What Goes Up. . . .
January - May 2003
I guess I had to get around to telling this part of the story sooner or later. The big break. The thing that led to me living in Atlanta and Justin being with Cameron. It wasn’t pretty and it wasn’t clean. It was ugly, nasty and about as messy a break up as you’re ever bound to hear about. But to this day, I couldn’t tell you what really caused it. I certainly know what the contributing factors were, but I don’t know how things ended up the way they did. One minute we were getting along just fine and the next minute it all fell apart.
I would like to be able to say that it was all Justin’s fault, but hindsight is 20/20. Looking back on it, I can see that there were a lot of guilty parties that contributed to the death of our relationship.
But before I get to that, I should tell you about the little bit of light that came before the darkness. Justin took the sneaky, manipulative route to get us there (one long lost parent, one phony proposal, one giant diamond ring), but we did actually enjoy a few good months together. January 2003 thru March 2003 are the only months of uninterrupted joy that we experienced the entire time that we’ve been together.
I know what you must be thinking. These two clowns have been running in and out of each other’s lives for six freaking years and they only have three months of happiness to show for it? That seems like a lot of bad to go through just to have that little bit of good. I could not agree with you more. But those three months were as good as it ever was and it wasn’t ever going to be that good again.
The start of our short-lived domestic bliss was our trip to London. But there was one order of business that had to be taken care of before Jonah and I could pack our bags. Justin had to tell his manager, Johnny, that we were going. And before he could tell Johnny that we were going, he needed to tell Johnny that we actually existed. Johnny and Lynn were co-managing Justin’s career and Justin needed Johnny’s help to keep his mother from finding out what was going on. So yeah, Johnny has known about me and Jonah for quite a while. He helped Justin keep it quiet because the whole situation had public relations nightmare written all over it.
Justin decided that the best thing to do would be to invite Johnny over and just tell him what was up. Johnny came in and saw me sitting on the sofa holding Jonah in my lap. Johnny looked at me. Then he looked at Jonah. Then he looked at Justin. Then he looked at Jonah again. Words were unnecessary, he figured that one out on his own. He might not have had the finer points, but he definitely got the gist of the situation. And to say that he was not pleased, would have been the understatement of the year.
Johnny turned gray and started hyperventilating. I thought old dude was having a heart attack. I was two seconds away from calling 911, but Justin got him a glass of water and he calmed down after a few minutes. Once his color came back, he started fussing and cussing like he had lost his mind, but Justin shut him down real quick. He told Johnny that me and Jonah were going with him to England and that was the end of that. Johnny tried to argue him down and convince him that it was a horrible idea, but Justin would not be swayed.
Justin had one of his world class temper tantrums and would not stop hooting and hollering until he got his way. I think Johnny would have agreed to just about anything to get him to shut up. So Jonah and I were London bound.
Justin was traveling with a huge group of people at that point. There was his band, back up singers and a gaggle of dancers. It was enough people that a nondescript woman and a baby didn’t really get noticed. Not by the press anyway.
The people that worked with Justin certainly didn’t need much to figure out that I was with Justin and one brief look at Jonah gave the rest of that game away. But everyone that toured with Justin was loyal. As big a jackass as Justin may have been in his day to day life, he knew how to behave professionally. He treated the people that worked for him and with him like gold. His kindness and generosity created a familial atmosphere and generated a lot of loyalty. Everyone knew, but no one was going to tell.
When Justin wasn’t performing, we did all of the tourist type things that you can do in England. We went to Big Ben, Saint Paul’s Cathedral and Madame Tussaud’s. We saw the statue of Eros in Picadilly Circus. And of course we went shopping. Savile Row for him and Regent Street for me.
I’d never had the opportunity to travel anywhere, so Justin let me drag him all over the place. He’d seen all those attractions before but he acted like it was all new to him, like it was different or special because he was seeing those things with me. It was a little bit frustrating that we couldn’t go anywhere alone. We always had to travel in a group to throw suspicion off, but at that point, just being with Justin was enough for me.
He tried so hard during those months to make me happy. Since my birthday is February 14th, Justin took me to Paris as a combination birthday and Valentines Day gift. We could only spend two days there because of his schedule, but it was the most romantic time I’d ever spent with anyone.
We still had to overcome the hurdle of him telling his family about me and Jonah, but other than that everything seemed to be coming together.
