Kyra stretches her back as she stands in the now immobile bus. Her ass is sore and her legs are restless after the seven hour drive. Thankfully her seatmate has been quiet the entire time, sleeping for most of the way, so that she’s not had to make uncomfortable small talk during the trip. She yawns as she reaches up to grab her suitcase from the overhead compartment and then grab her shoulder bag from under her seat. She smiles and nods at her now awake seatmate and then follows the slowly moving line of people getting off of the bus.
As soon as she steps off of the bus she is met with a frigid wind that whips stinging pieces of snow and ice pellets against her cheeks. She shivers and buries her face into the folds of the scarf around her neck as her eyes scan the crowded bus station parking area. Several people are milling about either getting on or off buses, greeting family and friends hurriedly in the stormy weather. It’s Christmas time and people are happy to see each other and though the weather could be better the excitement of the upcoming holidays seems to permeate the air around her.
She walks through a crowd of people as she tries to get closer to the parking area where her Mother should be waiting. Her boots crunch on the frozen ground and fallen snow as she hikes her shoulder bag higher and scans the area.
She can’t wait to finally be home and sit in front of the living room fireplace with a hot drink and her Mother. She hasn’t been home since the start of her first college semester and she looks forward to talking to her Mother about everything she’s been experiencing.
She can’t wait to sleep in her own bed, in her own room, that doesn’t have “not so mysterious” sounds coming from the next bed over; she can’t wait to eat a home cooked meal that doesn’t include some type of mystery meat and she can’t wait to not have to wear flip flops in the shower.
But most of all, she can’t wait to see Josh. They had spoken on the phone about a week ago and he’d confirmed to her that he’d be home a day or two after she arrived, depending on when he could get away from Orlando. He would stay for Christmas and another day or two before packing up and heading back to Orlando to prepare for his move to Germany.
She just can’t wait to see him again and talk to him about everything going on in her life, everything going on in his. And though it still stings a little that he’ll be moving so far away, he’s been so excited about the prospects of what the move will entail for him and his career that she can’t help but also feel a little excited for him as well.
As a strong gust of cold wind whips up some loose snow on the ground, she shivers again and looks around once more. She can’t see her mother’s car anywhere and is just about to turn around to go into the bus station to find a payphone when she hears someone call out her name.
When she turns she finds not her mother but Roy, Josh’s dad, waving to her with a soft smile on his lips. Though she finds it odd that he’s the one picking her up, it has happened before so she smiles and makes her way over to him.
“Hi, Mr. Chasez,” she says with a smile as she drops her suitcase and reaches up to give him a tight hug.
“Hi Sweetheart,” he says against her hair and returns her hug before holding her away from him with another smile. “You know, you’re a college girl now; an adult. You can call me Roy.”
Kyra laughs softly and shrugs knowing she wouldn’t be doing that any time soon. He leans down, grabs her suitcase and starts walking toward the parking lot where he must have parked the family car. “Where’s Mom?”
“She got held up at work, a little bit of overtime, so she asked me to pick you up.” He answers as they get to the car and he unlocks the passenger door for her to get inside. “Get in, it’s cold.”
She nods as she climbs into the car and shuts the door. She watches in the rear view mirror as Roy goes around the car to put her suitcase in the trunk. Although she’s happy to see him, she’s disappointed that her Mother isn’t there to greet her at the bus station like you see in the movies.
Okay, so that’s a little corny but she’s been looking forward to it for weeks now and had sort of built it up in her head. She tends to do that once in awhile and though Josh always makes fun of her for it, she can’t help it.
Oh well, she thinks as Roy climbs into the driver's seat and sets off toward their neighborhood, she’ll see her later when she gets home from work. After all she really can’t blame her Mom for picking up a few extra shifts here and there, especially since she’s helped so much with the cost of her tuition already.
The drive is short and quiet as Roy isn’t much of a talker and she’s used to it. The quiet feels comfortable though and when they’ve finally pulled into the driveway she grins widely as she sees both hers and the Chasez house decorated with brightly lit multicolored Christmas lights and candles in the windows. It’s Christmas and she’s home.
When Roy quietly asks her to come in and say hello to Karen who has something prepared for her to take home, she happily follows him inside hoping to find a stuffed pepper casserole ready for her to heat up. Karen knows that it’s her favorite and to be honest she’s absolutely starving right now. Just as she’s planning to put on her jammies and chill in her house while waiting for her Mom to come home she sees Karen sitting at the kitchen table clutching a cup of coffee.
