October 2001
I guess it goes without saying that I didn’t hear a word from Justin after our little escapade in July. All the talk he’d done about wanting to be my friend was just that, talk. In the end all he’d wanted was to have a spare tire. Someone that he knew wouldn’t cause a scene or dime him out to Britney or the media.
During the late summer and early fall of 2001 it seemed like I couldn’t turn on the tv or pick up a magazine without seeing Britney and Justin holding hands and smiling. Perpetrating the image of the perfect couple. Young, talented, famous and in love. It was all just so perfect. Being bombarded by all of this would have been hard enough to take on its own, but then the consequence of my night with Justin started to make itself known.
I was twenty three years old at the time and I was a nurse, so I don’t know why I even tried to fool myself into believing that I wasn’t pregnant. All the signs were there. I started feeling tired all the time. I was always running off to the bathroom to pee and suddenly the smell of some of my favorite foods started to make me nauseous. Then the morning sickness started. I had myself convinced that I was just stressed out. And when my period didn’t arrive when it was supposed to, I attributed that to stress as well.
I thought I was hiding my situation from Rachel, but she’s always been one step ahead of me. I got up one morning and found a home pregnancy test sitting on the bathroom counter. The note that was attached to it went into great detail about all the ways that she would beat my ass if I hadn’t taken the test by the time she got home. The plus sign that appeared on the testing strip didn’t come as much of a surprise to either of us.
If I had been on my own I probably would have fallen into some kind of stupor. But Rachel wasn’t having it. She said it was alright for me to screw up my own life, but now I had someone else to think about so I’d better get it together. That’s what I tried to do. I went to the doctor just to confirm what I already knew in my heart to be true. I started making plans for how I was going to care for my child. Not having the baby was a thought that never entered my mind. I had always wanted to be a mother. This wasn’t the fairytale circumstances that I dreamed of when I was a little girl, but the situation was what it was. I had to make the best of it.
The next few months were some of the toughest of my life. I really don’t know what I would have done without Rachel. She’s the only real family I have. I know she’s not related to me by blood, but sometimes the family that you make for yourself can provide more love and support than the one that you were born into.
My mother left my father when I was barely one year old. My dad tried to take care of me, but it was hard for him. I was just a constant reminder of the woman that had broken his heart and he had been hurt by her too much to get over it. It didn’t help matters that the older I got, the more I started to resemble my mother. Eventually my father gave up on trying to raise me and left me with his sister.
I can’t say that my aunt didn’t take care of me, because she did. But there wasn’t a lot of genuine affection there. She raised me out of a sense of obligation, but without any real warmth. My father came to visit me, but after he got remarried his visits tapered off to phone calls. Phone calls gave way to letters. Then the letters stopped coming and all I could count on was greeting cards twice a year. My birthday and Christmas. That’s pretty much where our relationship stands to this very day.
I met Rachel on the first day of kindergarten. I was a shy child and the other kids picked up on the fact that I was scared and quick to cry. They picked on me mercilessly until Rachel stepped in and threatened to beat down any and every body that bothered me. She was all mouth, but she put on a good game face. The other kids left me alone and from that day forward we were inseparable. I didn’t just have a friend, I had a sister.
Rachel forced me to get off my behind and start making some decisions about my life. I struggled for quite a while about whether or not to tell Justin about the baby. It would have been easier to not say anything, but that didn’t seem fair. Words can’t begin to express how much I really didn’t want to ever have to look at Justin again, but I didn’t have much of a choice. I had to think of the child that I was carrying. Justin had treated me like trash, but that didn’t change the fact that he had the right to know that he was about to be a father.
I put it off for as long as I could, but I couldn’t avoid the subject forever. So when Nsync came to Atlanta in late October to do a show at Phillips Arena, I decided that was as good a time as any to talk to him.
I knew that Justin wouldn’t accept a phone call from me, but luckily I had maintained my relationship with JC. He would call from time to time to see how I was doing. I hadn’t let him know that I was pregnant, so when I told him that I needed to see Justin, he was hesitant to help me. He didn’t want to set up a meeting that would just result in me getting hurt again. But I was persistent. I begged him to get me up to Justin’s hotel room and he did it for me.
