Selfish: So What's Wrong With Being Selfish?
by Karen and LB
© 2002
Tabu. Tonight it would seem appropriate to be there. But they're not there, they're at another club in another city. Lance works his way through the crowd, his posse in tow. He wanted to be surrounded by friends tonight, so he was glad that Keri, Gary, Laura, and the crew came down. He needed to get his mind away from the words. Three little words, uttered by his . . . boyfriend two nights ago. They hadn't talked about it since. Lance didn't want to bring it up; he just wanted it to go away.
JC wanders around the club. He shouldn't have come, shouldn't have taken Lance's offhand "you can come if you want," thrown out to all the guys as an invitation to join Lance and his crew. Things had been weird, though, and he was trying to figure out why. He and Lance had spent an amazing, fun, sexy day together a couple of days ago, and since then, everything's been tense.
Lance buys a round of drinks and ushers everyone over to the VIP area. He speaks with the DJ for a few minutes, and soon his favorite songs are blaring from the speakers. Keri pulls him onto the dance floor, and Joey joins them, hamming it up as usual.
JC notices his drink is empty and heads for the bar, which means he has to walk past the dance floor, where Lance seems to be having the time of his life.
Right now, Lance is the meat in a nice Lance sandwich. Joey on one side, Laura on the other, and they're shaking and grinding like nobody's business. On the periphery of the dance floor, he can see JC moving about restlessly but he makes no move to approach him.
JC heads back to the table, fresh drink in hand. He practically runs into Keri, who's come back for her own drink.
"What are you doing, skulking around the table?" Keri asks as she grabs his arm and leads him to the floor.
JC allows himself to be led, and tries to lose himself in the music. Before long, Lance is joined by a group of girls who somehow managed to talk their way into the VIP area. He smiles, he flirts, he even bumps one of them with his butt. He stops thinking and just dances until he's too sweaty to dance anymore at the moment and goes to the bar for another drink. A young man leans against the bar and eyes him. Lance smiles and soon they begin talking.
JC keeps reminding himself he has no claim on Lance. It doesn't help. And it's just so strange. Lance has never thrown it in his face like this, not in all the time they've been dating. Lance hardly ever leaves his own protective circle these days, and now, he's all over everyone.
Lance invites the stranger over to his group, and he introduces him to everyone. Soon, the guy hooks up with Keri and they're all on the dance floor, Lance in the middle, drink in hand. He dances his way through several songs, changing partners, dancing in a group, laughing and having a great time. By the time he takes a break and heads to the men's room, he's drenched in sweat.
JC is coming out of the men's room and practically crashes into Lance. "Whoa! Sorry!"
"Dude!" Lance grabs JC's hand, pulling him into a man-hug. "What's shaking?"
"You are, dude," JC replies, trying deliberately to keep it light.
In response, Lance shakes his ass and giggles. "Having a good time?"
Lance would pick right now to be completely adorable. "You sure are. I'm about ready to head back."
"Okay, I'll see you later." Lance pushes through the men's room door, nature overtaking sensibility. JC sadly watches the closing door, muttering an imagined conversation.
" 'But I haven't danced with you, yet, JC.'
'Aw, I didn't think you even noticed, Lance.'
'Course I noticed.'
'It's not too late.' "
JC notices the weird looks he's getting from a couple standing nearby and decides it really is time to go home. When Lance emerges shortly after, his eyes wander the room. He sees JC by the door with Mike and considers going over. But then he's being pulled over to a table and someone's begging him to talk about the time he and Joey got lost in Germany.
JC looks once more at the laughing group then nods to Mike, walking out into the fresh night air. He shakes his head, trying to clear it. Trying, for the millionth time, to figure out what went wrong.
Lance is swept up in a haze of music, liquor, and laughter. It's nearly dawn when he finally returns to the hotel with his friends and retires to his room. Their room. His room--is JC here? He can't remember what arrangements he made as he slides the key into the lock.
JC, uncharacteristically sleepless, hears Lance coming down the hall and into his room, next door. He considers going to knock on the connecting door, but decides against it.
Lance is practically in a coma by the time his head hits the pillow. But before he reaches unconsciousness he stretches a hand out to the other side of the bed. Empty.
