Part Two: Virginia Is For Lovers
May - July 2002
If the singing and acting gigs ever dry up for Justin, he should try his hand at politics. He can talk out of both sides of his neck. He can bend the truth until it screams for mercy, and still somehow manage not to tell a complete lie. He has absolutely no problem making promises that he can’t keep. And he can do all of these things without blinking, itching or twitching. Wouldn’t surprise me at all if he ends up running for president one day.
The way that Justin had explained things to me before we got to Virginia had seemed reasonable. According to his master plan, he was going to gradually work Jonah and I into his life. He said being a solo artist would allow him to have a more mature fan base that would be less likely to go to pieces at the thought of him having a child. He told me that if I would just give him time to get established in his career, he would be able to tell the whole world about me and Jonah.
There was still a bit of a gray area about what exactly it was that we hoped to achieve by living together. Of course Jonah was the main focus. Taking care of him was more important than anything else. But at the same time we thought that we could work on our relationship in the back ground. He said that he would do whatever it took to earn my trust. He promised me love and understanding.
What he didn’t tell me was that there was a limited time warranty on that promise. But really, that’s the least of what he conveniently forgot to mention.
The first obstacle to our impending domestic bliss was Trace. I was belatedly informed that he would be joining us in Virginia. He wasn’t actually going to be living with us, but he was going to be around a lot and he wasn’t empty handed. Justin had agreed to do a show for MTV and Trace was supposed to earn his keep by shooting part of the footage for the show. That meant that Trace was going to be all over the place with a video camera. I was told kindly, yet firmly that I was not going to be allowed on camera.
That was no big deal to me. For one thing, I didn’t think for one second that I would be allowed on camera. And second, I have never had any desire to be caught up in the frenzy of Justin’s public life.
The next surprise that Justin had for me was the suite that he had booked at the Crowne Plaza Hotel. Why does someone with a whole house need a hotel room? Of course there was a reasonable explanation for that. He said he needed it for a front because he certainly couldn’t let anybody know that he was actually living in a house with his baby and his baby’s mama. Neither of whom technically existed.
There was a certain sort of twisted logic to that, but in reality, it was somewhere for him to hide out when he didn’t feel like coming home.
Last but not least, Justin failed to properly explain to me that he wasn’t actually going to be in Virginia all that much. Every time I turned around he was going to Los Angeles, New York or Miami. And of course I couldn’t go with him. Traveling with a baby was too much trouble, he said. You’d be bored because I’ll be working, he said. I can’t actually let anyone see you with me; he didn’t say that part, but it was heavily implied.
There was always a reason why Jonah and I had to stay stuck in that house, while he went wherever he wanted and did whatever he wanted.
But even without all of that, there was still one very important factor working against us. Justin and I were both dysfunctional head cases with a barely passing acquaintance with how to conduct a relationship or behave like mature adults. This was a fact that I never even knew about myself until I lived with him. The two of us living under the same roof was a disaster waiting to happen. Somehow, we managed to bring out the absolute worst in each other.
Now don’t get me wrong. We were able to see past our own foolishness well enough to be good parents. When he was around, Justin was a good father. He never minded getting up with Jonah in the middle of the night, he was excellent at changing diapers and I can’t tell you how many times he fell asleep on the sofa with Jonah cradled against his chest. We knew how to treat Jonah. We just didn’t know how to treat each other.
The problem was that we didn’t know how to just exist. We lived for drama. If there was no drama readily presenting itself, we could find ways to invent some. It was almost like we didn’t know what to do with ourselves if we weren’t arguing about something. Between the two of us we could make an argument out of anything. Be it a dirty dish in the sink or a misplaced magazine. You name it, we could fight about it.
Not that we actually had to make up things to fight about. There were plenty of real issues to keep us occupied.
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I was sitting in the rocking chair beside Jonah’s crib when I heard the sound of Justin’s Escalade pulling into the driveway. I kissed Jonah on the forehead and gently laid him down. I should have just gone to bed because I already knew what was going to happen. I had only been living with Justin for a short amount of time, but it hadn’t taken me long to learn this particular scenario by heart.
Justin was about to come stumbling in the door. He would be bleary eyed and just a little wobbly on his feet. His clothes would smell like liquor, women and weed. I would ask where he had been and he would tell me that he had been out with Pharrell or Chad or Trace or one of the other various hangers ons that he seemed to be running with that summer. I would question the validity of whatever he said and then it would be on and popping.
