Post by Joel Carter Foster on Nov 15, 2012 19:45:00 GMT -5
Joel looked over his shoulder at the tour bus, feeling kind of bad about what he’d done. He just needed to get out, leave. And everyone was asleep. But fucking Justin. Easy enough, a few sleeping pills in his drink had knocked his ass out. He hesitated just for a moment, knowing everything he had was on that bus, except his wallet. He needed cash and his I.D. to be able to get places. But his phone, computer, all means of contact were on it. But instead of going back, he lowered his head and climbed into the back of the cab. “ Airport, please” he said quickly, sliding to the middle of the seat. It was the anxious feeling that he had, ever since Tori had been on the bus and left. He could love her. He did love her. He loved her, that didn’t mean he was in love. But wasn’t that enough? He could give her the life she wanted and that she deserved. He had made a promise and Joel was nothing if he wasn’t a man that kept his promises. He would never be anything like David. He didn’t keep his promises. He wasn’t there when Joel needed him. But he just needed away from everything. Was he seriously at this point in his life? Two years ago if someone had said he would be the most famous, - there was a difference between successful and famous - , music acts of all time he wouldn’t have believed it. How was Blake more successful than him, but he couldn’t do anything without paparazzi being in his face? How were Shane and Ryan so much more talented than him, but still able to live normal lives. He wanted it, he signed up for it, he worked his ass for it. But what the hell was he doing? He was a kid. How was he effecting this many people? How was he getting married? Joel closed his eyes as he leaned forward, wrapping his hands around the back of his head, trying his best to stable his breathing.
Once the cab stopped Joel almost bolted out of it like his ass was on fire, “ Thanks!” he yelled out, moving his way through the crowd. This would have been easier if he weren’t underage, trying to keep a low radar, and a full U.S. citizen. Thankfully most people could be bought. He’d ditched his staple Supra’s and was wearing a hat low against his head trying his best to fit in. The thing with celebrities is that sometimes when they tried to make themselves ‘fit in’, they stood out more. Who the fuck wore sunglasses at night? People trying to stay incognito. Who did that? Criminals and celebrities. So instead Joel just kept his head down. In fact he didn’t even care if he was flying first class. So when the seating started for coach he came to his seat and slid into it, laying his head against the window before he brought his hoodie up over his face so he could get some sleep. It was going to be a long flight home. He didn’t eat the entire flight, which meant that he hadn’t eaten anything in about thirty-six hours. Twenty hour flight, refused to eat for the last half of the day before. He stared out into the darkness, wondering what it would be like to just fall into it. And part of him wondered what was going on with the people that cared about him. Tori. Libby. Bentley. Madeline.Ryan. Logan.Justin. Surely they had all woken up on the bus like..twelve hours ago, wondering where the hell he was, who had talked to him last. He just wanted to slip away. He’d done it once, it had lasted a few months. But he wanted one day to himself, to be anyone other than ‘Joel Foster’. Who he was on stage was he was in real life, but he was starting to wonder just who in the hell exactly that was. His image was changing, as it should. He was getting married. When the plane landed he didn’t want around to look for a bag, he hadn’t brought one. Instead he hailed a cab as quickly as he could, starting to feel like maybe he was a criminal after all.
Joel brought his fist up to the door, knocking against it quickly. He hadn’t brought a key. But the person behind the door was quick to answer, flinging it open, wrapping her arms tightly around him. “ Joel Foster if you ever pull a stunt like that again I swear on all that is holy your father will ring your neck” his mom said, squeezing him so tightly that he started to squirm under her grasp. He didn’t know the stress that him ‘disappearing’ had put on his mom and dad, and for that he felt a little guilty. Nor was he aware of the fact that they hadn’t eaten either, that they had called Madeline and Ryan just hours after he disappeared and asked them to come to South Africa to be together as a family just incase they needed to be. There was no way he could have known any of that, because neither of them were saying a word to him aside from just squeezing him tightly. Almost immediately his dad was pulling him back, looking him over so he could inspect him – cuts, bruises, alcohol? He watched as his dad shook his head before clapping him on the back and hugging him. “ You’re always welcome home, Joel. Just don’t scare us like that.. not after.. not after what happened with last time and the coma. Or not after what happened with David. Don’t do it again. Do you understand?”. Joel licked his lips, bringing his eyes up to his dad. “ Do you think that maybe David had it right all along?” he asked and he watched the expression on his father face, it was one that he had only seen a few times in his life. The wheels turning behind his eyes, the not knowing what to say. “ Come on,” he said, heading inside the house to try and find something for Joel to eat.
