Time to Say Good-Bye
by Annie


I met Lance Bass at a supermarket.

He had awful hair, cut into a bowl cut, and he was so pretty. Girly pretty. He had yet to grow into his looks. He had these glasses with the thickest black rims I'd ever seen.

I watched him as he scanned my six pack of beer and Playboy magazine, and I wasn't sure what it was that had me so drawn to him.

"Can I see your ID?" he asked me, and his voice was so rich and deep. I pulled my wallet out and showed him my Driver's License, since it was the only thing I had on me.

"Joshua Chasez... I don't recognize that name. Do you live here?" he asked.

I nodded. "I just moved here. The big house on the corner of Marston Avenue."

He gave me a small smile. "I live a couple of houses down from there."

"Awesome," I said. Then I added, "It's JC."

He looked at me, as if he was confused. "I go by JC, not Joshua."

He nodded. "And you must be Lance," I said, looking at his nametag.

"Yeah," he said, with a small grin, and I found myself wanting to see that grin again. "My first name is James, but so is my dad's, so I go by Lance."

"Well, Lance, I hope I see you again sometime."

He grinned again, and if it was possible, it was even better than the first one. "Me too."

 

He became my best friend quickly. He was gay, I found that out from a couple of kids in his class, Nick Carter and Justin Timberlake. It didn't matter to me, because I was bisexual, but that's when I found out that Lance wasn't the most popular guy at his school. In fact, he only had one really close friend, a slightly chubby guy named Joey Fatone.

I was going to college in Florida while Lance was still finishing High School. I wasn't in Mississippi that much, but we wrote and called each other all the time, and every vacation I had, he came to see me, or I went back to Clinton.

When we talked, I would tell him about all the times Bobbie and I would break up and get back together. He cried to me on the phone when he told me that Nick had punched him the day before yearbook pictures, and he had to have his picture taken with a black eye. After I hung up the phone, I threw my alarm clock across my dorm room, feeling a little gratification as it broke into pieces.

I was in the front row at his graduation, grinning like an idiot when he gave his Valedictorian speech. It kicked ass.

That summer, before Lance left for Harvard and I went back to Miami, he decided he wanted a makeover. He was sick of his hair, his glasses, just the way he looked in general. So we went down to the nearest mall, and I waited in the Foot Locker next door the the salon that Lance was in, because he said that he didn't want me to see him until he was completely "made over".

After I had looked at every shoe in the store twice, tried on at least twenty, and bought two pairs, Lance walked into the store with the biggest grin on his face.

His hair had been cut, and he had dyed the tips of it blonde, a contrast to his natural brown color, and he had spiked it up. His glasses were gone, and he had gotten clear contacts. I was able to see the color of his eyes more clearly, and they were the most beautiful shade of green I had ever seen. He had gotten himself an outfit; a black shirt that clung to his chest in all the right places, and tan pants that hung off his waist.

I fell in love with him in that moment.

"Well, Jace, what do you think?" he asked. I was speechless, I couldn't say anything. Not only did he look amazing, I had just realized I was in love with him.

He laughed. "Does it really look that bad?"

"N...no. It looks... wonderful, Lance."

He smiled at me. I could never get tired of his smile.

 

I thought my heart was going to break when Lance called me at my dorm one day with the most excited tone in his voice.

"I'm in love," he exclaimed, and then he proceeded to tell me all about this guy he had been dating, named Kevin. He told me all about their first kiss, and the many more after that, and after a while I couldn't take it anymore and I told him I had to go, hanging up the phone.

A week later he called to tell me that he and Kevin had had sex. It had been Lance's first time. After I got off the phone with him, I sat on my bed and cried. My roommate Chris didn't say anything when he came in later. He just put his hand on my shoulder.

Two weeks after that, Lance called me up in tears, saying that Kevin had broken up with him. Three days after that, Lance told me that Kevin was dating some guy named AJ. As much as it made me sad that Lance was so heartbroken, it didn't really matter that he wasn't with Kevin anymore. I was actually glad, as awful as that is.

 

I graduated that year, and Lance came down to see me. We spent the whole week he was there researching the best record companies who could give me the best deal. Now that I was out of college, I was going to persue my music career. Music hadn't been my major for nothing.

"Jace," Lance said to me.

"Yeah?" I asked, reading my material on Jive Records.

"Promise me that once you become all big and famous that you wont forget about the little people like me."

I laughed and ruffled Lance's hair. If I ever became famous, he was coming with me.

 

For my 25th Birthday, Lance threw me a huge party. My family was there, his family was there, Chris and Joey were there, and it was great.

Once the party was over, Lance and I sat outside on his back porch.

"So, you have the big meeting at Jive next week, huh?" he asked.

I smiled faintly. "Yeah, I do."

"You'll make it, Jace. You have the best voice I've ever heard, and I'm not just saying that because you're my best friend."

He put his hand on top of mine and smiled at me in that way that he did when we first met, the way that drew me to him. And if Lance believed in me, then it really didn't matter whether I made it or not.

 

"Oh my God, Lance, I got a deal," I told him, practically jumping up and down.

"Jace, that's amazing!" he told me, and I could hear the smile on his face. "I... I have some news, too." he said.

"What is it?"

"I'm in love. Not like Kevin, I really think this person is the one."

I felt my good mood drop instantly. I was silent.

