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Chapter Eight

Rochelle had to keep reminding herself that AJ wasn't just gone somewhere on tour with the Boys. She'd spent several weeks in Japan, scrolling through Twitter, watching old video bombs and feeling homesick. She'd sent off postcards from the market that made it look like she was seeing sights and staying busy, but in reality she'd spent the entire month holed up in a cheap-ass Japanese hotel on the outskirts of the city, staring at the ceiling, insisting she was okay.

She hadn't started to realize she was going crazy until she found herself looking for constellations of AJ's face in the stucco on the ceiling tiles.

AJ's absence could be felt, like a physical unpresence. She could taste him missing in the atmosphere or something. Her shoes squeak his name when she walked and her toothbrush tasted like his mouth. It was his eyes that stared at her from behind every pair of sunglasses in the hot Tokyo sun, and every voice on the phone was his for just a split second before she could hear the caller clearly. He haunted her so frequently that the line between reality and fantasy was blurring. It was as though he never went away. Even in her dreams, she replaced every person with him. For example, she'd dreamt of Nick and seen AJ in his place even though her consciousness knew it was Nick.

It was 3AM and Rochelle lay awake. She couldn't sleep, so she moved out to the balcony of the hotel and sat down on a chair she'd dragged out from inside, clutching a cup of hot herbal tea she'd made in the electric tea kettle the room had come with. She was wrapped in AJ's sweatshirt, which had slowly but surely lost its scent of him the more she'd worn it until now it was nearly threadbare and didn't smell like him at all except very faintly when she breathed really, really, really deeply into the wrist cuffs. She hummed AJ's favorite Guns N' Roses song - Sweet Child O'Mine - and rocked herself gently on the seat, imagining that AJ was asleep just inside in the silken sea of bedding she'd left behind.

Her cell phone rang into the night, interrupting her daydream. She picked it up and studied the caller ID a moment. Lauren. She drew a deep breath. "Hey," she said, her voice hoarse from lack of use.

Lauren's voice was excited and relieved, "Hey Rochelle! I miss you! Where are you? How are you?"

"Still in Japan," Rochelle replied. She held onto her toes and skipped over answering Lauren's secondary question.

"Are you enjoying your time?" Lauren asked, "Your post card sounded nice."

Rochelle wondered how she could possibly enjoy her time, given why she was there, what she was running away from, but she replied, "Yeah it's been great." But her voice was void of enthusiasm.

There was a long pause between them as they both recognized Rochelle's lack of enthusiasm. Lauren decided to take it as a cue to talk more seriously. "Nick knows," she said finally, breaking the silence.

Rochelle closed her eyes. She'd been wondering if Nick knew yet. Two months had passed now since the surgery, since AJ had passed away. In a strange way, it'd been comforting that Nick thought AJ was still alive because as long as Nick thought it, AJ was still alive in some respect to someone. But now that Nick knew, it was officially over and finalized. She drew a deep, shaking breath. "Is he okay?" she asked gently.

"He's okay, I guess," Lauren replied slowly. She paused. "Well, I mean. Okay, so he's been doing this thing -- he calls AJ's cell phone and he leaves messages, on the voicemail."

"He does?" Rochelle asked. "What kind of messages?"

"I don't know, to be honest, he's very private about it." Lauren paused, "He carries the cellphone around, checking, like he's waiting for a call back from him."

Rochelle's throat closed up and she struggled to breathe. Nick, she realized, was the one person in the world that might have been having a harder time dealing with AJ's death than she was. She, after all, did not have the burden of carrying AJ's heart in her own chest. She tried to imagine how it would feel to carry her best friend's heart, to have it beating in her after they'd passed on, and the notion was inconceivable.

"Is he staying healthy?" she asked.

"Yeah," Lauren replied, "It's been a struggle, especially the diet. He doesn't like bland food. And his doctor recommended a psychiatrist." She laughed, "You can imagine how that is going over."

Rochelle laughed, too. Nick had never been one to talk about emotions, ever. She'd seen that first hand whenever he and Alex had fought. She and Lauren used to try to get the guys to settle their debates by talking about how they were making each other feel and while AJ had been semi-good at the talking thing (a talent he no doubt learned in rehab), Nick was kind of crappy at it. In fact, Rochelle couldn't help but imagine that scene in Good Will Hunting when Matt Damon sings Afternoon Delight.

It was the first time, she suddenly realized, that she'd laughed since -- before.

"I miss you," Lauren suddenly announced, "I miss talking to you and laughing with you. You're my best friend," she confessed.

"I miss you, too," Rochelle said.

"When are you coming home?" Lauren asked.

"Why? Is Nick sick of Panda already?" Rochelle joked.

Lauren laughed, "Actually -- they're getting along great," she said.

"Um, come again?" Rochelle requested.

"Seriously," Lauren said, "It's so cute. Panda's been using Nick as a pillow up on the couch. He just crawls up and sleeps on Nick's stomach and goes up and down as Nick breathes."

"And Nick is okay with that?"

"He encourages it."

"Are we talking about the same Nick here?" Rochelle joked, "This isn't like some cheap ass replacement left behind by the aliens that took the real thing back to the mothership?"

Lauren laughed, "It's not all that far fetched, but no. So seriously, Ro, when are you coming home?"

Rochelle replied, "I don't know. Part of me wants to now and another part --" she sighed. "I can't picture going back to that house, going in that door, and living there without him."

"You could stay with us," Lauren suggested. "Until you can sell the house."

Rochelle imagined it and it wasn't horrible. It was better than an empty house or a rundown Japanese hotel room. She put the tea down and hugged the cuff of the sweatshirt to her nose.

"I have to ask you something," Lauren said, audiably changing gears, "It's sort of related, but not really, but you living here would certainly make it easier and --"

"What?" Ro interrupted.

"Nick asked me to marry him."

"What? When?" Rochelle sat up, pulling the sweatshirt from her face. "Oh my God!"

"I know!"

"I didn't think he'd ever ask!" Rochelle added.

"Me either!" Lauren squealed. She paused to regain composure. "Ro, I want you to be my maid of honor."

"Seriously?" Rochelle gasped. "Really?"

"Really."

"Oh my God, I'd be honored," she said, forcing herself to sound excited even though she felt like a gallon of ice water had been poured down her back. "On one condition, though."

"Anything," Lauren promised.

"That ya'll don't make me look like Lil Bo Peep."

"I wouldn't do that to you," Lauren laughed, "I'm not Leighanne."

"Then it's a done deal," Rochelle replied, laughing.

"I'm so glad," Lauren gushed, "It wouldn't have been the same without you."

Rochelle and Lauren tied up a few details, including Lauren listening in over the phone as Rochelle placed an order on Air Japan's website, and then they said goodnight and hung up. As soon as the silence that followed enveloped her, Rochelle began to regret her commitment to return to California. AJ began to haunt her consciousness again and reality blurred back out of focus, and she crawled into the silky sheets on the bed and pulled the covers up over her head.

Maybe going home was what she needed. Maybe seeing Lauren and Nick and Mark and everyone else back home would help her to cope and deal and eventually - Heaven forbid - let go of the past.