It was no use. It wasn’t that he was intentionally trying to not eat. He had no appetite at all whatsoever. But he pretended for his mom, making the sandwich disappear thanks to the help of the family dog. “ I’m gonna go for a run,” Joel said, going into his old room where he pulled out a pair of basketball shorts and shoes. No need for a shirt or a hat. In this neighborhood people didn’t really care who he was. He was just the annoying kid who did pranks around the neighborhood with Bentley. “ You better be coming back this time. Don’t make your mother cry like that again intentionally” his dad said with a threatening tone before Joel gave a slight salute, placing his earphones in before he bolted out the door. Runs were always nice for clearing your head. Or if you were Joel, being left to your own thoughts consumed you. He wanted to be home, and at the same time it was where he became his own worst enemy. It was a tough battle in his head – wanting to be who Logan had created him as, and wanting to be able to live a normal life. But he had asked for it. He’d jumped on that desk and demanded it. And honestly… what would he be without it? It was his destiny. This was who he was meant to be as a person. He would never survive in a world of office desk jobs and anonymity. But it seemed like the more he exposed his personality and talents to the world, the more enclosed he became about his private life. There was a huge difference in being yourself, giving your personality to the world and fans, and people actually knowing the inner-workings of your mind. He had left to run when it was light out. Hours later, and it was dark, so dark in fact that he slowed his pace for the first time, looking around the neighborhood. He placed his hands on his hips, breathing in and out as deeply as he could . Seriously. How the fuck had he gotten here.. in this point, in his life. He closed his eyes, taking a slight step back before he turned around and started running back home. Wouldn’t it be nice if life was that way? You could get lost on your path but at the end of the day you always ended up where you belong. Life was not like that at all. You got lost.. sometimes you stayed lost.
Joel pushed open the door of David’s room. It hadn’t been touched at all since the day he killed himself. His bed tucked in neatly where he had left. How kind, how thoughtful… wouldn’t want to leave a mess behind now would we? He’d already left the biggest one in Joel. He moved to the desk, starting to open drawers,pulling them each out as he started to push each of the belongings through them. Nothing. Tearing open folders, files, even turning on the computer. “ Come on,” he said, licking his lips as he watched it boot up. It hadn’t been turned on in years, this was going to take a while. Impatiently he straightened up, going over to the closet where he started tearing down boxes, dropping them down to the ground, digging through coat pockets. He was in the middle of opening David’s schoolbag when his dad stepped in the doorway. “ There’s someone here to se-.. what are you doing?” his dad questioned and Joel turned, still able to feel the sweat on his chest as he watched him. “ There has to be something.. We’re missing something. We all fucking missed something,” he screamed out at him, throwing the backpack across the room. “ Oh my gosh,” his mom said quietly , though she was talking to some voices in the hallway, that he should be able to recognize but his own father was talking over them. “ Joel you need to think about what you’re doing,” he said and Joel widened his eyes. “ What I’m doing? I’m doing something! What the hell did you two do? What did Madeline do? We didn’t do anything! That’s the fucking problem! Are you going to help me or not?!” he yelled, pointing at the door as though to give his dad an option.