But eventually all good things must come to an end. All that traveling was getting hard on Jonah and I was getting kind of worn out as well. Also, Justin just kept getting busier and busier. He did the best he could, but it got so that we couldn’t spend much time together at all. So we decided it would be for the best for Jonah and I to go back to Los Angeles, while he finished up the rest of his overseas promotional touring.
That was when the trouble started.
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Things started off well enough when I got back to Los Angeles. Mari was still with us and my mother was making frequent trips from Chicago to spend time with me and Jonah. Justin called or emailed every single day. I would put the phone up to Jonah’s ear so that he could hear his father’s voice. Then Justin and I would talk. He never ended a conversation without telling me how much he loved me and how much he missed me.
It was hard to do, but I was actually starting to trust Justin again. I didn’t have that heavy feeling in my chest of constantly wondering what he was doing if I wasn’t looking at him. It also helped that I had gotten pretty tight with a couple of his dancers. They promised to keep an eye on him and according to all accounts he was behaving himself.
Justin and I had even set aside some time when we would travel to Tennessee so that Jonah and I could meet his parents. Justin was going to be touring with Christina Aguilera in the summer but he had a couple weeks of free time coming. We decided that would be the perfect time. He just had to finish up what he was doing in Europe and then do the Kid’s Choice Awards.
We both knew that it wasn’t going to be easy trying to explain to his mother why she had a grandchild that she’d never seen before, but Justin and I had convinced ourselves that she and the rest of the family would fall in love with Jonah at first sight. We thought it would be smooth sailing after that.
Seems like it was all falling into place, doesn’t it? So what could have possibly gone wrong, you ask? Well despite our improved behavior, the fact remains that underneath it all, both Justin and I were still possessive, jealous, irritable, highly suspicious and crazier than shit house rats. It probably would have only been a matter of time before we found a way to screw things up all by ourselves, but we had help.
A couple of blue eyed interlopers helped us sink our relationship right into the ground.
Blue eyed interloper number one, of course, was JC. With Justin gone and me not having any friends in Los Angeles, I didn’t really have anyone to hang out with except for JC. He was only too happy to fill the void that Justin’s absence left.
I saw JC probably about three or four days out of the week. He took Jonah and me to the zoo. We went to movies and art museums. He even took me to the studio with him and let me hear some of the songs he was working on for his solo album. I felt kind of honored. I know that unfinished songs can be a really private thing for a musician and it made me feel special that he would share that with me. Justin had certainly never taken me anywhere near the recording studio.
I was glad to have JC’s company, but Justin was less than thrilled about the amount of time that JC and I were spending together. Anytime I would mention JC’s name, Justin would demand an itemized second by second account of every minute that I spent with him. Then he would launch into a long winded tirade about how I shouldn’t be alone with JC so much.
My mother wasn’t particularly ecstatic about my growing friendship with JC either. She had met JC on a couple of occasions and she was not impressed at all. Unlike her spontaneous love upon first meeting Justin, she seemed to hate JC on sight. She said there was something sneaky about him, she didn’t trust him and she didn’t think twice about telling me that I shouldn’t have had him around so much while Justin wasn’t at home. In my mother’s opinion, JC was on the make and waiting for an opportunity to pounce. I told her that he was just a friend and she told me that he was laying the groundwork to more.
At that point, JC had never approached me on anything other than a friendship level. The thought of him trying to make a move on me was laughable. I dismissed everything that my mother said. She was almost fanatical in her devotion to Justin, so I just thought that she was tripping on his behalf. Perhaps I should have listened more carefully to her warnings.
It started off casually enough and he was so smooth about it, it took a little while for me to catch on to what he was doing. But it seemed like, suddenly JC couldn’t stop touching me. Not in a sexual or inappropriate way, but he was getting pretty touchy-feely. It was always small things though. He always greeted me with a firm hug and a kiss on the cheek. He would let his hand rest on my knee for a second. If we were sitting on the sofa, watching tv, he would put his arm around my shoulder. If we went out somewhere he might casually hold my hand. But he was never aggressive and he never let his touch linger for too long. He hadn’t done anything to make me really uncomfortable, so I didn’t make much of it.
But I guess since I hadn’t protested, he decided to take things up a notch.
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I had been begging Justin to let me watch some old tapes of him on the Mickey Mouse Club, but he had absolutely refused. He said that it was too embarrassing. Justin wouldn’t come through on my request, but JC had no problem with it.
