“What are you doing here?”
“Well, it is vacation, and I was inspired by your phone call last night to come and visit you.”
“Why?” I asked suspiciously.
“Nice to see you too.”
“I’m fine, you know.”
“It doesn’t look like you’ve broken up with Justin,” he said, lowering his voice.
“I’ll talk to you about that later,” I said, grabbing his hand and pulling him out to the bus. “You guys, this is my brother, Hunter.”
“Hi,” he smiled.
“Hunter, this is Joey, JC, Chris, Lance and Justin.” I paused then whispered in his ear, “Don’t hurt him.” Hunter was twenty, and he was a big guy, not as in fat, but he had this thing with working out. He did it a lot.
“Nice to meet you, Hunter,” JC said.
“It’s be fun having your sister on tour with us,” Justin smiled.
“I’m sure,” he muttered, giving him the once over.
“Let’s get inside. It’s really cold,” Chris said, shivering. He turned toward the doors to the lobby, and everyone followed.
“Do not go into protective older brother mode,” I scolded him as we walked inside. “I’m not ten anymore.”
“I know.”
“So, Hunter, how long are you in town for?” Joey asked.
“I’m leaving tomorrow morning.”
“Short stay?”
“Yeah, I just have some business to take care of.”
“I see.”
“Where do you go to college?” JC asked.
“University of Michigan,” he said, tugging on his U of M sweatshirt.
“Do you have a room here?” I interrupted before someone could ask another question.
“Yeah, I just got one.”
“Good. Go there, and I’ll come visit you in a little bit.”
“A little jumpy, Lil?”
“No, I’ll see you in a little bit,” I said, pushing him away from the group.
“Okay. I have to go. I’ll see you guys later.”
“Nice meeting you,” Justin smiled.
“Sure.” He turned and walked away.
“What‘s up his ass?” Justin asked once he was gone.
“You don’t wanna know,” I sighed. -
Later that night, I made my way to Hunter’s room ready to give him a piece of my mind. I couldn’t believe that he actually had the nerve to come check up on me.
“It’s about time you got here,” he said, opening the door.
“For the record, none of this would have happened if you hadn’t broken up with Sara.”
“How do you figure?” he asked, closing the door behind me.
“If you hadn’t, I would have gone to the concert, not the gas station, never have met them, and this whole disaster never would have taken place.”
“Or you could have not fallen in love with Justin.”
“I am not in love with Justin.” I tried not to laugh. As much as I did like him, a lot, I was not in love with him. Right?
“Then what’s the problem? DUMP HIM!”
“Drew was being so horrible on the plane. I don’t know if I want to be her friend anymore.”
“Lili, when you were learning how to roller blade, who was that with?”
“Drew.”
“When you were in the spelling bee, who was there cheering you on?”
“Mom.”
“Drew. When you first wrote an article for the newspaper, who personally handed out copies so everyone was sure to see?”
“Drew.”
“When Dad died, who was with you the whole entire time?”
“Okay, I get it, Drew. But people grow apart.”
“That’s why I came. I don’t want to see you make a mistake.”
“I don’t want to break up with him, Hunter.”
“What about Ben?”
“What about him?”
“He finally got the balls to tell you how he feels, and you completely shut him down.”
“I already feel bad about that.”
“Three years ago, he came up to me and asked if it was bad that he liked you.”
“He did?” Ben was a very independent person, not somebody I could really see asking for advice. He was more likely to figure things out on his own, and if he was going to talk to someone, my brother was the last person I would expect him to go to.
“Yeah. He was like, ‘I’ve known her forever, but now I’m kinda seeing her in this way…’ He was so embarrassed.”
“Why?”
“Cause he didn’t want to like you, but he did.”
“Hunter! I don’t want to like Justin, but I do! From the second that he caught me…”
“He caught you?”
“Yes. From that second on, I knew I liked him, but all I could think about was how I was betraying Drew. I tried not to like him, I really did. It’s not that easy.”
