Colleen looked down at JC as he sat curled up against the wall. “Come on, get up,” she crouched down, tugging at one of his arms to get him to move. When he didn’t budge, she stood back up. “I said, get up,” she said more authoritatively.
JC looked up with defiance in his eyes. “Why are you here?”
“Why are you here?!” Colleen shouted at him. “I don’t even know where to begin with how childish your actions have been today!”
“You have no idea what happened today!”
“Yes I do! Justin told me. How do you think I got here and found your room?”
“Of course, Justin. Should have known he wouldn’t keep his mouth shut. The amount of secrets I know that would just burn his world to the ground but I keep quiet because I’m a good friend.”
“Well your asshole of a friend is busy trying to keep your antics out of the tabloids as we speak. He’s trying to protect your reputation.”
“I don’t need protecting,” JC pushed himself to his feet, still relying heavily on the wall for support. His vision was starting to swim and he shut his eyes.
“You need something,” Colleen told him. “You can’t keep doing this shit to yourself when things upset you.”
“Don’t tell me what to do,” JC snarled.
“I will tell you what to do because I’m your girlfriend and I care about you!” Colleen yelled right back.
“You aren’t my wife,” JC opened his eyes slowly, forcing his vision to focus. “You’ll never be my wife. You need to get it through your head that it’s never going to happen. No fucking white dress, no kids, no family, none of it if you stay with me. You don’t want that.”
“So you made the decision for me, huh?” Colleen said back.
“I thought you liked it when I made the decisions,” JC said menacingly, finding his feet as he focused on Colleen’s face for balance. “You love it when I’m in control of you.”
“You aren’t even in control of yourself right now,” Colleen spat.
“Maybe you just need a little reminder,” JC ampled over to Colleen. Her face screwed up in disgust as she could smell the fruity alcohol on his breath and the aroma of cigarettes wafting from his hair. JC took the opportunity to reach up and yank Colleen’s necklace off of her as she yelped in surprise. He dangled the light blue gem in front of her eyes. “Let’s turn that pretty little brain of yours off for a while.”
Colleen’s eyes narrowed as she smacked JC’s hand away, the necklace flying hard into the opposite wall. “Is this your plan? See how far you can push until I stop pushing back? Show everyone you’re as worthless as you’ve led yourself to believe?”
“Look who I’ve become, Colleen!” JC yelled. “I am nothing like the man I was before.”
“Do you want to be?” JC squinted his eyes and shook his head, clearly showing the question wasn’t registering so Colleen asked him again. “Do you want to be?”
“It doesn’t matter what I want, I can’t be.”
“Why?”
JC turned and walked away, putting his hand out for balance. “You make it sound so easy, like I have a choice in the matter.”
“You do, it’s your life!”
“I can’t control how people feel about me, if they think I’m talented or I’m worth loving. I can’t fix my career let alone bring my kid back.”
“No one can do that, no one, but you do what you can to learn from it and keep going.”
“I’m tired of going, Colleen. It’s one disappointment after another,” JC hung his head.
Colleen proceeded carefully, fully aware this could backfire on her, especially given JC’s level of inebriation. “Then why do you? Why do you write songs if you think people won’t like them? Why are you working with the band if you’re convinced it’s going to be a failure? Why did you take a chance on a relationship if you felt like you didn’t deserve love?” Colleen walked over and grabbed JC’s shoulders. His eyes swam in his head and Colleen wasn’t sure how much of this was going to get through but she had to try. “It’s because there is still hope in you for a brighter future. Barry Weiss isn’t going to show up and apologize for not believing in you more. Eva isn’t going to say she’s sorry for breaking your heart. You know the good outweighs the bad, I know you do and I can’t promise bad things aren’t going to happen but you are strong enough to weather them.”
JC went to speak but his words got caught in his throat…or rather the contents of his stomach did. Colleen quickly recognized the look as she jumped out of the way for JC to run to the bathroom. By the grace of God, he at least made it to the bathtub and vomited all the shots he had shared with the divorce party ladies earlier. Colleen knelt next to him and stroked his hair.
“I’m sorry,” JC managed to get out before another round came out of him.
“I know,” Colleen said sadly.
“You don’t deserve this.”
“You’re right, I don’t.”
JC flopped over to sit against the tub, his stomach settling down for the moment. The picture was not pretty and Colleen wetted a washcloth for JC to wipe his face. “You should go,” he told her.
“Is that what you want?”
“No.”
“Then why suggest it?”
“Because you just…should. I’m not…it’s not worth it.”
Despite her best efforts, Colleen was starting to get angry. “Why? So you can add me to the list of people who abandoned you? So you can use me as an example of the good things in your life always turning to shit? You keep choosing to believe the few voices who told you no instead of the thousands of voices that say yes.”
“I’m in a business of yes men. The people who tell me no are the ones being honest.”
“It makes me so sad you feel that way. Not because you're JC Chasez but because you're a good guy who doesn’t believe he is one. Well guess what? You’ve been trying for over a decade to prove what a piece of shit you are to everyone around you and you have yet to convince any of them of it. Why do you think that is?”
“Because no one listens to me.”
