| Chapter 31 ******* *******A week later Margot had been in France for five days. Five days of warmth and sunshine and language and cheese and all that makes France what it is. When she returned to her Paris apartment, she realized just what she had been missing al the time she was in California. The city was just the same as it had always been, but there�s just something about your hometown. Something ultimately..soothing. And ironically, even though Margot went to California to soothe and rejuvenate herself, it hadn�t worked. She spent months in a place she�d never been before, expecting it to calm her down. Expecting it to make her feel alive again. Expecting it to bring back the Margot she�d been missing for quite some time now. Unfortunately, she encountered a very special young man who seemed unassuming at first, but ended up making her feel the exact opposite of what she�d come to California to feel. And so, she left, ran away back home, and was left exactly with what she started; an apartment, a large cd collection, many, many scarves, her trademark green eyes, and that broken heart that she just couldn�t seem to shake. True, she no longer missed Lucas. He was as far in the recesses of her mind that any ex-lover could be, and she didn�t regret that at all. If California was good for one thing, it was certainly good for getting him off of her mind. However, it did do a very good job in getting another guy in and ingrained into her mind. And Margot had no idea when the thoughts and images of him would ever leave her. Everything reminded her of him. Everything. Which would seem almost impossible, seeing as how she was now in a completely different part of the world. But that fact hardly seemed to matter. He was everywhere. She saw his eyes in the blue French sky, she saw his hair in the dark coffee she drank daily, she saw his skin in the milk she put into that coffee, she saw his toothy grin in the faces of children she passed on the street, and she saw his intelligence and humor in the personalities of her acquaintances. She couldn�t even spend a night with her girlfriends and not have some comment they�ve made remind her of him. Everything reminded her of him. Everything was him. And she loathed it. She�d run away, it was what she was supposed to do, was it not? She�d run away and yet, he still followed her everywhere. Her every thought was of him. He consumed her. And she could do nothing to stop it. ******* ��� ��� �Josh�� �Please, don�t start.� �Josh, come on. You have to-� �I don�t have to do anything. But I will have to kill you if you keep trying to talk to me about this.� �But if you don�t talk about it, you�ll just die!� �I�m going to die anyway. Why not speed up the process? Me being without her is already helping..� �JC....� �No. No, Chris. I just..can�t.� ******* �Allo?� �MARGOT!� Margot jumped and then looked strangely at her telephone receiver. It was early on a Saturday morning, she�d just been woken up by the shrill ring of the phone, there was a bizarre screaming man on the other end, she had no idea who it was, and she was in no mood for guessing games. �Euh, oui? Qui est-ce?� �No, no, no! Stop it with that French nonsense! I never did understand any language other than English. It�s me!� ��and that me would be�� �CHRIS.� Margot smiled for the first time in days. �Chris! Chris, Chris, Chris! I haven�t talked to you in a week! You miss me already, eh?� Chris smiled and even though he knew it was true that he did miss her, he knew of someone who missed her a whole lot more than he did. �Yes, you caught me. I couldn�t live another day without hearing your sweet voice. Just�speak! Speak, or I might go crazy!� Margot laughed and it was so relaxing to her. Chris was one of the few people she knew that could say anything and she�d just be at ease with him. Few people made her feel so comfortable. And she was truly grateful for his call. �Well, Kirkpatrick, I would love to sit here all day and just speak with no response, but I know California to France is quite a phone call. And this phone call will surely result in quite a large phone bill, so. Maybe you want to just say what you have to say so I can get up and get myself moving and you can get up, and do whatever it is that you do�� �Ha. Yes. Well, see. You forget. This isn�t our house. And we don�t pay the phone bill. So I could, in theory, sit here all day and just listen to you speak with no response!� Margot grunted. �That may be true. But I�m sure the phone bill comes out of your salary somehow. And I know you millionaires are just so stingy about everything when it comes to money.� She smirked when she heard Chris gasp with realization. �I suppose you�re right. Maybe I should get to the point.