YOU GOT IT
By Nicki Fulkerson
PART ELEVEN
“You heard me! I think your all a bunch of freaks! I don’t even know why Nick drug me here. A barbecue filled with psychos!” Brie yelled.
Sarah was getting really steamed at this point. “Did your drunken, pre-pubescent boyfriend even tell you why you’re here?” She asked. But she didn’t even wait for Brie to answer. “Did he tell you it’s because he and A.J. wanted to see me and Nicki?”
Joey and JC shot me a pair of questioning looks, but I simply shrugged in respond. Krystal turned to look at A.J. He shook his head no, as if to say ‘that’s not true’.
Brie, however, didn’t believe anything that Sarah had said. “Yeah, okay bitch. Whatever.”
“Umm… okay! That’s just last night while you and your friend here went to the bathroom, they came and started hitting on us. They bought us a couple of drinks and then gave us their phone numbers!” Krystal stepped away from A.J.’s arms. She seemed really pissed now. Nick had finished throwing up and was now standing with the rest of us.
Brie had a serious case of denial, because she still didn’t believe Sarah. “You only wish!” She yelled at Sarah. ‘She’s quick on the comebacks.’ I thought sarcastically to myself.
“Oh yeah? Well then how does 555-4325 sound?” Sarah threw in her face. Even though we had thrown the numbers away, Sarah was an expert at remembering phone numbers. It was one of her many skills!
That’s when Brie came at Sarah. She shoved her down and Sarah fell down on her butt. Brie jumped on top of her and started strangling her.
“You whore! You know you just want my man!” She was screaming at Sarah.
Poor Sarah, she had a broken arm and leg. She could barely fight back! But she managed to take her good arm and put it on Brie’s neck to hold her back from herself. “Yeah right! Like I would want a drunken, fat, Backstreet Boy!” She managed to turn her head to the side to look at me. “Nicki, will you please get this bitch off of me!”
I went over to Brie and grabbed her to yank her off of Sarah. “Get the hell off of her! God she’s all gimped up, and you just start beating on her! Well why don’t you pick on someone who has the same advantage as you!” I said shoving Brie.
Then Krystal came up behind me and tried to help her friend out. She grabbed my shoulder and tried to turn me around. “Get the hell away from her you slut!” She yelled at me.
“Get the hell off of me!” I said as I pushed her into the picnic table. Her face landed right in the bowl of fruit cocktail. A.J. ran over to her and she started crying. JC and Nick started cracking up hysterically. Joey was just trying to help Sarah up, but when she saw that she fell back down she as laughing so hard.
Then all of a sudden Brie tapped me on my shoulder. When I turned around she hit me right in my mouth. Now, she wasn’t that good of a hitter, but she hit me hard enough to cause my lip to bleed. Just when I was about to punch her back, JC came up from behind me and grabbed both my arms and pulled me into him. “No! Its not worth it Nicki.” By this time Joey had gotten Sarah up and she walked over to us.
“Well its worth it to me!” she yelled and jacked Brie right in her nose. Blood just started gushing out. Brie screamed out.
“Oh my god! My baby!” Nick yelled as he rushed over towards Brie. “Now what am I going to do with you?”
Then Joey walked over to JC, Sarah and I. “You guys better leave. Now.” He said. They four of them started walking towards their car. When they got to the car I heard Krystal yell at A.J., “Why the hell were you hitting on those sluts?!”
“Argh! Let me at her!” I yelled, but JC grabbed my waist to keep me from running towards the car.
“Come on. Let’s go get your lip cleaned up.” He said and we all walked back into the house.
PART TWELVE
When we got into the house Joey and Sarah went into the living room, while JC and I walked into the kitchen. Sarah was still ranting and raving over what had happened outside. Who could blame her though? Those girls were lucky that JC had stopped me. I was royally pissed.
JC got a plastic baggie out of the cabinet while I stood next to the counter holding my bleeding lip. He walked over to the refrigerator and opened the freezer, getting some ice out and putting it in the baggie. He walked to me and placed the baggie over my lip. I flinched at the coldness, but continued to let him hold it there.
“None of this should have happened.” I said seriously. He looked at me oddly.
“You mean the Springer-like fight?” He asked, looking at my now numb lips.
“No, I mean about Chris.” I explained to him.
“Babe, there was nothing you could do about it. It was an accident. Accidents do happen, even to the best of us.” He told me.
“Yeah, an accident.” ‘This was no accident’ I told myself. “Yeah your right. I guess I was just a little spooked out.” I said giving him a feint smile.