The expectation was that his father would join him, which he didn’t really want. He wanted to be mad. If his father joined then his mother would, and no one could be mad around her. He wanted to hate him for what he did. Fuck you for cleaning your room before you killed yourself. Fuck you for not having any dirty laundry.. what was the dirty laundry you kept secret that caused all of this. Fuck you for underestimating what you were doing and the effects it would have. Fuck you for being too weak for this life. Joel got down on his hands and knees, reaching under the bed where he felt a duffel bag. But when he pulled it out he heard the clink of the glass and looked in, seeing the bottle of scotch and stared down at it. Fuck you. Joel straightened up, twisting the top off before he brought the glass bottle to his lips and tilted his head back. Have you ever chugged three quarters of a scotch bottle in less than two minutes? Because he was pretty sure he lowered it from his mouth and coughed at the taste at least a dozen times. Once it was empty he tossed it onto the bed, making a face at the disgusting burn at drinking that much that quickly and coughed. He could go into David’s bathroom, rinse his mouth out with water. But it would pass eventually, the burning would go away. Joel brought both of his hands to the doorway of David’s bedroom, trying to hear the voices that were coming from downstairs. What fucking company would stick around during a mental breakdown? There was a problem with drinking that much – it fucked you up quickly, especially when you hadn’t eaten.
Joel leaned against the side of the doorframe, blinking before he turned around to look at the room. “ Fuck you,” he screamed at it, gripping his hands up at the top of his hair. Joel took a step back, entering the hallway before he made his way back to his room.
There were people his entire life that had told him that he had no right to be angry, that David was the one going through something. You couldn’t be mad at someone that wasn’t there anymore, that didn’t exist. He played nice, he didn’t bug Madeline about it. It was too painful for her to talk about, she had different memories of David than Joel did. He only talked about it with a few people – mainly Ryan, Bentley, occasionally Lance and Jake. But Ryan. That was the only person who knew everything about Joel. He was the only one that Joel felt he could tell everything. I’m scared to get married. I hate my brother. I don’t think people would have liked me if it wasn’t for Logan. I thought becoming famous would mean people wouldn’t leave me the way David did. Joel didn’t leave a mess of things. Ever. He kept his word, he showed up for work, he took care of his friends. He did everything to keep from being the man that David was. Joel went into his closet, taking a grip of the baseball bat before he came back out into the hallway, twirling it lazily as he went back into David’s room. He eyeballed the shelf on the wall, the trophies and ribbons. He clenched his jaw, bringing the baseball bat up before he swung it as hard as he could against all of them, crashing them to the floor. He turned, violently swinging the bat at the computer, the desk, the lamps in the bedroom, the mirror against the wall. He wanted to break something of David’s the way he had broken him. With each thing he slammed the bat against he felt the lump in his throat harden a little bit more, and as he lifted the bat into the air to strike again he felt it being ripped from his grip. When he turned around he saw Ryan, throwing the baseball bat behind him to the ground towards the entryway before he came to Joel’s side and wrapped his arms around, holding him as tightly as he could. Joel fought at first, trying to push him away, but Ryan was there. He wasn’t going anywhere, he would always be there. Though he was still attempting to get away, his fight had become much more subdued, enough to the point where he could hear Ryan speaking to his parents, and to Madeline who Joel just noticed standing in the doorway, “ Could you guys possibly go downstairs? We’ll meet you there in a bit” he said, tightening his arms around Joel.
“ I hate him,” Joel said, feeling his voice straining from the alcohol,fighting, holding back his tears. But he continued to repeat it, nearly screaming it at the top of his lungs. How far they had come in their relationship – from fighting Ryan and telling him that he hated him for trying to be David, to Ryan with his arms around him and Joel admitting how much of him hated David. What if he killed himself because he didn’t know who he was anymore. Wasn’t that the path that Joel was on? “ You can’t let me lose myself” he said, finally gripping his hand against the back of Ryan’s shirt as he held onto him, clutching it tightly in his fists.What was he asking from him? Don’t let me get married? Don’t let me let Libby walk out of my life? Don’t let me forget who I am? They could have sat there for hours, but Ryan’s grip never weakened. And it wasn’t until Joel had been completely silent for a few moments, the angry breathing calmed, his head against Ryans chest which he was sure had his disgusting tears on it, his hand clutched in the of his hair that he realized he owed him an apology. “ I’m sorry if I scared you,’ he said, referring to the fact that he had disappeared without a trace. “ Apology accepted,” he said simply, and that was the beauty of it. That was the beauty of their relationship. He didn’t think he could describe his friendship with Ryan to anyone, because there was no one he felt that could genuinely understand it. It was the simplicity of how much they genuinely loved one another as if they had come from the same soul, not blood, but soul.
