“Drew, it wasn’t what it looked like,” I yelled as I ran after her out the front door.
She turned around quickly. “Not what it looked like?” she asked with tears streaming down her face. “Not what it fucking looked like? Lili, you were on the basement floor making out with Justin!”
“I didn’t mean…”
“You didn’t mean what? For me to find out? How long has this been going on?”
“Drew, come on…”
“The whole time, right? I was right when I asked if there was something going on between you two by the oak. The slam dunk? On the bus? The dare? How could I have been so stupid? He’s fucking Romeo!”
“I’m sorry.”
“Everybody knew but me? The guys all knew, his parents?” I nodded. She was doing a good job answering her own questions. “God damn it, Lili. At least you could have been honest instead of humiliating me in front of everyone.”
“Let’s go inside and talk about this.”
“No.”
“Listen, I’m so sorry. You have to believe me. You have no idea how hard this has been for me.”
“Yeah, it’s really hard stabbing your best friend in the back. You know what? Make that ex best friend.”
“Drew…”
“I can’t believe you could ever do something like this.”
“I…”
“Don’t even try to explain. Mike, will you drive me home?” I turned around to see him and Justin standing on the front porch.
“Sure,” he said, walking past me to his car. They got in and drove away.
Without saying a word Justin slid his arms around me. “I screwed up so bad,” I cried, burring my head into him.
“It’s not your fault,” he said, rubbing my back softly. He kissed my forehead lightly and began leading me into the house. “Come on, let’s get you inside, and we can talk about this, okay?”
I did need someone to talk to, but Justin was too involved with the whole situation. “Can I use your phone?”
“Yeah,” he paused. “Who ya gonna call?”
“My brother.”
“Okay,” he said with a hurt look across his face. He took my hand and led me into the office.
“Don’t worry. I have my calling card.”
“Okay. I’ll, uh, just leave you alone,” he said, closing the door lightly behind him.
I picked up the phone and slowly dialed the number. “Hello?”
“Um, hi. Is Hunter there?”
“Sure, one second. Hunter!”
“I got it, man. Hello?”
“Hunter?” I said, trying to hold back my tears.
“Hey there, Lil Bit. Merry Christmas.”
“Hunter, I’m having this big problem.”
“Where are you?”
“Um, Tennessee.”
“Tennessee! Whoa! Mom was telling the truth when she said you met the ‘N Sync guys?”
“Yeah.”
“Holy shit! I thought she was lying.”
“No.”
“Okay, so this problem has something to do with that Lance guy you like? Need me to come kick his ass?”
“I wish it was that easy, but this problem has nothing to do with Lance. Wait, how did you know which guy I liked?”
“I do have ears, Lili. So tell me this problem.”
“Okay.” I took a deep breath. “When I met the guys, I kinda developed this thing for Justin.”
“I thought you didn’t like Justin.”
“No! Why does everybody think that? All I said before is that he more than likely had a big ego, but he doesn’t.”
“Wait a minute, doesn’t Drew like Justin?”
“Yeah, but he likes me back, right, so we hooked up.”
“My little sis hooked up with Justin Timberlake? Good job.”
“But the problem is that it has gotten fairly serious, and I couldn’t tell Drew about it cause she really likes him. And so I didn’t, but she found out tonight.”
“How?” he asked slowly.
“Well, we were playing laser tag, and he sorta captured me, and, well, Drew walked in on us kissing.”
“Great way to tell her.”
“But now she’s really pissed.”
“That’s a completely understandable reaction.”
“I don’t know what to do.”
“How long ago did this happen?”
“Oh, I don’t know, maybe twenty minutes ago.”
“Twenty minutes!”
“What should I do?”
“You and Drew have been friends since kindergarten. Guys will come and go, but friends…”
“What are you trying to say?”
“You should really try and save your friendship with her, even if it means…”
“Even if it means breaking up with Justin?”
“I know that’s not what you wanna hear, but let’s be realistic. At the end of vacation, you’re gonna go home and back to school, and he’s gonna be on tour. You won’t see him for months until they come back to Michigan. Meanwhile, Drew will be with you all the time. Besides, you have Ben.”
“Ben! That’s another thing. The day before I left, Ben told me how he felt about me, and…”
“You didn’t know?”
“No! And then he got all mad at me cause, I don’t know.”
“So wait, your two best friends aren’t talking to you because of Justin?”
“I guess so.”
“I think the answer is kinda obvious here, Lili.”
“I know.” I picked up a picture frame that was sitting on the desk. Inside was a picture of Justin with Steven on his lap. I felt tears well up again at the thought of breaking up with him.
“Lili?”
“Huh?”
“It’s all good now, right?”
