14. Hero to Zero

14. Hero to Zero

I’ve heard it said that the eye of the storm is always the most peaceful time during a hurricane. You’ve just gotten over the initial shock of sitting through a horrendous storm that you don’t know the outcome of. Then, all of a sudden, the howling wind and the torrents of rain stop and you’re left with this freakish calm that signals the end of the storm.

But the catch is you don’t know how long you have to wait until the storm starts up again. And you don’t know if the storm is going to be more terrible and petrifying than the first round.

At the moment, I’m sitting in the calm before the storm and I don’t know what to do with myself.

I came home to an empty house. Apparently Trace managed to get himself to the Hilton to support his best friend and judging by a note Theo left on the fridge, his Fantasy RPG buddies are throwing him a Going Away Party tonight.

Everybody’s living it up tonight, being the life of the party. Me, I just destroy them.

I don’t have the energy to change out of my dress, but I feel completely wired. I’m waiting on pins and needles for Justin to come home because I know I have some explaining to do. I know I have to get on bended knee and kiss his ass from here to kingdom come because he won’t talk to me if I don’t.

But the thing that hurts most of all is my pride. I was proven wrong against my better judgment and I still can’t wrap my head around the fact that all the stuff I knew was in Maura’s apartment earlier tonight has vanished. For the past forty minutes all I’ve been able to think about is how in the hell she was able to get all that shit out of her place when she was with Justin the whole time.

Have I lost my mind? God I hope so; it’ll make explaining this to Justin that much easier.

I have no idea how long he’s going to be. For all I know he could be drowning his anger with a few shots of whiskey or worse, seeking out Maura for comfort. My blood boils at the thought and I can feel my insides turn violently. I swear to God if I find out he’s barking up Maura’s tree I will go absolutely mad.

You can call it jealously, you can call it whatever the fuck you want, but just thinking about him with her is enough to make me sick. Scratch that…if he’s with her, I’ll die.

As in stop breathing, six feet under, decompose and have worms eat my body until it’s nothing but dirt, die.

Dramatic, I know, but my vehement hate for Maura and Justin’s blatant favoritism towards her isn’t something to take lightly. Part of me wants to get on his case for jumping to her side so quickly, for jumping to conclusions that I’m crazy.

I know I got out of hand back at her place, but for a good half hour it felt as if Maura was out of my hair for good and her monopolizing my boyfriend’s time would be nonexistent. I just hope he doesn’t come home looking like he did at Maura’s apartment. I never want to see him looking like that again – it was like looking at a completely different person. The expression on his face sends shivers up and down my spine and I hope to the little baby Jesus that his temper has simmered.

His temper and mine definitely do not mesh well.

I sit in the kitchen for what seems to be a week before I finally see headlights pull up in the driveway. I sit up straight and watch the lights intently. I have no idea what to do with my hands, no idea where I should be right now. Should I run upstairs and pretend to be asleep? Do I go out to meet him? Do I act like nothing happened? I wish Trace or Theo was here so they could tell me what the fuck I should do…or at least have them know the story so they can back me up.

I opt to just stay where I am, wringing my hands together in anticipation for his arrival. I hear the garage door open followed by it being shut. The door into the house opens and I hear his heavy footsteps on the hardwood floor. My breathing is so shallow I’m afraid that I won’t draw for my next breath. There doesn’t seem to be any accompanying footfalls so that means that he’s, thankfully, alone.

Rounding the corner, he comes into my line of sight and I’m at a complete loss of words. His face is ashen, jaw set, and by the way he’s averting his eyes from mine, I can tell he’s still upset. Understandable, but I wish he would give me the common decency of looking at me, or least giving me a cordial greeting.

I open my mouth to say something but he walks right past me and into the other room. I stare at his retreating back in shock. He won’t even give me the common courtesy of giving him an explanation? What a douche bag!

