I've locked the door. My formerly double as a double, now double as doubly room for me dorm room is nearly always locked now. And when I hear the knocks on the door, all I have to do is check the time usually and I can know if it's him (Chris, that is) or not. Plus, I told anybody who might come and visit me that they'd have to knock and say their names before I was going to open the door. I was just too lazy to get up and check every time.
I've ignored every single one of his calls.
And even though we have one class together, I'm still not seeing much of him, on account of how he rarely shows up. And when he is there, he sits on one side and I sit on the other and since neither of us usually volunteer answers or further discussions, I don't even have to sit and listen to him talk in class.
Jules said this was stupid. That all I was doing was hurting myself, because Chris would move on, that guys like him are always going to move on. And when I asked her what girls like me always do, she'd said, exactly what you're already doing. Pushing everybody away.
I would've asked her who this 'everybody' was, but that might have only gone to prove her point more. And it was bad enough that I knew she was right without going so far as admitting to her that I knew she was right. Even though she was right, I had given Chris more credit than that. He was way too annoying, way too persistent to just give up that easily. So I locked the door. So I ignored him when he knocked or when he called. So what.
Maybe I act on confused behavior
One and a half weeks. That's all it took. Just one and a half weeks and the knocks stopped. The calls, the texts stopped. The random IMs stopped too. One and a half weeks and that's all it took for him to give up. Even though this was a definite sign that Jules had in fact been right, I nevertheless thought, or hoped stupidly, that his giving up didn't mean he'd moved on. Until a few weeks after that.
"Ay, wait up!"
I was walking to class or a dining hall or the library, I can't remember, but I was going somewhere on campus when I'd heard his voice call out. Over and over. I'd sighed and kept moving, deciding to just continue to ignore him--it had been working brilliantly so far--but after awhile I was tired of ignoring him--he can be pretty damn loud when he wants to--and I was tired of doing this because whatever this was supposed to prove to me about him and us had proved less about him and so much about the stupidity of me. So I stopped, turned around, finding him to be less than five feet behind me and jogging to catch up with one of his big goofy ass smiles plastered across his face. When he was close to me, he slowed his jog to a trot to a walk and said, "I know you heard me sooner than that."
And just as I opened my mouth to answer, a bus hit him.
Maybe waves crash like semi trailer
Okay, that didn't happened. But it sounds better than what actually did happen. Because what actually did happen was exactly what Jules had predicted. It was exactly what anyone with any kind of sense would have known would happen. Because it was actually what happens when you stupidly play hard to get with a guy like that. He'd moved on.
Maybe I'll spend my off time without you
It seems like we need our own space
And instead of my voice saying something, whatever that would have been, a voice not that far ahead of me, to which I had my back to at that point, said, "I did, and what I was doing was called ignoring yo' loud ass."
Chris smiled at the girl, who of course was cute, and having reached her side draped his arm around her shoulder as they walked off together, just like he'd always used to with me. And what did I do?
And all the time I wasted away
I don't feel good unless you stay
Did I call him on the fact that he had to know I was right there? Did I call him on the fact that I was more than a hundred percent sure that the arm over the shoulder bit was added just for my sake? Did I run into traffic and get hit by a bus?
No, that would be crazy. No, instead what I did was exactly what Jules had predicted. It was exactly what anyone with any kind of sense would have known would happen. Because it was exactly what happens when you play hard to get and find yourself playing it alone, because the thing that you'd been hoping wouldn't happen did. He realized you weren't worth the trouble.
And all the times I chased you away
I just stood there, watching them go.
Simply to catch back up with
Your solitude is welcome, welcome
Your attitude is welcome, welcome
Julie was on the other side of the room, making a call. Probably something for the fashion show that was coming up. She was throwing her hands about wildly and screaming into the phone, before turning to scream at one of the lower level interns. I didn't even realize there was a lower level of intern, thought they all came in the same basic gopher flavor. And, who knows, maybe they did and Julie was just making her own rules.
So while Julie and the interns were hopping themselves up on all the caffeine they could get their hands on, I was currently just chilling on the couch (I was calling this my break time, which only served to frustrate anyone who came up to ask me a question, because all I'd say during the fifteen minutes I'd allotted myself was "break time"), watching the whole scene play out with Frankie sitting beside me. She'd been unusually quiet the whole day, I had thought maybe the whole fashion show planning thing was just getting old to her, but when she did decide to speak, boredom wasn't the subject.
