I Lie Awake

Chapter 5: Death On Two Legs

The next morning Justin woke up to the sound of banging on the front door. The previous night he had gone to watch TV for a little while before going to bed but he had accidentally fallen asleep on the couch and stayed there all night. "Ugh, who could be banging on our door this early in the morning?" he said as he stood up and started walking towards the door. He opened it and found an angry looking Lou Pearlman. "Why are you not in rehearsals?!" He said in an angry tone. Justin looked at his watch "It's seven a.m." he said. "That is correct. You should have been at practice an hour ago." Pearlman spat. All the commotion woke Chris up. "What's going on here?" he said, confused. "He just came banging at the door saying we should've been at practice an hour ago." Justin said with annoyance in his voice. "Because you should have been there and now we're losing precious time. You have to go practice now." Lou said with a scoff. "Hold on. We never agreed on this." Chris said. "I don't care. You do what I say. Where's the rest of the group?" He replied as he pushed past them and headed towards Lance and JC's room. "Where do you think you're going?" Justin tried to stop him. Lou didn't reply, he just kept going. He didn't even knock before he slammed the door open, startling both JC and Lance "I have a bad feeling about this." JC muttered under his breath. "Don't you know that you should be practicing right now? You're all useless. Especially you!" Lou pointed towards Lance "You useless piece of trash. It's all your fault. If you hadn't faked being sick and fainting, you wouldn't have left practice early, all of you would be practicing now and my time would not have been wasted!" Lou said in an accusing tone. They were all shocked, they had never seen such a heartless person. Lance didn't know what to say for himself, all he could manage to say was: "What?" before he was interrupted by another voice. "How dare you speak to him like that!" JC's voice said in an angry tone. They were a little surprised since they had never seen him get that mad before. "Excuse me? Do not use that tone with me, young man." Lou looked at him and pretended to feel offended. "Just leave!" Chris said as he and Justin pulled him out of the house and locked the door. "Don't think about coming back!" Justin shouted at him.

During all the commotion, they hadn't noticed that Joey had come in through the back door. "What the hell just happened here?" He asked, really confused. "Lou came by to tell us that we were 'late' for rehearsals." Chris answered. "Plus scream at us." Justin added. Chris nodded and continued, "He shouted about how we were not there an hour ago and how we wasted his time when we didn't even know we had to rehearse at six in the morning. Then, he went and screamed at Lance for 'pretending to be sick and fainting' and he basically called all of us 'useless pieces of trash'. Then we kicked him out of the house." "What a jerk. We need to get away from him as soon as possible." Joey said, the truth is that he was already feeling annoyed with Pearlman even before this incident happened. "You're right. He is the literal death on two legs." Chris said.

******** \[^v^]/ ********

The guys had started thinking of companies they could sign with so that they could get away from Lou. Meanwhile, other things started happening. On Tuesday night, it seemed like any other day, except that the guys didn't go practice, seeing that they were still in a 'fight' with Lou Pearlman and they didn't care about going to practice. After dinner JC, Lance, and Justin went to bed, Chris staying to watch TV for a while. It just seemed to be like any other night, until it happened...

Lance woke up, he looked out the window and noticed the sun shining through, he then proceeded to get up and walk around the house. As he was heading for the kitchen to get some food, he looked out the window and saw the guys playing basketball outside. He went outside rather than the kitchen, he wasn't feeling too hungry anymore, he felt like being with his friends. After he saw them play for a bit, since he didn't really like to play basketball, the guys sat down on the floor to rest a little bit. They were talking about nothing in particular, just random things, when suddenly Lance had the biggest urge to tell them a secret... something he had never told anyone before. "Guys..." he started as they all looked over at him, "I have to tell you something. I hope it doesn't change the way you guys see me. I- I uhhhh..." Lance trailed off as he looked to the ground, "I'm gay." he said, he didn't dare look up, he was thinking they'd reject him right away. His heart shattered as he heard a voice saying "Eww, why do we even hang out with you." He looked up, tears falling down his face, all he saw was his friends walking away, they didn't even look back at him. All he could do was look down, tears flowing freely, it seemed as though he could drown in his own tears. To make everything worse, he heard a voice he didn't want to hear now, especially, or ever. "All your friends left you because you're just a useless piece of trash. No one, and I mean, no one will ever love someone like you." Lou Pearlman said, emphasizing the 'no one'.

With that last sentence Lance woke up, tears streaming down his face, he felt a hand on his shoulder, he flinched at the touch. "Hey, it's okay, it's just me." JC whispered sweetly as he rubbed Lance's shoulder. "It was just a dream. You're awake now, you're safe." He continued as he sat next to Lance in his bed. He gave Lance a hug to reassure that he was safe. "Did you have a nightmare?" he asked softly. Lance nodded in response. "Do you want to talk about it?" JC asked as he pulled away just enough to see Lance's face but also still be holding him. "No." Lance said as he shook his head. "That's okay." He said as he pulled back into the hug, hoping it would help Lance and bring some comfort. "Everything is going to be alright." he said as he stroked his hair. He hummed a calm song while he continued to stroke his hair softly. He felt how Lance gradually became heavier and heard how his breathing evened out. 'He must be asleep already' he thought. JC put Lance down slowly and tucked him in. "Goodnight Lance." JC said as he brushed Lance's hair off of his forehead and went to sleep.