“Come here.” He told me as he removed the ice-filled baggie and pulled me close to him. He gave me a kiss and I winced at the pain it caused my now swollen lip.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.” He said sincerely. I smiled at him and put my right hand up so it rested on his cheek.
“It’s okay baby.” I said as I rubbed my thumb over his gorgeous lips. “But I really need to go find Justin right now.” He nodded telling me that he understood.
“See you in a bit.” I told him as I brushed my lips against his. Then, I turned in search of Justin.
~*~*~*~*~
When I got upstairs my first instinct was to go to Pam’s room. I opened the door slightly and peeked in. Pam was fast asleep, but there was no sign of Justin. I slowly closed the door.
‘Okay,’ I thought to myself, ‘Where is he?’
“Justin?” I called out softly.
“In your room.” He called back to me.
I walked to my room and slowly opened my door. I stood at the threshold of my doorway and looked at Justin. He was sitting on my bed, his feet over the edge. His head was down as he was reading the letter over and over again. He looked like someone who had just been defeated at the Olympics. He looked up and saw me and stared, You could see that he had been crying.
“Why? Why is whoever doing this?” He asked me.
I walked over to him and sat beside him, putting and arm around him. “Sweeitie, I don’t know. I can’t give you a reason why anybody would want to hurt you.” He started crying some more.
“If they want to hurt me, then why don’t they just do it?” He put his head in his hands and stayed silenced for a while.
Then he finally spoke, “But why?” He sniffed. “Why do they want to hurt all of my friends and family too?”
I didn’t say anything, I just leaned in and embraced him into a hug. He sat there a cried for about 10 minutes. Until I broke the silence.
“I have an idea.” I told him. He sat up and looked at me, so I continued. “Let’s get out of the country. We could go to the Bahamas for a couple of weeks! I mean it is summer break, and nobody would have to know where we were going!” I explained.
“Do you think everyone would agree?” He asked me, his voice sounding hopeful.
“We’ll just tell them that I decided I needed to get my ass out of this town! Of course they’ll agree! Who wouldn’t want to go to the Bahamas? Plus Sarah goes to the doctor tomorrow to get her fixator off of her leg.” I exclaimed.
“Well…” He hesitated, but then continued. “Let’s go suggest this to everybody!”
“Alrighty then!” I said as I grabbed his hand and we headed to tell everyone. Justin headed towards Pam’s room to get her up. I, on the other hand, went downstairs to get everybody else.
PART THIRTEEN
When I got into the living room, Joey was brutally tickiling Sarah. Sarah noticed me walk in and told him to stop.
“So whats up?” Sarah asked.
“Hang on a second.” I told her, then took a deep breath. “Everybody! Get your ass in the living room right now!” I yelled at the top of my strong lungs.
As if on cue, Lance, Beth, Ashley, and Chris walked through the front door. Chris’ arm was wrapped in a bunch of gauze. It was hung in a sling. Ashley was holding onto his other arm.
“Jesus, Nicki. I think we could have heard you if we were still at the hospital!” Beth joked.
Then Justin, Pam, and JC came into the room. I motioned for everybody to take a seat. Then I turned and looked at Chris.
“Okay, first off, what happened to you?”
He sighed before answering. “Well, they said that it’s a third degree burn. It has to stay in the sling for 2 months. I didn’t severly damage any muscles though. But I can’t perform heavy for a while, at least not with that arm, so looks like the choreography is screwed!” He said, he sounded like he felt as if he had let people down.
“Chris,” Joey started, “The people will survive without your dancing for a while. We’re just glad that you’re alive man.”
“Yeah? I guess your right huh?” Chris sounded somewhat relieved nobody was yelling at him.
“What are you guys going to tell the press and fans?” Beth interrupted.
“Uh…. We’ll just tell them? Umm... What are we going to tell them? Scoop?” JC gave up in trying to come up with an excuse and offered it up to Lance.
“We’ll just tell them the truth. That Chris had an accident with the gas while grilling the meat for a cookout.” Lance answered.
I shot Justin a look. He knew what I was thinking. He hated having to lie to everyone, the fans, his friends, the group, and even his family. But he couldn’t tell anyone.
“They teenyboppers are going to have a ball with making up rumors for that one.” Sarah said.
Joey turned to her with a confused look on his face. “What do you mean?” He asked.
Sarah seemed kind of surprised that Joey didn’t know what she was talking about. “Well, when Lance got sick and was hospitalized, the rumors went flying! People were saying that he was leaving the group and everything. I can imagine the conspiracies they come up with!” She explained.
“Okay enough of that talk.” I interrupted. “I had an idea and I suggested it to Justin earlier. There’s nothing going on around here, and I need to get the hell out of this town. So what do you think about going to Cancun?” I asked, worried of what their reactions would be.