"Are you and Julie..." Frankie asked, making a hole with one hand and ramming her other hand's index finger into it.
Tour time had rolled around and I was rolling through the dates with relative ease. No matter the craziness in my personal life, the stage had always been my sanctuary. But at this moment, I wasn't doing anything music or tour related. Right now I was supposed to be focusing on the upcoming William Rast fashion show that would be held in New York just a few days before the grand opening of my new restaurant, Southern Hospitality. With a tour going on and Shrek 3 promos looming in the near future adding these two extras to the list of balls to juggle might have been good enough cause to either curl into the fetal position and wait for it all to be over or to run for the proverbial hills with my tail between my legs. But I couldn't afford to do anything less than pretend that I had it all under control and pray like hell that nobody (or more realistically, a few) noticed when/if/how much I fumbled.
But so far so good, right? Or it had been until Trace had thrown a curve ball in the form of a monkey wrench named one Julie Drules. When I'd first heard that Julie had been recruited to help with the WR fashion show, my first instinct was to try to find a seemingly legitimate excuse as to why this could not happen, but when I couldn't think of anything and even being honest with Trace about it all had only led to belly-aching laughter, I thought I had to go back to the drawing board. That is until we all had our first meeting to discuss the layout of the show and Julie proved to be nothing short of utterly professional. She never did anything that even hinted at the fact that her first encounter with me had led to a walk of shame the following morning or that the second one hadn't gone much better.
So once that fear was out of the way, I'd relaxed around her, assuming that the worst was over.
Frowning at Frankie, I said, "No! What? No. Well, once."
For a long while she just nodded her head like she didn't really need my response to know the answer to that. "Are you dating her or wanting to in the future?"
"No," My frown was growing. "to both."
"Well, maybe you should tell her that."
"What do you mean?"
"I know how you get into your little oblivious world sometimes, but she doesn't. So when you flirt with her the way that you do, it would seem that you like her in more than a buddy pal kinda way. Which you're saying that you don't, right?"
"Right." I nodded earnestly. "But you think she does?"
Frankie rolled eyes, laughed and then immediately started to mimic the way Julie had been acting around me. Things that had seemed so regular before now had a different flavor to it. Smiles weren't just smiles. Eye contact wasn't just eye contact. Leaning in to better see or show a sketch wasn't just leaning in. And yet I had missed each and every clue.
With my frown still ever-present, I said, "But we talked about this. As soon as I realized that Trace had hired her as extra help for the upcoming fashion show, I cleared the air with her on all that. So something like this wouldn't happen."
"Well, something like this did happen. Now what, Romeo?"
"This isn't my fault."
"I didn't say it was."
"But you're looking at me like it was. And it wasn't."
Then she mimicked the way I was around Julie and suddenly my smiles weren't just smiles. My eye contact wasn't just eye contact, my laugh wasn't just a laugh. And had I really been licking my lips that much?
"Of course, it wasn't." Frankie said, with a roll of the eyes.
But still, it wasn't my fault. Sometimes those things just sort of happened. A little flirtation here and there was a part of the whole I'm a charming entertainer, ain't I? get-up. It used to always have to be an intentional thing, but after awhile of having to use it so much in videos, interviews, on and off sets, the flirtation had almost become like a second nature for me. And usually even if I hadn't meant to do it, it wasn't much of problem.
All you see is red lights behind me
But Jules wasn't just some girl I was temporarily working with that I'd happened to smile at a little too much. I'd already crossed lines with her. Lines that I'd made clear that I wasn't going to cross again, especially now that she was essentially an employee of mine, even though she spent most of of her time working with Trace. Now it appeared like all my breath had been wasted in that effort, because with every lip lick and unnecessary finger graze, I'd given her permission to ignore everything I'd said before.
Maybe this isn't what you wanted baby
So still it would seem like it was all my fault. But it wasn't. Not really. Not completely.
Who knows what I might have done instead if it I hadn't agreed to break up sex with Cameron. Though I did have a hard time labeling it as break sex, given the fact that we were still doing that pretend not to be broken up thing that she'd insisted on. So somewhere in agreeing to this pretend relationship, I'd also agreed to pretend sex. Not to say that it wasn't really happening, because it definitely was, but it felt more surreal than actually real to me now.