I would insult him. He would insult me and then he would start the double talk.
Justin could find a way to turn any situation into something that was my fault. He made an art form out of turning his dirt around and bouncing it off of me. No matter how the argument started, I would usually end up doing the apologizing.
I knew what was going to happen, but that didn’t stop me from going downstairs anyway. I always harbored the hope that one of those nights it would be a different story.
He was just coming in the door as I reached the bottom of the stairs. He seemed surprised to see me standing there. “Hey, what are you doing up?”
“I couldn’t sleep.”
“You shouldn’t wait up for me.”
“I was just worried because you didn’t call.”
“I was out with Pharrell. We finished up late in the studio, then we decided to go get a drink. It’s no big deal.”
“Where did you go?” I asked this question as casually as I could, desperately trying to keep the suspicion out of my voice.
“I just told you where I went.” I may have been trying to control my tone, but Justin made no attempt to disguise his annoyance.
“Where did you and Pharrell go to get a drink?”
Normally Justin can pull a lie out of his ass in ten seconds flat, but catch him while he’s tired or high and he will draw a complete blank.
He let out a heavy sigh and rolled his eyes to the ceiling. “I don’t remember the name of the place.”
“You can’t remember the name of the place, because there was no place. I don’t think you were with Pharrell. I think that you were laid up with some groupie.”
“I’m not in the mood for this stuff tonight, Kayla. Why don’t you keep your crazy talk to yourself?” Justin made a move to go upstairs, but I stood in front of him blocking his path.
“It’s not crazy talk. You weren’t anywhere having a drink. There’s not a damn thing open around here at the crack of dawn except for legs.”
Justin smiled at me, but I could tell that there wasn’t anything friendly about it. “Maybe if you’d open your legs, I’d have a reason to be at home.”
The gloves had officially come off. Our arguments didn’t take long to get started and once they did, the insults and nasty remarks rolled off both of our tongues.
“You’re disgusting. Why would I have sex with you? We’re not even together.”
“Exactly. We’re not together. So what makes you think that you can question me about where I go and what I do?”
He had me there, but logic had no place in any of our arguments. “I thought that we were supposed to be working on our relationship.”
“I have been working on our relationship, but I’ve been doing it by myself. You won’t give me an inch. You question my every move, you don’t seem to believe a single word that comes out of my mouth and you flinch every time I try to touch you.”
“I question everything you say and do because we both know that you can barely open your mouth without lying. And as far as the flinching, no one in their right mind would want to be touched by you. I can only imagine what or should I say who, you get into out there in the street.”
“I can’t believe that you’re surprised that I’m in no rush to come up in here. I can’t get none and then you want to pick fights on top of that. What the hell am I supposed to be coming home to?”
“Oh, so if I’m not willing to put out, then it’s not worth your time to show up here at a decent time or treat me with a little respect. Is that what you’re trying to say?”
“I’m not trying to say shit. If that’s what you think, then fine. But don’t twist my words to fit your script.”
“I don’t even know why this is an issue. I made it perfectly clear that I was not just going to jump into bed with you. You said that you understood that I needed to wait.”
“I’ve been waiting and apologizing and begging for forgiveness the entire time that we’ve been here and you still treat me like shit.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “I treat you like shit? You completely ignore me Justin. You don’t spend nearly enough time with Jonah. The only company I have is the cleaning woman that comes three times a week and I don’t know enough Portuguese to be able to carry on a decent conversation with her.”
“You knew that I was going to be working. Did you think I’d be able to sit around every damn day holding your fucking hand? Grow up, Kay.”
Despite the hard attitude that I was trying to perpetrate, all of our constant arguing was starting to wear me down. When I spoke to him, the tremor in my voice was an indicator of the tears to come. “Why do you have to be so hateful? Can’t you see that I’m miserable?”
Whenever Justin could see that I was right on the verge of breaking down, he would take a softer approach. Hard as this may be to believe, he’s never liked to see me cry. Also our arguing had given his hazy mind time to craft a lie. “Some of the guys took me to a strip club on Independence Boulevard.”
“Why didn’t you just say that in the first place?”
“The place was kind of trashy and I thought it might piss you off to know that I went there. I had a few drinks and then I came home. That’s all that happened tonight.”
“You swear?”