“I’m game!” Sarah said.
“Yeah, me too!” Pam agreed. I knew I could count on them.
“Are you guys sure?” JC asked. “I mean you’re the ones who live here, we’re just on vacation.”
“Yeah,” Sarah started, “Oh damn, wait. I can’t afford that!”
“Don’t worry about it! Justin’s paying for all of us! Even the guys!” I volunteered.
“I am!?!” I shot Justin a look and he knew he had to go along with it. “I guess I am!”
“What about you Chris?” Lance asked.
“What about me?” Chris asked. “I have a broken arm, I’m not on my deathbed!” He exclaimed.
“So then it’s decided?” I interrupted once again. It was followed by a whole bunch of “yea’s”.
“Good then go to your rooms and get packed, because we’re going to leave tomorrow afternoon. After Sarah’s doctor's appointment.”
With that we all took off to our separate rooms of the house.
PART FOURTEEN
When JC and I got to my room we immediately started packing. I was only half way done with my packing when JC finished his. He came up from behind me and wrapped his arms around my wait.
“You’re done already?” I asked astonished.
“You get used to speed packing when u travel as much as I do.” He told me, as he kissed me on my cheek. He then went and sat down in the chair next to my desk. He sat there watching me pack, as we rambled on to each other about the previous happenings of the day. I finally finished packing and zipped up my suitcases. I supposed I probably packed two times as many clothes as I should have, but oh well.
“What made you decide to want to go to Cancun?” JC asked me as I sat down on the edge of my bed.
“I needed to get out of this hellhole of a town.” I replied with a shrug. “Besides,” I said as I stood up with my hands on my hips. “Don’t you want to go to an exotic place and spend some time with me?” I asked giving a cute little puppy dog face.
He got up and walked to me, so that he was right in front of me. “I want to go to more exotic places than just Cancun with you.” He whispered and leaned in to kiss me. Just as he leaned in though, I heard the door open.
“Hey Nicki? I was just going to-“ she stopped mid-sentence as I stepped to the side and JC fell face first onto the bed. My eyes got wide and JC just stayed lying face first.
“Remind you that you have to take me to the doctors at 8 tomarrow.” Sarah barely got out.
“I remebered silly.” I told her and gave her a smile as she walked from the room.
JC rolled over and laughed. “Well how are we going to explain that one?” He asked as he got under the covers.
“I’ll take care of it” I said as I got in the bed and snuggled up tohis chest. “Goodnight baby.” I said as he turned off the light.
“’Night darling.” He said, then he gave me a quick kiss.
~*~*~*~
The next morning I guess I had slept in, because everyone else was already up and bustling around the house. I went and grabbed a quick shower and got dressed. Then I went downstairs with my luggage and put it in the car. We were going to leave as soon as Sarah and I got back.
“You ready Sarah?” I asked.
“Yep, and can’t wait for you to explain this one.” Sarah replied back as we got into my Jeep.
We started driving to the doctor’s office in silence. Then Sarah decided to break the silence.
“Okay, so do you mind explaining last night?" She turned and asked me.
“Not really.” I countered.
”Well do it anyway!” She shot back at me.
“Okay well if you must know. JC and I are seeing each other.” I said nonchalantly.
“Holy shit! When did that happen? And why the hell didn’t I know about it?” She exclaimed.
“Good God Sarah! Excited much?” I laughed. “It happened like the third day they were here. And nobody is supposed to know about it. Not even Justin. We don’t want people to like influence our relationship, we want to see if its going to work on our own. So not a word to anybody, got it?” I asked when we pulled into the parking lot and parked.
“You got it.” She said and we jumped out and headed in. When we got into the office itself the doctor asked her if she brought any of her pain killers with her. Of course she hadn’t, so he told her that if the pain got to bad he would knock her out.
The first two were just fine, they screwed out with no pain at all in her leg. The last one however, was horrible. She started crying and screaming, and all I could do was hold her hand and try to help. The doctor tried to help by singing to her.
He sang “Bye bye miss American pie! Drove the Chevy to the levy but the levy was dry! And the good ‘ole boy were drinking whiskey and rye- okay all done.” He had finally finished.
Amazingly 5 minutes later in the car, Sarah told me it didn’t hurt. When we got back to the house, everyone was ready to go. We went to the airport and got on the plane. Everyone had paired off, so of course JC and I got sit together. However both of us slept the whole way there.
We finally landed and as soon as I got off I could feel the hot sun burning soak into my skin already. I threw my sunglasses on my eyes and said, “Let the party begin!”
TO BE CONTINUED