The mood in the room seems heavy and unfamiliar as she looks between Karen and Roy who followed her inside. Karen’s eyes are red and she’s fidgeting with the handle of her coffee cup as she looks behind Kyra to Roy and then to Kyra.
Instantly Kyra knows that something’s wrong. She narrows her eyes and looks at Karen questioningly. “What’s wrong?”
Roy walks over to the table and takes the seat across from Karen while she shakily motions to the seat in front of them. “Have a seat, Honey.”
Kyra shakes her head and stands her ground a few feet from them. “What’s wrong?” She repeats feeling a knot start to form in the pit of her stomach.
Karen bites her lip and looks at Roy before she starts. “Ky, I’m so sorry...but there’s been an accident.”
Kyra’s stomach dips and her heart skips. “Josh?”
Karen shakes her head, “No, Josh is fine. It’s your Mom she-”
“My mom?” Kyra interrupts and shakes her head, it hadn’t even crossed her mind that they could be talking about her Mother. “What’s going on with my Mom?”
“Early this morning she was driving home from her shift and well...they’re not sure yet what happened...but she got into an accident.” Karen opened one of her small fists to use the tissue she had apparently been clutching in it to dab at her eyes.
Kyra’s thoughts start to swirl every which way as she stands there, rooted to the spot as her lips can’t seem to form any kind of sound. Her eyes kept flitting between Roy and Karen as if she’s waiting for one of them to tell her that it’s all a joke and that everything is really fine.
Suddenly she snaps back to reality and starts looking around as if keys or a car are magically going to appear. “I’ve got to get the hospital.”
When neither Karen or Roy move from their spot at the table she suddenly feels a flash of absolute anger surge through her body. Why aren’t they moving? Why didn’t they take her directly to the hospital?
Just as she’s about to yell those thoughts to them, the front door opens and Josh hurriedly walk into the house. When their eyes connect and he drops his duffle bag to the floor, it takes no words: the look on his face says it all.
Suddenly, her world goes black.
*
JC’s bare feet quietly padded on the wooden floor as he left the bathroom to head back to his bedroom. He’d woken up a while ago and had been unable to fall back asleep, so he’d laid in his bed staring at the ceiling for what had felt like a long time.
So many things had been going through his mind lately that he sometimes laid awake for hours during the night. He was getting increasingly pressured into meeting with producers and writers to get started on a solo album but he was still torn. If he was going to put something out there that was his and only his, he didn’t want to do a rush job of it or have anyone else tell him what he should be doing. Of course he had lots of songs or pieces of songs ready to work on but he’d been so focused on writing for the group that solo things had always been pushed to the side.
One day. Someday. Today? He didn’t know.
He’d had a meeting with the guys and Johnny, well the guys minus Justin, the previous weekend where they’d been told that Justin was going to need more time than expected to put out his album. Studio time they’d booked had been pushed back for another few months, possibly a year.
And then he’d realized it: Justin wasn’t coming back. It was over.
He really couldn’t feel angry at Justin for seizing and opportunity when it knocked though he did feel some betrayal at how things were going down. It had been obvious for a while that the record company and the execs had been grooming Justin for something other than the group. They’d even started to joke about it, like at one of their photo shoots when the photographer kept putting Justin in front of everyone, Joey had started humming “Don’t Speak” by No Doubt under his breath. It had been funny at the time and Justin had seemed embarrassed by it but it hadn’t gone any further than that.
JC knew that he’d be willing to keep the group going without Justin. After all the four of them could sing and they already had some material lined up and ready for the next album. All it would take would be a little shuffling around of the solo parts and it would work. Plus, the other guys would finally be able to be more present in the songs than they had been with the last two albums. It would be different but they could do it.
But in the meantime, did he try to hack it on his own as well? He’d been asked to write and record a song for a movie soundtrack and he hadn’t declined. Just one song couldn’t hurt right? He was supposed to meet with an Orlando based producer named Dallas Austin next week to see if they could work together for the project, it couldn’t hurt to make more connections either right?
Being in Boston with Kyra for the last month and a half had really helped. It was nice for him to have a relatively normal life again. He didn’t have to be anywhere he didn’t want to, he didn’t have to answer his phone if he didn’t feel like it. He could just be.
The last years had been incredible and he wouldn’t give them back for the world, but they had been hectic. Always something on the go, always someone to see or something to do. It was nice to be able to do what he wanted, when he wanted to again.
