Searching for Joseph Jonas

Chapter Two

"What are you looking at?" I asked the next morning. My dad was sitting behind his laptop with a thoughtful frown, his headphones clamped over his ears. He obviously didn't hear my question, because he didn't even glance up at me. I lifted one of his headphones let it rebound back into his head. He turned around to look at me, his eyes tired and pensive.

"What did you say?"

"I asked what you were looking at," I said quietly, falling into the chair next to him at the dining room table. I peered over his shoulder at the screen. "Are you on youtube?"

"Yeah," Dad said, not taking his gaze away from the screen. He was watching a music video in all black and white. Of course, I couldn't hear the music, but I could hear a slight buzz of music coming from the headphones Dad had lowered to the table.

"Who are the Jonas Brothers?" I asked, reading the information to the right of the video. Dad pushed the lap top so it faced me, and then stood up to walk into the kitchen with his mug of coffee. "Dad?"

"Just watch."

Confused, I turned my focus back to the music video. A boy with dark, wiry curls was in the frame now, sitting at a purely white piano, singing his heart out for a huge crowd of frantic girls. My eyes fell on a girl with a poster who was jumping up and down as if her life depended on it, screaming until her lungs were in danger of bleeding.

The picture changed to a new face. It was a familiar face, a face that had been imprinted in my mind for the past ten hours (and I had still yet to figure out why). It was [ihim./i

Joseph was singing, too, into a black wireless microphone that grazed his bottom lip as he swayed to the music. He was just as good looking as I remembered, if not more so.

"What is this?" I called out to my dad, who I could still see through the doorway that led into the kitchen. He glanced at me and told me that they were the Jonas Brothers and that they were famous. He didn't say anything else.

"So this Joseph guy is…"

"Famous, yes," Dad said, picking up the mug of coffee he had just refilled and rejoining me in the dining room. "He and his three brothers, apparently."

"So... why are you looking at this?" I asked. Normally Dad didn't look into his patients' personal lives, so he could study them only in their sessions. Doing a youtube background check on this Joseph Jonas was out of the ordinary for him, to say the least.

"Do you remember last night, when his mother asked to talk to me after the session?"

"Yes…"

"She wants me to come along with the band on their summer tour… She's afraid Joseph is troubled enough that he'll need someone to talk to during the next three months, and so she's asked me to come…" My jaw dropped slightly. I wasn't quite sure whether I should be excited for my father or totally upset.

"…Are you going to go, Dad?" I asked. He exhaled loudly and nodded.

"He's my most needy patient. I can't abandon him now."

That statement stuck with me. The word didn't seem to click with the impression I formed of the boy I'd gaped at last night. He had seemed so well put together and confident… not needy by any means. He didn't seem like one that could be easily abandoned. My dad made him sound like a helpless baby, and that just didn't seem plausible to me at all.

"Can I come with you?"

Dad was not the only one surprised by that request. I hadn't even been aware at all that I'd been thinking of asking until the words came out of my mother. I wasn't even sure it had really been me that said it, but it sounded like me. My dad stared at me.

"Julie, that's probably not the best idea…"

"Why not?" I asked, surprising myself yet again. My mouth had taken on a mind of its own. "It's summer and I have nothing better to do."

Dad shook his head, "No, Julie. This is my job, I can't…"

"I could keep you company."

"Julie, I said no," he said. But I smiled faintly anyway. I could tell by the stressed look on his face that he was honestly considering the thought.

"Please, Dad," I said quietly. "Can you just ask if I can come? See what they say?"

"Julie--"

"What will it hurt? I promise I won't get in the way…" Why was I trying so hard to get my father to allow me to come with him? As much as I hated to admit it, it was not because I wanted to be with my Daddy for three months.

It's because I needed an excuse to see him. Talk to him, if I could. The reason behind that, however, was still a mystery.

Dad opened his mouth to speak, but hesitated for a moment before any words came out, "I'll call, but if they say no, that's the end of it. Understand?" I grinned and nodded happily, reaching over to the leaf table and snatching up the phone off the cradle. I passed it to my dad with a sweet, over-the-top smile. He chuckled and took the phone from my hand.

As he dialed the number that was etched on the back of a business card crumpled in his hand, he stood up and left the dining room for privacy. I didn't mind not being able to hear the conversation. The comfort of knowing that he was going to ask was enough for me.

But why? Why had this obviously troubled teenager had such an impact on me? It wasn't the fact that he was famous… I was enthralled by him many hours before I even knew of his fame. Maybe it was his looks, but I didn't want to admit to being so shallow.

Maybe it was the idea that someone so physically beautiful had issues. I guess I just didn't believe that someone so perfect could have hidden skeletons that he needed to sort out with a psychiatrist.

Maybe it was the danger of what he was that kept me so fascinated.

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