I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I prayed my eyes were lying to me. That couldn’t possibly be Justin kissing Drew. We had just made up less than 24 hours ago, and now he was kissing my best friend. I had never felt so betrayed in all my life.
“Justin?” I managed to squeak while blinking the tears back.
He broke away from Drew and stared at me. “Lili!”
“How… you… I…” I didn’t know what to say. I just had to get out of that room and fast. Before I had even reached the door, tears were streaming down my cheeks.
“Lili! Come back here!” I heard Justin call from behind me. Everyone was staring at me as I ran by. I’m guessing it must have been an interesting sight. It’s not often you see a girl running down a hotel hallway wearing a dress, high heels, and bawling her eyes out. And it’s not often you see the lead singer of a huge pop group stumbling after her.
After passing a small group of fans waiting in the front lobby, I finally found an empty conference room and slipped in. I closed the door behind me, and slid down into the corner.
“Lili? Are you in here?”
“Go away,” I sobbed. “Just go away.”
“Lili, please. Let me explain,” he said, kneeling down next to me.
“Explain?” I said, looking up at him through blurry eyes. “No, I don’t think you need to explain. I know what I just saw.”
“It was an accident!”
“Like hell it was.”
“Please.”
“How could you do this to me?”
“I think there was something in my drinks and…”
“You know what I think happened?” I interrupted, standing up. “I think this whole thing happened too fast. The past two weeks, ya know. I think that you don’t know what you want.”
“No, I do know. I want you. I-I love you.” He got up and tried to grab my hand.
“That is bull, Justin, and you know it. Don’t you dare pull that on me,” I said, stepping away.
“Don’t you dare. It’s obvious you don’t know what you want. And love? Oh no, what we have is not love.”
“Lil…”
“Man, Ben was right. I should have never come on this trip with you.”
“What does Ben have to do with anything?”
“He told me the day I was leaving that he thought I was making a huge mistake by coming with you. I blew off my best friend for you!”
“I didn’t…”
“And I’m regretting that now cause friendship is I how things should start with someone because friends don’t do what you just did.”
“You did it to Drew.”
“Of all the things you could say…”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…”
“You know what, Justin? Save it. Okay? Cause I don’t want to talk to you ever again.” I walked past him quickly, and I could have sworn that I saw a tear roll down his cheek as I did. -
“I’m really sorry to see you go,” JC said as I was getting ready to board my plane.
“Yeah. It’s a bit sooner than I planned, but I don’t think I can handle being around any longer.”
“It ended on a pretty sour note, huh?”
“You could say that.”
“Justin’s not a bad guy, ya know.”
“Maybe not to you.”
“Come on, Lili. He had a little too much to drink last night. I think most of us did.”
“That’s besides the point.”
“I know that must have hurt a lot to see and that you must hate him now…”
“You got that right.”
“But he does really love you, and with something like what happened last night, you may not believe me.”
“I don’t,” I stated.
“He’s very reluctant to give his heart to someone especially because of the business we’re in. He saw something in you right away. There’s no fighting that.”
“Things just happened too fast.”
“He went through a lot of crap for you these past two weeks with Drew and everything. He normally wouldn’t put up with all of it. I’m sure he’s sorry.”
“I have to go, JC. And I don’t think I’ll be able to forgive him anytime soon.”
“Bye, Lili,” he said, hugging me.
“Bye, JC,” I said before turning onto the plane.
“You know, I heard that he did have a girlfriend.”
“Really, who?”
“She’s nobody famous, but I was in this chat room, and they were like, Justin Timberlake has a new girlfriend.” My ears suddenly perked up to the conversation the two girls in front of me were having.
“What’s her name?”
“It’s a flower. Lili or something.” I quickly flipped over the picture of Justin and me that I was looking at. “They said that they saw them at the hotel in, um, Milwaukee, then somebody else saw them in Rhode Island and Tennessee and Boston, I think.”
I held my breath. How in the world did the guys deal with everyone knowing everything?
“Excuse me.”
I looked up to see the two of them turned around to me. “Um, yeah?”
“Hi, I’m Dawn, and this is Sarah.”
“Hi, I’m…” I paused. “Ophelia.”
“Hi,” Sarah said. “We noticed your ‘N Sync thing on your key chain,” I looked over to my purse where my all access pass was hanging out, “and we figured you’re a fan.”
I nodded.
