JC decided to call for Joey and Justin to help carry Lance up to his room. “Joey! Justin! Come here for a minute!” Joey and Justin came running to where JC was hearing the urgency in his voice. They stopped in their tracks when they saw Lance unconscious and all the pills everywhere.

Justin was the first to speak up. “Is he ok?” JC looked at him and saw the worry in his face.

“Of course he is. He just hit his head. We need to take him upstairs to his room.”

“Ok. Let me guess, you want us to carry him up?” Joey replied.

“Yep, if it’s don’t too much trouble.” JC said.

“No, of course not. Let us know what happened though when we come back down.” Justin answered.

“I’ll be coming up so I will just bring Chris up with me and we can talk about it.” JC stated. “So don’t bother coming down.”

“Ok. See you upstairs.” Joey said as he and Justin moved over to Lance. Joey bent down by Lance’s knees and picked his lower body off the floor while Justin, who had the upper body, did the same. They both managed to get Lance out of the bathroom without dropping him but right when they made it to the doorway, they had a little trouble getting through. They ended up banging Lance’s head against the doorframe. After that they managed to get Lance upstairs without any further complications.

JC cleaned up the bathroom and took a band-aid for Lance’s head. JC was headed into the living room to get Chris when he bumped into him on the way there.

“Whoa, Jace. Why are you in such a hurry?” Chris asked noticing that JC was running around like a mad man.

“Chris, you were just the person I was looking for. Lance hit his head when I went into the bathroom to check on him. I had Joey and Justin take him upstairs to his room. I will tell you more but first let’s go to Lance’s room so Joey and Justin know what I saw.”

“Ok.” Chris replied. Chris was a little nervous about what happened to Lance. He knew that it had to be something bad because he could tell that JC was trying very hard to keep his feelings to himself so as to not lose control of the situation. Chris followed JC up the stairs. Once they reached Lance’s room Chris pulled a chair over by Lance’s bed. Chris looked him up and down. He noticed dried blood on Lance’s forehead.

“Geez what happened to him?” Chris spoke breaking the tense silence in the room. JC sighed and sat down on the foot of the bed.

“Alright. I will tell you guys what I saw and we can figure out something from there.” JC paused to take a breath before relaying what he saw. “As you know, I left to go check on Lance. I walked into the bathroom and surprised him. He didn’t realize that someone else was there with him. Lance turned to see me, I guess, and bumped his head on the medicine cabinet.” JC said pointing to the gash on his forehead. “That must have thrown off his balance because he lost his footing and hit his head on the toilet. That’s all I know beside the fact that he was going to kill himself. He was going to overdose.”

Everyone was a bit startled by this information. Finally after a long silence Joey spoke up, “How do you know he was going to overdose? Couldn’t he have been taking more aspirin and maybe he took to many from the bottle and was going to put them back until you scared him?”

“Joey that could be a plausible reason but I don’t think so. I wish it was though.” JC sighed. He had no clue how he was going to handle this. JC moved to Lance’s upper body where he cleaned his head and put on the band-aid. Then JC left the room. He came back with the supplies he would need for taking the blood test. The others looked on with curiosity.

“What are you doing?” Justin asked.

“I’m going to take a sample of Lance’s blood to see if he overdosed. I’m pretty sure that he didn’t but I just want to be sure.” JC replied as he drew blood from Lance’s arm. JC had finished taking the blood and put the test in the bathroom so he could wait for the results.

“I can’t believe he was going to kill himself.” JC said with a sigh as he collapsed on the bed next to Lance’s feet.

“How do you know for sure that he was going to kill himself? You just walked in at a bad time and maybe you didn’t see everything.” Chris stated for the first time since given the information that Lance attempted suicide. This thought made shivers go down Chris’s back. He never would have thought that Lance would think about doing this. Lance always seemed so happy-go-lucky.

“I don’t know.” JC answered after a few minutes of reflecting his thoughts. “I just assumed.”

“It’s not that I don’t believe you. It’s just this came as a shock and…I think we should wait to hear his side of the story before jumping to conclusions.” Chris replied. JC agreed with Chris and went into the bathroom to see if the results had come through. They had. It showed, like JC had thought, that Lance didn’t overdose but it showed something interesting. It showed that Lance had a low alcohol level. This made JC mad. He couldn’t believe that Joey was right. JC didn’t want to admit it though. JC went back into Lance’s bedroom.

“Guess what?” JC asked the others as he entered the room.

“What’s that?” Justin replied.

“The results came in and Lance didn’t overdose but Joe…you were right. Lance was drunk last night.”

“Really? It’s not like him to drink. I was just pulling his strings.” Joey said. JC shrugged.

“Well you were right. I can’t believe this. Do you know how deadly it is to overdose with alcohol in your system? It’s like ten times worse than just overdosing especially on an empty stomach.” JC commented.

“What do you think has caused him to think that he needs to drink and die?” Justin asked.