Their concert was on a Saturday and they had decided to just stay in Atlanta until the following Monday. I met JC in the lobby of the Ritz on that Sunday afternoon. I took care to make sure that my coat was closed up. I didn’t want him to know that I was pregnant. He would have been overly concerned and asked me a thousand questions that I was in no frame of mind to answer.
JC had offered to come into Justin’s room with me, but I asked him to go back downstairs and wait for me there. This was something that I needed to do on my own. I knocked on the door and it was a little while before anyone answered. Finally the door opened up and I found myself face to face with Trace. He was the last person that I wanted to see. Well, second to last. Having him there was only bound to make an already awkward situation worse. He wasted no time in letting me know that my presence was unwanted.
Trace rolled his eyes at me. “What do you want?”
“I need to talk to Justin.”
“Whatever.” Trace stepped aside to give me room to come in.
As soon as I stepped into the room, my nostrils were assaulted by the smell of weed. Justin was kicked back on the sofa, taking a long drag off of a joint. Even under the best of circumstances that much smoke would have made me sick, but given the condition that I was in, it was unbearable.
I waved a cloud of smoke away from my face. “Can you please put that out?”
I was talking to Justin, but Trace was the one that answered me. “You can’t come up in here making demands. If you don’t like the atmosphere, feel free to leave.”
“Justin, please. Can you put that out for just a minute? I won’t be here for long.”
He finally saw fit to acknowledge me. He pinched out his joint and laid it in the ashtray. “Why are you here?”
“I need to talk to you.”
Justin and Trace looked at each other and started grinning. “Listen Kay, I’d love to throw you a bone, but I’m kind of tired right now. Give me an hour or two and maybe I can get with you then.”
Justin and Trace slapped hands and started laughing like that was the funniest thing that anyone had ever said. The combination of the blunt he’d just smoked and having an audience to play to, had obviously brought out the worst in Justin.
What I wanted to do was turn around and leave, but I had come this far and I just wanted to get it over with.
“I don’t know what you think I came here for, but I just want to talk to you.” I glanced at Trace from the corner of my eye. “Alone.”
Justin rolled his eyes at me and shook his head. “Whatever you need to say to me, you can say in front of Trace.”
“This is private.”
“You’re killing my high. If you came here because you finally gathered up the nerve to bitch at me about what happened in July, let me just remind you that you’re an adult and I didn’t put a gun to your head. Now, if you have something to tell me, just spit it out and stop wasting my fucking time.”
“If that’s the way you want it.” I took a deep breath and tried to shake off the embarrassment and rage that I was feeling. “Justin, I’m pregnant.”
“What?” Justin shook his head as though he had misheard what I’d said.
“I’m pregnant.”
The sleepy, high as a kite grin on Justin’s face slowly started to disappear. He was speechless, but Trace wasn’t. “You’re not actually buying this shit, are you man? This chick has been trying to lock you down since day one.”
Justin seemed to have gone into shock. “You can’t be pregnant.”
“I can and I am.” I opened my coat to reveal the bump that had started to show on me.
Justin looked at my face and looked at my stomach. “Shit.”
Trace stood up and started pacing around the room. “Don’t let her trap you with this. It’s the oldest trick in the book. So what if she is pregnant? You don’t have any proof that it’s yours.”
Justin was rubbing his hand across his face. “Shut up Trace.”
Trace ignored Justin and just kept right on talking. “You know I’m right.”
Justin spoke a bit louder. “Just shut up.”
“I don’t want anything from you Justin. I just thought that you would want to know.”
I was trying to ignore Trace, but he kept insisting on inserting himself into the conversation. “You’re just looking to get paid.”
I swear if I hadn’t been pregnant, I would have kicked Trace’s little midget ass. “I don’t see how this is any of your business.”
“Keeping trifling, money hungry skeezers like you away from Justin is my business.”
“You’re just scared that if he has a child to take care of maybe he won’t be able to support your sorry ass anymore.”
“You’ve probably been planning this all along. Justin, I told you not to keep fucking around with her. But you just had to go back for more. Like she had gold between her legs or something.”
“Get out.” For a second I thought Justin was talking to me.
