68 The longest Monday of my life

Burt

I followed LJ into Steve's house. He went straight for the big arm chair, sat in it with his knees pulled up to his chest, burying his head into his arms. Mark and Jamie were on the couch, Mark was asleep, spread out with his head in Jamie's lap. Jamie looked up at me from his phone, pointing at LJ, silently asking if he was okay.

I shook my head. Nobody was okay. "Steve?"

Jamie shook his head.

"Missy?"

"In the bedroom," he replied softly. "She's still trying to call him."

I walked over and sat on the floor in front of him, tucking my legs under me. "Do you want bad news or worse news?"

"I want another life," Jamie closed his eyes. He opened them again and took a deep breath. "I want news about Chas."

I took a deep breath, as well. This bad news shit wasn't easy. "She didn't have a pulse when they found her, and the St. Francis staff wasn't able to revive her," I whispered. "Ned confirmed it was a suicide."

"Was there a suicide note?" Jamie asked.

I sighed. "There was a video on her phone."

"Fuck!" Jamie exclaimed, almost waking up Mark. He lowered his voice to a whisper again. "Of her stabbing herself?"

"And singing," LJ said, his head still in his arms.

Jamie didn't understand what he said, and looked at me for help. I shook my head. "She was singing." I couldn't continue.

"She was singing, you're such a glorious death..." LJ said aloud, looking up. His eyes were blazing, he looked like he could kill Chastity all over again.

"Relax, J, we don't know if that's what she was really singing," I cautioned.

"Charlie would never lie," LJ snarled.

"LJ, calm down," I countered. He buried his head in his arms again.

"So, you didn't see the video?" Jamie whispered.

"Charlie was the only one who saw it and she deleted it immediately," I explained. "She must have panicked, she was the one who found Chas, so you can imagine her state of mind. She told Ned she didn't tell anyone else about the video, and promised not to include it in her statement to the police."

"So how will the police know it's a suicide, then?" Mark spoke up, startling me. I looked at him, he was awake but still lying on Jamie's lap.

Jamie was scrolling through his phone and said, "Social media." He faced the phone to me, it was a post on Chastity's social media page, "Live fast, die young, leave a beautiful corpse. Check, check, check! Please remember you loved me. Ciao!"

Time stamp: 6:00 PM.

"Good lord," Mark hissed.

Suddenly, we heard LJ talking to someone on his phone. "Justin, are you guys out, what's happening? Shooting pool at Marco's? Ayt, I'm so there. Call Frank to join us." He stood up and headed for the door. "Bye, guys," he said, without even looking at us.

Mark finally got up from the couch. "Hey, where do you think you're going?" I got up and grabbed Mark's arm.

"Let him go," I said. "He'll be with Justin and Marco, he'll be okay."

"It's not bad enough that we don't know where Steve is," Mark reasoned with me.

Jamie looked at his phone again and put it to his ear. "Justin, listen to me carefully, okay? You are now solely responsible for LJ's well being, if a hair on his head is harmed or compromised in any way that could land him on front page news tomorrow, I will personally break your legs, do you understand?" He hung up and looked at us. "LJ will be fine."

"Rory kind of broke up with him," I said.

"Was that the bad news?" Jamie frowned at me.

"No," I replied. I hadn't thought of it as news. I sighed. "Because that photo of Chastity and Steve was circulating, Bobby told Ned that they can't afford for Succulent and Boy Next Door to be associated with each other in any way and LJ can't see Rory for a while."

"She broke up with him through her manager?" Jamie exclaimed.

"That's harsh," Mark sat down again. "That's way worse than someone breaking up with you over text."

"Do you want to hear the worse news?"

Both Jamie and Mark looked at me with widened eyes. I took a deep breath. "Ned and Barnes decided to deal with our rebelling asses by releasing the album on Wednesday. Music video will launch tomorrow at 6:00 PM. Our first live performance is on Friday."

"What the actual fuck?" Jamie hissed.

"It's not even mastered yet," Mark exclaimed.

"They gave it to Art to master and he's rushing it," I said. I could feel myself getting angry again, this news was absolute shit.

"Steve's gonna kill Ned," Jamie rolled his eyes.

"_I'm_ gonna kill Ned," Mark growled.

"I did all I could not to kill him myself earlier," I admitted. "I had to think about Billy's future." I sighed again. "Guys, I need to go home. Will you be okay?"

"Of course," Mark's face quickly smoothened out. He patted my shoulders. "Go, go. We'll be here."

"We'll call you if anything happens," Jamie said, taking the words out of my mouth.

I sighed and left the house. This was the longest Monday of my life.