The next morning, they're the last two to make it to breakfast. JC, having decided last night to deal with whatever's going on, asks, "Lance, did I do something wrong? Cause you seem mad at me."
Still not fully awake, Lance blinks. "I do? No, I'm not mad at you. Why would I be mad?"
"I dunno. But you've been kinda . . . weird the last couple of days."
"I have? Like, weird how?"
"Like, like I'm annoying."
Lance pauses, holding his cup of coffee, mid-sip. "Is that really how I've been acting? Because I don't think you're annoying."
"Good. 'Cause if I did something, I wanna know. I wanna fix it."
"You didn't do anything," Lance mumbles over the rim of his cup. "You know I don't get to see my friends very much."
In other words, you're not going to tell me, JC thinks. "Yeah, okay."
"I'm sorry if I haven't been spending much time with you."
"Look, forget I said anything, okay?"
"I just want everything to be cool between us."
"Me, too. So, are we? Cool?"
"Sure. We'll got out tonight, forget about everything."
"Sounds good," JC says, putting it out of his mind that "we'll go out" really means "you, me, and 37 of my closest friends." But he's reminded of it forcibly that night, and every night for weeks to come. Lance keeps insisting that JC come out with him, and JC, not accustomed to the every night thing, gets more and more exhausted. Besides, the more time he supposedly spends with Lance, the more alone he feels.
Lance figures the more they're out, the less time they have to spend alone and the less intense their relationship will be. He tries to convince himself that if they keep this up, it will erase the night JC told him . . . those words . . . "I love you."
JC feels less and less together until finally one night he completely blows the words to This I Promise You. "How do you do it?" he asks Lance that night after the rest of the guys have finished giving him a hard time about it. "I hardly ever sleep, and I see you all the time but I never SEE you. Can't we, like, take a night off? Just us?"
It's when he sees the bags under JC's eyes that Lance realizes maybe he's been pushing JC too hard. Maybe now it's . . . safe. "Yeah, maybe you're right. Maybe we do need a quiet night alone. You wanna rent a movie or something and stay in?"
"Yeah. When?"
"Tomorrow?"
"Like an actual date?"
"Well, yeah. I mean, we'll just rent a movie and order in."
"Cool," JC says, grinning, then laughing when the grin turns into a yawn.
The next night, JC hurries back to his room after the show to shower. He pulls on a blue silk track suit, wanting to be comfortable but still wanting to look good for Lance. After one last glance in the mirror to see that his hair is perfectly tousled, he picks up his key and strolls down to Lance's door. Lance opens the door, dressed to kill, hair lethally spiked, with the scent of expensive cologne clinging to him. "Dude, aren't you kind of dressed up for a night in?"
"Oh, did we have plans? We had plans. Shit. Listen, Keri wants to go out--there's this premiere and she's only here for like another day. I told her I'd get her in. Can we do the movie tomorrow?"
"And tomorrow it will be something else. Can't someone else take her?"
"I'm her best friend, JC. She's leaving the day after tomorrow. I won't get to see her for a while. And it's not like she gets to go to movie premieres every day like us."
"That's not fair, Lance. I'm not trying to wreck your friendship or anything. But you knew she was leaving when you made plans with me. Blowing me off is blowing me off, no matter what your reasons."
"I'm not blowing you off. Just postponing. I didn't know about the premiere until today. This will mean so much to Keri. We can stay in any night."
"But will we? What's going to make the next time you promise me something any different? And what am I supposed to do tonight? Knit?"
"I don't know, JC. I didn't realize we had to do everything together. What did you do before we went out?"
"You can be such a bastard, Lance. I didn't say we had to do everything together. But we had plans. I could have done something else, but I said no, because we had plans. I didn't realize I needed a back-up."
"I don't see what the big deal is, JC. All we were gonna do was stay in. Keri's not gonna be here forever."
"You don't get it, do you? It doesn't matter what our plans were. It matters that you have absolutely no problem breaking them. You didn't even REMEMBER."
"It was just a movie." Lance fights to keep his voice even. It's rare that any of them gets into a shouting match. "I can't believe we're even arguing about this."