I don't blame you falling backwards
No one's ever quite confused you this way
Now no sooner than she'd stopped twitching from an orgasm, barely catching her breath and without wiping the sweat away or taking the time for a shower, Cameron would jump to her feet and immediately start to get dressed as if the room was on fire. And every time I watched her do this, the little more real the break up became and little more I started to feel broken up about it all. And a lot more I started to feel like the bitch in this so-called relationship. Even if it was only a pretend relationship, I still was left feeling like a very real pussy-whipped bitch.
And all this time we wasted away
We don't feel good unless were gray, gray
And even knowing this, feeling this way didn't change anything, in fact the knowledge of this seemed to only fuel me in the wrong direction. The more casual she was, the more she didn't care, the more and more I did, which turns me into the typical don't-know-what-you've-got-until-it's-gone jerk. And being pussy-whipped was one thing, but being some kind of stereotypical meat-head dumbass on top of that was unacceptable. And isn't the first step toward healing, recognizing that you've got a problem? Well, I'd recognized the problem fairly early on and yet the more she treated me like I was just a piece of ass, the more attractive she was getting to me, when not that long ago, I'd started to nitpick at everything about her. From the way she held her fork to the way her nose moved sometimes when she talked.
Took me a few more times of playing the fool before I found my balls again and gathering them up, literally--I actually held them as I said to her, "This isn't going to happen anymore. So whatever you've done to give your pussy that voodoo magic--kudos--but it isn't going down like that anymore, because I'm a man dammit. And a man's gotta have balls."
That wasn't worded exactly the way I would have liked, but it got the basic point across. After that little speech, I'd been the one to hop back into my clothes and run out of the room like it was on fire. The sound of her laughter following me out the door definitely didn't make me feel as victorious as I could have, but whatever, I'd done it. I'd reclaimed my balls. I wasn't pussy-whipped anymore.
I had felt good about that, great about that at first. Until some days went by and I realized that couple or not, Cameron had been the only sex I'd been getting so by cutting her off, I'd cut myself off. But even this I thought might not be so bad, after all, I didn't need sex. I could do without it for awhile. I'd just throw myself headlong into the long list of things I had to do as Justin Timberlake: World-class entertainer. Sounded simple enough.
And all the times I chased you away
For a while there it had seemed like it was working. I was juggling all the professional balls in my life rather seamless. Or so I'd thought.
But apparently my dick was a sneaky little bastard and had gone recruiting a Cameron replacement without my knowing.
I was still sitting on the couch with Frankie. Jules was still across the room, hammering out some of the fine details for the fashion show. I watched her for a moment. Watched her yelling at someone who'd been unfortunate enough to be placed below her and have the nerve not the follow her orders precisely. She was in mid-rant when she accidentally made eye contact with me. And for the few seconds our eyes were locked on one another, her anger slipped away and a smile took its place. She waved at me, still grinning.
I smiled and waved back, then she turned and went back to her screaming and my smile immediately fell. Those were hints that even I couldn't miss. If my dick was a villain, it would probably be curling its long black mustache and laughing evilly right about now, since all of its plans were working out so nicely.
I groaned, sinking into the couch. "Goddamn it."
I simply don't feel good
Your solitude is welcome, welcome
Your attitude is welcome, welcome
The corridor had seemed to stretch on until forever, that is until I'd reached the door. Then it suddenly seemed to just end abruptly. I stared at the door number for a moment, trying to remember if it was the right one. But I knew it was the right one. I'd written it down and repeated it to myself the entire walk here. So I knew this was it. This 334 room was his room. There was no doubt about it.
I turned and walked right back the way that I'd came. This retreat only lasted for about ten steps before I forced myself to go back. Then I was staring at the door with my fist raised to knock, but instead I round up turning around and yeah, you guessed it, walking back the way that I'd came. This time I had gotten completely out of the building, before I was finally able to stop myself and force myself to just go through with it this time. And that meant going back inside and going back up all those evil flights of stairs and that meant going back to room 334 and forcing myself to knock.
And I did just that. Well, except for the knocking part, because I'd gotten back to the door had raised my fist as I had earlier and this time I was intent on knocking--I swear I would have done it, except--the door opened before I could knock with Javier standing on the other side.
Chris's roommate, Javier. He smiled at me. We hadn't met but once. And I hadn't been in the best of moods at the time, but Javier was always smiling. So that didn't really count for much.
Through his smile, he said, "Chris isn't here."
"Why did you think I came here looking for him?"
He raised an eyebrow at that. "So you came looking for me?"
"Well, no."
"So it's like I said, Chris isn't here."
