What You Have

By: Amadnda Di

    “I can’t take this anymore!” Justin yelled and turned around. He had just tried to leave his hotel room and was surrounded by a crowd of people. He walked through the main part of the hotel suit and then found a different door out of the room, and out of the building. “These people,” he grumbled under his breath. “They just, ugh,” he couldn’t even think straight.
    “Justin wait up,” JC yelled after him. The metal door clanked as it slammed shut.
    “What?”
    “What’s wrong with you?”
    “JC did you happen to realize that I can’t even go outside of the damn room without someone shoving a camera in my face?”
    “Uhm, none of us can Justin.”
    “My point exactly,” he threw his hands up in the air.
    “This is how it has been for years,” JC commented.
    Justin stopped in his tracks and leaned against the wall. He bit his lip and looked at JC. “Maybe it’s not what I want anymore.”
    “Justin you don’t mean that. You love this,” JC said in a stern voice. “I know you do,” he then said after a moment of silence.
    “I’ll be back later. I need some time to myself,” he said and then turned on his toes, leaving JC standing alone.

    Justin pulled his hat low over his head and bundled up his jacket. He wanted to be alone, meaning he had to do everything he could to hide his own identity. The identity that he was beginning to regret. Cameras everywhere. No personal life. No secrets. This was his life. This was what he had.

    Justin walked along the side of a street and saw what looked like an abandoned warehouse, so he creaked the door open and slowly walked in. “Hello?” he said as he entered.
    There was no answer.
    “Finally,” he said and pulled his hat off. He sighed and then observed the building he had just stumbled upon. There were old machines on every wall, and there were old chairs that sat in the corners. Justin unzipped his jacket and walked through the rest of the building and stopped when he approached a room that actually looked normal. It was in bright decor and there was a nice couch and chair set in the corner.
    “What the,” he started to say. He glanced around the room, but saw no one. “Hmph,” he sighed again and then sat himself on the couch.

    Justin’s head fell quickly to his hands and tears began to grace his cheeks. The thought of everything in his past was just too overwhelming. He didn’t know what he wanted anymore. He didn’t know much of anything. Something that had once made him so happy, was now making him live his life in pain. He just wanted things to be normal. Where he could go outside and talk to people without being hounded for a picture or an autograph. He just wanted the tears to stop.

I can remember the very first time I cried
How I wiped my eyes and buried the pain inside
All of my memories - good and bad - that's past
Didn't even take the time to realize

    Annika cleared her throat as to try to get Justin’s attention. Justin’s head quickly shot up and he reached for his hat immediately. “You act like I don’t recognize you already,” she said softly.
    “Look, I was just trying to have to time alone. Sorry if I interrupted your space or whatever,” he started to stand.
    “You can sit,” she said and then sat on the floor in front of him.
    “I don’t want to be grilled right now. I just want to have some time off alright. I’ll give you whatever, an autograph or something... just please don’t go calling your friends and telling them I am here.”
    “You think this place even has a phone?”
    Justin looked around. He didn’t see anything, but what’s to say that it wasn’t in a different room. Justin just shrugged his shoulders. “I should go.”
    “If I wanted to attack you I would have done it already,” she stated. Annika was a very pretty girl. She was nineteen and had short dark hair and deep blue eyes. There was a reason why she was so calm and collected, but Justin would find that out soon enough.
    Justin repositioned himself on the couch and looked down at Annika. “I guess so.”
    “I’m Annika,” she said and reached out to shake his hand.
    Justin hesitated for a second and then reached out his in return. “Justin. As if you didn’t already know that.”
    Annika made no movements and no facial expressions.
    “So is this your hangout place or whatever?” Justin didn’t want to ask if she lived there straight out, because he would feel bad if she had to answer with yes.
    “Yeah. You could say that. I come here when I want to be alone. Kind of how you just came here.”
    “I just.... I’m having a rough day. I needed somewhere to think.”
    “Do you often cry when you are thinking?” she was questioning the tears that had stained his face already.
    “Do you always ask personal questions to people you don’t know?” he snapped.
    “Sorry,” she slightly lowered her head.
    “No, I’m sorry Annika.”
    “I shouldn’t have pried. I just figured that there was something bothering you.”
    “There is. I just don’t want the world hearing about it. I mean,” he began.
    “I understand. Ya know... my life isn‘t perfect.”
    “And you think mine is?” Justin just couldn’t help but twist everything she said.
    “Did I say that?” she snapped back.
    “Sorry,” Justin said again.
    “I just come here to let it all out. Just sit here and look around me while I wonder when things will end. When all the pain will go away.”

Starin' at the cracks in the walls
Cuz I'm waiting for it all to come to an end
Still I curl up right under the bed
Cuz it’s takin' over my head all over again

    Justin licked his lips and looked at Annika. She had pulled him in. He was then curious as to why she seemed so unhappy, and most of all why she was being so calm around him. That was an act of behavior that he wasn’t used to anymore. “You having a bad day too?” he tried to break the ice.
    “You could say that I guess.”
    “Anything I can do?” he couldn’t help but try to be nice. It was in his blood. Even when he was having the worst day, he still wanted to reach out to others.
    “Let me help you,” she said and raised her head back up from the sullen look she had previously acquired.
    Justin shook his head. “You can’t help me. This is something that I have to deal with.”
    Annika just looked at him.
    “I don’t know what it is that I want anymore.”
    “In life?” she asked.
    “In everything Annika. It’s like... I almost regret who I am and what I do. I have nothing that is just mine anymore. My life is spread amongst the million girls who beg to marry me. My secrets aren’t secrets. I don’t know who to trust and who not to. I don’t know if new people want to be my friend because of who I am inside, or who I am in a group.” Justin’s eyes began to water up again.
    Annika got on her knees and got a little closer to Justin. “You think of what you don’t have. Do you ever realize what you do have?”
    “I have nothing,” he lowered his head.
    “You have what people dream of, Justin. You were given a gift. A gift that a girl like me would die to have. You need to stop thinking of whatever it is that is clouding your mind, and think of who you are. Inside and out.”
    Justin sighed and wiped a tear from his eye. “I don’t know who I am Annika.”
    “Do you really have it that bad? Did you look at the surroundings that you are in everyday? Do you even come to see what other people go through.”

