After 6 straight hours of back to back to back to back to back to back classes with no lunch break to speak of, it's safe to say that around two or so, my mind had completely checked out and was solely focused on my stomach which did all my talking for me for the last three classes.
All English classes. Mostly Lit courses. Which translates into mostly torture dubbed "classic" novels. Maybe having a case of word diarrhea of the pen variety was cool back in the 18th century, along with being melodramatic and falling in love with a man who tried to rape you and succeeded in kidnapping you, but in the 21st century all it made me do was wonder which would be worse: jumping out of the third floor window or continuing to half-listen to my professor prattle on and on about the deepest meaning of a bunch of old, rich, white people's belly-aching about their sorrows.
Must be hard to be so privileged. Maybe if I was rich, I'd have been suicidal too. But right now, as a young black woman with more debt than one person should have just because she'd made the stupid decision of trying to educate herself...
Okay, I had a point with that. I swear I did. But thinking about my debt always gets me sidetracked. Especially when I think of people like those Jackass guys, who've managed to make a successful career out of doing a bunch of dumbass, obnoxious antics.
But college isn't for everyone right?
That's what I'd tried to explain to my mother senior year of high school, before asking if it was okay if I could take a year off and travel and "find myself" (as if somewhere along the way I'd misplaced myself in another state or country). All she did was laugh and say, "You'd better find yourself accepted and in a good college somewhere next year, or else you'll be finding my foot up your ass."
I had figured that, that wasn't going to work, but I had to try it anyways.
But anyways, that's neither here nor there, the whole point of you reading this happened shortly after I'd gotten back to my room. My room, which had been a double as a double first semester, but now was a double as doubly room for me this semester, since my roomie/best friend had decided to take some internship out in LA.
I would give you more details on what exactly she's doing and why, but that would've required me to be listening when she was telling me. I got the gist of it, the part that mattered: I'm leaving you alone in this middle of nowhere, conservative hellhole.
But she's doing what she loves, fashion or something like that. And I somehow got lucky enough that the girl (Kelli, Shelly, Melanie...whoever) they were gonna shove in here to replace her, decided at the last minute that she'd rather stay roomed with her roommate (Krystal) who sees nothing wrong with fucking her boyfriend (as in Krystal's boyfriend), while my never-to-be roommate is trying to sleep in the bunk underneath them.
I guess, when she'd come to see what I was like, a day before she was to move in, and I'd pretended like I had OCD, ADD, turrets and then started having an argument with my shoe, which I won by the way (by switching from English to Cow, which left the shoe all confused and me open to victory since it didn't know the longhorn dialect)--I guess she just figured, what's a little slap and tickle over her head every once in awhile (awhile defined as every weekend, at least)?
Point, point...right, now I remember.
So I walked back into my wonderful double as a single now room and the phone rang.
Okay, I realize that said in that way, it doesn't really create earthquakes that level whole cities to the ground, but this day, this call changed everything.
My best friend, Julie Drules (pronounced drools)--and unfortunately for her, that is her real name--she called me. Again not earth shattering, but what she said was pretty mind blowing. Which then makes me think of other kinds of blowing, the likes of which I never, EVER, ever asked her for details on. Because the thought of her and him...doing...the do was hard enough to wrap my brain around. Let alone getting into the nasty, naughty, freaky deaky details.
"I hooked up with Justin!"
She squealed this like it was her greatest accomplishment, and until I heard the last name I didn't understand what there was to be excited about.
"Yay!" I deadpanned back. "What happened to Carlos though? Or Jon? Or Michael? Weren't you in love with Michael last week?"
"That was so last week though. I'm over that. But this is major, this is huge, this is..."
"A another random hook-up with another random guy."
"JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE!"
I frowned. Usually just the mere mention of his name sent me into giggle mood. And I do not giggle. "What are you talkin' about?"
"That's the guy. My guy. My random hook-up with a not so random, totally HOT, gorgeous, fuck me tender, the sexy has definitely been broughten back by him, Justin screwedME Timberlake!"
I was mad. Jealous in a vague way. In a pit of my stomach, maybe this is a joke way. I was mad in a laugh it off way. A yeah, right, nice try, but I'm not falling for it, but maybe it is true way.
"You're lying."
I tried to make my voice sound as defiant as possible. Yeah, she was in LA. Yeah, guys tended to fall all over themselves to talk to her. But this was Justin Timberlake. My Justin Timberlake. The guy I drooled over in online pics and concerts from the nosebleed section.
This was my Justin who I could work into nearly every conversation and to which Jules would simply reply, "You know I bet he's a real grade A asshole."
To which I'd simply say, "See, then he couldn't even be an asshole without being the best at it."
To which she'd roll her hazel eyes and say, "If I ever met him, and he showed even the slightest interest in me, I'd snub him. First, just to see what he'd do and second, just because he's really not that hott."
I remembered the conversation exactly. Not because she'd only said it once (we'd had the conversation several times, with slight variations), but simply because it always bugged me that she didn't share my overly fond interest of him.
