Chapter 3
"I'll be right there!" AJ McLean yelled out the door before turning and pounding back up the stairs and into his room. "Wallet...wallet...where the hell is my wallet?!" He mumbled. He couldn't be late for these meetings, he couldn't, they were far too important. AJ scrambled around his room, throwing things left and right, grabbing his jeans and turning them upside down, shaking them out.
Organization was never his strong point, but even more so now. He could feel his frustration rising and slumped down on his bed, taking calming breaths. He had to learn to get his anger under control; he was still working on it. A year can change everything as he'd learned the hard way. Things were a bit clearer for him now though, he didn't feel like he was walking around in some kind of haze all the time. AJ looked over in the mirror in front of him and chewed at his lip. The twelve months had been rough, he was a bit heavier, a bit weaker, but a lot happier.
He'd been lying to himself the whole time and he'd never realized how much of a toll it takes on the body to keep up the happy façade when you really aren't. So much pain and so much anger drove him to do things he never would've dreamed, never comprehend.
Denial had been easy, so much easier than facing or admitting the truth. It was funny to him though, he'd always thought when it came right down to it, he could admit when something was wrong, when he was having problems with something, boy had he been wrong. After denial came reality, cold hard reality and it came up and smacked him right in the ass. Reality came in the form of one person...Kevin. That was all it took, a few words here, a few threats there and AJ was running scared. He was forced to take a good hard look at himself, and he didn't like what he saw. He'd lost everything anyway, almost lost the guys, but he'd been lucky there. Not so lucky in other ways, in a lot of other important ways.
Slowly he looked down, staring hard at the floor. He'd lost her...the one person he'd tried so hard to hold on to, tried so hard to do right by, but he hadn't. She tried to tell him and he of course at that point, wasn't listening.
The split had been amicable, nothing really that bad unless you consider him telling her to "butt out" bad. They were even nice to each other while she was moving all her stuff from his house. When AJ went into rehab however, they'd lost touch and it was a year later and they still hadn't seen each other. He'd be lying if he said that every so often he didn't miss her, a lot. Mostly he missed the friendship they had, they'd been friends first and everything else just followed. Life was different now though; he was in a relationship with someone else and was just taking it one day at a time. It was all he could do, if he thought too far ahead, he started panicking. Simple, he needed to keep things simple. He couldn't do the elaborate things like he used to, his needs had changed significantly.
Fear was still there though, just more controlled. Always worried about screwing up and falling somehow, everyone had such high expectations, he wondered if he could live up to it. There was only so much that could be done in the thirty days, but it was a start at least.
The support had been amazing, when he'd heard all the things fans had done to support him and a lot of the comments his friends in the business had made, it was overwhelming. It was nice to know that fans and everyone else supported him, he needed it, but he also knew he had to do it himself.
There was a beeping from outside, heaving one last sigh, he stood, hands on his hips as his eyes scanned the room. Shaking his head, he turned, starting for the door. Maybe he'd left it on the table downstairs or something. Making his way out, he stopped as his eye caught something.
"Fuck me! There it is!" He cried, reaching out and grabbing his wallet from under a pile of papers on his dresser. "Shit, I gotta stop doin' that!" Shaking his head again, he walked out and down the stairs, grabbing his keys from off the table and headed out.