Do you even know who you are?
I guess I'm tryin' to find
A borrowed dream or a superstar?
I want to be a star
Is life good to you or is it bad?
I can't tell anymore
Do you even know what you have?

    “I have it good. I know I do. I still can’t think though. It’s like all that I have worked for doesn’t belong to me anymore.”
    “When you sing... who are you singing for?”
    “My fans.”
    “You can’t do that Justin. You have to sing for yourself. When you started, you did that. I know you did. I could see it in your eyes. And now... I can’t tell anymore. I don’t know who you are doing this for.”
    “I sing for them because they have made me who I am.”
    “They have supported who you already were,” she stated. A statement that hit Justin hard. He had never thought of it that way.
    Justin put his head in his hands and breathed hard. Annika inched closer to him again and put her hands on his knees. She looked up at him and saw the pain. It was the pain that she had. It was a little different, but it was the same all together. It was a pain that only one person could really feel. A pain that would make a person self destruct if they didn’t change their views on things around them.
    “I don’t try to see what goes on outside of my world Annika.”
    “Why not?”
    “Because it scares me. I see things that people do to one another. I see things that they do to me. I can’t go out without being mobbed by a group of giddy girls with pony tails. I can’t have a girlfriend without the entire world knowing about her. I see what happens to me. Why would I want to see what happens to the rest of the world?”

Lyin' awake watchin' the sunlight
How the birds will sing as I count the rings around my eyes
Constantly pushing the world I know aside
I don't even feel the pain, I don't even want to try

    “You need to. You need to see what goes on around you, so that you can decide if what you are doing is really what you want.”
    “Are you calling me selfish in your own disclosed type of conversation?” he looked into her deep blue eyes.
    “I’m calling you naive.”
    Justin took a deep breath and tried to let that not hit him as hard as it actually did. “I just... I want to be how I was four years ago. I still was singing for myself. I dreamt of becoming something huge, but something that I became. Not something that the fans made of me. That’s who I want to be.”

I'm lookin' for a way to become
The person that I dreamt of when I was sixteen
Oh, nothin' is ever enough
Ooh, baby, it ain't enough for what it may seem

    “That’s you. You have made yourself Justin. Until you recognize that, you are gonna keep living your life with regret for something that you needn’t regret at all. You are taking everything you have for granted.”

Do you even know who you are?
I'm still tryin' to find
A borrowed dream or a superstar?
Everybody wants to be
Is life good to you or is it bad?
I can't tell anymore
Do you even know what you have?
No

    He didn’t know what to say. He felt an anger that he wasn’t sure how to express. Finally he had to ask. “You are making me share my thoughts with you... telling you my sad tales. Tell me what’s wrong with you Annika.”
    “I’m not making you tell me anything. You are saying exactly what you wish you could have said to someone else earlier in time.”
    “Don’t change this around. I want to know why you are here. Why you come here all alone.”

Sorry girl, tell a tale for me
Cuz I'm wondering how you really feel

    “You really want to know?”
    “Yes, I do,” Justin said and glared his sparkling, yet watery, blue eyes at her.

I'm a lonely girl, I'll tell a tale for you
Cuz I'm just tryin' to make all my dreams come true

    Justin listened to the long and tear filled story that Annika had to share. “I never got to live my life the way that I really wanted to. You on the other hand have that chance.”
    “Annika you can still live your dreams,” he tried to convince.
    “No Justin, I can’t,” she shook her head. “I can only now hope to help others to realize what they have. Do you know yet?”
    “I think I do,” he half smiled. “Thank you Annika.”

Do you even know who you are?
Oh, yeah, yeah
A borrowed dream or a superstar?
Oh, I wanted to be a star
Is life good to you or is it bad?
I can't tell, I can't tell anymore
Do you even know what you have?
I guess not, oh I guess not

    Justin put his head down for only enough time to sigh once, but by the time he raised his head, his surrounds had changed. “Annika?” he said and looked around the empty room. She was no where in site. The once bright room was now just as dull as the ones that he had walked through when he first entered the building.
    There was a small patch of light into the room, but that was it. Darkness set in around him and the furniture in which he had though was a lovely couch, was in fact an old wooden box. Justin shook his head and tried to recall what had just happened. Once he realized, he simply replied with, “Thank you Annika... for everything.”

Do you even know who you are?
Oh, I'm tryin' to find
A rising dream or a falling star?
Oh, I have a all these dreams
Is life good to you or is it bad?
I can't tell anymore
Do you even know what you have?
No, no
Do you even know who you are?
A rising dream or a falling star?
Is life good to you or is it bad?

    Justin stood up and put his hat back on, and then bundled up his jacket. He looked around the room and nodded with a sense of accomplishment. Justin didn’t bother to hide his face this time. The identity he wanted to hide earlier was now something he didn’t regret. Fans. Happiness. Making others happy as well as himself. This was his life. “And I’m thankful for what I have,” he said and then exited the building where Annika had helped him find himself.

The End

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