A small part of me is telling me to let it go, let him sleep it off and discuss all this shit in the morning. But a bigger part of me, the rash and reckless Lauren Walters is telling me not to stand for this bullshit. I didn’t put up with this garbage when I was working for him, and back then I was an expellable person. I’m his fucking girlfriend and he’s going to hear what I have to say.

Pushing myself out of my chair, I follow him into the living room where he’s paying a greeting to his dogs. Oh so they get a hello and I don’t? The unfairness of it all wells in my stomach and I lean against the doorframe, crossing my arms around my chest as I do so.

“Justin,” I start, my voice strong. “Look…”

“I don’t want to talk about this right now, Lauren,” he interjects. His body might show how tense he is, but the tone of his voice increases it tenfold. I can tell that he’s trying his best to keep himself on lock down, but I don’t want to let it go at the moment.

“But I do. Will you let me explain myself?”

“Drop it.”

“No,” I say my voice filled with indignation

“Jesus Christ, Lauren I am so mad I can’t even look at you right now,” his voice is short, curt, and even after knowing him for five years I have never heard him talk to me like this.

“So you don’t want to talk about this right now?” I’m trying to keep my voice calm, but it’s taking on the same tonality as his. I ignore the premonition in my stomach; I refuse to back down.

“Did you not hear me the first fucking time? I told you to drop it. Is that so hard for you to understand?”

“Don’t talk to me like that!” I say, pulling myself upright.

“I can talk to you however damn well I like, it’s my house.”

“Oh sure,” I scoff, “Because you’ve been in this house what, a grand total of four days this year?”

“It’s my house, I bought it,” he says stubbornly.

“Home just isn’t about where you put your head at night,” I retort, “It’s where the heart is.”

“Which was with you, before you turned into a psychobabble bitch,” he mutters under his breath. I recoil so hard it’s almost as if he rushed across the room and smacked me.

“Excuse me?” my voice has risen an octave and I can feel the blood rushing into my face, “Don’t start calling me names when you don’t understand shit!”

“Oh so you can dish out the name calling, but you can’t deal with it? What were the words you called Maura tonight? I think tramp, slut, whore, and bitch was amongst your vocabulary.”

“She’s been taking our stuff!” I bite back, “Your DVDs, my mother’s ring, Trace’s iPod…all of it was in her closet before she moved it.”

“Lauren,” Justin says quietly as he brings a hand up to the bridge of his nose. He squeezes it as if he’s trying to get rid of a bothersome headache before he turns to look at me, “Maura was with me the whole night, there was no way she could have taken my shit.”

“She had somebody move it!” I interrupt, “I swear to God, Justin all of it was there!”

“I have no idea what the fuck has gotten into you. I think it’s the stress from planning that party. You’re starting to hallucinate or…”

“I am not fucking hallucinating. Would you just shut the hell up and listen to me?” I shriek, “Your stuff started to go missing the minute Maura took up my job! Hell in the beginning I was doing all her shit for her! She’s getting revenge on me or something I know it!” I’m rambling now and I’m blaming the fact that I’ve been up since six this morning and have been on an emotional roller coaster for all of this babbling.

“Maura wouldn’t hurt a fly…”

“That’s what she wants you to believe! She’s a conniving, two-faced woman!”

“Jesus, Lauren would you listen to yourself? You sound like a lunatic!”

“She has you brainwashed! If you could only listen to yourself talk about her…” but he silences me with a held up hand. I open my mouth to say something but he sits down on the couch and looks at the blank television screen. “Are you just going to ignore this? Are you not going to talk to me?”

“Not when you’re being irrational,” he mumbles under his breath.

“Irrational? I’m not being irrational, fuck you sound like Theo…”

“Theo?” Justin asks stupidly as if he’s never heard the name before. And before I can respond Justin leaps to his feet and is racing past me towards the stairs. Biting my lower lip, I turn around and follow him as he rushes up the stairs.

I’m five steps behind him and when I see him open the door that will take him into Theo’s room, I surge forward, “What the hell are you doing? That’s Theo’s room, you can’t go in there!”

