Her Time Now

She watches them a lot. She always has, really, all the way back on the Club, even. They've changed with each other since then, she thinks, but not a lot. Justin still stares at him in adoration in his eyes. JC doesn't just put up with it now, though. He welcomes it. He seeks it out.

Sometimes that makes her sad. Justin never looked at her like that, no matter how long she has welcomed it, even though she's had that look in her eyes for as long as he has. For him, though, not JC. She smiles at that. No, never JC. She, unlike every other girl on MMC, had realized early on that JC would never return any feelings. She was missing some key pieces of anatomy for that. So why bother with a useless crush?

She watches Justin carry JC around the patio in a fireman's carry, hands carelessly thrown onto JC's person, JC giggling like mad as Justin threatens to throw him in the pool. Why indeed?

She barely registers the body sitting next to her on the glider before he speaks.

"Looking sad, little girl," Chris says, and manipulates her right hand, holding a lemonade, into giving him a sip. "Whatcha thinking about?" he asks, and doesn't even flinch at the amount of vodka she added after Justin poured this for her.

"Not thinking. Just watching," she says. She can be honest here; Chris understands. He used to watch, too.

"He doesn't love you." He says it bluntly, but not unkindly.

She takes a swallow of her drink, hand carefully steady. She pretends her shudder is from the alcohol. There is such a thing as too much honesty, she thinks.

"No, he does," she says finally, calmly, digging her pretty pearl pink fingernails into her palm. "He loves me. He's just not in love with me." That's the truth, she believes. Justin has always loved her, just like he's always been in love with JC. There is a distinction.

Chris considers that. "You're right," he says, and she rolls her eyes.

"It's my life, Chris," she snaps. "I see things, you know. I'm not stupid." She rubs her forehead. Maybe she's had a little too much to drink. She hates this feeling of vulnerability.

Chris ignores her outburst. Or maybe he doesn't. "J won't cheat on you, Brit. Not physically."

"Does he even realize he loves him?" she asks in return, her eyes not leaving Justin, who is carrying JC into the pool. Even though she thinks she knows the answer, doesn't know if she wants the answer, she knows Chris will know. She'd rather hear it from him.

"No," Chris says. "Not now. But he's closer than he was. He'll figure it out."

She nods and rubs her fingers in circles over her eyes. "Right now, we're happy," she says, hating the pleading in her voice. She doesn't need Chris to reassure her on that, she tells herself, but he nods anyway. "He's happy. One day he'll realize he's in love with someone else, and I'll let him go. But not yet. This is my time. JC will have him forever, but not now."

"Is that really enough for you?" Chris asks. She's touched that he sounds concerned. She fancies it's directed at her.

She watches Justin leave JC and come walking towards her. He's smiling, and although it doesn't have the same shine and love as his JC-smile does, it's all for her. "Yes," she says. "It is."

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