"We're not." JC walks out of the room, not giving in to the temptation to slam the door.
"Whatever," Lance says to the empty room. It's not like JC couldn't come. He calls JC's room and leaves a message where they'll be and heads off to pick up Keri.
JC ignores the ringing phone as he strips off his clothing and slips into more comforting soft old sweats. Heading for his keyboard and notebooks, he notices the message light is blinking. He dials in for the message, making a face as he listens. "Gee, thanks," he mutters sarcastically into the phone.
During the movie, Lance's mind keeps wandering back to JC. He can't figure out his bandmate. He's known him for years, but right now he seems like a complete stranger. If JC really was in love with Lance, Lance would think JC would understand when he wanted to spend time with his friends from home. It's not like he doesn't see JC every day. Maybe that's the problem; maybe he's been seeing JC too much. Ever since JC uttered those words, Lance had wanted to put some distance between them, so maybe this was inevitable.
JC spends a couple of hours trying to write, getting nowhere. He just doesn't understand Lance at all. JC has tried very hard not to ask much of Lance, and just accept what he wants to give. But Lance wouldn't blow off any of his other friends like this. Still, JC feels incredibly lonely. Resigned, he digs out the spare key to Lance's room and goes back there, crawling into the bed and breathing in the faint scent of Lance that clings to the room. Finally, he falls into a fitful sleep.
Like a bad rerun, Lance returns just as the sun is rising. The premiere was fun, the afterparty even better, and the clubbing after that now a hazy memory. He falls with a thud on the bed, colliding with the sleeping form of his bandmate.
JC is actually awake, but he feigns sleep. He needed to feel Lance close to him one more time, but he's afraid that if Lance knows he's awake, Lance will want to make love. No, JC corrects himself. Have sex. Because he was deluding himself if he ever thought it was more. And if they did, JC knows he wouldn't be able to do what he now knows he has to do.
Lance rolls off JC, onto his stomach, still fully clothed although very disheveled and smelling like cigarette smoke. The part of his brain still aware wonders why JC is here, since he seemed so pissed last night.
JC waits for Lance to fall asleep, then allows himself to drift off again. A few hours later, JC wakes up and crawls out of bed, sitting in a chair and waiting for Lance to wake up.
Lance groans and stretches. He wishes he could sleep for days, but he senses someone watching him. His eyelids flicker until he's finally able to focus on the form across from him, a lone silhouette in the dark. "What time is it?"
JC glances at the clock. "About 11."
Lance puts a pillow over his head and mutters, "What are you doing up?"
"Waiting for you to wake up so I could say goodbye."
"Oh, okay. You didn't have to wait. I'll catch you later, after I shower.
"That's not what I meant. Goodbye for good. Back to being nothing more than bandmates."
Still foggy from sleep and alcohol, Lance lifts his head as best he can. "Huh?"
"Look, Lance. I'm not blaming you. You told me how it was going to be from the beginning. But I let myself hope . . . that if things were good, if we got closer . . . But it didn't work out that way. And I can't do this anymore."
"Can we have this conversation later? I'm barely awake."
"Do you have any idea what it took for me to say these things?"
"This isn't fair, you laying this on me now."
"Last night wasn't fair, but that didn't stop you."
"I don't know what you want from me."
"Nothing. Which is good, cause that's clearly what I'm gonna get."
"JC, I'm sorry. But can we please talk about this later?"
"When?"
"When I'm awake."
"Which means never," JC mutters under his breath. "Fine," he says aloud. "But today."
"Yeah, okay, promise," Lance mumbles, already falling back to sleep.
"And you always keep your promises," JC says softly as he walks out of the room.
This barely registers as the darkness envelops Lance, and it's hours before he wakes up and staggers out of bed for the shower. He has a half hour before they have to leave for the stadium. Judging by the sight of his clothes, it's no wonder JC left. JC. The conversation floats back in pieces. Things turned sour fast. But it's not like either of them didn't see it coming. They both wanted different things. It's better this way. Really. On the way out of the hotel, Lance skips up next to JC. "Ride with me, okay?"