“Couldn’t you have not acted on what you were feeling?”
“Have you ever tried to do that?” I asked him seriously. “It’s not that easy, especially when the feelings are mutual.”
“I don’t know what to tell you. I mean, sure, I don’t think I’ve ever see you this wound up over a guy before, but are you sure it’s not just cause he’s ‘Justin Timberlake’?”
“It’s not like that at all. I couldn’t care less about that. Yeah, it’s cool, but that’s not why I want to be with him.”
“I still think you should break it off.”
“I don’t want to hear this.”
“I know you don’t. If you do nothing, at least go smooth things over with Drew.”
“I’ll try, but it won’t be easy.”
“Definitely try.” -
I stood in front of Drew’s hotel door for about twenty minutes the next morning before I turned around and walked away. There was so much confusion in my head, conflicting feelings beating each other to see which will end up the winner. My brother had a point, as little as I wanted to admit it. Drew had been my best friend for nearly 13 years. I needed to make up with her. I also knew this: if I walked in that door, when I walked out, my relationship with Justin was history. This was harder than I expected it to be. I forced myself to stop halfway down the hall and went back.
“Drew?” I said, knocking on her door. I heard a slight fumbling with the lock, and then the door opened.
“What do you want?” she asked coldly.
“Can I talk to you,” I asked.
“Sure,” she said after a moment to think about it. “Come on in.”
I walked into her room and sat down on the bed. “Well, I guess I should first start off with I’m sorry.”
“I can’t believe you were seeing him behind my back this whole time, Lili,” she said, sitting down on top of the dresser.
“When I first met Justin, I was at the gas station getting juice when my boot got caught on the rug, and I fell back. He caught me.”
“Funny how you managed to leave that part out before.”
“Well, then our hands brushed, and it just sent this shiver up my spine.”
“I really don’t want to hear about this.”
“But I tried to ignore it, this absolutely wonderful feeling, because I knew you liked him so much. Besides, I thought, why the hell would Justin Timberlake like me?”
“Lili, come on, don’t put me through this. I don’t need to hear the story of how your romance began.”
“I need to tell you all of this. I didn’t think he liked me either until the snowball fight.”
“The one in which he supposedly hurt his arm?”
“That would be the one. Well, I basically figured it out then, and the whole time I was thinking ‘When he meets Drew, he’ll fall madly in love with her, and things would be back to normal, and I could just ignore these feelings.’”
“Unfortunately that didn’t happen,” she said quietly, looking down at her hands, her bottom lip quivering.
“Exactly. Things just progressed. It really was hard on me, and then I had the whole Ben thing on top of it.”
“Do you want me to feel sorry for you, Lili? Are you looking for sympathy? If so, you are definitely looking in the wrong place.”
“I’m not looking for pity.”
“Then what?” she asked, her voice desperate for an answer. Tears began to streak her face as she continued. “Are you trying to rub this in my face? You got Justin, and I didn’t.”
“No, not at all.”
“You completely humiliated me in front of everyone, especially the guys. I called Justin a fag. They weren’t laughing at the card, they were laughing at me, Lili’s dumb blond friend.”
“They don’t think you’re dumb.”
She looked up at me seriously. “Come on. I saw everything, Lili. I saw how is parents treated you. I saw how people tried to cover up things that they almost said. I saw how you both seemed to be missing at the same times. I saw how he looks at you, and if that isn’t a dead giveaway... I saw it all, but you know what? I convinced myself that I was just imagining things, just coincidences. I took your word that nothing was going on cause you were my best friend, and you wouldn’t lie to me, but you did.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I’m not finished, okay? I must have looked like a ditz to everyone. I was trying so hard to get him to notice me cause he was supposedly single, and I really do like him.” She paused and took a deep breath. “I know what they must say about me. Do you ever defend me? Say, she’s not like that? No, you go and say that I slut around.”
“You deserved that. You called me ugly and boring.”