Plus being with Kyra again was a major plus. It was nice to see that their relationship was slowly repairing itself and how they truly enjoyed being around each other again. They were each other’s connections to home and it was comforting to the both of them.
Of course they were both adults now and the sexual tension between them had only grown as they had matured. It was no different now although neither wanted to admit it to the other. The daily interaction between them while they worked alongside each other either tiling a floor or painting a room had started to feel natural again. To him, she didn’t seem nearly as guarded as before. He no longer felt so uncertain when he was close to her, unsure if she’d recoil if he brushed up against her or if he hugged or touched her without asking her first.
He’d even kissed her again. He hadn’t planned to or anything, it’d just happened.
They’d been painting the living room one afternoon when he’d accidentally knocked her over as she was crouched down painting the moldings near the floor. He had been looking up at the ceiling as he’d used a roller attached to a broomstick and hadn’t noticed her there. She’d lost her balance and had fallen to the floor, spilling the little cup of paint she’d been holding in her hand all over her shirt and her arm. Instantly he’d put down his roller and apologized profusely as he’d watched her look down at herself with surprise. When he’d crouched down himself to help her up, before he knew it he’d felt the cold bristles of a paintbrush gliding across the skin of his cheek and then down his shirt. She’d laughed in a faked diabolical tone and he’d lunged, effectively pinning her down onto the floor while holding her arms up over her head so that she couldn't use the paintbrush again. They’d laughed and then without thinking, he’d just done it. Paint covered and all, he’d kissed her.
He’d been pleased that she’d responded favorably, kissing him back with no hesitation at all. It had been such a relief, to him that kiss had felt real. It had made him feel like it was him and Kyra, together again. Like it was once again them against the world with no one else that could peek into or understand their connection. It hadn’t felt like she was kissing him searching for something that she wondered was still there. It hadn’t felt like either of them was trying to prove anything to the other: it was just them. The two of them, kissing again and enjoying each other’s company. Both wanting more than what they’d had for a long time.
The kiss hadn’t lead to anything more but he knew it was just a matter of time. They always found their way back to each other.
Now as he quietly passed by Kyra’s door which stood slightly ajar, he heard a sound that stopped him in his tracks. He narrowed his eyes and listened for a moment before deciding that he must have heard wrong. He shivered slightly and the skin on his bare arms pimpled up into goose flesh. He always slept in his underwear preferring the heavy weight of blankets over his body to keep him warm rather than layers of clothing. So on this chilly night standing in the slightly drafty hallway he started thinking of his warm bed again.
But then, just as he was about to move away from her door, he heard it again. This time it was clear to him that the sound really was coming from her room. She was crying.
He didn’t think first, just acted and pushed open the door to her room. His eyes which had already adjusted to the dim light in the hallway searched the room to find her curled up in her bed. Although there were no lights on, the glow from the full moon shining through the sheer curtains of the large window across the room cast a bright enough light for him to see her. The sheets and blankets on her bed were tangled up around her as if she’d been moving around restlessly for hours and her face was obscured by her pillow. He could see a bare leg hooked over a bundle of blankets and a bare shoulder where her oversized shirt had slipped off.
He could tell that she was still asleep and for a moment he felt like he was intruding on her privacy. The thought of leaving her be or at least leaving to go put some clothes on first flitted through his mind before she whimpered again and he couldn’t think of anything else but fixing whatever was hurting her. Not wasting another second he moved quickly to her bed and sat down on the edge. He pushed some hair away from her face and his fingertips glided across the soft skin of her cheek, encountering wetness along the way.
“Ky,” he whispered softly and she didn’t move. His hand moved to her bare shoulder and he gently shook her. “Honey, wake up. It’s only a dream.”
Her eyes opened and she blinked them a few times causing some loose tears to follow the path forged by the others before them. She sat up quickly using one hand to wipe her eyes and nose while the other pulled the mess of blankets up to her chest. She seemed taken aback at his presence in her room, on her bed nonetheless, because her eyes kept flickering between his face, his bare chest and a spot up on the wall behind him.
She cleared her throat. “I, um sorry. Did I wake you?”
He shook his head and shifted slightly as he self consciously crossed his arms over his chest. “Nah, I was awake.”
She nodded and ran a hand through her tangled hair. She seemed embarrassed that she’d been crying in her sleep.
“I’m sorry, sometimes I can’t help it when I’m slee-”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
They’d spoken at the same time. He smiled and motioned for her to go first but she shook her head.
