes took in the unfamiliar surroundings. This hospital, as well as all hospitals, gave her the creeps. Her heels made loud bangs against the tile as she rushed in search of any life. She had to find JC. He wasn’t answering his cell phone and when she tried to call Pax’s private room, the nurses said there wasn’t a way they could connect her to Pax.
”She’s unavailable,” a nurse said quietly. “If you’re a family member, we suggest you get here as fast as possible.”
“I’m a family friend,” Lisa said from the back seat of her taxi cab. “Is something wrong with Pax? Where’s JC? He has been by her side for the past day, is he right there in the room?”
“I’m not able to give this information over the phone,” the nurse continued to use a small voice. “Just try to get here when you can. Mr. Chasez will be on the 1st floor.”
The first floor of the Washington D.C. Medical Center was ICU. And that’s where she was right now, frantically searching for a nurse or even a doctor who would be floating around the silent floor. The halls had brown carpet and matching walls; a depressing brown like dead autumn leaves. The Intensive Care Unit was deserted and Lisa felt lost. Something was terribly wrong and she couldn’t find anyone to help her find out what it was. She expected the worst. She turned a corner where two closed, massive double doors concealed what was behind them; room after room of people barely surviving and those who were already gone. A large white sign with bold black text informed her that she could not step inside those doors without being accompanied by a nurse or doctor and she felt helpless.
“Can I help you, ma’am?”
“Oh, my God!” Lisa cried in relief and spun around to see a tiny woman in scrubs with large glasses staring at her intently. “Please, I’ve been searching everywhere for someone. Is Pax Giovanni here in the ICU?”
The nurse’s curiosity turned somber. “Are you Lisa Marx?”
”Yes,” Lisa nodded slowly, not liking the way the nurse spoke her name. “What happened? Did she give birth yet?”
”Come with me, Miss Marx.” The elder woman led Lisa further down the dead-leaf brown hallway and Lisa couldn’t help but feel her knees wobble. She wanted JC to show up around the corner and scream in joy for her to run up the labor and delivery floor with her so he could show her how well Pax and her baby were recovering. When the nurse finally brought her to a compact hall of rooms behind two other massive double doors, she saw JC hunched over in one of the plastic chairs in front of a nurse’s station, shaking brutally, and Lisa knew that this wouldn’t be the case.
“No,” Lisa shook her head and held the nurse back from walking any further. “Please, tell me. Is Pax okay?”
The nurse hesitated for a moment before lowering her head and then shaking it slowly. “She died giving birth.”
Lisa’s eyes rolled up in sorrow. “No, no, no.” She stifled a sob for before instantly snapping back to the present. “The baby?”
“He’s hanging on by a thread, and that’s why we’re in the ICU wing.” She motioned to JC, who still hadn’t spotted Lisa or the nurse down the hall because of the daze he appeared to be in. He was pale and his hair was wild and unkempt and his arms were wrapped around himself for dear life as though if he loosened the grip he would completely fall apart to the floor. “Mr. Chasez does not know yet that Miss Giovanni didn’t make it.” When she saw Lisa’s eyes widen, she quickly added, “He knows the baby is in intensive care. He keeps asking for the mother, but we waited until you arrived so that he may have someone with him. He clearly is not stable alone.” Lisa nodded in agreement, tears threatening to fall. “I’ve paged Dr. Knight, and he’s on his way. He’ll inform you both of the complications. I’m so sorry.” The nurse concluded with a small bow of her head before exiting the cramped space and left Lisa alone to join JC when she was ready. She removed her black trench coat and held it close to her body, continuing to watch her fiancé from afar. She couldn’t go to him yet.
9 months earlier JC awoke the next morning in his childhood bedroom. He laid on the bottom bunk and opened his eyes long enough for the daylight to sear his pupils. His head was pounding severely, which was to be expected after a long night of holiday drinking. He leaned over the side of the mattress and frantically searched for a trash can, finding an old tin just in time for thick, bubbly spit to fall out of his mouth. Dry heaving a handful of times before becoming so sick at the smell of his own hangover, he finally emptied the sour contents into the old waste bucket.