“Lili, slut around? That really hurt. I may go out with a lot of guys, but I do not sleep with them. The only reason I’m not a virgin still is because that one guy slipped something in my drink at that party. And only you, that guy, and me know about it, not even Ben.”
“I know, but you brought the virginity thing up.”
“My defenses were up.” She paused. “Let me just put things this way, I don’t know if I’m ready to forgive you yet. Just go back to your Romeo and your dream relationship, make fun of me some more behind my back, and I’ll find my own way home.”
Seeing Drew so hurt and so mad at me absolutely broke my heart. She had always been there for me through all of my ups and downs, and what do I do? I go and steal the one guy that she actually thought she would marry one day. I would have done anything to make up for it at that point, and I knew what I had to do.
“I’m breaking up with Justin.”
“You’re what?”
“Tonight, after Hunter leaves, I’m going to break up with Justin.”
“Why?”
“You’re friendship is more important to me then a guy.”
“You’re doing it for me?”
“Yeah. Honestly, I don’t want to end it with him, but I don’t want to see you so hurt by it either. It’s over.”
“Thank you, Lili.”
“What are best friends for?”
I had to have the messiest bunk on the bus. Over time things piled up. I don’t think there was any room for a person in there, it was that bad. I set the goal of cleaning it before we got to Baltimore, and I was doing a pretty good job, too.
“Justin?”
I raised my head quickly, hitting it on the bunk above me. “Oh!” I turned around to find Lili. “Ouch,” I said, rubbing my head then looking back at my bunk. “You know, I honestly don’t know where half this stuff comes from.”
“Justin…”
“Maybe there is a portal or something that’s a garbage dump from another planet, and it all goes to my bed. It’s possible.”
“Justin, I really need to talk to you.”
“Oh, okay. What’s up?” I asked slowly. There was something in her voice that made me suddenly nervous.
“Is there anybody in the back?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Could we go back there?”
“Sure,” I said, standing up slowly. She took my hand and led me to the back.
“Okay,” she said, closing the door behind her. “I wanna start off by saying I like you so much, and I really don’t want to do this, but I feel it’s necessary.”
“Wow, Lili,” I said, sitting down. “If I didn’t know any better, I would think this was a break up speech.” She looked at me quickly. No, that couldn’t have been a ‘You guessed it’ look. It had to of been a ‘Get real, Justin’ look. There was just no way. “Is it?”
“I’ve been doing a lot of thinking these past few days…”
“And now you wanna break up with me?”
“Well, it’s not that simple.”
“Lili?”
“Yes, I’m breaking it off.” I felt as though I had been punched in the stomach. I knew we hadn’t had the best relationship in the world because of a few hiccups, but I was not expecting her to break up with me.
“Are you serious?”
“Yeah, I am.”
“How much are the guys paying you?” I walked over to the door. “Ha, ha. Jokes over,” I called.
“Justin, nobody’s paying me,” she said, putting her hand on my shoulder lightly.
“Why?” I asked, keeping my back to her.
“It’s kinda hard to explain.”
“I think I have a right to know.” I turned around and stepped away from the door. I didn’t want anybody hearing this conversation.
“Okay,” she sighed. “I smoothed things over with Drew, and I’m gonna try to do the same with Ben, but I don’t think anything will be the same between them and me until I’m not with you.”
“So you’re breaking up with me cause your friends can’t handle us being together? That’s such bull.”
“Justin, don’t get mad.”
“I’m trying not to, but this is stupid. If they were good friends, they would be happy for you.”
“Oh, come on, don’t turn this around on them. If anyone was being a bad friend, it was me.”
“You were not.”
“Yes, I was. I never should have let any of this happen. Things just got too out of control.
Besides, at the end of this week, I’m going back to school, and you’ll go, where ever, and I won’t see you for months. I don’t want to ruin friendships with people I’ve known since kindergarten for a two-week relationship.”
“One week,” I said quietly, sitting down.
“What?”