Ryan was the only person who could get him to come down, get him to see reason – even if it meant letting him make a mess of himself ,the only person he felt he could breathe around, and according to the many ‘thank you’s’ by his mother, was the only person who was capable of getting him to eat tonight. So he sat on the couch, watching some movie that they had put on after his mom went to get his favorite burger, fries and shake from the burger joint a few blocks away. Even Madeline was eating a burger, which was a strange sight, but he figured she was trying to show him that she was there too. He was spent, emotionally exhausted, physically worn out. He had fallen asleep against the couch, where he pretty much slept until it was time to leave. He did have to be back in the States for a performance at the AMA’s. “ I’m good, man” he promised Ryan, giving him a hug quickly. He didn’t think any of them really trusted him heading back to the states alone. But he knew Ryan was going on tour soon and he didn’t feel like making him fly out of Africa just getting there when he knew he would want to spend time with the family. “ I’ll see you on the road I’m sure,” he said, before moving over to hug Madeline, giving her a quick kiss on the cheek. After saying goodbye to his mom and dad he waved, heading to the cab. Joel took it a bit easier this time flying. He didn’t mind so much that people knew where he was . Coming to the States wasn’t a secret, getting here without anybody stopping him had been. He had literally never skipped an entire rehearsal in his entire career.
So the second he got to out of the airport, over to the hotel that they had gotten for the long rehearsal weekend he was supposed to be at, taken a quick shower and gone down to the bus, he ignored everyone as he went inside, picking up his phone which looked like it had been charged. Probably because Logan told Justin to or something. Either way, he wasn’t in the mood to talk to anybody. So instead he slipped his phone into his back pocket, picking up his motorcycle helmet before he hopped off the bus and made his way over to his motorcycle. It was easier to get traffic, not to mention weave his way away from the paparazzi and distance them when they couldn’t scrabble to keep up and switch lanes like he could. He revved the bike into gear before he lowered the face shield on his helmet and took off, ignoring Justin who was screaming at him. It wasn’t until he got to the setting for the awards that he realized he should probably call Libby. It wasn’t right of him to worry his fiancé like that. Or Libby. Joel pinched the bridge of his nose, feeling the stress start to resurface as he walked into the building, draping the motorcycle helmet loosely by his fingertips. But as soon as he saw his crew he lit up into a smile, “ Hey guys, I’m so sorry.. I swear to God I will make it up to you,” he said, knowing it was true. He made a promise , he kept it. It was just a matter of finding out how to make it up to them. “ Think we can put on a good show tonight?” he asked, tossing his helmet off to the side before he started to peel off the hoodie over his t-shirt. “ Let’s do some work,” he said, throwing it down on the ground before he walked out onto the stage.
Once the cab stopped Joel almost bolted out of it like his ass was on fire, “ Thanks!” he yelled out, moving his way through the crowd. This would have been easier if he weren’t underage, trying to keep a low radar, and a full U.S. citizen. Thankfully most people could be bought. He’d ditched his staple Supra’s and was wearing a hat low against his head trying his best to fit in. The thing with celebrities is that sometimes when they tried to make themselves ‘fit in’, they stood out more. Who the fuck wore sunglasses at night? People trying to stay incognito. Who did that? Criminals and celebrities. So instead Joel just kept his head down. In fact he didn’t even care if he was flying first class. So when the seating started for coach he came to his seat and slid into it, laying his head against the window before he brought his hoodie up over his face so he could get some sleep. It was going to be a long flight home. He didn’t eat the entire flight, which meant that he hadn’t eaten anything in about thirty-six hours. Twenty hour flight, refused to eat for the last half of the day before. He stared out into the darkness, wondering what it would be like to just fall into it. And part of him wondered what was going on with the people that cared about him. Tori. Libby. Bentley. Madeline.Ryan. Logan.Justin. Surely they had all woken up on the bus like..twelve hours ago, wondering where the hell he was, who had talked to him last. He just wanted to slip away. He’d done it once, it had lasted a few months. But he wanted one day to himself, to be anyone other than ‘Joel Foster’. Who he was on stage was he was in real life, but he was starting to wonder just who in the hell exactly that was. His image was changing, as it should. He was getting married. When the plane landed he didn’t want around to look for a bag, he hadn’t brought one. Instead he hailed a cab as quickly as he could, starting to feel like maybe he was a criminal after all.