"If I'm lying, I'm dying."
"You are dying. We're all dying and mistaking it for living."
I can just imagine her eyes rolling as she sighed heavily on her end. "I didn't call to talk about how much life sucks..."
Interrupting her, I said, "And let's not talk about sucking of any kind."
She giggled. "Isn't that cool though? I mean, who would've ever thought something like that would happen??"
"How did something like that happen?" I said, still trying to securely hold onto my incredulity.
"Well, I was at this event, this fashion show that Teen Vogue was a part of and out of nowhere there was this rush of bodies. Cameras flashing like crazy. I was nearly blinded, so I closed one eye but kept the other open in case there would be any serious problems and I'd need a face to attach to the lawsuit." She giggled and I would've laughed along too, if I wasn't falling deeper and deeper into hatred of her at the moment.
"So then this man, cause I still couldn't see really, appears outta the blinding lights. And these two beefy bodyguards just start manhandling the Camera Faces, pushing and pushing the crowd back until they're out of the doors again.
"And then, the man walks up to me. Directly. His eyes on me the entire time and the entire time I'm trying to get my eyes to function normally again. And then he's right in front of me and finally my eyes adjust back and it's him. It's Justin Timberlake. And he's staring at me.
"Then he asked me if I knew where Mary Beth Sue, whoever was. And at that point, I couldn't have even told him who I was, let alone figure out who he was talking about and point him in the right direction.
"Turns out though, that whatever her name is, is his cousin. She's a really nice girl. Kinda short to be a model though, maybe he pulled some strings to get her into the show. But that's pretty messed up, y'know... being related to someone famous and then having everyone think that you're only doing what you're doing because your famous relative helped you along the way..."
"Jules, I really don't give an atomic dog crap about Susie Q's problems."
"Right. So I found my tongue and managed to direct him in the right direction. Since I'd been working with his cousin earlier and I guess she liked me somewhat she asked if I was going to the after party. And as soon as I said no, Justin was all over me, practically begging me to go."
"Now back to reality, Jules."
Laughing, she said, "Okay so all he said was, 'You should come. We were planning on going.' But that's all he needed to say though."
"So how does that lead to you hooking up with him?"
"I'm getting there. Damn." She sighed. "So anyways, I get all dressed up in my hoochie finest, strut my stuff in through the doors, talk to some people I know from work, and then immediately try to inconspicuously search out Justin. But he found me...way before I'd have found him. I think he was just saying hi, before he bounced, but somehow I managed to get him to stay. And we talked. I don't even remember what about. But I remember laughing a lot. And drinking. And then the next thing I knew..."
All of her hook-up stories had that same line. That same "and then the next thing I knew" segue into the land of the morally deprived. I usually let her continue, but this time I cut her off almost immediately.
"I still don't believe you."
She laughed, in that way of hers that let me know she'd known I wasn't going to easily fall for her story. "Check your email."
"What did you do, take pics of the man naked?"
"A picture can speak over a thousand words. Or whatever the saying is."
"Yeah, but in what language." I muttered, settling down in front of my desktop. A minute later, my screen was filled with picture after picture of Justin. My Justin strewn across sheets, barely covered, with enough flesh flashing that there was no doubt in my mind that he was nude. He looked peacefully asleep, as if he didn't have a care in the world. As if the girl he'd slept with could be trusted not to take intimate pictures of him when he'd least expect it. The last one was of the two of them in bed, his arm was across her waist. Holding onto her, as a child would a teddy. She was smiling into the camera, his face was buried somewhere behind her head in her hair.
"And now what do you think?"
"I think..." I sighed, clicking harder than necessary on the mouse to cancel that window away. "I think I hate you."
She laughed at this as if I was joking. I did say that a lot in jest, but this time, I dunno, this time I wasn't so sure that she should be laughing.
I made up an excuse of needing to go do some homework, which she correctly suspected was a lie. I mean, I did need to go do homework, but I wasn't going to do it. I'd eat. Or watch TV. Or get online and look at pictures of Justin and wonder what had made him do it. What was he thinking? Was he drunk? Was he that drunk?
Did it matter? Yes. No. Yes.
After the phone was hung up and my homework still remained untouched like a bride who wore white for all of the traditional reasons, I went back to my desk. Sat back in my chair. Stared back at my screen as I pulled up my email.
Stared at that arm. That arm around that waist. That waist that was definitely not my waist. That waist that was definitely my friend's. My grinning, wholly proud of herself, best friend, whose last words on the phone to me that day were, "Can you believe that shit? That's amazing, innit? And to think, it could've been you, but you were so vehement about not spending the rest of your life shadowing me from place to place. You could've taken those boring classes at a school over here and you could've been in LA with me, instead of..."
Instead of being surrounded by cornfields and cows, I could've been surrounded by fashionistas and women who thought they were cows because they'd went from a size zero to an alarming size four. Instead of being stuck here, for stupidly moral reasons, I could've been there. I could've been there. In that picture. That could've been my waist. That could have been my grinning, wholly proud of myself face.
That could've been me.
