"Hey brother. Do you still believe in one another?"

[headingforsomething]

Who: Reecy Chester and Justin Campbell
What: Sleepover
Where: Reecy's apartment, NYC
When: Saturday night

News had trickled through to her that Justin had been a fight with his dad at the theatre on Friday night. Reecy tried to Facetime him during the day, but he hadn't picked up. No, she didn't work on the Footloose production anymore, but she took her role as big sister seriously with both Justin and Fin these days. It was important to her to make sure they knew she was there for them. There had been frequent calls throughout the week with Fin because Shannon hadn't been well, and he kept Reecy updated on that. He was a chatty kid, and Reecy loved that. She loved that he wanted to keep her in the loop. At least, until he called her out on what she was doing with Craig, but that was a whole other story.

Justin, on the other hand, was a tough cookie to crack sometimes. If he was stonewalling his dad, something was up. That was all the indication she needed that, if nothing else, he could use a hug. So, she invited him over for a sleepover. It had been so long since they did this. He had agreed easily, and she picked him up at the theatre after her own show. He was tired and worn out. He didn't even need to say that for her to know. She had bought in a pile of junk food and sodas, and they were not in bed with a huge bowl of popcorn ready to watch the Footloose movie again... for about the millionth time since Justin had come into their life. She never tired of it. How could she? Justin was adorable when he watched it.

"Heart not in it, kiddo?" she asked him when she noticed he was staring across the room at some random object with a tiny frown on his face, rather than with the remote at the ready to hit play.

Comments

[likefatherlikeson]

Justin scrunched his nose up and shook his head. "Not really. Sorry, sis. It's just been a fucked up week. My parents think I've plotted some sort of fucking conspiracy to ruin their marriage forever, and Uncle Paris has a brain tumour. Then my counsellor tells me one of the girls I met in Four Winds just committed suicide. Which I can't even talk to my Dad about like I normally would because I don't want to talk to either of them. I went to see Uncle Paris and Mikey at the hospital today after the charity meet and greet. He was sleeping, so I talked to Mikey. His head is all bandaged up, but they didn't shave it. He'll start radiation and chemo soon."

He switched from the DVD to the TV and turned the volume down. He rolled onto his side to face Reecy, hand tucked under his head. "Do you ever just feel like you're all alone in the world, and no matter what you do, it feels like any corner you choose, you'll be met with shit? I actually found myself thinking about moving to Sydney with Nana and Granddad when I was taking a dump yesterday. That's how fucked up I feel."

[headingforsomething]

Reecy put her arm around him to give him a cuddle, and kissed his forehead. She hadn't know Paris had been diagnosed with a brain tumour, so it was a shock to hear. Justin was unloading a lot. But he was relaying his thoughts with clarity. She had had experienced him often enough when he was ill to know that at times, if his mind was racing with a manic episode, he was all over the shop. "I thought you were really excited about the wedding, Smooshie. I saw everything you had planned. If you weren't already the Prince of Broadway, I'd be wondering if you wanted to toss your day job in to be a wedding planner. It was more than just a wedding for you, wasn't it?" she asked. She kept him close. She just knew he needed a cuddle right now, probably more than anything else. "Did it help, talking to Mikey? Losing your friend like that, though. Is it hard to hear knowing you've been there yourself?"

She nodded wryly. "I do, Smooshie. More lately than I ever have before. I have no idea what the key to happiness is. I have no idea if I'm even capable or deserving of it. If you figure it out first, let me in on the secrets, huh?" She was joking a little, the reality of her words were the entire truth, though. "Don't go live over there, bub. We all need you here too much. You belong here. You would wither up and fade away without being on stage."

[likefatherlikeson]

"Was," Justin mumbled. He had been over the moon about it. He thought he and his mom would have a ball planning wedding stuff, and that she would have a ball with Paris choosing everything. And that his dad would have a real wedding with memories to look back on, and not just look back and see where he fell off the wagon so bad, he couldn't remember it. Justin would've gotten to be there, and it would be a real wedding, not just a ceremony because they were already married. He really thought he was doing the right thing, but then his mom seemed completely uninterested in any of it. No plans with him were made for wedding stuff, nothing happened with Paris. All it became about was Justin being a brat, and how dare he expect the horror of a divorce. Nothing exciting happened. Nothing of anything happened. His dad didn't lodge the divorce papers. That was when he started to realise that no one felt about it like he did, and that hurt. "I was the only one doing anything, and it didn't take me long to realise how fucked up that was, so I ditched it all. I did care, now I don't. They can do whatever the fuck they please, and leave me out of it. See if they like how that feels. No wedding planning in my future. Fuck marriage. I'm never getting married and I'm never having kids. Parents hurt kids, and I don't want a bar of that. It helped a bit talking to Mikey, but he's really tired. He didn't need me there playing twenty-questions. I just sat with him and kept him company. You know what the hardest thing hearing she died is? I know how alone and scared she would've felt right before she did it. It's the worst feeling in the world."