“I swear.” Justin looked down at me and tucked a stray strand of hair behind my ear. “Are you mad at me?” As if he actually cared.
“I’m not mad. I’m just lonely. I know that you have to be out during the day, I didn’t think you’d be gone all night too. I don’t even know why you asked me to come here.”
“I asked you to come because I need you here. I want to be with you and Jonah.”
“If you want to be with us, why do you spend all your time running the streets with Pharrell or Trace? Or going anywhere with anybody as long as it means that you don’t have to come home?”
“Kayla, I want to be here and I want to work things out with you. But I stay away because I can’t stand to see that look on your face.”
“What look?”
“That look you give me, like you know that I’m going to screw this up. That disappointed look you give me like you’re just waiting for me to do something wrong. Like you’re looking for any excuse to pack up Jonah and leave me.”
For anyone that questions Justin’s acting abilities, let me assure you that he sold the mess he was talking for all that it was worth. I mean he was seriously working it. I actually started to feel guilty.
“I don’t look at you like that.”
“Yes you do. You’ve been keeping me at a distance since we got here. I said I’d wait and that’s what I meant, but I’m kind of frustrated because it doesn’t seem like we’re getting anywhere. I don’t feel like you’re giving me or this relationship a real chance.”
“That’s not true, Justin.”
“That’s the way that it feels.” He paused and squeezed out a couple of crocodile tears. “Don’t string me along. If you’re never going to forgive me and don’t want me anymore, just say so. Because you can’t have it both ways, Kay. You can’t act like you don’t want to be with me and then turn around and act like a jealous girlfriend.”
See how he flipped that script? We had started out talking about his shortcomings, but we ended up talking about how I was doing him wrong.
Now, a person without love and foolishness clogging up their ears would have heard a bunch of gobbledegook. I heard something else entirely. What I heard was someone making a heartfelt plea. I told myself that maybe it was my fault that things weren’t working out.
Justin and I had been in a sort of limbo since moving in together. He had been very kind and understanding when we first got to Virginia, but I had adopted a very standoffish attitude towards him. As time passed and I still continued to give him the cold shoulder, Justin started to lose his patience. That’s when he started pulling away and staying out all the time.
“I’m sorry, Justin. I’m sorry if I’ve been making you feel guilty. I don’t mean to.” Once again I was the one doing the apologizing.
“You don’t have to apologize. I’m just asking you to work with me a little bit, that’s all. Just let your guard down and give me the benefit.”
“I can do that. I really do want this to work. I know I may not have acted like it, but I’m glad that you asked me to come here. I don’t mean to be so hard on you.”
“We both need to do a lot better. My staying out all the time isn’t going to solve anything. Starting tomorrow I’m going to come straight home from the studio. Would you like that?”
I nodded my head and let Justin pull me into a hug. I didn’t really believe his story about going to a strip club, but I also didn’t want to believe the alternative. What I decided to do was to ignore everything that had happened up to that point and start over fresh.
Justin had a lot of faults, but so did I. I thought that maybe we could fix each other. I made that classic female mistake of thinking that I could turn things around, that I could change Justin. But the only one that was about to go through any changes was me.
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Justin kept his promise about coming home early that next day. I had already fed Jonah and put him to bed by the time Justin got there. The lights were turned down low, the candles were lit and soft music was playing on the sound system.
I rushed out of the kitchen when I heard Justin coming in the door. “Hey.” I pulled him down to me and gave him a kiss. Considering the fact that I hadn’t kissed him or touched him in any intimate way since we’d gotten there, he was surprised to say the least.
“What was that for?”
“Just because. Come on.” I grabbed his hand and led him to the dining room. He was visibly confused by the romantic setting that he saw before him.
“What’s all this?”
“This is me letting you know that I really am trying. I want to be with you Justin. I was hoping that we could put everything behind us and start over.”
Justin and I have wiped the slate clean and started over more often than any two people should be allowed to.
“That’s what I want too. More than anything. You didn’t have to go through any trouble for me though.”
“It’s nothing. Sit down.”
Justin took a seat and pulled me down into his lap. We kissed a little bit until Justin pulled away from me. He sniffed the air and wrinkled his nose. “Is something burning?”
I jumped up and ran back into the kitchen. The entire meal that I had spent the afternoon trying to make was ruined. The chicken that I was trying to bake was black as charcoal. And my garlic mashed potatoes were stuck to the pot. The food was pretty much a mess but I brought it to the table anyway.