“Wrong. Because you don’t listen to anyone else. The narrative in your brain isn’t real. Stop fighting the truth and just try to start loving yourself again because I don’t have enough for the both of us.”
“I tried to be better for you. I failed, just like I always do.”
“Failing doesn’t make you a failure. As far as being better for me, that was never going to work. You have to be better for you. You started therapy before you met me, that’s probably a great place to start.”
“Lotta good that’s doing me right now,” JC said before turning quickly again for round three. Colleen rubbed JC’s back and was at a loss of what else to say. She couldn’t make him believe in himself no matter how much she wanted to. She also couldn’t be on alert every moment of their relationship for the next time this happened because the way things were going, there was definitely going to be a next time.
Even after JC had expelled all that alcohol out of his system, this time the effects took their toll on him as he hung loosely over the side of the tub. “No no no, we aren’t sleeping here,” Colleen told him.
“Imma good here,” JC slurred as he fell onto the bathroom floor. Colleen remembered this level of drunk and knew the floor might sound good now but it would just add to the hangover the next morning.
“Don’t argue with me, we need to get you into the bed,” she told him. Over the course of the next forty five minutes, Colleen coaxed JC to crawl the short distance from the bathroom and up onto the bed. She followed him with a trash can in case he needed to throw up more. Good or bad, he was at the dry heaves at this point and Colleen grabbed a bottle of water from the mini bar to attempt to keep him hydrated.
JC’s eyelids fluttered rapidly as he landed on the bed. He was way more fucked up then he realized, in every sense of the word. Colleen tugged his dead body weight across the length of the bed so his head was near the edge and rolled him onto his stomach. She placed the trash can down in case JC needed it and proceeded to painstakingly get his t-shirt off. As she held up his left arm, she finally noticed the LPM&S imprint on his forearm. Perfect; his cuff was missing. Another pile of shit to add onto the evening.
“Why are you so nice to me?” JC mumbled as Colleen pulled off his sneakers and socks.
“I honestly don’t know at the moment,” she responded, voting for some hard truth and not caring if JC remembered it or not. It was now nearing 3:15am and she was tired and frustrated. “Maybe because someone needs to be nice to you since you obviously aren’t,” she said as she reached up and undid JC’s jeans, working them down his legs and off his body.
“If you can’t love yourself, how the hell are you gonna love somebody else? Can I get an Amen?” JC attempted to yell, throwing his head back and instantly regretting the decision as the room did somersaults around him. “RuPaul says that. I like RuPaul. We should watch Drag Race together. I wish I was that confident.”
Colleen wasn’t in the mood to unpack any of JC’s drunken ramblings at the moment as she got a pillow under his head and pulled the covers best she could over him. He was groaning now and Colleen hoped he’d pass out soon for both their sakes.
She headed to the bathroom when she noticed her necklace laying on the floor. She delicately picked it up and examined it. The chain was clearly broken but it was the state of the gemstone that made her let out a small gasp. “Well if that isn’t fucking perfect,” she said out loud as she gazed up the hairline fracture that now ran through the once flawless crystal. She looked at JC and almost wished she could share the irony of it all with him.
Colleen proceeded to the bathroom with JC’s clothes. No damage to his jeans but his shirt had a few spots she quickly washed out and hung over the shower curtain rod to dry. She turned the water in the tub on to get JC’s stomach contents out of the room. Cleaning up his vomit was certainly not something she considered when wanting to date him.
She checked the pockets of his jeans. At least his cell phone still appeared to be intact and his wallet not missing anything. She also found the valet receipt so assumed that’s where his keys were located. She then found a crumbled up piece of paper. Colleen uncurled it and her blood ran cold as she read the contents. A ring. He’d bought a ring. Or rather, he’d returned a ring. A three carat marquise diamond ring, to be exact. The credit back was nearly two hundred thousand dollars.
Colleen didn’t know how long she stared at the receipt, trying to understand what she was seeing. She walked back out to the bedroom to hear JC breathing heavy but asleep, a bit of drool running out of his mouth. For some reason, that made her angrier. She went to the mini bar and pulled out a beer, needing something to calm her down a touch. She found a small can of Pringles as well and took them for a snack, not having eaten since lunch. Colleen stared at the fridge and in a move of complete and utter pettiness, opened every single item in there, knowing JC would have to pay for all of it. He could certainly afford it with the money from her ring he’d just gotten back.
She grabbed her cellphone and sat down on the bathroom floor. It was nearing 4am now. She texted everyone that JC was safe, drunk but safe. Given the time, she was surprised when she heard back from the two band members she could actually communicate with directly.
J: Thanks for the wake up call. Tell him he’s a fuck if you haven’t already yet.
JT: I’ll ask for the details later but glad he’s ok. Are you?
Colleen didn’t know how to answer that. She certainly wasn’t ok. She was angry, shocked, betrayed, disappointed and a slew of other negative emotions she was only starting to figure out.
C: Physically yes, mentally not so much. Gonna try to sleep. I’ll call you when we get back to L.A.
After quickly taking a picture of the receipt, Colleen turned her phone off and finished her beer. JC was strewn across the bed enough that there was no room for Colleen to sleep. She grabbed a free pillow and curled up in the armchair in the corner of the room and attempted to put her thoughts aside for the night.