“That’s the sexiest thing I’ve ever heard,” croaked a voice from the top bunk. “Hand me that thing when you’re done.”
JC didn’t need to open his eyes as he raised the trash can weakly above his head before Pax grabbed it and used her turn to vomit violently into the bin. When they were both through, they lied quietly for another few minutes, adjusting to their surroundings. It wasn’t long before Pax erupted into a throaty laugh.
“You’re going to be in so much trouble when Lisa finds out.”
JC could always count on Pax to try and lighten the mood of any situation, but just end up making him feel even worse. “No shit.” He scratched his jaw and felt the stubbly beginnings of his dirty, adulterer, 5 o’clock shadow. “I can’t believe I had sex with you last night.”
“Several minutes of ‘ugh!’s and ‘you like that, baby?’s aren’t what I like to define as sex,” Pax said flatly. “But if you wanna call seizing on top of me in your mother’s living room sex, okay we’ll go with that.”
“Stay on top of that fucking bunk forever.”
“Aww,” Pax shifted to the side of the mattress and let her long arm dangle in front of JC’s face. “I didn’t say it was a bad seize. You seize good, baby.”
Silence. They both knew Pax was just trying to lighten the situation again. The truth is that the sex was amazing. Years of hit and miss finally caught up with the two friends as they made love. JC remembered whispering promises as he held Pax’s tear-stained sweet face between his trembling hands. Promises for their future that they both knew wouldn’t come true. Promises he had made to Lisa Marx, his fiancé.
“I can’t believe I had sex with you.” He didn’t mean it to come out so blatant and harsh, but JC genuinely couldn’t believe the crime he had committed.
“Me neither,” Pax replied, stung.
“I didn’t use a condom, did I?”
“I’m on the pill.”
JC dug his palms into his closed eyes until he saw stars, trying to sort it all out, and then let out a long sigh. “I can’t tell Lisa. Neither can you.”
“I’m not going to.”
After another long pause, JC drug himself out of bed, wrapping a sheet around his naked body and trudged over to his bedroom window. He couldn’t even turn to look at his best friend of almost all 30 years of his life. He saw the rooftop of Pax’s mother’s house directly in front of him and watched smoke rise from the chimney. He had a lump in his throat that he could not swallow and it only got harder when he felt Pax behind him suddenly. “I’m sorry, Pax.”
“Me, too,” she kissed JC’s shoulder blade and lied her head on the center of his back. “It’s not all your fault. I didn’t stop it.”
“I was a dog last night. I completely violated our friendship. It’s just…” JC turned then and leaned against his window sill. Pax wore a sheet, her gorgeous waves of dark hair messily framing her light brown face. “It’s been five years. You look beautiful.” When she tossed him a fiery look, he couldn’t help but smirk. “You’ve always been beautiful. But I guess when I saw you, I felt things. I missed you. I missed home. My life for the past ten years has been music and music business. I missed you.”
Pax ran her fingers against the hem of the sheet that covered her as she thought. She, too felt an urge after seeing JC last night. “Don’t make me a victim here. I missed you, too. Look, it was a mistake, but we’re okay. We’re both mature adults. We have obligations to our own lives, and we can stay friends after this, I know we can.” She took a step toward JC and ruffled his already tousled hair. “It's okay, kiddo. Lisa doesn’t know, and as horrible as this sounds, she doesn’t have to know. What happened last night was just two drunk people allowing their humanistic urges to get the best of them. It’s not like…” she swallowed hard before continuing. “It’s not like we have feelings for each other…”
JC’s gaze dropped to the ground. “Right. It’s not like we’re in love.”
“Right.” Silence engulfed the room as the two friends sat by each other against the window sill. Pax rested her head on JC’s left shoulder. “Merry Christmas, JC.”
“I'm in love with you, Pax.”
“I know. And I am in love with you, too.”
"I know. I've always known."
“I’m having a baby.”
JC opened his eyes lazily and stared at Pax in her hospital bed. “This I know.”
“No, Jace,” Pax was frantic and she flailed her arms around for the nurse call button. “I’m ….I need drugs. It’s coming, I have to push.”
