“I just hope no one is in his room now. I wouldn’t want to bump into… you know who. We are not ready for that yet.” Kim whispered to Mei as they walked by the street towards the hospital.

“Yeah, after we lied to him and never sent him any magazines with his interview on it, I think we have some explaining to do.”

“We certainly do… But first we have to match our stories, discuss the details and then we can talk to him.”

“Wow, you’re very worried about him finding out, aren’t you? Old feelings coming back to ya?” with a smirk, Mei elbowed Kim softly and she felt her cheeks reddening instantly.

“Shut up! I’m perfectionist, I don’t want him to think bad about us, like we just used him for our purposes and entertainment only. We’re not like that. Right?”
Mei suppressed a chuckle and looked at her friend with a funny face before answering.

“Right...” she grumbled, trying hard to agree with her friend. They were good, goooood girls. Of course.

Kim went closer to her and gave her a slight push with her body making Mei to almost fall off her tracks onto the curb.

“Shut up!!” Kim shouted along with a laugh and Mei came back to her side, giggling.

They continued to walk until they reached the hospital entrance and, for their biggest amusement, there he was, walking out just as when they were getting in.

“Oh shit… it’s him, what are the chances... Let’s get back, let’s hide, let’s get out of here.” Kim froze on her feet and turned her back promptly, trying to hide her face at the same time in desperate measures. Mei didn’t even bother to turn her back, she wasn’t that scared of the big muscled guy coming towards them.

“C’mon Kim, he won’t even recognize us. Let’s just… keep walking and we turn our faces when we pass through him.”

“NO! Are you crazy!? I bet the first thing he’ll ask when he sees us is when we can show him the magazine. I’m telling you, we should come back some other time.”

“So what? We lied! It’s not like we killed his dog and hid the evidences! It was just a childish game that he liked a lot, if I’m not mistaken. Come on!!” Mei took her friend’s arm a bit forcefully and pulled her along, not really caring about the fact that she was trying to run to the opposite direction.

Matt was walking out and frowned a bit to the two girls passing by him. It still wasn’t so dark outside so he was able to see their faces. But they turned away at the moment he stared. He frowned even more and stopped his steps right away, remembering something. Yeah, he knew those two!

As soon as the girls thought they could breathe in relief by escaping the man and they were a lock of hair away from the entrance, a powerful voice hitting their backs was heard.

“Hey… don’t I know you from some interview?” they could sense his joking tone and closed their eyes in response.

Damn it, he recognized us…

The girls traded glances and before they could turn to him, they took a deep breath for courage.

“Matt… Heeeey… how are you?” Mei put a rapid smile on her face, walking towards him and dragging Kim by the same arm. She was still busy rehearsing a proper way to say hello to him inside her head.

“I’m okay despite of everything. And you? What are you two doing around here? Searching for another rockstar to interview?” he smirked a little and the girls giggled like two silly little kids. Why would they be searching for a rockstar in a hospital? Well... they actually were visiting a rockstar at the hospital but that's not the point.

Too soon to talk about the Matt effect? No, not really.

“No, in fact we are… we are living here now. Better job opportunities, better…”

“…magazines to write for.” Kim interrupted and completed Mei’s reasoning, like she wanted to meddle in their talk someway by dragging their lie further. Bad choice.

“Exactly, and now we were about to visit Jimmy. You were there now?”

“Yep, just came out. He’s alone now. The nurses said he’s been giving a few answers with finger movements, it’s a good progress.” The girls exchanged looks and smiled. That’s a great info they already knew and saw by themselves.

“That’s awesome!” Kim answered in a rush. She just wanted to run away from him before he would ask. “Well… we better get going, right, Mei?” her time to elbow her friend.

“Yeah, it was really nice to see you Matt!” they waved him goodbye and when they were about to turn their backs again, his voice came back inside their ears.

“I was wondering… where that article you wrote about me went? I thought you were gonna send me a copy or something like they usually do but… I never heard of it or received it.”

Oh shit, we almost did out triumphal exit. Almost...

“Well we…” Mei began but Kim interrupted again, staring at Mei with that I told you so face.

“We… must have it on our house somewhere. Maybe we can bring it to you someday. We’re sorry we forgot to send you before, we were a little busy and…” Kim was blabbering unstoppably as Mei looked at her trying not to open her eyes wide and yell her to shut up like she did a few minutes ago.

“Oh it’s okay, don’t worry. Now that we are practically neighbors, you can drop by to my house for a coffee and you bring a copy along. Tomorrow evening, is it good for you?”
How could they say no to that dimpled face?