“I guess so. Thanks, Hunter.”
“No prob, Lil Bit.”
“Merry Christmas.”
“Merry Christmas. Call me when you get home, okay?”
“Kay.”
“Bye.” I hung up the phone and looked at the picture one more time. Was breaking up really my only choice? It couldn’t be.
I opened the door to find Justin sitting against the wall waiting for me. “Hey.”
“Oh, hi,” he said, getting up and tossing a notebook to the floor. “How’s your brother?”
“Good. He’s, uh, very proud of the mishaps that his little sister has caused.”
“I’m sorry, Lili. I finally understand why you wanted to keep this a secret now.”
“Yeah, well, she really does like you.”
“It will be okay.”
“I honestly don’t know about that.”
“Come on, Lil,” he began, sitting down on a couch. “We can go talk to her about it. I mean, she should understand. She is your best friend.”
“Ex best friend.” I began crying again as I sat down next to him. He wrapped his arm around my shoulder and pulled me into him.
“I’m sure she didn’t mean that.”
“She did. You have no idea what I’ve done. You have no idea how much she likes you. Like 50 percent of our conversations are about you guys, and how she’s going to, like, marry you or something. You‘re going out with a teeny bopper, Justin.”
“Calm down.”
“No, okay? I just talked to my brother, and he thought that I didn’t like you! So finding out that I’m going out with you must seem crazy.”
“Come on, it’ll be fine.”
“Justin,” I said, turning myself so I was looking at him. “Put yourself in my position. You were about to beat the crap out of Lance because you thought he was doing something with me. I actually did something.”
“Lili, sweetie, take a deep breath and calm down.”
I never imagined that a person could have such an effect on me so that a simple word like ‘sweetie’ would calm me down instantly. For some reason it just sounded right. By Justin saying that one word to me, I felt my whole body relax, knowing that he was there with me and for me.
“Okay,” I said, laying my head down on his shoulder.
“I know this is really hard on you. Man,” he sighed, “I feel so bad about capturing you now.” I couldn’t help but laugh. “Is that a smile I see?”
“Yeah.”
“Good. Things are improving already.” He paused. “We can’t do anything about this now, and we can just stay here tonight to give her her space.”
“Okay.”
“You wanna watch some TV or something to take your mind off things?”
“Uh huh.” He took the remote and turned the TV on. ‘The Grinch Who Stole Christmas,’ just who I felt like.
“Justin? Lili? Wake up. Mommy said you have to get going.”
“What?” I opened my eyes slowly to find Jon sitting on the couch next to me, drinking from his sippy coup. “Hey, buddy.”
“Hi! Mommy said that it’s noon, and you guys have to get going to the airport.”
“What time is it?”
“Twelve o‘clock.”
“Oh my God!”
“You and Lili have been sleeping.”
“We have to go!” I jumped off the couch, waking Lili up.
“Hi, Jonathan,” she smiled.
“Hi, Lili!”
“Lili! We have to go now.”
“Oh, okay.”
By some miracle, we managed to be at the airport in less than half an hour. Maybe it was God making up for a semi- crappy Christmas. Unfortunately the flight to proved otherwise. I had the privilege of sitting between Lili and Drew. I felt too guilty to talk to Lili, or if I did, she shook her head at me silently, and if I tried to talk to Drew, she would turn the other way. It was a no win situation.
“Girls,” I began, “are we planning on not speaking for the next eight days?”
“Exactly,” Drew sighed, looking out the window.
“Drew, grow up,” I said.
“Justin!” Lili punched me.
“Wait, I’m serious. Drew, you’ve made it blatantly obvious that you like me, okay? But I like Lili.”
“You made that obvious last night on the basement floor.”
“Well, let me tell you, that wasn’t the first time.”
“Justin, please, you’re going to make things worse,” Lili begged.
“No, I’m sick of this. Our whole relationship has been based around her. What we could do, what we couldn’t, where, when, all of it. Drew, I like Lili, Lili likes me. Don’t you want your friend to be happy?”
“Why do you even like her? I mean look at her, Justin. She’s not that pretty. And she’s so boring...”
“You’re such a bitch,” Lili snapped back. “God, at least I don’t slut around like you.”
“I do not slut around, thank you.”
“Okay, sure. I believe that. The night I met them, you were all talking about Ryan, right? What happened to him? Huh? Even if you did go out with Justin, you’d drop him in a week.”
“Well, at least I’m not some pathetic little virgin like you.” I wished now that I would’ve stopped when Lili had told me to. They were getting vicious.
“I pride myself in being a virgin. Since when was it a bad thing? It’s one of those Christian things that we learn about in school and youth group. Oh, I forgot, you only go to youth group for the guys.”