“Who knows? We’re going to find out though.” JC answered before Chris could say one word. That was not the answer Chris would’ve said.

“Jace, I know how upset you are. We all are but you can’t force him to tell us everything. He’s an adult he can make decisions on his own.” Chris informed slowly letting it sink in.

“Yeah he does it real well too! He thinks drinking will solve his problems and then wants to kill himself. Oh yeah, he’s making real great choices. We’re his friends; it’s our job to make sure he does choose the right decision.” JC exclaimed.

“He might not be making the right decisions but he’s lost and confused. Everyone makes mistakes and you don’t need to hover over him. He can take care of himself and you know it!” Chris shouted back at JC. Chris had enough of JC being pushy and not seeing that the things he was saying were wrong. JC worked his jaw and was about to go off on Chris when Joey interrupted.

“Guys, Lance is waking up.” All eyes turned to Lance and Lance opened his eyes slowly. He blinked rapidly as the bright light came into contact with his eyes. Lance had a throbbing headache. It hurt like hell. He felt as if he had been hit by a train.

“Am I dead?” Lance asked still in a haze.

“No. We stopped you before you could.” JC replied coldly. JC was pissed at Lance and there was no doubting that. Lance recalled what had happened before he fell unconscious.

“Look, guys. I’m sorry. I didn’t want it to end up like this.” Lance said. Lance felt disappointed that they stopped him but he also felt relieved that they had.

“Would you like to tell us why the hell you felt the need to drink and kill yourself?” JC asked.

“JC,” Chris interjected. “You can’t ask him all these questions when he just woke up. Give him a few minutes to adjust.”

“No. I want an answer.” JC said ignoring Chris’s request. Lance sighed. He didn’t know whether or not to tell the guys. They would think he’s crazy. Lance then remembered that he promised himself he wouldn’t tell them so he decided against telling them.

“It’s none of your business.” Lance stated and that had really done it for JC. He felt enraged by Lance’s comment. How could it not be his business? This was affecting not just Lance but all of them. So it damn well was his business.

“None of my business? That’s bullshit and you know it! It is too my business if you try to kill yourself. You doing something stupid affects all of us not just you.” JC scolded. “So don’t you dare tell me it’s none of my business when you know it is!” The room was silent after JC’s outburst.

Lance knew that what he said pissed JC off but he was pissed off himself that JC was always in his business. “Don’t I have a right to privacy? You just barged into the bathroom without even knocking!” Lance shouted back at JC. He didn’t care that he had a headache. He was fed up with JC meddling.

“You know he’s right.” Justin spoke up all the sudden and JC turned to glare at him.

“Whose side are you on, anyway?” JC replied angrily.

“No one's, I’m just listening to everything from both perspectives. So chill out, dude.” JC sighed and turned his attention back to Lance.

“I just figured I’d check on you to see if you were alright and it’s a good thing I did.”

“You’re not my mother, Joshua.” Lance said. Lance only called JC 'Joshua' when he was really mad at him, which wasn’t often. “I don’t need you watching my every move and thinking that I can’t handle anything or that you think all the decisions I make are wrong. People make mistakes. I’m human but I don’t like being treated like a two year old because you don’t trust me. I’m sick of it.”

Some of what Lance said hurt JC’s feelings but he wasn’t going to let Lance see or the other guys for that matter see that. “Well you’re going to have to make better decisions than the ones that you’ve been making recently. The decisions that you’ve made have made me question the type of person you are. You’re different than before, Lance. I don’t know why you felt it necessary to drink too. Then to top it all off going to overdose when you knew you had alcohol in your system.”

“Of course I’m different. I’ve gone through far more than you’ll ever be able to understand. And so what if I’ve made some bad choices. They aren’t going to completely change my life just because of a few bad mistakes.” Lance replied.

“Yeah but they were ones that are life threatening choices.” Joey said jumping into the conversation a bit.

“The drinking wasn’t really that life threatening. You’ve drank before, Joey. That isn’t what’s going to kill me.” Lance defended.

“I have drank before and no it didn’t kill me but it will kill you if you mix it with overdose. Just think next time. Come to us when you need to talk. Don’t do something drastic like this because you think it’s the easy way out.” Joey encouraged.

“We’re all here for you to talk to Lance. Don’t feel like you can’t ever come to us with a problem especially if you think it’s worth killing yourself over it. Come to us first and we’ll be able to find you a better alternative.” Chris said entering the conversation as well.

“Yeah, what they said.” Justin said mainly so he didn’t feel left out. The tension in the room died down a bit. Everyone was calming down now.

“Thanks guys.” Lance said half-heartedly. He mostly said it just so they would get off his back. There was no way they would ever understand what he was going thru.

“Anytime Lance.” JC replied feeling a lot better than a few minutes ago. He still had a feeling though that there was something else they could do to help Lance but he didn’t know what.