“I can go wherever the hell I want, it’s my fucking house!” and without another word he pushes his way inside and starts to ransack the whole place. And he says I’m the one who’s lost her mind. The bastard is ripping open the closet and yanking clothes around. His pillaging of the room ends when he opens the suitcase that’s resting on Theo’s made bed.

I watch with wide eyes as Justin begins to toss the contents out of the suitcase and I can’t help but be reminded of the time back in New York last year when I was trying to make a hasty exit away from the man who is currently unpacking my adopted brother’s suitcase in a rather violent manner. The case is almost empty save for one compartment on the lid. Justin unzips it and my mouth falls open in horror when he pulls out the bracelet I gave him for his birthday.

“I knew it!” Justin exalts and he looks at me with eyes that scream ‘I told you so.’

“What the hell is that doing in Theo’s suitcase?”

“Isn’t it obvious? The greedy little fuck has been stealing my shit!”

“No! Theo would never…” I begin but Justin rounds on me with such ferocity I have to back up a few inches out of concern for my own safety.

“Sure he would! He isn’t your real brother, and the shit didn’t start to disappear until after he showed up here! He’s a starving artist, and I’m sure he could make a couple extra bucks pawning off this shit somewhere.”

“Then explain to me where the rest of the stuff is?”

“Well duh, he obviously shipped them to wherever he’s heading off to, which, coincidentally is tomorrow. How convenient, he leaves with a piece of my jewelry that’s probably worth a cheap car.”

“That’s impossible! How can you even suggest Theo would do something like this?”

“Because it’s the only logical way….”

“Oh and I suppose I just imagined all the stuff in Maura’s closet?” I ask sarcastically. I can feel bitter tears begin to sting my eyes.

“Probably, besides you don’t have any proof that Maura took the stuff. All I have is your word, and when I’m holding concrete evidence in my hand, your word is looking pretty fucking ridiculous.

“You asshole! I’m your girlfriend, you’re supposed to believe me!”

“I find it pretty hard to believe someone who tells bullshit stories to pull me away from the performance of my career!”

“Oh Jesus Christ, Justin, it was one fucking show! Get over it!”

“It wasn’t just one show, Lauren, it was the show! Do you know how unprofessional I looked when Johnny had to get up on stage and start making fucking excuses for me? Thanks to you I’m probably going to get some of the worst reviews I’ve ever received as a solo artist! My credibility is shit now because you got some silly idea in your head and had to pull me away!”

“Oh please Justin, you could have gone on that stage and taken a huge dump and your credibility would sky rocket.”

“That’s beside the point, Lauren. The point is you ruined a career defining moment for me and that in itself is almost inexcusable!” he’s still clutching his bracelet and bellowing at me for all he’s worth. I’m struggling to contain the flow of tears that are currently cascading down my face.

“Are you saying that you care more about that stupid performance than me?”

“At this point in time, yes.” His voice dies away as I stare at him in disbelief. How can he even stand there and think that? After all we’ve been through? The feeling of betrayal is twisting my insides and I am so caught off guard by his response that my tears have suddenly stopped.

“You don’t mean that,” I say in a hushed whisper. “Please tell me I mean more to you than five songs and a few little dance routines.”

His eyes are hard steel as he looks at me with his infamous glare that has paparazzi and over excited fans running for cover. “When it comes to my career…well, hardy anything is more important than that.”

I stare at him in complete disbelief. I can feel the anger boiling up inside me and before I can help myself I’m striding across the room and standing in front of Justin with only a foot separating us. Standing on tiptoe, I try to raise myself to his level. He remains still as I jab my finger into his chest.

“Fuck you,” I seethe. I’m so angry I want to hit something, namely him, “I swear to God Justin at the end of the day it’s all about your career and what you want. I love you, but you can be such a selfish prick sometimes.” I can see the anger flash across his face and I hold his gaze for another second before I move towards the door. I can’t stand in this ransacked room with him standing in the middle. I’m hoping that if I leave we can drop this fight and I’ll get the last word in.