“Dude, you can’t be this stupid. That could be anybody’s kid. You don’t know who all this bitch has been giving it up to. She spread for you easy enough. ”
Justin jumped up and pushed Trace into the wall. “Don’t you ever talk about her like that again. Do you hear me?”
“What the fuck is wrong with you? You said . . .”
“Never mind what the fuck I said. I want you to get out of here right now.”
Trace huffed and puffed a little bit, but he made like a good little flunky and left like Justin had told him to.
Justin walked back and forth muttering the word ‘fuck’ under his breath. He stopped pacing and looked at me. “Are you sure?”
“Am I sure that I’m pregnant or am I sure that it’s yours?”
“Both.”
“I’ve been to the doctor, so I’m sure that I’m pregnant. As far as the other question, I’m not going to dignify it with a response. I’m not the whore in this situation. That would be you.”
“How did this happen? I thought you were on the pill.”
“I was, but I had a sinus infection and the antibiotics I was on clashed with my birth control pills. I didn’t know until after the fact. Maybe if you had taken the time to put on a condom before you jumped me, we wouldn’t be in this mess.”
“Don’t try to act like this is all my fault.”
“I’m not trying to assign blame. The whole night was a huge mistake on both our parts, but that’s besides the point now.”
Justin gripped a handful of the hair that had just started growing back on his head. He wiped his hand over his face and eyed me nervously. “What are you gonna do?”
“What kind of question is that?”
“I just want to know how you plan to handle the situation.”
“I don’t have any intention of aborting my child. I know that would make you breathe a lot easier, but it’s not going to happen.”
“Don’t put words in my mouth. I never said anything about an abortion. I wouldn’t ever suggest that.”
“Then what are you trying to suggest?”
“I’m not trying to suggest anything. I’m still trying to wrap my mind around this. You’ve had a couple of months to get used to the idea. I just found out five minutes ago. I think I’m entitled to freak out a little bit.”
“I didn’t come here to freak you out. I just thought that you had a right to know.”
“Can I?” Justin pointed to my stomach. I nodded my head and he rubbed his hand across my belly. A slight smile rose to his face as he gently caressed me.
“Do you know if it’s a boy or a girl?”
“It was too soon to tell when I had my last ultrasound, but I’m having another one in a couple of weeks. They should be able to tell me then. But I’m not sure that I want to know. I kind of want to be surprised.”
“I always thought I’d like to have a boy first. That way the other kids would have somebody to look up to. Someone to watch out for them.” For a minute, he looked happy. The way that you would want the man that you love to look if you’d just told him that you were having his baby.
“That’s a sweet idea.”
Justin just nodded his head. He wasn’t even looking at me. His eyes were glued to my stomach. “Are you feeling okay?”
“There’s the morning sickness. Other than that, I’m fine.”
“And you’ve got a good doctor, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you need some help? Money or something.”
“Not really. I’ve been pretty good about saving. I’m okay for now.”
“I want to apologize for the way that Trace spoke to you. That wasn’t right.”
That would have been funny, if it weren’t so pathetic. He was apologizing for Trace, but didn’t say a word about his own behavior. I guess it was alright for him to treat me like shit, but he wouldn’t let anyone else do it.
“You don’t need to apologize for him. His opinion doesn’t mean anything to me.”
Justin absentmindedly nodded his head. I don’t think he had even really heard what I’d said. “When are you due?”
“Around the end of April.”
Justin closed his eyes tightly as he took a deep breath. He gave my stomach one more gentle touch, then he abruptly slid his hand away. “Well let me know when it’s born and I’ll send you something or come visit or whatever.”
The fact that he kept referring to our unborn child as ‘it’, pretty much clued me in to the way that things were going to go. Any moment of joy he might have gotten out of hearing that he was going to be a father had passed. Quickly.
His sudden shift in attitude had thrown me for a loop. “You’ll send me something when the baby is born. What does that even mean?”
“I don’t know what you thought was going to happen here. I can’t just drop everything and raise a baby with you.” Sensitive, half way concerned Justin had left the building and asshole Justin had taken his place. “And to be honest, I still don’t have any real proof that it’s mine.”