"Fine," JC says, tersely. Once on the bus, Lance steers JC to the back, telling Joey they have some personal business to discuss. The boys have always been respectful of each other's privacy over the years, so they never question when members work out their problems between themselves. When the door is closed, Lance takes a deep breath. "Listen, I'm sorry about last night. And this morning."
JC's pain is quickly turning to anger. He can't believe Lance expects him to have this conversation now. On the bus, with Joey and Steve on the other side of the door. With about ten minutes before they have to get off and mix with other people. "Yeah, you're all torn up about this."
"You think this is easy for me? JC, I never meant to hurt you."
All the anger drains out of JC. "I know. I meant what I said this morning. I'm not blaming you. You told me how it was going to be. I just hoped . . . " JC swallows hard.
Lance puts a hand on JC's shoulder. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry it turned out this way. I'm sorry if I led you to believe there was anything more. I never meant for you to get hurt."
"I . . . I always knew I was never going to come first with you, you know? But I didn't think . . . I would always come last."
"You're not last, JC. You're my best friend. I'm just not ready for more."
"Lance, you never once chose to be with me when you had any other alternative. Maybe because you knew I'd always be there when you came back. I don't know. But it feels like last to me."
"I never intended this to be serious, JC. Not that way. I can't handle that right now. There's too much going on, with the tour and the album and the movie. I don't have time for a serious relationship. But our friendship means more to me than all of that. I'm sorry if it seemed I took you for granted."
"You're not listening to me. It's just like last night, when you kept saying 'it was only a night in.' It doesn't matter what our plans were. It matters that you were willing to blow them off without a thought. I never asked you to get serious. All I asked was that you would treat me with the same respect you would a friend, which you stopped doing the minute we started sleeping together."
JC might as well have slapped Lance physically, such is the sting of those words. "You think it was all about sex? Is that what you REALLY think? You think I'm that much of an asshole?"
"Lance, you didn't even bother to make time so we could have this conversation privately. 'Gee, JC's really upset. I guess those 15 minutes when I'm stuck on the bus anyway will do.' "
Lance falls onto the couch with a sigh, running his hand nervously through his hair. "We have a show to do. We don't HAVE the luxury of time. And I don't look at this as being stuck. I'm trying to talk to you but you keep throwing it back in my face."
"Yeah, we have a show to do. Which makes this the worst possible time to do this. I waited for you all day. If this mattered to you at all, you would have made time."
"I'm sorry," Lance says softly. "I'm sorry about last night and I'm sorry you were hurt. I, um, . . . maybe it was a mistake for us to get involved at all."
JC looks at Lance. "Maybe," he says, but his pain-filled eyes tell a different story.
"I really care about you, JC. I know you don't believe that right now, but I do."
"I'm going to miss you so much."
"I'm still here."
"It won't be the same."
"I'm sorry I can't give you more. But I don't want to lose your friendship either."
JC sighs. "Me either. But we both deserve better. I deserve someone who can love me back. And you deserve someone who you CAN love back." There it is, the sting again. But maybe JC is right. Maybe Lance isn't allowing himself to be in love. "I-I hope you find him."
JC looks up again, his eyes very blue and wet with unshed tears. "You, too."
Lance stands and enfolds JC in his arms, just as the bus comes to a stop. "I'm so sorry."
JC hugs Lance hard, clinging to him for a moment, but he's the first to step away.
Lance lets JC go, creating a space between them that he knows will only grow wider in the coming weeks. He hopes with time that they can get back to the place they were before they crossed the line between friendship and lovers. But already, strangely, he feels a tinge of regret.
JC gets through most of the concert on auto-pilot, depending on years of training to carry him through. And it does. He sings, he dances, he smiles at the audience, and no one would every guess his heart isn't in it.
Until Selfish.
Alone at the end of the catwalk, he pours his heart into the song. By the time he gets to the bridge, tears are sliding down his face, but he doesn't miss a note. He just sings it like he's never sung it before, with all the passion and pain inside.
Lance hears it, hears it all, and his heart almost breaks. He's grateful for the cover of his bandmates when they get to chorus, because his voice cracks and he finds that he can't sing the words.
" . . . so what's wrong with being selfish?"
The words seem to hang in the air around Lance. And for the next several weeks they haunt him. What's wrong with being selfish?
Everything.