I’m halfway down the hall when I hear his footsteps thundering after me.

“Me, selfish? Oh come on!” He pulls up alongside me as I reach the top of the stairs. I begin to head towards the bottom floor, wondering if he believes the words coming out of his mouth, “The last time I checked my house wasn’t a refuge for mangy dogs and freak photographers who both end up biting the hand that feeds them!”

“If you’re talking about Bruno and Theo…” I say turning around just as I reach the middle of the staircase. I notice that we’re both gripping the railing hard and I instantly let go of the banister and put my hands on my hips. I am not going to let him get me. I am going to win this, I swear.

“Oh wow, I didn’t know you had such a keen sense of the obvious,” he yells sardonically. I roll my eyes at him and I can tell that my blatant disregard for his sarcastic comment gets to him further, “This is my house and the fact that you’re running some kind of shelter for the socially retarded…”

“You invited Theo to stay when we met him!” I cry indignantly. Really, where the hell does he come off trying to pin the blame on me? In all my years of knowing him he hardly takes the blame for himself, unless it will help to propel him to something he really wants. I stare at him with a hardened gaze as he walks down the steps. I don’t want to be where I am when he reaches me so I turn around to head back down the stairs. Honestly if the bastard pisses me off enough, I might just throw him down the rest of the steps…

“I was just being nice for you, do you honestly think I’d actually invite that fucking geek into my house because I wanted to get to know him better? Guess I know him now, he’s a fucking thief!” I can’t believe this little fucktard. He’s just pulling ridiculous assumptions and accusations out of his ass and I don’t have the time or the patience to deal with this. My head is screaming at me to ignore all the shit he’s bellowing at me, but my heart is shrieking for all it’s worth to not take this lying down. I walk up the stairs so there are two steps separating us. Bitch is going down…

“Don’t you say that about him! The last thing Theo would do is steal!”

“Sure…you haven’t even known him for three months and yet you claim he’s innocent!” I throw up my hands in exasperation. So I’ve known him for three months? Right well what about his stupid whore, Maura? Turning around I thunder down the stairs trying to keep the swelling anger at a minimum, “What about Elliot? You sure he isn’t in on it with your precious Theodore?

I don’t think Justin Timberlake knows how close he is to getting a beat down. I whirl around so fast at his words that I nearly fall flat on my ass. I can’t believe he’s trying to blame Elliot, the one true friend that I have right now. Justin doesn’t even know him.

“Don’t you dare bring Elliot into this! He has nothing to do with this.

“You’re a bit overprotective of him aren’t you? You know, between him, Theo, and Trace I wouldn’t be surprised if you needed all three of them to take your mind off of missing me. Is being without me getting to you, Lauren? Do you need three men to satisfy yourself?” his voice is maliciously taunting me and I know he wouldn’t be acting like this if we could get past our pride and just discuss this like civilized adults. Too bad when it comes to matters of the heart we start acting like a bunch of retarded high schoolers who might as well have walked straight out of The O.C.

“You arrogant little asshole! Do you honestly think…and what about Maura, huh? She’s been waiting for months to fuck you!” It is so true. Like I said earlier, the little trick wouldn’t be wearing that ‘Arrest Me’ red dress if she weren’t looking for some attention on the male front. She was getting it too, hell I think the guard at her apartment was even checking her out as we zoomed past. Jesus, if I wasn’t so pissed off at the bitch I’d probably want to jump her bones, and I’m straighter than a pool cue.

“Please, if she had wanted to do that it would have already happened,” does this bastard not understand that I’m trying to get the fuck away from him? I’ve gone from Theo’s room to the living area trying desperately to get him to drop this whole issue so we can calm the fuck down, but he just won’t have it. He has to make sure his side of the story is being told and I can’t help it that every arrogant, chauvinistic retort is answered by one of mine. And his last comment is making me toe that dangerous line between angry and fucking pissed beyond belief.