Joel brought his fist up to the door, knocking against it quickly. He hadn’t brought a key. But the person behind the door was quick to answer, flinging it open, wrapping her arms tightly around him. “ Joel Foster if you ever pull a stunt like that again I swear on all that is holy your father will ring your neck” his mom said, squeezing him so tightly that he started to squirm under her grasp. He didn’t know the stress that him ‘disappearing’ had put on his mom and dad, and for that he felt a little guilty. Nor was he aware of the fact that they hadn’t eaten either, that they had called Madeline and Ryan just hours after he disappeared and asked them to come to South Africa to be together as a family just incase they needed to be. There was no way he could have known any of that, because neither of them were saying a word to him aside from just squeezing him tightly. Almost immediately his dad was pulling him back, looking him over so he could inspect him – cuts, bruises, alcohol? He watched as his dad shook his head before clapping him on the back and hugging him. “ You’re always welcome home, Joel. Just don’t scare us like that.. not after.. not after what happened with last time and the coma. Or not after what happened with David. Don’t do it again. Do you understand?”. Joel licked his lips, bringing his eyes up to his dad. “ Do you think that maybe David had it right all along?” he asked and he watched the expression on his father face, it was one that he had only seen a few times in his life. The wheels turning behind his eyes, the not knowing what to say. “ Come on,” he said, heading inside the house to try and find something for Joel to eat.
It was no use. It wasn’t that he was intentionally trying to not eat. He had no appetite at all whatsoever. But he pretended for his mom, making the sandwich disappear thanks to the help of the family dog. “ I’m gonna go for a run,” Joel said, going into his old room where he pulled out a pair of basketball shorts and shoes. No need for a shirt or a hat. In this neighborhood people didn’t really care who he was. He was just the annoying kid who did pranks around the neighborhood with Bentley. “ You better be coming back this time. Don’t make your mother cry like that again intentionally” his dad said with a threatening tone before Joel gave a slight salute, placing his earphones in before he bolted out the door. Runs were always nice for clearing your head. Or if you were Joel, being left to your own thoughts consumed you. He wanted to be home, and at the same time it was where he became his own worst enemy. It was a tough battle in his head – wanting to be who Logan had created him as, and wanting to be able to live a normal life. But he had asked for it. He’d jumped on that desk and demanded it. And honestly… what would he be without it? It was his destiny. This was who he was meant to be as a person. He would never survive in a world of office desk jobs and anonymity. But it seemed like the more he exposed his personality and talents to the world, the more enclosed he became about his private life. There was a huge difference in being yourself, giving your personality to the world and fans, and people actually knowing the inner-workings of your mind. He had left to run when it was light out. Hours later, and it was dark, so dark in fact that he slowed his pace for the first time, looking around the neighborhood. He placed his hands on his hips, breathing in and out as deeply as he could . Seriously. How the fuck had he gotten here.. in this point, in his life. He closed his eyes, taking a slight step back before he turned around and started running back home. Wouldn’t it be nice if life was that way? You could get lost on your path but at the end of the day you always ended up where you belong. Life was not like that at all. You got lost.. sometimes you stayed lost.