“Well, at least when a guy likes me it doesn’t take three years for me to figure it out!”
“Are you talking about Ben?”
“Um, wait,” I interrupted. “Ben?”
“Keeping Justy in the dark about Benny-boy, huh, Lili?”
“Drew, don’t. I was never interested in Ben like that, and you know it. And it’s not my fault he told me about his feelings the day I left.”
“He what?” I exclaimed. That explained a few things.
“Yeah, and I’m the one who sluts around. You left for this trip after knowing Justin for what? Two days? You must have really wanted an expensive Christmas gift, huh?” I think the two of them forgot that I was sitting there between them.
“Damn it, Drew. You know I’m not like that. Okay? And he wrote me a song! That sure does cost lost of money!”
“A song huh? Oh, Romeo, how cute. How do you know he didn’t write that song a long time ago? Huh? He’s probably used it on hundreds of girls.”
“Actually, no, I wrote it for…”
“Shut up, Justin,” Drew snapped.
“Um, miss!” I called to the flight attendant. “Could I have some water please?”
When I got off the plane and saw the rest of the guys waiting for us, I could have done somersaults.
“Hey, Justin. Merry day after Christmas!” Chris said cheerfully.
“Be careful,” I warned.
“Huh?”
“Drew found out last night. It has been so horrible. They have been fighting the whole flight. Granted I started it, but oh my God.”
“How’d she find out?” Lance asked.
“She came down to the basement when we were, uh, playing laser tag.”
“Laser tag! You devil, you.”
“Joey, man, you’re still dirty. We were just kissing.”
“Oh.”
“Here they come,” JC said, nodding behind me. I turned around to see Lili and Drew walking towards us. “Hi, girls.”
“Hi, JC.” Lili smiled slightly, attempting not to cry.
“How was your flight?” Joey asked.
“Swell,” Drew mumbled.
“Well, James and the bus are waiting for us, so if we could begin moving in the right direction.” Lance began walking towards the door.
When I slid my arm around Lili’s waist I could feel her body tremble as she silently cried the entire walk to the bus. She had her head downcast the majority of the way. I didn’t know whether it was so no one would see her crying or so she wouldn’t have to look at Drew who was walking a few yards in front of us.
I was trying to imagine what she was going through, but I couldn’t. What I really didn’t get was how Drew could be holding something like this against her. I know I got pissed at Lance at a similar thought, but the situations were different.
“Lili?” I stopped her before she walked up the stairs to the bus.
“Yeah?” she said, not really looking at me. I raised her chin, so I could see her eyes. They were bloodshot, and her cheeks were wet. I reached into my bag and grabbed a tissue for her.
“Don’t worry, it’s not used.”
“Thank you,” she sniffled.
“Are you going to be okay?”
“I’ll be fine.”
“Are you su…”
“Justin! Lili!” James said, peaking his head out the door. “We got to go. Come on.”
“Oh, okay.” The guys decided that it would be our best bet separating the girls: Joey, Chris, and Drew in the back; me, Lili, JC, and Lance in the front.
“I’m really sorry if we embarrassed you on the plane, Justin,” Lili said quietly.
“I’m the one who started it,” I said, rubbing her back. “Although, I couldn’t believe it when you called Drew a slut.”
“You called her a slut!” Lance laughed.
“Well, she is,” she mumbled before putting her head on the table.
“That’s obvious,” JC muttered under his breath.
“JC,” I laughed. “Man, that must of slipped cause you rarely say anything bad about people.”
“Actually, it didn’t,” he said, getting a Coke out of the fridge. “I mean, she was all over you. And puh-leez, ‘Justin, what do you look for in a girl?’” he mocked, batting his eyelashes.
“She is pretty obvious,” Lili laughed.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “You would think that she could catch a hint when I completely ignored her.”
“I still feel absolutely horrible,” she sighed, turning her head to look out the window.
“It’s not your fault.” I leaned over and kissed the top of her head, hoping to provide some comfort to her.
“You could always dump Justin,” Lance smiled. I kicked him under the table. “OW!”
“Ignore him, Lili. He was dropped one too many times on the head as a child.”
“Very funny.”
“We’re here, guys!” James called from the driver’s seat.
“Already?”
“Yup.”
“Okay, let’s go,” Lance said, getting up.
“I’ll go get everyone from the back,” JC volunteered.
“Lili?” I said, offering my hand to her.
“Why thank you.” She slipped her hand into mine, and we walked off the bus, but we didn’t get very far.
“Hunter!” she screamed and ran over to a guy wearing a blue and gold sweatshirt. When she reached him, she flung her arms around his neck.
“Hey there, Lil Bit.” It was her brother.