“Then why don’t you go run off to her? You can go fuck her brains out and then she can steal all your clothes. Maybe public embarrassment will make you see that she isn’t as innocent as she claims to be!” That wasn’t the best thing for me to say. Knowing Justin he’d take that literally and leave the house in a fit of rage and to get back at me he’d probably go fuck Maura’s brains out…Good going, Lauren.

“You’re just jealous because she gets to spend more time with me and because you can’t get out of your independent woman, female assertion kick. If you really cared, you wouldn’t be dicking around at some dead end job planning parties and weddings for the elite. It’s an empty job when you compare it to what you did for me and you know it!” Yup I’ve crossed that line. I am fucking pissed beyond belief and I want the poor schmuck to know it. Reaching over towards the couch, I hurl the least menacing object I can find, which would be a throw pillow, and I give him a satisfied smile when it hits him in the head before he can swipe it away.

“I’d rather sell my firstborn child than work for your sorry ass again,” I growl. Granted that’s a lie, I wouldn’t do anything as drastic as sell my firstborn kid, but I would rather chop off all my hair or give up my friendship with Theo before I’d go back to work for Justin again. Just standing at the end of one of his blow ups for the first time since August reminds me of all the bull shit he made me go through and I know I wouldn’t be able to handle it again. We’d rip each other apart.

“That’s a lie and you know it. I can tell you miss working for me with the way you treat Maura. You’re just jealous and you would rather see me suffer without a personal assistant than see me with someone who’s competent at their job and better at it than you ever were!” Yeah part of that is true, but I won’t ever admit that to him. He’s so wrong though in the sense that Maura is better at the job than me. I don’t care if you get Jesus Christ himself to PA for Justin Timberlake, he wouldn’t do as well as I could.

“Hate to break it to you, honey, but the only reason why Maura is half as good as she claims to be is because for the first month I was making calls and doing half her fucking work load. You just can’t admit that you can’t survive without someone practically wiping your ass every other minute of the damn day.”

“I am perfectly capable of wiping my own ass and no thanks to you. You forget to realize that I was able to take care of myself when you didn’t work for me.”

“Yeah,” I start with a barking laugh, “but you were such a mess you had to beg me to come back. Face it; you’re nothing without me. Without me helping you get through the day you get nothing accomplished.” It’s so true and sure I might be jealous of Maura in the sense that she gets to spend every waking moment with Justin, but I know he’d be in a lot worse shape if I wasn’t there talking to him almost every day (when he was able to steal his cell phone back from Maura). The bitch would be a hot mess without me.

“That was when you worked for me. I don’t need you now, I have Maura,” he claims simply and his words sting. He doesn’t need me now? I get what he’s saying, but the thought that he doesn’t need me to do business shit for him and help him with his every day life that doesn’t concern relationships hurts, a lot.

“Oh Maura? You mean the personal assistant you treat more like a gal pal than an employee? I thought it was funny that you never treated her as shitty as you did me. Is it because my boobs aren’t big enough and I didn’t remind you enough of your big breasted Hollywood blondes?” I look down at my breasts and for good measure I grab them. He looks a bit taken aback at my sudden crudeness, but I don’t care. The multiple times we’ve had sex he didn’t have one bad thing to say about them – but Maura could honestly be her own flotation device if the plane goes down over the Atlantic.

“That might be part of it, the other half might be because she doesn’t act like a fucking psycho and jump to conclusions when things go wrong. You know, she doesn’t ask me to pick between my career and some wild fucking goose chase.” Oh really? Well maybe that’s because the stupid goose chase involved her being outed for the fucking thief she is! God he is so slow sometimes I wonder why he isn’t moving backwards!

“Oh for fuck’s sake. Everything is always about your god damn career. If you aren’t off singing to thousands of people, then you’re running around with a fire lit under your ass thinking of ways to further your profession. Why can’t you just accept it for what it is and just roll with it? Why can’t you just take some fucking time off for once and just be?”