Justin’s eyebrows shot straight up into his hairline when I brought that crispy bird out of the kitchen, but he didn’t say a word about it. He tried scraping off the burnt part, but when he carved into it, the chicken was still raw in the middle. He could tell that I was upset, so he tried to eat it anyway, but I took the chicken and dumped it in the trash before he gave himself food poisoning.
“I’m sorry. I don’t know what happened.”
“You probably just had the oven up too high. Don’t worry about it. The potatoes look good though.”
“You really think so? Cause I didn’t use one of those packages. I made those from scratch.” I was so proud of myself. I really shouldn’t have been.
Justin grabbed the serving spoon and piled a heaping helping onto his plate. He scooped up a big spoonful and put it into his mouth. Everything seemed okay for a few seconds, but then his face got tight and it looked like he was going to throw up.
“What’s wrong?”
Justin couldn’t answer me right away. First he swallowed down the lump of potatoes. Then he drank an entire glass of iced tea.
“Um, Kayla. Exactly how much garlic did you put in those potatoes?”
“I don’t know. A couple of cloves.”
“Whole cloves? Not the little sections. You used two whole cloves?”
“No. I used three whole cloves. Was that too much?”
“Not if you’re trying to keep Count Dracula away.” He was trying not to laugh, but I could tell that he wanted to.
I snatched the plates and serving platters off the table, marched into the kitchen and threw everything into the sink. I was leaned over the counter when Justin came into the kitchen. He put his hand on my shoulders, turning me around to face him. I’m sure that disappointment showed all over my face.
“It’s okay, Kayla. I’m not even that hungry. We can order something later if you want. A burnt chicken and some over seasoned potatoes isn’t anything to get upset about.”
“I’m not upset about the food. I’m upset about everything. I feel like we’re just two kids playing house. Pretending to be adults and doing a really bad job of it. I was really trying to make this night special. And now it’s ruined. Everything is ruined.”
“Nothing is ruined. I don’t care that you don’t know how to cook. We can have take out every night for the rest of our lives and it wouldn’t make any difference to me. All that matters is that you want to be with me. That you really want for us to be a family. Having you and Jonah in my life is all that matters to me anymore.”
As if that little speech wasn’t sappy enough on its own, Justin decided to use his trump card. It was the one trick he had yet to pull out of his bag and I have to give him props for waiting for just the perfect occasion. He knew he had me right where he wanted me. I just needed a little push and push he did.
He led me into the living room and we sat down on the sofa. “I need to tell you something.”
My heart was thumping so hard I felt like it might pump it’s way right out of my chest. I didn’t have any idea what he wanted to say to me and I was afraid to hear it. I sat there expectantly, waiting for whatever was coming next.
Justin took my hands into his and looked into my eyes. “Kayla. I love you.”
Those three words seemed to bring time to a standstill. I was dumbfounded. “What did you say?”
“I love you. I know that I haven’t done a good job of showing it, but I do. I’ve wanted to tell you for so long, but I was afraid.”
“Afraid of what?”
“Afraid that you wouldn’t believe me. Afraid that you wouldn’t care. But I’m not afraid anymore and I want you to know. I’m in love with you. I think that maybe I always have been. I guess you just have to ask yourself whether or not you love me.”
You should have seen the look he was giving me. Remember that old Nsync video? The one set in the insane asylum? Remember that scene where Justin looked like he was about to burst into tears and you just wanted to give him a hug? That’s the look that he was giving me.
What was I supposed to say when faced with that look? Also, that was actually the first time that he’d told me he loved me. Actually hearing the words, tore down the last of my rather weak defenses. I knew that we still had a lot of problems, but if he loved me, then there wasn’t anything that we couldn’t get through.
“You know that I love you Justin.” It wouldn’t have taken a genius to figure out what was going to happen next. Without saying another word, we got up and went upstairs to our bedroom.
He undressed me slowly and lavished attention on each and every inch of my body. I had an orgasm before he even got my pants off. Of course you have to take into account the fact that I had not been with anyone since the last time that Justin and I had slept together, and that had been more than a year. To say that I was ripe for the picking would have been an understatement.
Justin certainly used that to his advantage. He sexed me up one side and down the other; whispering soft words of love and devotion the entire time. I’ll just go ahead and say it. That punk had me dick whipped.