“We were just wondering if you’ve heard anything about Justin’s new girlfriend?” Dawn asked.
“Um.” I swallowed hard, tracing the edge of the picture with my finger. “I don’t follow them that closely. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
“Have you seen any of their shows this tour?” Sarah asked me.
“A couple of them actually.”
“Is that why you were in town?”
“Sorta.”
“That’s cool.”
“Who’s the picture of?” Dawn nodded towards my hands.
“A friend and me on Christmas.”
“Could I see?”
I looked down at the picture. I didn’t really care anymore, although I did know that this picture could get me into trouble. His mom had taken it when Drew had briefly left the room Christmas morning. Justin still had his boxers and a T-shirt on, and I was still in my pj’s, but after a lot of work on her part, we let Mrs. Harless take our picture. One of his arms was around me, the other holding my hand.
I reluctantly handed over the picture. They looked down at the picture then quickly back at me. “By any chance do people call you Lili?” Dawn asked.
“Yeah.”
“Y-you’re Justin’s girlfriend?” Sarah asked, her hand shaking.
“Um, I was.”
“Was?”
“We’re not... I was.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“If you don’t mind me asking, what happened?”
“Let me just say that Justin was a pretty cool boyfriend while it lasted. We just made some mistakes down the road.” Like he made out with my best friend, I added silently.
“Was he a good kisser?” Sarah blurted out.
“Sarah! You retard!”
“It’s okay.” I couldn’t help but laugh. “Let me just put it this way, happily ever after has to end at some point.”
“You can’t stay in that bunk forever, Justin.”
“Yes, I can.”
“Come out and talk to me.”
“Go away, Lance. I don’t need to talk to anyone.”
“We have a show tonight, you know.”
“Please just leave me alone.” I rolled over in my bunk and wiped off the tears that had been rolling down my cheeks almost nonstop since the day began.
“Fine.”
“No, wait. Lance, come back.” I pushed open the curtain and grabbed his shirt.
“I wasn’t going anywhere,” he said, sitting down on Lili’s bunk.
“Look at it, Lance. Empty.”
“Maybe this is all for the better.”
“The better? How could this possibly be for the better? The girl I love just walked out of my life.”
“You’ll get over her.”
“I don’t think so,” I sighed, holding tightly on to the copy of Romeo and Juliet she had written for me. “This is all Joey’s fault!”
“How?”
“He got me drunk last night.”
“But you’re the one who kissed Drew.”
“Why didn’t you stop me?”
“You looked like you were enjoying it.”
“Lance! I didn’t know what I was doing, and now she’s gone.” I buried my head into my pillow as tears began to stream down my face again.
“I’ve never seen you cry before. Man, you’re pathetic.”
“Shut up!”
“Calm down. It’s just a girl.” That was probably the worst thing he could have said.
“I love her,” I yelled, “and I screwed it all up, and now she never wants to speak to me again.”
“Did she say that?”
“Yes.” When she said that, I finally realized what I had done, and I knew that it was over forever this time.
“Get her back.”
“Huh?”
“Get her back. Convince her that she does want to talk to you.”
“How?”
“I don’t know.”
“My journal!” I said, sitting up quickly.
“Okay, buddy, maybe be you should think about this after you’ve sobered up. You don’t have a journal.”
“Yeah, I do.”
“Whoa! You keep a diary?”
“No, it’s a journal, not a diary.”
“Since when?”
“I started it about two months ago, I think.”
“Why didn’t you tell us?”
“Why should I have? Do you know how personal it is? Man, everything is in there. Song lyrics, poems, stuff that’s been happening, pictures.”
“Geez, Jay.”
“It’s probably the only thing that stopped me from reading hers.”
“You had hers?”
“I found it.”
“How is your journal going to get her back?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” I said, reaching into my back pack and pulling out a baby blue notebook. “I send it to her, right? She reads it, and she’ll know exactly how I feel. It may not get her back, but at least she’ll know that I really do love her.”
“Do you really want her to read all of it? Can’t you just write her a really nice letter?”
“Lance, a letter? What good would that do? None. This will show her everything. It speaks for itself.”
“It just may work.”
“You know what would make it even better?”
“What?”
“I could send it to her at school.”
“Why?”
“Girls always say they would flip if a guy sent them flowers at school or something.”
“Flowers, not a journal. You could embarrass her completely, and she could hate you even more.”
“That’s just a risk I’ll have to take.”