“Do you want to talk about it?” he repeated and she nibbled at her lip thoughtfully before she shook her head.
He nodded. He didn’t want to press her. After a few more moments of silence he cleared his throat. “Well um, I guess I should go back to bed. Are you going to be okay?”
She nodded, averting his gaze as she fidgeted with the edge of a sheet. “Mmhmm.”
“Okay, then. Um, goodnight.” He slipped off of the bed and before he’d taken two steps toward the door she spoke again in a tiny voice.
“Josh?”
He turned and found that she had shifted up slightly. “Mm?”
“Actually...could you, could you stay? Until I fall asleep?”
He smiled and nodded. “Of course,” he answered as he made his way back to her and helped her fix the blankets on her bed. Just as he was about to climb into bed next to her, he stopped and motioned to her bedroom door. “Did you want me to go get a shirt first?”
He didn’t need any more light in the room to tell that she was blushing when she shook her head as a small smile tugged at her lips.
At least seeing him half naked was making her smile again.
He chuckled quietly and slid into bed next to her, pulling the covers over the both of them as she quickly curled her body against his, her cheek finding a comfortable spot on his shoulder. His arm curled itself around her waist and he held her close. She stayed quiet for a long time until he actually wondered if she’d fallen back asleep when she finally spoke.
“I miss her,” she whispered, emotion still evident in her voice.
He knew she was talking about her Mother and it broke his heart that she was still dealing with her grief all these years later. Alone.
He leaned down and pressed his lips to the top of her head. “I know you do.”
He didn’t know what to say and really, there weren’t any words he could use to make things better or different. So he didn’t say anything at all, hoping that the fact that he was there, holding her in his arms as she felt what she needed to feel was enough.
As they lay there quietly he was unable to keep his thoughts from wandering back to one of the last times they had laid together like this. It had been a few days after her mother’s funeral and he’d gone to her house to check on her since he hadn’t heard from her all day. While everything was going on with setting up arrangements, he’d tried to be at her side as much as possible though she’d kept him at arm's length. It had hurt him at first because all he wanted to do was to take care of her, protect her from any more hurt than she should have to deal with at that time, but then he’d realized that she was treating everyone the same way.
He hadn’t seen her cry once since she’d gotten the news and this had worried him. The only emotional reaction she’d had was when she’d passed out the moment she’d seen him walk through the door of his parents house on the day of the accident. At that time he’d picked her up and carried her to his bedroom where he’d laid her down on his bed and had held her until she’d come back around.
He still remembered the look on her face when she’d asked him in the voice of a wounded animal if her mother was dead. When he’d nodded he’d seen tears well up in her eyes but they’d never spilled over. It had only taken a moment for her to enter what he could only call a trance at the time. She’d become a robot; talking to people when spoken to, answering their questions and accepting their condolences all the while dealing with arrangements that should have been handled by someone a lot older and a lot more experienced than her.
But she’d done it, and she’d done it well. His parents had helped of course but it had seemed to him that she’d needed to be the one in charge in order to deal, or not deal, with her grief at that time. So he’d watched her from afar, knowing that when the time came she would ask.
And she had. When he’d gone up to her room that day, he’d found her curled up in her bed staring at the door. Her face had been blank and her eyes had seemed so tired as she watched him walk from the door to her bed. He’d sat down on her bed and quietly waited for her to speak.
“It’s like I can’t feel anything anymore,” she’d said flatly as she’d kept her eyes glued to the door.
It had broken his heart further to hear her say the words and to hear the weariness in her voice. All he’d wanted to do at that moment was to make everything in the world go away, at least for a little while.
“What can I do?” he’d asked feeling powerless to do anything to help her.
Then to his surprise she’d sat up and looked him in the eyes. “Make me feel something again,” she’d whispered as she’d leaned in to press her lips to his. “Please, Josh.”
And he had.
He’d made love to her for what felt like hours, both wanting to make her feel good again and to offer her the release of tension and emotion she seemed to yearn for so badly. When it’d been over, they’d laid together for several more hours as she’d cried herself in and out of sleep while he held her telling her that everything would be okay, even though they both knew her life would be changed forever.
“...stay?” He caught the end of a softly spoken sentence and he returned to the present in her dimly lit room.
“What?” He asked quietly and she repeated what she must have said before.
“Can you stay? Even after I fall asleep, can you stay?”
He smiled and took his arm out from behind his head to slip his hand into hers over his heart. As he entwined his fingers with hers he whispered, “Always.”
*