� �That just might be a good plan.� �Alright. Well. Here goes. I know you live in France. Because you told us.� �Right�� �Yeah. And so, even though I know you live in France, I don�t know exactly where you live in France. And if I ever wanted, oh, to maybe, oh, I don�t know, send you a present, birthday maybe, or Easter, or just a present because you�re my bestest friend in the whole wide world, I would have no idea where to send it. Because I don�t know exactly where you live in France.� ��Uh huh. Are you trying to stalk me, Christopher?� �Truthfully? Yes. I�m spending dozens of dollars just to call you, aren�t I! What can I say, you�re just a magnet. Call me an iron filing. I won�t hold it against you.� Margot laughed at Chris�s eccentric behavior. The guy was insane, but that�s what she loved most about him. She eventually told him her address and after talking to him for a while longer, and trying to get it out of him what he planned on sending her, she hung up and got ready to face yet another day, alone, in Paris. But that�s ok, because she was where she needed to be, with who she needed to be with. �Wasn�t she? ******* JC was sitting sullenly in the family room shooting flaming bullets at the television with his eyes. He wasn�t watching anything in particular; he was just sitting there just to sit there. As always, trying to get his mind off of a certain girl who still had a hold on his heart, even after she made it clear that she didn�t want anything to do with the organ. His friends had tried for days to get him to talk about it, get him to open up to them, confide in them, like friends are supposed to do. But he was a stone wall, showing no emotion and no human feelings, only responding to their every word with sarcasm and satire. It was getting to the point where he couldn�t even have an intelligent conversation with anyone, and it was also almost getting to the point where his friends didn�t even want to try and have an intelligent conversation. The only words exchanged were those of contempt and unhappiness. And it was putting a major strain on the house. Chris hung up the phone happily and strutted into the family room and stood right in front of the television, blocking JC�s view of whatever it was that he was pretending to watch. JC frowned and motioned for him to get out of the way. Chris just stood there, looking elfish in front of his bandmate. �Joshua! Hi again! Haven�t talked to you in a while! How�ve you been? Good? Good! I�m so happy to see you, old man! How it�s going? Good? Good! I kind of-� �Chris! What the hell�can you get out of my way? I was trying to watch that�� �Oh, well, sure! I�d love to get out of your way, but seeing as how I�ve supposedly been in your way all this week, it�s kind of hard to stop the habit now, eh!� �What the hell are you talking about?� �I�m talking about your inability to talk to any of us. I�m talking about how you�ve shut us all out of your mind and out of your life. I�m talking about how one incident, one phenomenon gone wrong has turned you into a monster who can�t even talk to his alleged brothers.� �How did I know that everything any of you had to say to me would have to do with this�� �Because we�re all sick and predictable bastards who love you too much to be able to sit back and watch you deteriorate.� �Yeah, yeah. Sure, sure. If you were all such goods friends, you�d leave me alone and let me sulk until I got over it myself.� �Yeah, like that�ll ever happen.� Lance piped in from all the way in the dining room. JC heard Joey giggle at Lance�s snide comment. �Shut up all of you! Go do something besides listen in on our ending conversation!� JC eyed Chris. Justin sighed. �Whatever, man. I�m glad he�s saying what he�s saying. You haven�t listened to the rest of us when we�ve tried to break you out of your shell. So maybe ole Christopher will be able to do it.� JC groaned, �Anyway, Chris. Like I was saying before, if you were all such good friends, maybe you�d just leave me be and stop pestering me so much.� Chris grinned his usual smart ass grin and replied coolly. �Tell me, Joshua, if I were such a bad friend, would I have called all the way to France just to get you this? Chris wagged a crumpled slip of paper in front of JC and the young man�s eyes widened in realization when he figured out what it was. It seemed as if he�d regained all of the life that was once an integral part of him, but somehow disappeared when she left. It seemed as if JC was himself again. And Chris, along with all the rest of the guys who�d just run into the room to see what the piece of paper was, truly appreciated that. JC looked shakily around at his friends. �Should�sh..should I do it?