He’s resting against the mantle of the fireplace, taking a break from being in a tense standing position directly across from me. I’m leaning my hands against the back of the couch, watching him with disdain. I wish he could just tour, make a few appearances and then take a long break in which we’d disappear to Bermuda or some god forsaken island that nobody has heard of. I wish our lives would take a page out of the television show LOST and we’d be stranded somewhere and no one would know where we were. Of course I wouldn’t want all the fucking mysteries or deaths that come with said television show, but the thought of being alone with him in a place where no one could bother us would be so much more appealing when we aren’t at each other’s throats.

“That’s not how I work, you know that,” he says softly before he looks up at me and his eyes are cold and disconnected once more, “But you refuse to accept that this is my life, my passion. You have to make it about you. You have to stand there and make me choose between something I’ve been working on since I was ten years old, and a relationship that seems to be going nowhere.”

“Oh so we’re going nowhere? Is that what you think?” I ask in disbelief. We are definitely going somewhere right now and where we’ll end up I haven’t a clue. I can only hope this just ends in more screaming and no more tears.

“Yeah that’s what I think. Is that such a surprise?”

“No,” I say surprising myself at my answer. “I’m more surprised that you can actually think about something other than yourself and your fucking ‘career.’”

“Well there you go, shocker of the year I guess. Justin Timberlake actually thinks about something other than his career.”

“And how can you say our relationship is going nowhere? Is that because I won’t give up on my own aspirations and goals and follow your arrogant ass around the world?” 

“Lauren, if you were serious about your ambitions you’d already have what you wanted.” Bastard. It almost repulses me to look at him. How can he sit there and think that when I try to put everything on hold for him? God if I wouldn’t go to jail for life, I’d strangle him.

“Really? How can I get what I want when you can’t fucking let me go?” I pause and take a huge breath. I’m screaming myself hoarse and I’m ready to start throwing more inanimate objects at his big, fat head. The way he’s staring at me, I feel like I’ve been sent back in time to when I was just his employee. We aren’t fighting like a couple anymore. This has dissolved into what we once were, except I’m not being paid to rip him a new one. I’m getting tired, it’s almost three in the morning, and I know I have to stop this right now. I don’t know what I’m going to do, but the way things are going, I don’t know how we’re going to resurface from this. We’re close to rock bottom and it’s going to take a lot more than a few ‘I’m sorry’s’ and ‘I love you’s’ to clear all this up. And I don’t know if I can carry a discussion or kiss him when I know that he’ll be hitting the road with Maura and he won’t hear a word against her.

I want him to hurt. I want him to bleed. I just want him to fucking feel the things I’m feeling right now. Because I know by the look of contempt and distance in his face that he just doesn’t get it. The storm has past the eye and it’s raging. The bitter tears are welling in my eyes and I wipe them away furiously before I grip the edge of the couch hard.

“You know what,” I begin in a whisper as I try to keep my trembling bottom lip under control, “I wish I had never got on that plane. I wish I left you sitting up in the air crying on Trace’s shoulder so you could experience a shred of the confusion and pain that I feel when I’m with you.”

The silence is infinite as my voice falls away. I watch as a few tears drip onto the leather of the couch and after a few minutes of silence I sneak a glance at my quiet boyfriend. He looks incensed.

“Is that how you feel?” he questions and I feel part of me celebrate when I hear the hurt edge into his voice. I stare up at him hoping for reconciliation, but just like that the look of pain is erased and the expression of rage is there in full force, “Fine, then get the fuck out.”

“What?” I shriek in complete shock. What the hell?

