It's been fourteen days since I became a Chasez and it's been calm, but that came to a crashing halt when five police officers showed up to the Compound.
A few hours earlier
I laugh hysterically, almost shooting mountain dew out of my nose. Thanks, Nick. "The funniest part is when BJ fell sideways into the pool! She thought Aaron did it!"
"But it wasn't me!"
"It was Ange!" I crack up harder and he succeeds in getting me to laugh hard enough to shoot the soda out of my nostrils.
"Ow! Shit! It fucking burns!" I say, laughing as my nose burns from the sugar and runs. "She's one evil kid sometimes."
"You should know!" Aaron quips.
"I know even better, I've known you two and our other sisters since conception or birth. It depends on if I paid any actual attention to mom's pregnancy."
"Who's birth?" I inquire.
"Which sister? There's my older sister, BJ, Leslie and Ange."
I laugh again as Brian answers the door. I didn't hear any knocking or the doorbell. "Jazzy, it's for you. The police are here for you."
Nick and I exchange concerned glances. It's May 18, 1999 and it's somewhere near 9:15 at night. I walk to the door and jokingly greet the officers, noticing five standing on the stoop. I sit on the porch ledge and look at them. "I didn't do it, officers," I kid.
They chuckle. "I'm Sgt. Santos, these are officers Morrison, Jeffrys, Montague and detective Davids." My eyes bounce from officer to officer, wondering why the five of them are here. "You haven't done anything wrong, but we do have some bad news. I understand that you're recently adopted to protect you and are originally the daughter of Veronica May Charpentier, correct?"
"Uh, yes." I begin to shake, my body on edge.
"We just recently found her remains in the kitchen of the house and would like you to identify her. Would you be willing to verify we have the right person?"
"Um, sure."
"Do you have an idea of who may have stabbed her 37 times, beaten beyond recognition and burned with what we believe were lit cigarettes?" Sgt. Santos questions.
"Yeah, her ex-husband and my biological father, Brandon Charpentier," I spit out.
"What name do you go by now?"
"Samantha Marilyn Chasez," I respond honestly.
"Related to JC Chasez?"
"Yes, I leave for tour in two weeks with my friends," I inform them, stepping back as I motion to the Boys, a few of their dancers, Aaron, his dancers and Gary.
"That big guy looks like security detail."
"He is."
"How soon could you come to the precinct?"
"Nick, Kevin?"
"Yeah, Sam?"
"Could you two go with me? I want Nick to go in with me and sit with me in the back, you'll have to drive, Kevin," I think aloud as I devise half a plan.
"Sure," Kevin agrees, curious.
"Of course," Nick tells me, rubbing my back as he stands beside me.
That brings us to right now, we're on the way back from the morgue in Orlando. I just identified her body, numb and only able to say it's her by the word 'teaghlaigh' in the middle of our family's Celtic symbol on her right shoulder blade. I couldn't make out her facial features because he had beaten her so viciously and violently. She had stab and slash wounds from his attacks. I've been numb since going down there, not speaking a word and not crying because I'm actually void of all emotions. Nick drives the ATV to a field and pulls the blanket off it, laying it in the grass. We had been gone about an hour, Nick said something about being back by 12:45. We shared some kisses and cuddled a long time, I cried almost the whole time. I spent about an hour or hour and a half kissing and grinding on him, succeeding in getting him turned on. We made love under the stars and he held me, telling me he's sorry. "You didn't have a part in it. I'm glad we did this. After what we did, I feel a little better," I tell him.
"I just don't know how to deal with this, how to help you cope," he honestly says, my head on his chest as we lay naked and covered by half the blanket, laying on the other half.
We get dressed and I redo my hair, taking deep breaths. We grab the blanket and put it under ourselves as we ride back to the part of the Compound we've been staying at. I position myself on Nick's lap after he kills the engine to the ATV without getting off it and call JC behind the building. "Better be-" he begins.
"Brandon got Ma," I say, biting my lip soon after and try not to cry.
"Huh?!"
"Ma's... Gone," I tell him, confident that I'm going to start bawling like a baby.
I lay my head on his chest, beginning to hyperventilate and he kisses my forehead. "What do you mean 'gone'?" my brother asks.
"He killed her," I choke out, sobbing now.
"That dirty bastard!"
I can't seem to stop crying, I've tried to no avail for fifteen minutes and Nick just holds me. "Can I have your cell?" I can barely hold it, letting go of the device as soon as his hand wraps around it and my hands grab as much of his shirt in each fist. "JC? She's been numb and now an emotional wreck. Going on three and a half hours. Five officers showed up and told her she had to ID the body. Kevin and I went with her. Sitting on her ATV out back. Yes, I can do that. Sure, I'll try. Alright, bye."
"Nick, get her in here, it's going to rain soon," I hear Kevin tell him.
"Let's get inside," he tells me.
"I want to sit in the rain and cry."
I feel him shift to look at Kevin. "Alright, but we have to shower after," he barters.
"Yeah," I say in a trance. Thunder begins to crack and lightening flashes.
He shifts to get off the ATV and carry me to the back porch, facing the rain on the side of it as he stands behind me with his arms around me and stays with me. "You're hurting in a way I can't understand and I won't turn away from you."
I begin to cry, all emotions surfacing in a jumbled mess and he holds me as close as possible to assure me. I curl my knees to my chest and turn to him, burying my head in his shoulder. I'm screaming and crying, pulling him closer. "Why her? Why today? Why the violence? Why are you here? Why haven't you walked away? Why care? Why live? Why try?"
"I don't know. I can't walk away from someone I care so much about."