“One week relationship. It’s only been a week, and you’re breaking it off now. Isn’t that what you said Drew would do? Dump me in a week?”
“Don’t do that.”
“Do what? I just asked a simple question.”
“Yes, that’s what I said, but it’s different.”
“How? Are you tired of me already?”
“No,” she said, sitting down next to me. “I still like you so much, but I have to do this. If I had any choice in the matter…”
“What the hell? If you had any choice in the matter? You have every fucking choice in the matter!”
“Don’t yell, Justin. Please, just listen to me. I know I may regret this later, but it is just something I feel I need to do, that we need to do.”
“This is unbelievable.”
“Could we just be friends?”
The door opened, and Joey stuck his head in. “Um, we’re here guys.”
“Thanks, Joey,” I said as he closed the door.
“So, we’re friends, right?” Lili asked, getting up.
“Yeah, friends.”
“Thank you, Justin.” She reached over and hugged me.
“No problem.” When she left the room, I let out a huge sigh. “Could we just be friends,” echoed in my mind. I couldn’t believe what had just happened. Somehow I had managed to go from being Lili’s boyfriend to a friend, and I wasn’t quite sure why. I did know that it wasn’t what I wanted though. -
“Hey, Justin!”
“Yeah, James?”
“There was some stuff on the floor last night, so I threw it on your bed.”
“James! I was trying to clean it.”
“Yours was already messy, so I figured…”
“Yeah, okay.” I was back on my mission to clean my bunk, and hopefully I would get it done before we had to be at sound check. I figured it would be a good distraction from everything, and a good excuse to avoid everybody. The guys came to talk to me the night before to find out what happened, and eventually I told them. Ever since they keep giving me sympathetic looks that I really didn’t need.
“Okay, prepare to be cleaned,” I said, putting my head phones on. Brian McKnight slowly drifted into my ears. I know that sappy love songs aren’t the best things to listen to when you’re trying to be ‘just friends’ with someone, but somehow it was allowing me to concentrate. Go figure.
I began separating everything into two piles: stuff and clothes. After I finished, I sat down on the clothes pile and began to sort through the stuff.
“Joey’s shoe, JC’s stuffed animal, Lance’s watch. Hmmmm, he’s been looking for that.” I reached down to pick up a small blue book that I didn’t remember seeing before. I looked both ways before opening it.
We talked forever last night after the rest of the guys went to bed. He is so nice, and funny, and good looking… I skimmed down to the end. God Bless- Lili
“Oh my Lord, it’s her journal!” I slammed it shut and threw it on her bunk. I sat down on my bed eyeing the book. Lili and Drew were swimming in the pool. The guys were getting ready, except for JC and Lance, they were playing video games. No one would know I had it, and she didn’t say anything about it missing. It wouldn’t hurt anybody if I just took a peak.
“James?” I called. No answer. No one was on the bus.
“Justin, you can’t read her journal,” I scolded myself. Drew had said that she wrote in it every night without fail. Maybe she wrote in it before she came and broke up with me. Maybe there was a better explanation to why she had ended it all.
I grabbed the book and threw it into my backpack before quickly finishing cleaning. I began walking towards the restaurant inside the hotel when I noticed Lance and JC walking towards me.
I turned quickly, hoping to avoid them.
“Hey, Justin!” JC called.
“Hi,” I said, changing my direction yet again.
“What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” I said a bit too fast.
“We leave in 45 minutes. You ready?”
“Yup, my stuff’s on the bus.”
“Why do you have your back pack?” Lance asked.
“I was about to buy some gum.”
“Why do you need a bag for that?” I shrugged. “The store’s that way,” he said, pointing behind over his shoulder.
“Oh, I guess I don’t need any gum.”
“Okay, will you go get the girls from the pool then?”
“Yup,” I began to walk away.
“Justin!” yelled JC.
“Huh?”
“Are you taking this break up okay? I mean, you’re feeling okay, right?”
“I’m fine, really.”
“Okay, you just keep telling yourself that, buddy.”