“You heard me, get the fuck out,” he rounds on me, leaving his position by the fireplace to get in my face. He’s a mere three feet away and he’s screaming at me as if we’re a football field apart. I wouldn’t be surprised if the neighbors could hear us, “Really do you think I’d let you stay here after you have the audacity to talk to me like that? Fuck, Lauren sometimes I give you too much credit when it comes to your intelligence. For someone who thinks them a regular Einstein, you’re pretty fucking clueless. And sometimes I just don’t understand why I even thought this could fucking work out. You just take a bunch of my shit and my feelings for granted and I’m sick and fucking tired of it. So you’re done. Get the fuck out and if I see you around here while I’m still in town, I’m calling the fucking cops.”

“You can’t kick me out!” I cry in indignation,  “I live here!”

“Not anymore you do. I swear to God, Lauren, if you aren’t out in five minutes…”

“Fine!” I shriek as I throw up my hands. I spot an empty vase used for decoration sitting on the side table. Reaching over, I pick it up and chuck it in his direction. The force of my throw sends it over his head and it shatters against the wall.

“You’re paying for that!”

“Like hell I am! You can kiss my ass, Justin! For all I care you can go run off after Maura and fuck her backwards and forwards…unless you’ve already done that!”

“Don’t worry, she’s better than you ever were.” The witty retort I was storing for Justin’s next comment dies in my throat as I stare at him in disbelief. My mouth opens and closes like a fish out of water – gasping for air. All my internal organs have fallen out of my toes and I can feel the blood rush out of my face.

“What…” I begin and I can see that the change in his face is instant. Gone is the tyrant I spent four years with before I got the balls to say fuck it and quit. In his place is the man I fell in love with and it almost looks as if he can’t believe the words that came out of his mouth.

“No, Lauren…” he stumbles over his words as I stand there dumbstruck. “I didn’t…”

“Stop it, Justin. I don’t want to do this anymore.” My world is crashing down around me and right now I don’t care if this whole fight started over who was stealing who’s shit. The only thing I know is that Justin’s relationship with Maura is probably more than just boss-employee and the thought of them together kills me.

“Lauren, please…that came out wrong, I only said that to shut you up…”

“Well congratulations, you succeeded,” I mumble trying my best to keep my tears from resurfacing. “I hope the two of you are happy together.”

“Lauren I don’t love her. I never have and I never will. It’s always been you, I swear.”

“It might have always been me at the beginning, but things change – people change. But I realize now that you haven’t changed at all. You’re still the same arrogant, selfish, intolerable asshole I met five years ago. I can’t believe it’s taken me almost a year of heartache and distress to realize that. Enjoy your tour, enjoy your career, enjoy her. I realize now that those are the only things that really matter to you,” and before he can get another word in edgewise, I turn around and rush towards the kitchen. I grab my purse and keys and run like hell towards Bentley Lexus.

The tears won’t stop as I hear him screaming for me to come back inside. Yelling that he’s sorry, he didn’t mean the shit he said, and he wants to calm down and talk about this rationally. He had his chance. We both had a chance and we both fucked it up.

I look down at the ignition to start Bentley when something slams against my window. Justin is pressed up against the driver’s side, yelling incoherent things at me through the glass. The hurt on his face is so obvious and fresh that I want to turn off the car and hold onto him for all I’m worth. The tears on his face are almost as copious as mine and while I know we both said things we didn’t mean, it doesn’t change the fact that they were dragged out into the open.

Tearing my eyes away, I start the car and with a shuddering breath, I peel out of his driveway. Part of me is screaming to look into my rearview mirror to see what he’s doing but I know if I look back, I won’t be able to continue moving forward. My head is starting to pound and now that I’m finally away I have no idea what to do with myself.

I have nowhere to go.

My phone is still off and I turn it on thinking that somehow it’ll help me think of something to do. I’m sure Theo will be back to collect his suitcase in the morning and he might have to deal with a confrontation with Justin. Part of me wants to call him to warn him, but I know that if I reiterate what happened tonight to someone else, the reality of it all will set in and…

God, what just happened?

