In My Hour of Need

Chapter 26

The next day I woke up to Junior watching the news on the TV inside the livingroom. I rubbed my eyes and went in to him. "What's on?", I asked, sitting down next to him in the couch, putting an arm around him. He just stared, and pointed at the screen. "In an interview with James Hetfield from Metallica this morning", the TV spoke, "He told us some quite interesting news on Dave Mustaine". Fucking hell. I leaned closer. They showed a clip from the interview, where James was sitting in a chair, laughing and talking shit, like always. "Yeah, it's true", he laughed, with that stupid voice of his, "Dave Mustaine is gay for David Ellefson". I dumped down on the floor, sitting on my knees. I could feel the tears starting to form again, and I was just as bad as stopping them this time as I was last time. Great, now everybody would know. Junior sat down at his knees too, next to me. "You know, it's not that bad", he said, trying to comfort me, "I mean, we were planning on telling Jeff and Chuck anyways, and I guess at some time we would have come to the point where we told our fans as well". I nodded. "Yeah, but it would've been better if we told them ourselves. And I didn't want them to know now", I replied, "James is such an asshole. I thought we were friends again". Junior put an arm around me. "It's gonna be fine", he said calmly, and rested his head on my shoulder. "Yeah", I sighed, "Probably".

While we were cuddling in front of the TV, there was a knock on the door. I rolled my eyes. "I'll go get it", I said, and got up against my will. The dumb fuck on the other side kept knocking several times before I even reached the door. "Yeah, for fucks sake, I'm – Jeff, Chuck?", I questioned, "What the fuck are you up to?" They almost jumped at my face before I could even ask the next question. "We saw the news, man!", Jeff yelled. "Yeah! Why didn't you tell us?", Chuck added, "Congrats, man!" I hid my face in my hands. Oh my god, why? "Who is it?", Junior called from the livingroom. Before I got to answer, Jeff and Chuck were running inside. "Congrats, dude!", Chuck yelled, and jumped on Junior, and they both ended up in a pile on the floor. "Uh... Thanks?", Junior answered. "Why didn't you say anything?", Jeff asked. I shrugged. "We were going to, but Junior accidentally told Jason yesterday, and Jason told James, who apparently told the news", I explained. "Ohh... So we weren't supposed to know...", Chuck said, "Sorry, man". I shrugged once again. "Nah, its fine", I lied. It wasn't, not at all. Fuck James. Fuck Jason. I hate Metallica. At least we had cool bandmates, who not only accepted us, but looked like they wanted to celebrate it.

Later, as we were walking the streets of Paris, only me and Junior, we met a bunch of people who apparently had watched the news this morning. Some who told us they were happy for us, some who congratulated us, but mostly people who made fun of us or hated us. I kept walking in shame. I wanted to sink down in a hole in the ground and never come back up. At least I have Junior by my side, I thought. That's about when we bumped into Lars Ulrich. Oh, great, I thought, now he's come to make fun of us too. "Hi", he said, "I just want to say that I don't have anything to do with that interview this morning, if you watched it". I nodded. "We did", I said, "But I believe you". He smiled. "Cool, so we can still hang out?" "Sure".

Back at the hotel, alone with Junior, all I wanted to do was to spend time with him. Lately it had been so much going on, and a lot of new shit to deal with, we hadn't got a lot of time to just, you know, be together. We sat on the bed, and I kissed his forehead. "This is all so stupid", I sighed, "Why can't it just be over?" Junior started playing with my hair. "Just forget about it", he said, "The only thing that matters is that we love eachother". I sighed again. "Yeah", I said, "I guess".