Joel pushed open the door of David’s room. It hadn’t been touched at all since the day he killed himself. His bed tucked in neatly where he had left. How kind, how thoughtful… wouldn’t want to leave a mess behind now would we? He’d already left the biggest one in Joel. He moved to the desk, starting to open drawers,pulling them each out as he started to push each of the belongings through them. Nothing. Tearing open folders, files, even turning on the computer. “ Come on,” he said, licking his lips as he watched it boot up. It hadn’t been turned on in years, this was going to take a while. Impatiently he straightened up, going over to the closet where he started tearing down boxes, dropping them down to the ground, digging through coat pockets. He was in the middle of opening David’s schoolbag when his dad stepped in the doorway. “ There’s someone here to se-.. what are you doing?” his dad questioned and Joel turned, still able to feel the sweat on his chest as he watched him. “ There has to be something.. We’re missing something. We all fucking missed something,” he screamed out at him, throwing the backpack across the room. “ Oh my gosh,” his mom said quietly , though she was talking to some voices in the hallway, that he should be able to recognize but his own father was talking over them. “ Joel you need to think about what you’re doing,” he said and Joel widened his eyes. “ What I’m doing? I’m doing something! What the hell did you two do? What did Madeline do? We didn’t do anything! That’s the fucking problem! Are you going to help me or not?!” he yelled, pointing at the door as though to give his dad an option.
The expectation was that his father would join him, which he didn’t really want. He wanted to be mad. If his father joined then his mother would, and no one could be mad around her. He wanted to hate him for what he did. Fuck you for cleaning your room before you killed yourself. Fuck you for not having any dirty laundry.. what was the dirty laundry you kept secret that caused all of this. Fuck you for underestimating what you were doing and the effects it would have. Fuck you for being too weak for this life. Joel got down on his hands and knees, reaching under the bed where he felt a duffel bag. But when he pulled it out he heard the clink of the glass and looked in, seeing the bottle of scotch and stared down at it. Fuck you. Joel straightened up, twisting the top off before he brought the glass bottle to his lips and tilted his head back. Have you ever chugged three quarters of a scotch bottle in less than two minutes? Because he was pretty sure he lowered it from his mouth and coughed at the taste at least a dozen times. Once it was empty he tossed it onto the bed, making a face at the disgusting burn at drinking that much that quickly and coughed. He could go into David’s bathroom, rinse his mouth out with water. But it would pass eventually, the burning would go away. Joel brought both of his hands to the doorway of David’s bedroom, trying to hear the voices that were coming from downstairs. What fucking company would stick around during a mental breakdown? There was a problem with drinking that much – it fucked you up quickly, especially when you hadn’t eaten.
Joel leaned against the side of the doorframe, blinking before he turned around to look at the room. “ Fuck you,” he screamed at it, gripping his hands up at the top of his hair. Joel took a step back, entering the hallway before he made his way back to his room.
There were people his entire life that had told him that he had no right to be angry, that David was the one going through something. You couldn’t be mad at someone that wasn’t there anymore, that didn’t exist. He played nice, he didn’t bug Madeline about it. It was too painful for her to talk about, she had different memories of David than Joel did. He only talked about it with a few people – mainly Ryan, Bentley, occasionally Lance and Jake. But Ryan. That was the only person who knew everything about Joel. He was the only one that Joel felt he could tell everything. I’m scared to get married. I hate my brother. I don’t think people would have liked me if it wasn’t for Logan. I thought becoming famous would mean people wouldn’t leave me the way David did. Joel didn’t leave a mess of things. Ever. He kept his word, he showed up for work, he took care of his friends. He did everything to keep from being the man that David was. Joel went into his closet, taking a grip of the baseball bat before he came back out into the hallway, twirling it lazily as he went back into David’s room. He eyeballed the shelf on the wall, the trophies and ribbons. He clenched his jaw, bringing the baseball bat up before he swung it as hard as he could against all of them, crashing them to the floor. He turned, violently swinging the bat at the computer, the desk, the lamps in the bedroom, the mirror against the wall. He wanted to break something of David’s the way he had broken him. With each thing he slammed the bat against he felt the lump in his throat harden a little bit more, and as he lifted the bat into the air to strike again he felt it being ripped from his grip. When he turned around he saw Ryan, throwing the baseball bat behind him to the ground towards the entryway before he came to Joel’s side and wrapped his arms around, holding him as tightly as he could. Joel fought at first, trying to push him away, but Ryan was there. He wasn’t going anywhere, he would always be there. Though he was still attempting to get away, his fight had become much more subdued, enough to the point where he could hear Ryan speaking to his parents, and to Madeline who Joel just noticed standing in the doorway, “ Could you guys possibly go downstairs? We’ll meet you there in a bit” he said, tightening his arms around Joel.