“You are unbelievable. The last thing in the world that I want is something that would link me to you for at least eighteen years. If there was any way in the world that someone else was the father of this child, I wouldn’t have dragged myself here to be humiliated like this. However if you would like to go to court and get a paternity test, just let me know where and when.”
He looked at me like I had lost my mind. “You know that I can’t do that.”
“Well maybe Johnny can book us a spot on Maury Povich. He loves to do DNA tests.”
“Now is not the time for jokes, Kay. I can help you with the baby financially. But that’s all I can offer you. I can’t publicly acknowledge a child born out of wedlock. It would kill my career.”
“I’m standing here telling you that I’m having your baby and all you can think about is your career. That is so fucked up. Besides, Joey has a baby and no one seems to care about that.”
“That’s different.”
“How is it different?”
“Joey had a child with his girlfriend. Everybody already knew about Kelly. I can’t just show up parading a baby around in front of the cameras. Especially not your baby.” As soon as he said the words he looked like he wanted to pull them right back into his mouth.
“Especially not my baby? Now we’re getting to the root of the problem.”
“That didn’t come out right.”
“Is that the real problem? Would your little mistake be easier for your fans to swallow if I was white?”
“Don’t try to turn this into a race thing. You know that’s not what this is about.”
“I’m not the one that brought up race. That was all you. I’m just trying to understand why you think it would be impossible to acknowledge this baby. Joey is in the exact same position that you’re in and he didn’t try to hide his child from the world.”
“Joey doesn’t have the same kind of image to maintain that I do. I’m supposed to be the one that you can take home to your mother. Every girl’s ideal boyfriend. I can’t admit to cheating on Britney. I just can’t do it. If you need anything, just let me know and I’ll make sure that you get it.”
“I don’t want money, Justin. I want my child to have two parents. I want my child to have stability.”
“You know that I can’t commit myself to being there all the time. I could come and visit sometimes, but I can’t promise you anything beyond that.”
“The last thing a child needs is someone jumping in and out of their life. If you are so selfish and immature that you can’t stop thinking of yourself and your career long enough to be a real parent, you might as well not come around at all.”
“Then I guess I won’t be coming around at all.” I could tell by the look on his face that it hurt him to say what he was saying, but at that moment his pain meant absolutely nothing to me. “I’m sorry, Kay. I’m sorry for everything. But I can’t do this.”
“I don’t know why I expected anything better. Why don’t we skip ahead to the part of the conversation where you ask me not to sell my story to People Magazine so I can get the hell out of here?”
“I know that you’re not going to do that. You’re better than that. And I know that you wouldn’t have come here if the baby wasn’t mine. That’s not the kind of woman that you are. I wish that things could be different. I wish that I could tell you all the things that you want to hear, but I would just be lying and you deserve more than that.”
I looked at Justin and it was like staring at a stranger. That was when it finally hit me. He was a stranger. I hadn’t given myself time to get to know him. I had let myself become mesmerized by glamorous surroundings and a pretty package. Now I’d finally gotten that package open only to find a steaming pile of shit inside.
“I don’t know how I could have ever let myself fall in love with someone like you.” I had held back my tears for as long as I could. I tried to turn around and get out of the door before Justin could see me crying, but I was too slow.
He pulled me back around to face him and I could see that he was crying too. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. You don’t know how much I wish things could be different. I wish that I was a different person. I want to love you and help you take care of this baby. And maybe one day I’ll be able to, but I can’t do this right now. I just can’t.”
Justin closed his arms around me. He rocked me back and forth as I cried against his shoulder. He whispered over and over again that he was sorry. I let myself get lost inside the warmth of his embrace. I was hurting and I needed someone to hold me, even if it was the person that had caused the pain.
“I hate you and I wish that I had never met you.”
My voice was muffled because my face was pressed against his chest, but I know that he heard me. He didn’t say anything, he just held me tighter. I guess he knew that they were just words.
I wasn’t fooling him and I couldn’t fool myself. I didn’t hate Justin. I didn’t hate him then and I don’t hate him now. I don’t know how to hate him, but I can’t help but think that the next few years of my life would have been a lot easier, if I could have learned how.
