Chapter 2.
Cry Me A River.
I honestly wanted to not believe the rumours, but it is kind of hard when you are dating the hottest woman on the planet, and you tend to become some what jealous. Okay so I’ll admit it, I, Justin Timberlake get jealous, and I get jealous big time, trust me.
But what made it worse is right after my 22nd birthday he decided to tell me the truth, and to be honest I wish he hadn’t. Heck, I wish I hadn’t found any of it out but I did and I believe it made me a better person.
“So, what did you have to talk to me about?” I asked looking up at my friend who sat opposite me on one of the white leather couches. Wade looked down at his hands and I could tell he was nervous.
“Well…” he began and paused, taking a huge breath in. “Last night…”
“Last night what?” I asked getting impatient; didn’t he know I had to meet the others in a few hours for drinks?
“Last night, when me and Brit went out…” he said and instantly I felt my heart beat drop. I don’t know why, I mean every time I heard that girl’s name my heart beat dropped as if I was going to hear something bad about her. “We had a few drinks…” he continued and I was about ready to slap him.
“Spit it out already Wade,” I said a bit too impatiently. Wade looked at me with worry but nodded anyways.
“Yeah well, um, sorry J but we kindda slept together,” he said. I felt right then my whole world stop literally. Was I hearing right? Shit, was all I could think. Shit, shit, shit.
“What do you mean kindda?” I asked angrily not knowing if I could look him right in the eye.
“Well, um, I mean we did,” he said just above a whisper. I looked up at him, and felt the blood drain from my body.
“What? How…” my voice trailed off as I wondered what in hell to say next.
“Sorry J, it was a mistake. I feel like shit about it ok? It shouldn’t have happened, but it did. I thought you better know from me than any one else,” Wade said looking at his feet sheepishly and slowly getting up.
“Yeah well you should feel like shit,” I replied rather angrily, maybe a bit to much. “But thanks for telling me what a slut I have in my life.” Shit, why did I say those words? I then realized what I said and regretted them.
“She’s not a slut J,” Wade answered with anger in his voice. “She was just upset that you were never there for her when she needed you on this tour.”
“Yeah and you just thought you’d sweep it up right?” I asked bitterly, I heard Wade sigh.
“No J I didn’t. Like I said…” he began but I cut him off.
“Yeah I know, you had a bit too much to drink, I get it,” I snapped. “Thanks now get the fuck out.”
Wade sighed again, but didn’t reply I just heard footsteps leaving the room and the door close. Bloody bitch, I thought, how could she do that to me?
She was my world, my everything, nothing could have compared to loosing her. But it did, I remember sitting quietly in the room with the other four guys a week later telling them that I wanted to take a break from the group, get my head screwed back on right.
“J, are you sure?” Chris asked me for the hundredth time. I rolled my eyes at him, I know he only meant it as well as a big brother can, but it was beginning to frustrate me a bit.
“Yeah C, I’m sure. Things just need to be sorted out,” I replied and looked back down at the paper in front of me.
“So... we’re taking a break?” JC, my best friend out of the lot of them asked, I could tell from his voice that he was worried about me.
“Yeah we are,” I replied nodding. “Guys I don’t think I could go on with all this shit going on.”
Lance nodded in understanding and looked at me. “Yeah J, we understand.” And I knew they did, after all they were my brothers, and that’s what brothers did; they understood you when no one else did.
The media thank God didn’t get a wind of anything until March 2002 and I was glad for that, but during that time we tried to make things work out between us, but it just couldn’t. I mean, I just didn’t trust her anymore, even though I could tell she was trying.
The decision for us to finally tell the press came sometime at the end of February, when Celebrity was on its last days and we were up with her folks for a holiday.
“Brit, we have to talk,” I said getting right to the fact before anything else happened that day. She sighed because she knew what was coming and nodded, sitting down on the bed.
“Yeah I know,” she said as I sat down next to her.
“This isn’t working,” I continued, “I mean, we’ve both tried…” my voice trailed off and she numbly nodded.
“Yeah but not hard enough,” she added, and it was some what said with a sort of anger in her voice, an anger that this was ending.
“Right,” I said, knowing that if I had tried to sugar coat it it wouldn’t get better.
“So...” she began, “Now what?”
