I burst into his room a minute later. Thankfully, he’s not undressing. He’s leaning over, palms flat against the top of the dresser, his legs astride. I don’t think he’s crying, he’s just staring. He knows I’m here too, but he doesn’t say anything. Probably because he knows how stupid he’s being this morning.

“What the hell are you doing?”

Somebody has to be the serious one today.

He takes a deep breath and straightens himself. “I’m fine.” He walks back over to his bed and tugs a red hoodie into his arms. He pulls it over his head, then slips pair of shades out of the front pocket and over his eyes.

I cross my arms and step in his path when he tries to get away from my confrontation. “You think Eric isn’t going to notice that you’ve gone from psycho depressed to an egotistical pop star?”

He shakes his head as he twists his lips into a disgruntled smirk. “I haven’t seen him since I got back from Florida, Mel. He doesn’t know what I’ve been like, okay?”

He reaches out, about to reassure me with a pat on the shoulder but I jerk away and glare at him. “It’s one thing to lie about how well or bad you’ve been doing. It’s another thing to act like a completely different and fake person. Justin, I don’t like this! It’s not healthy. If…if I had known you’d do this I wouldn’t have called Eric in the first place.”

“Yeah, well you did,” he mutters, and rips his sunglasses off of his face.

The whites of his eyes have turned red and watery now. He’s understandably scared out of his mind. It’s probably my fault too, but as much as I want to break down and tell him he doesn’t have to do anything he’s uncomfortable with, I know it’s not going to help him get better. Justin needs to face his fears…

I know what happens when you don’t.

His serious expression softens, and suddenly, he does something I never thought I’d see him do…or something I’d allow him to do. “Just bear with me,” he pleads, stepping up to me and placing a hand on each of my shoulders. He stares deep into my eyes. I don’t want to stare back, because I know the power that lies within those metallic blues of his. They’re convincing, like a con artist‘s. I don’t know how many people he’s be en able to sway with the power of those things, but I’m sure it’s more than I have time to count. “Come on Mel,” he says softly. “I’m doing what you asked. I’m going out.”

Shockingly enough, I don’t pull away from him. I continue to stare up at him, searching his eyes for the real Justin. The one that I’m sure I don’t know yet…the one I don’t think I’ll really ever get to know. “I knew today would be hard for you, but I didn’t want you to have to put all of your energy into being fake. I…I really want you to try and enjoy today as much as possible.”

He doesn’t seem to know what to do after I say that. He steps back, and just sort of stares at me. There’s no real expression on his face either. It’s like, he’s too confused to know how to react. I guess he’s been alone for so long that he doesn’t know how to comprehend it when somebody he doesn’t know all that well sort of cares about what happens to him. I guess it’s a learning experience. But I’m not so sure if I’m the right one to be teaching this stuff to him. It should probably be his shrink, or a friend or family member. Hell…I don’t know. He isn’t telling me to leave or that I’m making things uncomfortable for him. Maybe I need to just go with it. I mean…he is, even if he has to be fake at times to do it.

“I will,” he nods. “It’s just, what Eric and my mother don’t know can’t hurt them. And…you know, it--it cant’ hurt you either. You know, me being happy looks good on your part too.”

“Oh please,” I mutter, knowing he has sort of a valid point, but not wanting to encourage his fake mood. “I’m not going to stand here and tell you it’s okay to act like somebody you’re not. I mean, how am I supposed to know if you’re being fake with me?”

His eyes widen a little. “Well I…”

“Yeah,” I snap. “Never thought of it that way did you?”

“Mel, I can’t have people thinking that I need to be dragged back to Tennessee.”

This is yet another thing that confuses me about Justin: his absolute loathing of going back to his home town. I mean, he grew up there and he wants absolutely nothing to do with it anymore. “What’s the big deal?” I’m out of line but I don’t care right now. He brought it up so I think I have every right to challenge him about the subject.

He chews the bottom corner of his lip for a minute, not saying anything, barely looking at me. I’ve struck a cord, but I think we’ve reached a point now where he needs to start being more open with me. After the other night, there’s not really much else he needs to hide from me. “I just…”

Beep beep beeeeep!

“Eric,” I nod.

“Yeah.” He laughs nervously. “We better just go.”

I still don’t clear a path for him. “You think you can just run away from me when things get too hard to talk about? Look Justin, I may not know you all that well…but you’re stuck with me. I don’t know for how long, but for right now this is how things are. Now, if you really want to push me out and be alone that’s your choice. But don’t expect to call me up crying when your mom tries to put you on the next plane back home. I’m not looking back once I’m gone…understand?”

“I…” He sighs and looks at the floor. “Okay, later…later on I’ll explain more.”

“Hmmph.” I roll my eyes. “Let’s just go.”

“I promise.” He looks me directly in the eyes. “Melanie…”

I don’t want him to break down right now, because its bad enough that Eric suspects Justin’s happy act as being fake and if he goes to the car in a mood Eric will be making an unwanted phone call to Lynn later on. “Okay,” I reassure him. “Later.”

I finally clear a path for him, and he shoots me a thankful smile before exiting the bedroom. I take a moment to glance around before I follow him out the door. In case Eric should want to come up here, I don’t need him finding anything suspicious lying around. I don’t find anything out of the ordinary though, and I know that’s a positive thing. I go into the bathroom next, knowing that I really need to get downstairs, but also knowing that I need to make sure there isn’t anything lying around that could pose a threat to Justin. Surprisingly enough, its basically clean. Sure there’s a wet towel or two lying on the floor…toothpaste lying on the sink without the cap on it. But that’s to be expected. Not everybody can be as neat as me, and men are known to be slobs.

The medicine cabinet is hanging half open, and I reach out to close the door. Before I can close it all the way though, I notice Justin’s medication bottles sitting on the shelves in plain view…empty. Normally I wouldn’t care, but the fact that I just got them refilled the other day causes an alarm to go off inside of me. There’s no way he could have taken all those medications without having some serious side effects. So then where the hell did it all go? I turn around. I look in the toilet. There is a single pill floating around in the water. Is he fucking kidding? Did he honestly think that I wouldn’t check? That I wouldn’t notice? I swear to god…I should call Lynn right now…

I feel fucking sick to my stomach. Why did I have to look?

Wait.

I looked because its what he expects me not to do. He’s starting to think that I trust him too much to worry about little shit like this. Well, he’s mistaken. No, I wont call Lynn right now, but I’m going to let him know. I’m going to tell him that I know what’s going on and he’s an asshole if he thinks I’m going to stand for it.

“Mel! What are you doing? Eric’s waiting!”

I slap the medicine cabinet closed. I’m furious at him right now, but I know I need to calm down. I can’t confront him about this in the car, or act like there’s something wrong. I can’t let Eric get suspicious. I pretty much promised Justin I’d give him the benefit of the doubt until tonight, so that’s what I’m going to do.

“Melanie!”

I quickly run downstairs before he can come up and ask me what I’m doing in his room. He gives me a look as if to say “what the hell?”. But I just shrug and motion for him to follow me. We get into the car and while I feel uneasy, Justin doesn’t bring up the fact that I took forever. Actually, he and Eric get into a conversation as to what’s going to happen once we get to Best Buy. The memory of the house is easily forgotten by the both of them. But not by me. I’m still pissed off really pissed off about the pills, but I know its going to have to wait until later. Right now, Justin has a lot more to worry about than what I think.

I just hope I don’t end up screaming at him before this lovely trip comes to an end.