“No, no, don't push you're having a c-section, shit,” JC rambled before springing into action, momentarily leaving the room to search the deserted hallway for a sign of life. “We’re having a baby! Somebody help!” He returned to the room to watch Pax pant and begin to cry. Seconds later, nurses filled the room and began prepping Pax for a cesarean section. “Come here, Jace.”
“I’m here,” JC rushed to her side, carefully weaving between the nurses in action and held his best friend’s hand. “You ready?”
“Doesn't matter; this kid is already bossing me around.”
When she was finally prepped in the operating room, JC stared at Pax while the future and the plans they made together were flashing inside his mind.
“The time has come,” Pax said through gritted teeth as they covered her lower body with a large blue drape. “Can you believe we’re going to be parents? Unwed parents? We’re giving birth to sin.”
“Pax,” JC laughed as the nurse tied his paper mask over his face in the delivery room. “Most women in severe labor pain would be grunting and crying right now. You? You can’t shut up.”
“I’m doped up,” Pax grinned. “Doped up. We’re giving birth to a drug addict.” Another nurse who fitted Pax’s head with a paper hair wrap stared in disbelief at the chattering woman.
JC mouthed sorry to the nurse who gave him rubber gloves then leaned down near Pax’s ear. “I didn’t tell Lisa about the boy because I prefer we did it together.” He lifted his paper mouth guard and kissed Pax’s lips softly. “Together. Just like we planned.” He got slightly queasy when he saw the doctor pick up the scalpel and begin to cut into Pax’s enormous belly. The stretch marks were in plain sight against her dark skin. “It’s happening. They’re, uh, cutting you.” He swallowed hard and began to focus on Pax’s glazed over eyes.
“Don’t get all needle-phobic on me now, JC,” Pax whispered hoarsely. “Don’t worry, I don’t feel a thing. I’m on drugs.” Her lopsided grin melted JC’s heart. He was in a good place. Everything was about to take a turn into catastrophic territory, but he felt he was in a good place and that was by Pax’s side.
“Okay, Pax,” the doctor who was elbow deep in Pax’s stomach interrupted the conversation. “We see the baby, but there’s a lot of blood that you’re losing, so we’re going to have to go in and do some damage control. This means you’ve got to go fully under anesthesia.”
“JC,” Pax cried in alarm. “Is he okay? Ares?”
JC’s forehead creased in anxiety and searched the doctor’s faces for an answer. “Is he okay?”
“Heartbeat’s still normal, he seems to be fine, but if we don’t get him out soon, he may go into shock, so let’s go team,” the doctor ordered unauthorized persons to leave and for some nurses to page more doctors.
JC looked back down at Pax. “Did you hear that? He’s fine, but they’ve got fix you up first.” He nodded when a nurse began to pull on his arm—he would not be allowed in the O.R. any longer. “Pax, I love you. Marry me?”
“You’re already engaged.”
Even the doctors exchanged glances at the odd couple.
“Marry me, Pax.”
“I've been waiting for you to ask me that since we were 12,” Pax muttered as she struggled to keep her eyes open before they suddenly rolled into the back of her head.
Lisa walked directly up to JC and stood there for a good twenty seconds before JC finally acknowledged her presence. He stared up at her with bloodshot eyes. His normally icy blues were clouded in dark despair. Immediately, he began to ramble. “She was fine. We were talking one minute and the next minute, the doctors were shouting something about her blood pressure dropping. Then I saw it; I saw the blood. There was so much coming from her belly, it was streaming down her arms. I don’t understand…” He chewed on his bottom lip. “They were in her stomach, getting the baby, and she just flat-lined. At least I think she did. I heard it beep a few times before going flat again, and then they made me leave the room. I’ve been sitting here ever since.”
Lisa fell into the chair next to JC and linked her arm in his. She couldn’t say a word. She didn’t know how to say it. And JC didn’t exactly speak to her as if expecting an answer. She waited patiently for the doctor so she could hear the news as well. It didn’t seem real coming from the nurse, and she knew JC wouldn’t believe her if she told him herself. They both had to hear it.
They both had to hear that Pax was dead. And her baby might be next.