� Justin stood up straight after examining the paper. �Not to sound corny or whatever, but, only you can decide what you should and shouldn�t do. Personally, after seeing your behavior these past five days, after seeing how you�ve treated all of us, and how you�ve been neglecting yourself, not eating or sleeping or doing any of the things those damn lovesick people don�t do, I think you should do something. If you think this is the right thing for you to do, then by all means, do it. I�m sure I speak for all of us when I say that whatever you choose will be the right decision. But only you can make that decision, Jace.� JC stood up the cough and patted Justin on the back. �When did you get so wise, man?� Chris laughed, �Yeah I know, that�s what I�m saying�� Justin smiled before replying to his older friend. �I observe. I people watch. And oddly enough, I learn from their mistakes. And I know a certain person who was really questioning herself before she got the airport. I know that person wasn�t sure if she was doing the right thing, I saw the flicker of reconsideration in her eyes many times. And I know that if pushed in the right direction by another certain someone, I�m pretty sure that we�ll all be back to the way that we were just a few days ago.� JC stood tall and brushed old cookie crumbs from his shirt. He nodded knowingly and just then decided on what he was going to do. He just hoped it wasn�t too soon, or even too late. *******Three days later Margot groaned as she rolled over to hit her alarm clock off. It was too early, anything before noon was always too early for her. But if she didn�t get up early, she knew that she�d never get up at all. After Chris�s call, she found herself in a deep state of not quite depression, but damn close. She missed him. She missed Justin. She missed Joey and Lance. She missed California. She missed the Malibu house. She missed Justin�s red Mercedes. She missed the beautiful view of the ocean she woke up to every morning. She missed the warm weather. She missed the cool seaside air. She missed the recording studio and the dance studio in the basement. She missed the kitchen and its forever stocked refrigerator. She missed the pans she used to cook her Philly Cheese Steaks in. And she hated to admit it, she absolutely despised admitting it, but she missed Joshua Scott Chasez. She missed everything about him. She missed all the things that she saw everyday in everything everywhere in France. She missed him, and all that was him and all that would never be him. She was disgusted with herself; she didn�t want to miss him so much. But she did. And that morning, eight days after she ran away from California, she realized that she�d made the wrong decision. She shouldn�t have run away. She should have stayed in Malibu and stayed with JC and his friends and she should have stayed with love. She should have stayed with love but she didn�t. And now she feared that he�d moved on already. He was a good looking, not to mention famous guy, she was sure there were millions of women that would do anything to have what she had for a while. His heart. But back then, she didn�t want it, but now that it was most likely too late, she wanted it back. She wanted it more than she�d ever wanted anything in her life. And it was now eating her alive inside. �Now I know what he felt like when I walked out on him eight days ago.� Margot felt like she was on the verge of tears. She had to talk to him. If she didn�t, she�d collapse. She ran to the telephone and flipped madly through the little metal rolodex next to her. She searched for the beach house number and when she found it, her heart shuddered, knowing that it was now do or die. She dialed the area code, the first six numbers, but when she got to the last number, she froze. The doorbell rang. She shook her head, supposing that it was a sign. Guessing that she wasn�t supposed to call him just then, guessing that either she was meant to call him after she answered the door or never at all. Margot sighed desperately as she pressed the off button on her cordless phone. She looked down at her pajama pants and thin t-shirt. She looked awful. And her hair was no doubt insane, but it didn�t matter. Nothing mattered anymore. She shrugged as she walked to her front door, phone in hand and frown on face. She yanked open the door and it was all she could do to keep from collapsing right then and there. The phone fell out of her hand and cracked when it hit the hard tile floor. JC looked amusedly at her ratty pajamas and mussed hair. His eyes traveled upwards and when they saw her own shocked yet tired ones, his expression softened and he took a deep breath. �Hi.� |