“ I hate him,” Joel said, feeling his voice straining from the alcohol,fighting, holding back his tears. But he continued to repeat it, nearly screaming it at the top of his lungs. How far they had come in their relationship – from fighting Ryan and telling him that he hated him for trying to be David, to Ryan with his arms around him and Joel admitting how much of him hated David. What if he killed himself because he didn’t know who he was anymore. Wasn’t that the path that Joel was on? “ You can’t let me lose myself” he said, finally gripping his hand against the back of Ryan’s shirt as he held onto him, clutching it tightly in his fists.What was he asking from him? Don’t let me get married? Don’t let me let Libby walk out of my life? Don’t let me forget who I am? They could have sat there for hours, but Ryan’s grip never weakened. And it wasn’t until Joel had been completely silent for a few moments, the angry breathing calmed, his head against Ryans chest which he was sure had his disgusting tears on it, his hand clutched in the of his hair that he realized he owed him an apology. “ I’m sorry if I scared you,’ he said, referring to the fact that he had disappeared without a trace. “ Apology accepted,” he said simply, and that was the beauty of it. That was the beauty of their relationship. He didn’t think he could describe his friendship with Ryan to anyone, because there was no one he felt that could genuinely understand it. It was the simplicity of how much they genuinely loved one another as if they had come from the same soul, not blood, but soul.
Ryan was the only person who could get him to come down, get him to see reason – even if it meant letting him make a mess of himself ,the only person he felt he could breathe around, and according to the many ‘thank you’s’ by his mother, was the only person who was capable of getting him to eat tonight. So he sat on the couch, watching some movie that they had put on after his mom went to get his favorite burger, fries and shake from the burger joint a few blocks away. Even Madeline was eating a burger, which was a strange sight, but he figured she was trying to show him that she was there too. He was spent, emotionally exhausted, physically worn out. He had fallen asleep against the couch, where he pretty much slept until it was time to leave. He did have to be back in the States for a performance at the AMA’s. “ I’m good, man” he promised Ryan, giving him a hug quickly. He didn’t think any of them really trusted him heading back to the states alone. But he knew Ryan was going on tour soon and he didn’t feel like making him fly out of Africa just getting there when he knew he would want to spend time with the family. “ I’ll see you on the road I’m sure,” he said, before moving over to hug Madeline, giving her a quick kiss on the cheek. After saying goodbye to his mom and dad he waved, heading to the cab. Joel took it a bit easier this time flying. He didn’t mind so much that people knew where he was . Coming to the States wasn’t a secret, getting here without anybody stopping him had been. He had literally never skipped an entire rehearsal in his entire career.
So the second he got to out of the airport, over to the hotel that they had gotten for the long rehearsal weekend he was supposed to be at, taken a quick shower and gone down to the bus, he ignored everyone as he went inside, picking up his phone which looked like it had been charged. Probably because Logan told Justin to or something. Either way, he wasn’t in the mood to talk to anybody. So instead he slipped his phone into his back pocket, picking up his motorcycle helmet before he hopped off the bus and made his way over to his motorcycle. It was easier to get traffic, not to mention weave his way away from the paparazzi and distance them when they couldn’t scrabble to keep up and switch lanes like he could. He revved the bike into gear before he lowered the face shield on his helmet and took off, ignoring Justin who was screaming at him. It wasn’t until he got to the setting for the awards that he realized he should probably call Libby. It wasn’t right of him to worry his fiancé like that. Or Libby. Joel pinched the bridge of his nose, feeling the stress start to resurface as he walked into the building, draping the motorcycle helmet loosely by his fingertips. But as soon as he saw his crew he lit up into a smile, “ Hey guys, I’m so sorry.. I swear to God I will make it up to you,” he said, knowing it was true. He made a promise , he kept it. It was just a matter of finding out how to make it up to them. “ Think we can put on a good show tonight?” he asked, tossing his helmet off to the side before he started to peel off the hoodie over his t-shirt. “ Let’s do some work,” he said, throwing it down on the ground before he walked out onto the stage.
