History

by >>Jae

Chris was Justin's first grown-up friend. Not because he was old when Justin met him, although he was, but Justin knew lots of older people. They all acted differently around him, though, either treating him with casual condescension, like he was still a baby, or with exaggerated camaraderie, like they were his age. Even JC sometimes, and he'd known JC forever. But Chris treated him the same as he treated everyone else, like he couldn't be bothered to change just for Justin. He didn't put out his cigarette, or push away his drink, or act surprised to see someone Justin's age in a bar. He just nodded to Justin and continued his conversation. Justin looked at him, dark spiky hair, beat-up leather jacket, quick angry eyes, and wondered if he could ever learn to be that cool.

He was a little nervous the first time they all sang together, but he thought he hid it well, and he brushed JC away irritably when he fussed around him. Chris watched him for a few minutes, a hard appraising gaze, and Justin stood up straight and tried his best to meet Chris' eyes. Chris shook his head once, said, "Okay, let's do it," and Justin ruined his careful composure by saying, "You really think I'm good enough?"

Chris looked at him again, the steel back in his eyes, and said, "You've got a good voice, and you move well. But the main thing is you've got a great look, and we need someone your age, and you've been doing this long enough that you're not going to freak out or get called home by your parents just when we're getting somewhere."

Justin gulped, and JC said, "Jesus, Chris!"

"What, you want me to lie?" Chris said. He put a finger under Justin's chin, his touch surprisingly gentle, and turned his face up toward the light. "Your face is your fortune, J." Justin smiled a little. His mother said that to him sometimes, teasingly, but it sounded different in Chris' voice. "And it'll be your future," Chris said. "And with a little luck, it'll be mine."

"He's a kid," JC said in disgust, and Chris turned on him.

"He's got to learn sometime. And if he's been around as much as you say he has, he's probably learned by now."

"I have," Justin said. "I'm not a kid."

Chris and JC spun around toward him, and Justin blushed under their sudden scrutiny. JC grinned, and Chris tousled Justin's hair with a rough hand. "You don't have a goddamn clue," he said, and smiled.

Chris was right, Justin knew. He knew enough to know he'd been awfully protected, but he wasn't totally clear on what he'd been protected from. He knew something bad had happened to JC in LA, but JC never wanted to talk about it with him and he only had the information he'd gleaned from overhearing his mom's half of phone conversations. Someone had ripped JC off, he thought, or been mean to him, and he winced as he realized what a childish way that was to think about it.

The problem was, he had been a loved child, and he knew that really wasn't a problem at all. But when you're loved, it's easy to be lovable, and he had always known he was loved. Even in the Year of the Divorce, which he still thought about in capital letters, what he remembered most vividly, even more than the fights that made him bury his head in his pillow, was hearing that he was loved. "Love you, love you," he had been told, in voices so raw and ragged with emotion it had never occurred to him to doubt it. He had cried that year, cried until his eyes were sore and swollen, until he couldn't catch his breath and scared himself, but there was always someone bending over him, crying with him and wiping his tears away.

When you're loved like that, Justin thought, things are different for you, easier in some ways. You wear that love like a shield, and strangely enough, it's not people who were loved like that who recognize it. It's the ones who weren't, and always wanted to be. A producer at MMC who hated everyone, who made grown men cry in front of the entire studio, who thought nothing of screaming at nine-year-olds, watched Justin make stupid mistakes and said only, "Try again," in a soft voice. It was like she thought Justin had some kind of power, when all he had was love, as boring and familiar as his old T-shirt. He hardly even felt it on his skin.

Justin knew he was lucky, but what people didn't understand was how being loved like that limited you. Every hand that touched him had been gentle, but it had left him soft and unformed. He had been spared unpleasant sights, but that meant he'd hardly seen anything. He tried to explain it once to JC, who had something of that loving sheen himself, but JC was newly back from LA, looking tired and sounding bruised. "Hang onto it a while, Justin, as long as you can," JC had said, and there were unfamiliar clouds in his eyes, a sour twist to his voice. Justin envied him that new maturity, the sophistication of those sharp edges. He heard the bitter knowledge in JC's words, and he wanted to taste it. But JC would never let him.

Chris was different.