Afterward, we laid in bed all tangled up together in a big pile of limbs. Even with the air conditioner on, it was way too hot to be stuck up under each other like that, but we didn’t care. We were in the throes of a love hangover.
We talked all night, but it was all bull. We didn’t talk about what Justin had been up to on the nights when he stayed out so late. We didn’t talk about when he was going to tell his family about Jonah. We didn’t talk about any concrete plans for the future. We just fed each other a bunch of sugar coated nonsense. It sounded sweet, but it didn’t amount to anything.
Just like that, we were back together. And that right there is the epitome of everything that was wrong with Justin and I as a couple. We only had two speeds. Stop and go. It was always all or nothing. We were either at each other’s throats or we ran to the opposite end of the spectrum; lovey-dovey and blissful, all hugged up on each other up like we didn’t have a care in the world. We had no middle ground.
After that night things did get better, though. Justin came home at a decent hour and actually behaved like he was glad that I was there. He would spend hours just holding Jonah in his arms or rocking him to sleep. We spent so much time together. We would watch tv, listen to music or read to each other. Sometimes we would just sit down together and Justin would rest his head against my shoulder. He would wrap himself around me like a child clinging to a security blanket.
Things were good.
For the most part.
There were still those nights where I watched the clock until I could no longer keep my eyes open and he still hadn’t come home. The only difference was that I no longer asked him where he’d been, nor did he offer any explanation.
There were the times when we would ask Mari, our housekeeper, to watch Jonah for a few hours so that we could go out together. There was always a party being thrown somewhere. Not parties where any press would be present obviously, but private parties being held by Pharrell or some of his friends. No one at those parties asked who I was, nor did they seem to care.
We did have fun at those parties, but sometimes Justin would disappear. He would leave one of his flunkies to run interference and keep me occupied. He would reappear fifteen or twenty minutes later, sometimes looking kind of disheveled. The few times that I asked him where he’d gone off to, he denied any wrongdoing with the innocent face of a choir boy.
If he said that nothing had happened, nothing happened. My love goggles were firmly in place. And the fact that I’d never actually caught him red handed (he was much too slick for that) led me to believe that maybe my suspicions were all in my head.
Nagging doubts gnawed at me until I started to believe Justin’s hype.
Justin was famous and handsome. He was one of the world’s sexiest eligible bachelors, according to the hacks at People magazine. He could have his pick of practically anyone that he wanted. Who could blame him for looking elsewhere if I was all he had to come home to?
Maybe I wasn’t shedding my baby weight fast enough. Maybe my conversation was boring to him. Maybe I wasn’t adventurous enough in the bedroom. My self esteem wasn’t just in the toilet, it had gone straight on through to the sewer.
Of course that little bit of self awareness is all in hindsight. At the time what I thought was that I would just try harder. If I worked out more often. If I tried my hardest to be interesting and witty. If I would willingly go along with any of the kinky little things that Justin came up with. If I could just be perfect, he wouldn’t have any reason to look anywhere else. Naturally, that plan was destined to fail. There is no such thing as perfection.
I look back on that time in my life and I seriously wonder what was wrong with me. Was I naive? Was I living in a fantasy world of my own creation? Was I in need of a good kick in the ass? Or maybe I was plain old stuck on stupid. The answer of course was all of the above. But it also went deeper than that.
I wasn’t stuck in that holding pattern of a relationship by myself, Justin was right there with me. As a matter of fact, Justin and I were flip sides of the same coin. My fears and insecurities fit into his seamlessly.
Justin knew that in my heart I didn’t believe that I was worthy of genuine love and affection. That was an issue that I had been dealing with all my life. If your own mother and father can’t be bothered to stick around, why would anyone else? I was afraid that no one would ever really love me. I was afraid of being abandoned. That made me try harder, love more and put up with things that I shouldn’t have.
Justin on the other hand, had a fear of loving too much. He had put his heart on the line before and gotten it broken. He was not about to go through that again. He decided that he would not be the person that had more invested in the relationship. He wanted to keep his emotional attachment to a minimum. He needed to be in the power position. He needed to be able to walk away without looking back.
It was like an addiction. The harder Justin tried to keep his love just out of my reach, the more I craved it. The harder he tried to keep a distance between us, the tighter I clung to him. This created a bond that has been virtually impossible to break free from.
Don’t think for one second that it’s a one way street either. Justin is just as tangled up in me as I am in him.
We were a match made in hell.