"Jace, you there?"

"Yeah. Who... who is he?" I asked, feeling my throat getting dry.

"I don't want to tell you over the phone. I'm coming down this weekend, and you can meet him then."

"This weekend? It's not a real good time Lance, I-"

"Jace, I'm coming." Then he hung up the phone.

It suddenly didn't matter that I had a record deal, that my dream was about to come true. And I cursed Lance for ruining the most important moment in my life.

 

When I heard the knock on my apartment door, I almost thought about not answering it. I had to know, though, who this mystery person was that had captured Lance's heart, for good.

I opened the door and there he stood, his bag hanging over his shoulder. He was alone.

"I thought you were briging-" I started, but he put his hand over my lips to silence me.

"Josh, I've been doing a lot of thinking about what I want out of life. I want to get married, adpot kids, have a successful carrer, and be happy. However, I know that I have to find the person to share that all with first, and I finally did. I found someone that I am completely in love with, who knows me inside and out, and still cares about me even with all my imperfections and faults."

Each word he said was cutting deeper and deeper into my heart, and I just want to crawl into a hole and die. "So, where is he?" I asked, almost unable to keep the bitterness out of my voice.

"He's here," Lance said.

"Well, where? Where is he so I can meet him?" I asked, and was it just me or was I yelling?

"You don't need to meet him Josh, you already know him. You know him better than anyone else."

I looked at Lance in confusion. He smiled and reached out for my hand, taking it in his and pulling it up to his chest.

"It's you, JC. I'm in love with you."

I felt tears spring to my eyes and I looked down at him. With is free hand, he reached up and wiped the tears from my face. I pulled him to me and we kissed, the first of many, many kisses.

That night we made love, and it was the most perfect experience of my entire life. The night I lost my virginity, all those times I had fooled around with Bobbie, nothing even compared to my first night with Lance.

Holding him in my arms, stroking his face, kissing him everywhere... I had never loved him more.

 

It took about three years, but by the time I was 28 I was one of the most famous solo artists in the world. Lance was still with me, and it was public knowledge that we were together. We decided together that we wouldn't hide our relationship, and most people accepted us. I took him to every award show and charity event with me. If I was there, so was he.

When I won my first Grammy, I dedicated it to him. I dedicated all the ones after that to him as well. Anyone who looked at us told us they could see how in love we were. We got married, just a small ceremony with our family, and of course Joey and Chris, our closest friends.

Lance became a music manager. He worked for Jive and he was good at what he did. I made him my manager and making decisions was always easy because we could both agree on something we wanted together.

I rode the high success wave for two more years, and life was so good. I felt like nothing could ruin my life, nothing.

Then Lance got sick. It wasn't so bad at first. He started losing weight, he got tired easily, and he kept getting bruises, sometimes if you barely touched him.

Then he started throwing up a lot. He stopped eating, he continued to lose more weight, and he started getting fevers. When we went to the doctor, they came back with news I was never expecting. Lance had Lukemia.

They said it had spread quickly and they admitted him into the hospital, immediately starting his chemothearpy treatments.

The chemothearpy didn't seem to do anything, it just made Lance thinner, lose his hair, and throw up all the time. Whenever Lance was home, we spent most of our time in the bathroom or in our bed, me holding Lance while the cancer slowly ate away at his body.

Pretty soon, the doctors realized that there was nothing that they could do. It had spread too far too fast. Lance was going to die.

I didn't want to believe it at first. It didn't seem fair, Lance was only 27. He didn't deserve to lose so much of his life. I didn't deserve to have to live the rest of mine without him.

I crawled into Lance's hospital bed with him one afternoon. It was softly raining outside, the drops hitting the windows softly. I wrapped my arms around him and pulled him close to me, and he felt so light, so fragile.

"Jace..." he said softly.

"Yeah?" I asked, kissing the top of his softly.

"Thank you."

"For what?"

"For everything. For all the times we had together. For all the laughter. For all the tears. For those times when we just held each other because we could, because we needed to be close. I'm so lucky that I met you, Josh, so lucky that I got to spend my life with you. So lucky that you loved me just as much as I loved you, and that we got together, because these years with you have been the best years of my life. I wouldn't trade them for anything."

I tried to hold back my tears. "I should be thanking you, Lance. You're the best thing that's ever happened to me."

I felt Lance's frail, bony hand grasp mine.

"I love you so much," he told me.

"I love you more," I said with a faint smile, remembering every single time we had playfully gotten into that argument.

Lance looked up at me and smiled at me that same way he had the day we met, the day he told me he was in love with me, the day we got married, the day I dedicated my Grammy to him... the smile that had drawn me to him. Maybe it hadn't been that day in the Foot Locker that I had fallen in love with Lance, but the very first time I saw that smile.

He laid his head on my shoulder, and I listened to his breathing, listened as it became more quiet, listened until it stopped. I continued to hold onto his hand, tightly, because his soft grip had gone with his breath, with his life.

I didn't notice the nurse that came in and unhooked all the machines, taking them out of the room. I continued to hold Lance in my arms, because he had told me once that he felt safe in my arms, and I couldn't let go of him. I had promised him that I would keep him safe, in sickness and in health.

Until death do us part.

I continued to hold his hand, laying my head on top of his, feeling the soft fuzz of hair that had started to grow back.

And the rain continued to hit the windows, ever so softly.