"Why? Why everything? Why hate?" I ask, agonizing pains breeding in my heart. I lost the strong woman who gave me life, raised me on her own all these years, praised me, corrected me, loved me, went through hell and high waters for me, and kept me alive as long as she could. She let me become a Chasez to make sure I live a better life than she could give. I love her and call her my mom, she passed the torch to Karen so I could live. Thank you, mom. Always selfless, my needs were all that mattered to her. I called her as much as I could everyday, I dropped off letters to the house or her office to confirm how I felt about her. I love and miss her.
~~~~~
I send a prayer out, just one hoping today is a little easier than last night. I don't remember anything after asking all the why's I had on my mind. I call JC immediately, needing my brother to comfort me. I hear his phone ringing in my room. Huh? I know I called him last night. I haven't completely woken up, so I haven't looked around my room. I look for Nick and spot him kneeling at the edge of the bed, his upper body on it. I blink a few times and hear my brother's snoring. I scan the whole room and recognize the lump in the large moon chair (the kind that comes apart and is big enough for Nick and Justin to use as a bed) immediately. Wonder how I got in bed, in dry clothes and when JC got here. I know he had a show last night.
I quietly get up and shower, throwing on JC's Monstars jersey and a pair of bell bottom jeans. The jeans were my mom's and I leave my hair down to air dry. I pull out my journal notebook and write in it, quickly filling up three pages with triple encoding that would take just me or Justin and James to decode as I sit cross legged in the middle of the bed. "Morning, Sam," JC greets me.
My head snaps up to see him stretching as he stands, our matching blue eyes locking. "Mornin," I reply, being quieter than I've been near these people I've befriended in the past two years and so many months.
"You called and I came because I was in state." I stand up and walk over to him, quiet sobs racking my body as I approach him. His arms embrace me, allowing me to cry against his chest and his heartbeat and breathing calming as always. Even his motions and words are also calming today, that seems to be his aura other than protective. Brothers are supposed to be protective, right? The ones that care, I mean of course. "I promised the night you called to tell me that you became my sister that I'd be there for you somehow. I said if I was anywhere within a days drive of you, I'd be beside you if it was important enough. I'm here because it's more than important and you called. You need me as your brother right now and I'm here," he reminds me.
"Jazz? You ok?" a very sleepy Nick inquires.
"Yes, she's going to be fine. Thanks for telling me what you did last night," I hear him say, almost muffled because my ear is on his chest after I wipe my eyes and nose on him. "Did you just-?" he asks, tilting my head up to look at me.
"My nose itched."
"I don't know how many times she did that to me last night before I had to get up to let you in," Nick tattles on me.
"I've come to be thankful and appreciate that she doesn't get a nasty runny nose," JC says ruefully.
"I know, right?" Nick agrees, teasing.
JC backs up to the chair and sits in it and I sit beside him, still crying. "Let it out, it's what you have to do."
It's going to be a week or two before I start to be me again, kinda.
"You sure you're up to rehearsing?" Fatima asks me.
"We have just under two weeks before we go on the road," I insist. "We have have got to rehearse, it has to be perfect," I tell her, demanding everyone to do this as I put my hair up and glare at the five of them.
"Don't you need time to mourn and plan her funeral?" Brian inquires.
I sigh and drop my head back to look at the ceiling of the studio at the Compound, rolling my eyes. "I want to rehearse first. After we do this, I'm going into town and setting it all up."
"How are you paying for it?" Howie asks.
"Some of my saved money, plus I'm selling the house. Everything is being moved into my house or to be stored here. I cleared it with Johnny via text last night. When I took off earlier, I made a bunch of calls and appointments for everything to be dealt with."
Not only do I succeed in shocking them, but they all fall into position without further argument. We gracefully run through the set four times, only focusing on the uptempo dances and wrap up by three.
After a shower and changing my clothes, I call the funeral home and tell them that I'd be there by four, Darren texts me to let me know that he can be here for the 23 (4 days from now), the moving company call me to confirm the meeting for six tonight and I call the realtor about the details as I drive to the funeral home. This is the first time I've gone outside the Compound alone in a couple months and it feels strange. I pull into the parking lot of the funeral home and spot Justin and James waiting for me. I walk over to them, tears in my eyes and hug them both. "You seem to be trying to do good, stay strong," James sweetly says.
"I'm trying to be strong and keep on top of everything," I confirm, running a hand through my wavy locks.
"You have wavy hair?" Justin asks.
"Yeah, I forgot to towel dry it. Let's get this done."
We head in and are greeted by a kindly older man and set it up. James insisted on paying at least a third, the other four covering the other third whether I like it or not.
That part having been taken care of, I only have the meeting with the movers and a quick drop in at the realtor's office to finalize a few things. Everything will be settled by the 28th, giving me 9 days in total. I have tomorrow and the day after to pack everything and mark the containers for the movers, two days for me to show the house to the realtor after it's cleaned out, the funeral, the burial, and unpacking before I leave for tour. Thank goodness I have a few handfuls of people willing to help me achieve all this as fast as possible so Ma can rest in peace. The Boys, the guys, Aaron, their families, Brent, Brett, 'Tima, Johnny, and of course there's Darren ('Renny is helping me to unpack and settle it all in) are helping and I can't even begin to express my appreciation and gratitude. The move is set for the 22nd, the showing is the 24th, her funeral is the 25th, her burial is the 26th and unpacking is scheduled to happen between the 27-29th before we get back to the grind. I have no idea how I'd get through this without all their help-emotionally, physically and mentally. I'm a huge disaster. I've been pondering how I'll come through this ordeal, but who really knows? Only God knows and time will tell...
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