“So we wait until the time is right, then we announce our break up to the media then we can go our separate ways,” I said not able to look at her for fear of what she might be feeling. I could always tell what she felt through her eyes.
“Okay,” I heard her whisper, and for a few minutes I wished this hadn’t happened, because right then I felt like taking her in my arms and holding her forever, and never letting go.
A few weeks later I decided to get all my frustrations out, I had just publicly broke up with Britney and I was a mess, literally. So I spent half my time sitting by the piano or near a guitar writing about how I felt.
I was a mess, but the music helped me cope. At
first it wasn’t supposed to be anything more than therapy, but as time went on it became obvious that it would be more than that, I just didn’t know it yet.
I was hanging out one day with my best mate Trace when the idea to do a solo album came up, and at first I was reluctant because I didn’t want to feel as if I was betraying the guys.
“Come on J,” Trace said reading some of the stuff I’d written, “This stuff is made to sell.”
“Yeah, but it’s personal,” I replied not wanting the whole world to know about my life with Britney.
“Yeah, but so is everything else, remember ‘Gone’?” Trace asked rolling his eyes. I sighed and knew he was right. ‘Gone’ was one of the singles of Celebrity that I’d written with yup, Wade, and about Britney and about how I would feel if she left me.
“Shit I forgot about that,” I mumbled grabbing the notebook from him and walking over to the piano knowing he would ask me to play him some stuff.
“Obviously, so play some of it for me,” Trace said following me and sitting next to me on the bench, I looked at him expectantly. “That way I can tell you what I really feel, not by just reading the stuff.”
“Ahhh,” I replied in understanding, and as much as I didn’t want to I played the first song for him, ‘Cry Me a River’, which at the time was untitled. After I was done there was a long silence.
“Shit J, that’s good,” Trace said obviously in awe of what he’d just heard. “You should definitely do an album.”
“Yeah but what about the other guys?” I asked, still thinking about JC, Joey, Chris and Lance. Trace rolled his eyes.
“Just play them that and they’ll agree with me,” Trace said, so I did and he was right, they agreed with him.
“Fuck J you must be stupid or something,” Chris said two weeks after I’d played the song for the rest of the guys in order to get their opinion of doing a solo thing, after I painfully stressed that I would rather still do a group thing.
“What? Why?” I asked totally confused and Chris rolled his eyes at me sitting down next to me.
“J, that shit is good. Why don’t you want to release it as a solo single?” Chris asked and I looked at him and the others as if they were dumb.
“Because I’d feel it would be better as a group thing,” I tried lamely and the others shook their heads.
“No, J,” JC said cutting in. “That shit is good. You should take full credit for it, besides it would sound like crap if we all sung it together.”
“Jayce is right,” Lance put in. “I mean look at it J. It would sound so much better if you sung it in your own words, besides we can’t do it as a group.”
“Why not?” I asked very confused as to why Lance would say that.
“Well because for one we all have our own projects,” Lance said, “I’m going to Russia remember?” Oh yeah, I forgot he mentioned that.
“And I may do Broadway,” Joey put in, “As well as movies.”
“I’m doing my own single for a movie coming out soon,” JC added.
“And I have to clean up FuMan before I can get anything off the belt,” Chris finished and I looked at them all as if they were crazy.
“Are you serious? I should do this?” I asked wanted more reassurance than that. They all nodded.
“We’re sure J,” JC said in all seriousness. “You should release an album with the shit.” So I did.
So I began working with all types of different artists to get my new album out, and with a bit of help I managed to get enough hype to surround it, not to mention my break up with Britney.
Johnny, our manager, agreed to manage me for the project, and I was ever so grateful for that. Half way though the recording of the new album, around end of April I flipped out. I had no clue why I just did. My moods had become more intense and with each passing day I was becoming more unbearable. I managed to get past half of the recording, including ‘Cry Me a River’ which took us days to record because I found it to God damn hard to have to pour my heart out about a woman I’d loved like air for the past three years.
Johnny had become worried by then, and had asked me what was up. At first I told him nothing, because honestly I believed it was just that, nothing. But I should have known better, even Trace had pointed out to me what was wrong but I’d ignored it. I was still hurting, hurting over the fact that she’d hurt me, hurt me more than I could ever want or need.
It was then that I’d realized why I was still feeling like that, she’d never apologized, never said she was sorry. And that hurt more than ever.
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