“Err… we… are still arranging our stuff on our house and…”

“Oh, c’mon, you can take a few minutes of break to have a chat with me.” He threw his marvelous seductive smile to remember them of their weak spot.

“Yeah I… I guess we… we can.” Kim was having trouble to form a simple sentence.

“Great! You know where I live, I’ll be waiting by 6. Don’t forget the magazine! I’m really curious about the outcome of it.” He was already giving a few steps away, still looking at them.

“Okay, we won’t forget it.” Mei raised her thumb to him and they took a few steps back too.

“See ya.” He finally turned his back to go. And the girls didn’t move while watching him vanish from their sights.

“We are so… screwed…”

---

“Yeah, that’s it, we’re honest persons and we’re gonna tell him the truth now. Enough of lying.” Kim reassured, standing along with her friend in front of Matt’s front porch.

“Yes, and we should be as brave as we are honest now. We won’t back out like you did back there in the hospital, right?” Mei wanted to make sure her friend was still up to their plan.

Kim was about to place her finger on Matt’s doorbell when she stopped herself to Mei’s words.

“Oh fuck I wanna back out. I can’t do this.” She was moving away from his door when Mei held her and pushed her back to the door.

“No, Kim! We promised we would tell him. We have no magazines to show him, we can’t keep dragging this along. You’ll see, he’s gonna laugh of it all later. We all will!”

“Alright, alright. So you ring the bell.”

“My pleasure.” Mei took Kim’s place on the door and rang it finally. She was nervous too but she was trying not to show it to her friend, who seemed to be having a panic attack.

Matt didn’t take long, he opened the door with that beautiful welcoming smile he had as seeing his two guests. He glanced quickly at their hands and saw two plates, one for each, but nothing else.

“Hey girls, is good to see you again!” he hugged one by one, careful not to make their plates fall of their hands. They were smelling too good to waste it away. The plates, he meant. “Come on in, the house is yours.”

They headed in slowly, contemplating the entrance hall and then the living room filled with awards and pictures of his family and friends. Oh, and… of course they noticed the biggest TV they had ever seen there. He showed them the couch and they handled him the plates.

“Well we… we brought you something.”

“We made them ourselves.” Kim rolled her eyes and Matt had to chuckle at her remark. He got the plates and placed them on the center table.

“Hmm, they smell good, thank you! Make yourselves comfortable, I’m gonna go put the water to boil for my promised coffee. Be right back.” He winked and disappeared into the kitchen.
The girls were left alone to keep observing all around his living room and stuff.

“Wow… can you imagine watching Chaning stripping on that screen?” Mei whispered with a smirk.

“Oh yeah… I would be more than satisfied watching Live in the LBC here. And… Matt stripping wouldn’t look bad either, right?” Kim answered in the same voice and they giggled like two little girls.

“C’mon, we saw it live. It was better than on screen.” Mei raised one eyebrow, remembering the time they saw him utterly naked that night. Kim recovered the mental picture and opened that smile before answering.

“Yeah, true… Hey, look! His notebook is opened.”

“And…?”

“Aren’t you wondering what he was doing before we’ve got here?”

“What if he was watching gay porn, I don’t wanna be the one to know that.”

“C’mon let’s…” Kim was ready to slide her finger accidentally on the mouse when Matt came back from the kitchen, which made Kim pull her hand back in a jolt.

“Hey girls, I’m back. Did you miss me?” he walked in with a smirk and sat in front of them in his armchair. They only grinned. “So… how are you?”

“We are good. Kinda busy with the new house and stuff. And you?” Kim answered promptly as they rehearsed. Not saying anything that wasn’t completely truth.

“Good, I’m good too. So…” the girls watched as he started to tap his fingers on his leg. Then they traded glances and thought that that was the time to start talking.

“You wanna know about the magazine, right?”

“Yep.”

“Well there’s… how I’m gonna put this…” Kim started but not as they had planned, cause Mei could handle talking without stuttering better than her when it was about Matt.

“The truth is... there’s no magazine, Matt. We lied. We’re not journalists. Yes, we write, but not professionally. Jess asked you for that fake interview so we could have some time with you.
That’s it. There’s nothing more than that and we never published anything about you, so you don’t have to worr…”

“Wait… what? You were fooling me all this time? You’re kidding me, right?” he was unsettled and had a big frown now. Pretty much the reaction they had presaged.

“Well, actually, no. We’re not kidding this time. We’re really sorry.” Kim finally could pronounce her sentences without stumbling, hoping he wouldn’t be madder than that.