He wet his lips and looked at her dolefully, even apologetically. "You deserve all that. And more. I guess the whole cowboy thing isn't happening because he lives so far away. You smile with him though, you know. I've seen it. You smile, because you don't want to let yourself hope for that in a long-term relationship, because you don't really think that exists for you anymore," he guessed quietly.

[headingforsomething]

Justin was supposed to have been his dad's Best Man too. She didn't want to drag that up when it was obvious he was already feeling kicked in the guts over this whole thing. All she could hope was that Justin's parents could see where they tripped up here and learn from it. It sounded like Justin had well and truly pulled the plug, and it might be impossible for them to get him back to a place where he wanted any part of any sort of wedding they planned. She hurt him, because she had seen how excited he had been setting everything in motion when they seemed too busy to manage it themselves. "I can hear how much you're hurting, Smooshie, and I'm sorry. I'm sorry it didn't work out how you were excited it would. And I know you had to have seen that as a crossroads or a turning point. Is there anything I can do to help you, in any way?" She rubbed his arm, listening to him talk about his uncle, and about the friend he lost. He had been holding onto this wedding thing as hope. Now it was just more pain on top of pain. "How well did you know her?"

She nodded. "That's how I have been feeling. You're spot on, you little buttpain. You know more than you let on, don't you? He told me he's thinking of moving here, and you know what? I think I could fall in love with him in a heartbeat. And that scares me, because that means it can all be taken away from me again. All that stuff, it happens to other people. Not me. He's too good to be true, and Fin thinks I'm being an asshole leading him on. Now that I think about it, maybe I have been. But I can't even lie, I got addicted to how special he made me feel."

[likefatherlikeson]

"They say things happen for reasons. Well, maybe things don't happen for reasons too. I just don't know what they are. I don't get why there was such a problem or why I was getting a cold shoulder with it all. They wanted to have another wedding. Like, fucking way back when we were in Sydney with Footloose, Dad proposed to Mom again. That was when it was in the works. I didn't just barge my ass in and take over. All I did was schedule a few things and threw the ball in their court. I thought it could be cool to plan shit with Mom. I knew Dad would just do whatever. He's a typical bloke, he doesn't get that stuff. I thought Uncle Paris would be involved. I thought it was the right thing, but I fucked everything up. I think I would've gotten a warmer reception if I scheduled a fucking His and Hers proctology exam. I saw it as something nice and fun after fucking months of misery and pain." Justin shook his head, mostly at himself when he realised all this had come tumbling out. He hadn't even gone into this much detail with Hunter. With Hunter, it was mostly how he was feeling with his emotions and his moods, rather than the joy that had come with thinking about the wedding, being his Dad's Best Man. Now it was all in the shitter.

Still, to counteract it, Reecy was talking to him about how she was feeling too. It was a good balance for Justin, to have something to tip the scales of his own worries. "Fall in love with him, or fall in love with the idea of him? Like, how he makes you feel when you're with him. Because, trust me, if there is one thing I get, it's feeling yo-yoing emotions. Up, down, up, down, up, down. Not just my fucked up head thing. I went through it with Will, remember? And I couldn't do it. I had to pull the plug because I was flipping out. Feeling special shouldn't be on timeshare. It should just be on tap, with a special person who knows how make sure it's there all the time. Have you... how have you been otherwise, when he's not here?"

[headingforsomething]

It was sad to hear Justin talking about this stuff. At a time when his family should be banding together the best they could too. Billy's recent battle with testicular cancer wasn't far from anyone's mind, and it had been evident that the only way Billy got through was having his family close to him at all times. Even the hardest of hard days, when facing getting out of bed or being in anyone's present was difficult, he still needed and wanted Ajay there with him. Reecy remembered the many days she visited them both, often she would find Ajay just lying in bed with Billy while he slept. Family was a priceless thing. Unfortunately, that meant they were also poised to hurt you the most of all if things went wrong. "You know what? I think the best thing you did was just step back. They need to see you're hurt, and they also need to see that they can't take you for granted. This was an incredible thing you did for them, Smooshie, and for all the right reasons. The onus is on them to figure shit out. But I know it hurts, because you didn't meant anything bad by it at all."

"I think if he was here, it would've been the whole package. But it was easy to keep going with it as it stood, because then I didn't need to think about him hurting me. That, if we just kept doing that, it wasn't serious, so if it ended, it would be no hard feelings." She growled in frustration at herself. "I realise how dumb this sounds saying it out loud, and I'm ashamed of it. I was deluded and I didn't mean to drag him into my issues. It was yo-yoing, though. I've been all over the place. Mostly, when I wasn't working or had Craig to distract me, I was miserable. I... got caught up in some things bad for me. Not drugs or anything like that. I just started to hate myself through my own eyes. I stopped eating like I should."