 I look back at my phone as it starts to blare loudly in the seat next to me. Reaching over, I pick it up and stare at the screen through my tears. Justin. There is no way on God’s green earth that I would even think about answering right now so I throw it back onto the seat.

Fifteen minutes into my drive and I swear he’s called me at least twenty times. It gets to be such a distraction that I end up putting it on silent. He’ll get the hint in an hour or two before he realizes what is just starting to grasp my thoughts.

It’s over.

Holy fucking shit it’s over.

Even though the words are repeating over and over again in my head, I still can’t fully accept that fact. I try to push it away from my thoughts as much as I can. I try to focus on my driving. I have no idea where I’m going to go, but I have a full tank of gas and I know that if I stop long enough to think about tonight I won’t be able to pick myself back up again.

So I drive. I drive until the darkness fades away into dawn and soon enough I’m stuck in traffic on the 101, wondering where the hell I’m going to go once I start to grow tired of zooming down almost every freeway in Southern California.

Sneaking a peek at my cell phone I pick it up cautiously and flip it open. I’m currently bumper to bumper so I don’t really have to pay attention with what’s going on in front of me. Flipping the phone open, I see fifty-six missed calls and at least thirty new voicemails – all from Justin. The last call was an hour ago so it’s safe to say he’s given up and gone to bed.

I’m about to put my phone down again so I can think about my current situation and where I’m going to go when all of a sudden I see that I have a call.

Elliot.

I can’t answer the call fast enough. I’ve gone about four hours without a human voice screaming at me and the need for contact is making me ache.

“Hello?” I’m taken aback by how hoarse my voice is. I wouldn’t be surprised if I lose it later on today.

“Lauren? Where the hell are you and would you mind telling me what is going on? I went over to Justin’s place today to see if you were alright after last night and all I got was Trace telling me you were gone and not coming back. Are you okay?”

“No,” my response comes. I don’t think I’ve ever heard my voice sound this tiny and insignificant. I want to tell him I’m fine, I hate it when people see that I can be vulnerable. “He kicked me out.”

“He did what?” Elliot yells so loudly that I have to hold the phone away from my ear. “Where are you right now?”

“In my car. Elliot, I don’t know what to do.” I can feel the wave of hysteria mounting in my voice and I know that at any moment I’m going to completely fall apart and seeing as I’m the only person in my car in the middle of a jam packed freeway feeling totally alone, there will be nobody there to pick up the pieces.

“Just calm down, okay? Come over here and I’ll help you. Do you need me to stay on the phone with you until you get here?”

“No,” I mutter with a shaky sigh as I muster up some strength. I need to pull this shit together, “I’ll be there in fifteen.”

I somehow manage to make it to Elliot’s apartment in ten. I get out of Bentley and nearly fall flat on my ass. I haven’t stood up in hours and I’m still in the heels and dress from the Grammy party. I must look like death on two legs because I certainly feel like it.

Elliot’s apartment is more like a townhouse than anything and as I walk up the two steps that will take me to his door, it flies open and Elliot is standing there in what I swear has to be the same suit he wore the night before. He looks like he hasn’t slept a wink and I smile at him weakly before I look down at his feet and see Bruno sitting there, looking at me with a dumb expression on his face.

“What happened?” is all he says and I meet his gaze once more. He reaches out and places a comforting hand on my shoulder and squeezes it lightly. And suddenly everything is catching up with me – the missing stuff, Justin taking Maura’s side, the things we said to each other, the look on his face as I drove away – it’s hitting me in the stomach like a wrecking ball.

I try to say something, to tell him the whole story but my bottom lip is trembling so much I can’t even get the words out. I feel my knees knocking together as I begin my fall to the floor. Elliot comes with me as the sobs begin to take over.

“It’s okay, Lauren, it’s okay,” he soothes as he wraps me in his arms around me, his hands stroking my tangled hair.

But as he cradles me on the threshold of his home while I allow myself to let it all out I can’t help but think one thing.

No matter what I do, say, or think – nothing is going to be okay.