The room went silent. The girls were more uncomfortable than ever by admitting their lies. And Matt seemed too immersed in his thoughts, his expression was unreadable. But then, out of a sudden, he looked up to them and he couldn’t hold his laughter anymore. Now it was the girls’ turn to frown.

“Wh-what? What is so funny?” Mei asked a bit annoyed.

“I’m sorry, girls. I… I already knew about it. Jess told me just a few days after you went back to Europe, she explained me everything and I told her not to tell you I knew. I so wanted to see how you would pull this off. And you went quite well in my opinion.” He kept laughing and the girls weren’t sure if they wanted to kill him or Jess then. Or both at the same time.

“That was cheap…” Mei grumbled.

“Yeah, very mean. We spent almost the entire night practicing this speech.”

“Awww… that’s why I called you for a coffee. To make it up to you. Are we even now?”

Mei and Kim faced each other again, they both had their cheeks burning. But they knew their answer to that.

“Yeah, I guess…” Mei answered and Kim just nodded, a bit upset. And they could finally hear the water boiling while Matt excused himself and went back to the kitchen with that silly smile printed on his lips still.

“Damn it, I kinda hate him now.” Kim’s turn to grumble.

“No, you don’t. We fooled him, he fooled us, he had the right.”

“Now can I please see what’s in his notebook? I need something to use against him if we ever need.” Kim was feeling evil now.

“Alright, but if it’s like something he can go to jail for, I won’t let you say anything.”

“Shut up…” they chuckled and Kim finally made the screen to turn on.

They weren’t really prepared for what their eyes found there:

The scorn of the sexless leader
Mia’s POV
“Fine, we will leave!” Jimmy yelled, but he stayed exactly where he was, pulling me down, I looked at him questionably, he pulled my head down to whisper in my ear very softly “If we are very quiet, we can stay here, they will never know... I don’t know if I can take another second without being in you”…

“Oh god, is he…”

“Yeah, I guess he… he is.”

“This is… weirder than I thought it would be. He’s not even the main character here. Do you… do you think he knows… it’s us?”

“I dunno. Do you think Jess told him that too?”

“No, she wouldn’t dare. She knows we would kill her.”

“Maybe he found out about it on his own? Like… he’s been reading it since the beginning?”

“That’s a possibility. And he likes to read…hmm, you know… porn with his band mates? That’s awkward.”

“So… he’s… like… OUR FAN?” Kim formed a cocky smile.

“We can say that, yeah.” Mei had the same grin.

They kept staring at each other like they still couldn’t believe, mouths ajar, silly smiles that turned into muffled laughs quickly. They never imagined the man they’ve been writing about for years could be their silent reader. Their fan just like they were his.

“Shh, shh, Mei, he’s coming back. Turn it off! Now!!!”

“Hey girls, here’s the make up coffee. Can you forgive me now?”

They gulped their laughs and tried to hold it together to answer.

“You’re very forgiven, my dear fa…friend.” Kim couldn’t hide her cocky smile and bit her bottom lip while watching him with different eyes now. He narrowed his brows quickly, served them a cup and sat back on his chair.

“So… where’s Valary?” Mei asked and with the corner of her eyes, she met Kim’s.

“Hmm, I think she’s on her sister’s. Not sure.”

“Wow, you… don’t know where your fiancée is?” Kim was acid on her words now. As she drank her coffee and ate a bit of lemon pie, she presumed that Valary wasn’t really taking care of her man as she was supposed to. He wouldn’t spend his days reading alone if she was there, would he?

“Well, she’s weird since we got back from touring. She’s distant, you know? I think she… blames me for what happened to Jimmy too. The other day she asked me when I would just kick Brian out of the band, just like that, out of the blue. But hey…” he shook his head, fixing his hair. “I shouldn’t be saying all of this to you, it’s not your problem really.”

His face grew dark and they noticed they shouldn’t have touched on that subject.

“Maybe you should give her some time to process everything. A lot has happened.” Kim tried to soften her words.

“Yeah, maybe.” He only shrugged with that puppy face, making both girls to have a desperate urge to hug him. But they didn’t move from their seats.

They went to other interesting subjects and the hours passed by like minutes. The fun could be endless if it wasn’t for the noises of the door being opened and a blond woman coming along to stop in the middle of the living room with her hands on her hips, like she had caught someone doing something really wrong.

“Hello.” she spoke glancing at the girls like she wanted to throw them out, even if she didn’t even know them.

“Hey Val, come here. This is Mei and Kim, Jess’ friends. They just moved in to the neighborhood so I thought we should give them a proper welcome with a coffee.”

