Shining Through the Shadow of a Star

We drove to the Sparks' home in silence. The minute Jordin had opened the door to the house, we were attacked by her worried mother and brother. Things were being shot at us in a way that I couldn’t distinct most of them. "Mom, relax!" Jordin shouted. I don’t think she meant yelling at her mother or disrespecting her or anything but she knew that talking in her normal voice wouldn’t do anything; they wouldn’t be able to hear her and therefore, they wouldn’t stop talking both at once.

"Hold on, where's Claire?" Her mother asked. Her brother had shut up, but he was eyeing me with the darkest look you could imagine.

"Uh," I started, feeling uncomfortable. "She's with my brothers, Mrs. Sparks." Phil's look darkened and his muscles tensed even more if that was possible.

"Alright, as long as she's safe… Would you like to have something to eat, Joseph?" She asked me. "I have just baked a fresh batch of peanut butter cookies." She made her way into the kitchen before hearing my answer. Not that I would mind her very delicious cookies.

As soon as his mom was out of ear shot, Phil got closer to me; I'm not going to lie to you, it did intimidate me, a lot. And the way he was staring at me didn’t help at all. I gulped.

"What's going on between you and my sister?" he asked in a low menacing voice.

What is he talking about? I mean sure, I did notice that I kind of have a little crush on Jordin, and she's quite pretty, but there is nothing between us and there definitely won’t ever be after the way she treated me and Claire last night. Unless if he thinks that she willingly stayed the night with me, there is no other prove to as we would be dating or anything, right? "Me, with Jordin..? Man, no, she's like a sister to me, trust me." I replied.

His eyes didn’t soften at all. "I'm not talking about Jordin."

Jordin, who was looking between the both of us, had now eyes similar to saucers from the shock. The dude thinks that I'm with Claire whilst I have only seen her maybe twice or three times. Is he crazy? "I don't get it." I said slowly.

"Yes, you do." He said, his jaw still hardened and his teeth clenched together. "Jordin, go help our mother."

Jordin did end up going, but only after she had stared at her brother for thirty minutes, that I was counting along with my heartbeats. She had a look of hatred, embarrassment, shock but mostly jealousy. Of who? I don't really know.

"So, are you going to talk and make it easy on me now?" He said.

"Dude, you only have two sisters man, and if it's not Jordin then you must mean Claire. Unless if I'm missing something here. But this can't be true; I have only seen Claire twice. And not once have I touched her or anything…" I rambled on.

"Then how would you explain this?" he shoved a magazine in my face. On the cover of the magazine was the same picture of me holding Claire that was on Perez earlier. At the bottom of it was written in bold colors 'Joe Jonas and mystery girlfriend having trouble? turn to page 7'. I flipped the magazine swiftly, almost ripping a few pages along the way. On page seven was, written in bold red characters, Did Joe Jonas mess up again? Under it was, in a slightly smaller font and in black, Joe Jonas, famous teenage heartthrob, the pure catholic, a daddy-to-be? And why hadn’t we seen that pretty girl hanging off his arm before? The page was devided in two after that. On the left of it was the same bloody picture whilst on the right was a picture of Claire getting out of Kevin's car, obviously this morning. How could they publish it this fast?

"Dude, that was last night." I said, in hope to assure her brother and make him relax.

"I didn’t ask when that was. I asked what is happening between you and my baby sister!"

"Look, as I told you, this was last night, meaning when her friend was in the hospital. No one else was able to drive her so I offered and it made me miss the band practice too. She was just crying because there was really no chance of Mary staying alive. And I was the only one who was with her to comfort her so she hugged onto me. Now, I would love it if you'd relax man."

His expression went from mad to guilt in a fragment of seconds. "I'm sorry; I completely forgot that Mary was in a car accident."

"It’s okay. Now, let's join them in the kitchen before Jordin eats all the cookies."

After spending some time with Phil and Mrs. Sparks, I decided it was time to go to Kevin's place, pick Claire and go to the hospital now that Mary was awake. I couldn’t wait to meet her and see her reaction when she sees I'm there. I just wish the shock wouldn’t send her back into unconsciousness. You see, she's not exactly what you can call a huge fan of our band, well me. She does like my brothers a lot.

I told them that I would be leaving now and that I'd be bringing Claire later on today after she had spent some time with Mary. Mrs. Sparks packed her a clean outfit for today. Jordin, who decided to tag along, took the bag from her mom and skipped happily towards the passenger seat in my car.

Once there, we saw that Kevin's car was parked but with Kevin still in it. We parked next to it and got out. I went to Kevin's side whilst Jordin went for the door. "what'up brother?" his expression wasn’t jovial at all.

"I don't really know anymore…" he said and sighed.

Minutes after Jordin went in there, we heard yellings and shrieks of pain, muffled by the not-so-closed door. We went in there, not knowing what to expect to see. There she was Danielle gripping Claire's hair, Jordin had her mouth hung open, and Nick's glare was unbelievable. Danielle immediately dropped Claire's helpless body at the sight of Kevin.

"What was that all about?" he asked, as if not blaming the love of his life but you could still see it in his eyes that he was defeated.

"They were eavesdropping Kevy-"

"That's because you're an ungrateful bitch!" Claire cut her off.

"And the first thing you decide to do is pounce on Claire?" Nick shot, "So much action for a pregnant woman." He muttered.

Kevin's head shot up to our younger brother's direction. "What…" though it didn’t come out as a question.

"Kevin, who are you going to believe: them or the mother of your son? Although I did ask you to come home last night but it doesn’t seem like you care."

Kevin rose his hand up to shut her up. "I need time to think."