"I can see him sitting at his desk." I said, rolling my eyes.
Still smiling, he laughed and turned toward Chris and said, "I did my part. Don't ever say I didn't ever do anything for ya, bruh."
All this time, we heard alarms
And with that, Javier took his smile and left the room. I just stood there at the threshold and Chris just kept his back to me. This went on for a minute or so before he finally turned around to frown at me. "Why is my door open and you're standing there in the doorway just staring at me?"
I stepped into the room and closed the door.
Come to find, we fell apart
"Why is my door closed and you're standing on this side of the door, just staring at me?"
I sighed, kicked at nothing and said what amounted to nothing, "I'm not good at this."
"At what?"
"I'm guessing you want an apology."
"For what?"
Again, I rolled my eyes. "You're going to make this hard aren't you?"
With his arms now crossed he said,"You don't like your men easy."
"You aren't my man."
He'd been close to smile a few seconds ago, now he was back to scowling. "So then why are you here?"
"You're my friend though!"
This whole thing has crashed down, crashed down
"Right. Cause that's just what I need is another hot and cold woman in my life."
"Well, I wouldn't say cold/cold. More like chilly/cold. Or nippy/cold. Or cool-ish/cold." When all he was doing was just frowning at me now, I sighed once more and tried to start over. "Okay, maybe we were never friend, friends. Maybe we never hung out in a way that I didn't find annoying to be in your presence. Maybe we didn't just talk for shits and giggles. Maybe..." I bit my lip, groaned and then proceeded to throw in the towel. "Fuck it. You're right. You don't need another woman like me in your life and we weren't even friends. So no harm, no foul."
And out the door I went. Out the door, down the hall and then right back to his room.
"Um, in case you missed it, this is the part where you chase me down and don't let me leave."
"Because I'm supposed to want you to stay."
I frowned at this, because I had stupidly never really considered this as a strong possibility for something he wouldn't want. "And you don't?"
He said nothing to this, just stared at me and through me like I was nothing. I licked my lips, bit them and let them go with a soft pop. Of course it was more than a strong possibility, it was reality. This is what moving on entails after all.
This kind of stupidity on my part was uncharacteristic, but then this whole coming here was too. I was trying to be someone different in order to win...or something. I don't know even know anymore, but what I did know I said aloud, "And you don't."
All this time, we heard alarms
I was out the door again and down the hall again and outside the building again, before some sick part of me must've realize I could use a little more kicks and back I went.
"Is there a reason why you don't? Other than the whole, I'd be more trouble than I'm worth, we were never really friends, yadda yadda thing?"
"No, that's it."
Your solitude is welcome
I just nodded for awhile, because I didn't know what else to do. "Okay."
I headed for the door, but turned around before I made it out this time. He did nothing but sigh, but that didn't stop me. And maybe it should've. Nevertheless, I said, "It's just... It's just that maybe you don't need any more friends. Maybe losing a pain in the ass kinda sorta friend isn't a problem for you. And I'm not saying it's a problem for me, but... I don't like this. Advil's about to go out of business because it's number one customer isn't getting the same amount of daily headaches as she used to."
There was a pause then. Longer than a moment's pause, but not quite long enough to be two moments, but just long enough to make me squirm.
Your attitude is welcome
Without a smile or a laugh, he just said, "Look, I've got a lot of work to do..."
I just nodded for awhile, while chewing on the inside of my big stupid mouth. "Say no more. I've probably said too much anyways."
I left. I didn't rush out. I just walked out. I didn't slam his door. I just closed it, even gently. I didn't cry or curse at myself for doing this. I just quietly made my way out. And just as I was about to push open the door and walk out of his building once and for all, I felt a hand on my shoulder.
When I turned around and found it was some random guy and not Chris, I shouldn't have been surprised. But today had been a day driven by hope and hope didn't know (or want) to know things like reality and reality right now was some random guy with his hand on my shoulder.
One good glare at the unwanted touch and his hand slipped away like it had actually been burned, but he didn't slip away entirely. Instead of leaving he said, "You dropped this."
I glanced down, looking for my dignity or my pride, because hope was stupid like that, but back in reality all he was holding was my room key that must've slipped out of my pocket. Though it wouldn't have mattered right away, anyways, since my door wasn't even locked anymore. But random guy didn't know that. And neither would Chris.
You. Are. Welcome.
Welcome, welcome
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This chapter features: Alien Ant Farm - Attitude