“Oh, right, her friends. Nice to meet you.” She was dry, never even showed her hand to them and it made the girls feel like intruders as they answered her. “I’m exhausted, I’m gonna go lie down.” She said those words only to Matt, kissed him on the cheek and moved away.

Wow, what a brackish lady.

The girls finally said their goodbyes eventually and before they could cause any trouble to Matt and his fiancée, they left. When Matt walked back to his living room, Val was there, waiting for him.

“You invited them into our house and you forgot to mention?”

“Well, you didn’t mention where you were too.” Matt wasn’t up for a fight but he wouldn’t just let her win easily.

“I was at my sister’s, you know I’m always there.”

She watched as he grabbed his notebook, sat on the dinner table and stopped paying attention. She went closer, placed her arms around his neck and leaned on his lap just to peek at what he was doing. His arms went around her waist as he was used to but he was still looking at the screen, not even caring to hide it from her. She started reading with him and her eyes got a little wide.

“You just got back from the road and instead of spending time with me, you are reading this?? What’s wrong with you!” she snapped away from his embrace and moved quickly to their bedroom. “Just go fucking sleep in the couch!” closing the door with a big noise after that.

Matt didn’t reply. He had no strength to argue about that. And he felt he was losing that strength to deal with Valary more and more at each day.

When he finished reading, he closed his notebook, rested his arms and head on top of it and ended up falling asleep on the table.

---

I saw Jess staring at the clock for too long in the waiting room. She had bit all the nails she had left so far and now I wasn’t so sure if it was such a good idea to schedule therapy for her that soon. I didn’t want her to freak out after talking to some strange person about her feelings.

A few nights ago, I decided to go for the first time to a NA meeting. I felt weird and exposed, exactly the same she must be feeling right now. But it was a great experience to see all those people sharing and going through the same hell but still trying hard to fight it with all their strength. As I wasn’t really completely clean, I felt like I didn’t belong there yet. They were working on the steps, I hadn’t even read them yet. But I was very welcomed, even if I didn’t dare to share anything. It was even hard to share my name, if you wanna know. But Jess was there supporting me, helping me talk to people and never ashamed of being there with me. Before the meeting began, we took our seats and as we watched the people around, we caught a surprising glimpse of a known someone in there. Jess’ father.

Instead of standing up and walking away, she stayed bravely until the end but didn’t talk to him later. After the meeting ended and we were walking back home, she was silent and only broke the ice to tell me she had made a decision. She would confront her demons and call that psychotherapist. And that’s why we are here today.

“He’s late, isn’t he? Do you wanna get out of here?” I offered and she shook her head.

“I need to do this. I need my life back, Ems.” She sounded worn-out and I couldn’t blame her. I wanted a solution for my problems too but we both knew it’s hard to climb that high mountain after had fallen off of it once.

“You’re right, let’s wait.”

A few minutes went by and the door finally opened. A woman walked out of the office with red glassy eyes and left quickly, no one was waiting for her. I heard Jess taking a deep breath and looking at me then.

“You’re probably next.” I let my hand fall on her knee in assurance and I could see some fear burning inside her gray eyes. “You want me to go inside with you?”

“Yeah, I don’t wanna be alone in there.” she whispered, shyly.

I nodded, held her hand in mine and we heard her name echoing from inside the room. For some reason, I was fond of his voice right away.

We both stood up and I walked in front of her. As we approached the door, we could see him coming towards the door to our encounter.



I noticed Jess let my hand go and gave a step forward to the door. Somehow, she was looking a bit more confident than a few seconds before seeing the handsome guy that was about to be her therapist.

“You can come in, don’t be afraid. I’m Matthew.” he smiled broadly and waited by the door.
Jess turned to me and formed some kind of smirk mixed with a sweet smile.

“Hey Ems… you know what? I think I can handle it by myself.” The fear on her eyes was gone suddenly. So I had to believe she was good. Yeah, she was good. She liked him.

“Alright… I’ll be waiting outside.” I winked and watched her go inside the office as the man closed the door.

Well… guess what’s left for me is to start reading this at last:
The 12 Steps of Narcotics Anonymous

1. We admitted that we were powerless over our addiction, that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. We came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. We made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
4. We made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. We admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. We were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7. We humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8. We made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. We made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. We continued to take personal inventory, and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
11. We sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to addicts, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
    
    As they say there, just for today...

Notes

Hey giiirls!! Another long chapter, I had to make it up to you for taking too long to update, I hope u liked it!

So... the girls found out about Matt's dirty secret huh? But Val did too apparently =p hahaha hmm troubleee!!

And for those of you who never read the 12 steps, I decided to add this here. It's very interesting... ;) Credits to http://na.org/

thank you for reading <3