JC came over one afternoon and brought a box of old VHS tapes with him. Apparently his mother had taped every single episode. After watching a few episodes I could see why Justin was in no hurry for me to see them. The show was cheesy as all get out and Justin was such a little pipsqueak. I still thought he was adorable, though.
“I can’t believe that I didn’t watch this while it was coming on. I would have had the biggest crushes on you and Tony.”
JC lifted his eyebrows. “Why me?”
“Why not you? You could sing, you could dance, your hair was a bit of early nineties perfection and you were cute.”
“Oh, so I was cute? You don’t think I’m cute now?”
“You know what I mean.” I playfully pushed his shoulder. “You know that you’re cute. You don’t need to hear it from me.”
“Maybe I want to hear it from you.”
And just like that, our conversation went right off the tracks. “Huh?”
“How do you feel about me, Kayla?”
That seemed like a trick question to me. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, I want to know how you feel about me.” I didn’t say anything because I didn’t know what to say. JC brought his hand up to my face and looked into my eyes. “I’ll tell you how I feel about you. I think you’re beautiful and kind. I think you deserve better than what you’re getting. I think you’re lonely and you don’t have to be.”
“Huh?” I seriously felt like I was in the twilight zone. I didn’t know what in the hot hell had prompted JC to give me that little speech, but I did know that it needed to be nipped in the bud.
“JC, I think. . .” And that was as far as I got, before he kissed me.
Now here comes the complicated part. The part where I have to tell on myself. I let JC kiss me. And even worse, I kissed him back. I returned his kiss for less than five seconds and regretted it instantly. I pushed away from him and stood up.
JC tried to speak, but I put my hand out, stopping him before he could even get started. “You know that nothing like that can ever happen again, right?”
“Why not?” And please believe that he was serious.
“Why do you think? I’m with Justin.”
“That’s certainly never stopped him from doing whatever he wants to do. Or whoever he wants to do. Why should you let it bother you?”
“I can’t believe you said that.”
“I’m sorry. Okay? I’m sorry. I just. . .I’m attracted to you and I thought that maybe you felt the same way that I do.”
“Well, I don’t. And even if I did, I wouldn’t act on it while I’m in a relationship with somebody else.”
“But you did act on it. You kissed me back.”
He had my ass with that one, didn’t he? “Yes, I did kiss you back and it was a mistake. A mistake that will never be repeated again. Ever. Do you understand me?”
“I really am sorry. I wouldn’t ever want to do anything to jeopardize our friendship. You mean a lot to me and I guess I just let my emotions cloud my common sense. It won’t ever happen again. I promise.”
I accepted his apology and JC slipped right back into his friend role without missing a beat. But our relationship was never quite the same. The key to male/female platonic friendships is never crossing over into “what if” territory.
JC and I had crossed over and no matter how much I tried to convince myself otherwise, there was no going back.
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Things were awkward for a week or two, but after that JC decided that the best thing to do would be to pretend like the whole thing never happened. He started coming over again, but I always made sure that Mari was around. Better safe than sorry and I didn’t figure he’d try anything if there was a witness.
One day in about the middle of March JC, Jonah and I were sitting around in the living room looking at tv. I can’t even remember what we had been watching, but it couldn’t have been very interesting because all three of us had fallen asleep.
I heard a muffled thump, followed by someone clearing their throat. When I looked up, Justin was standing in the doorway and the look on his face made it pretty clear that he was not at all thrilled about the scene that he had rolled up on. JC was sitting in the middle of the sofa with Jonah cuddled up on his right side and I was on the left.
It was all innocent, but I have to admit that it probably didn’t look too good. I jumped up off the sofa and ran over to Justin.“What are you doing here? Why didn’t you tell me that you were coming?”
He was so busy staring JC down that it took him a few minutes to even acknowledge that I was talking to him. “I was trying to surprise you.” Justin walked right by me and went straight to the sofa. He took Jonah out of JC’s arms and took him over to the armchair and sat down with him in his lap.
Jonah was not quite a year old and he was the happiest baby that I’d ever been around. He gave Justin an all gums smile and grabbed at his nose. Then he started chattering away. Most of it was gibberish sprinkled with a few real words, but Justin smiled and nodded his head as though he understood every word. “At least somebody around here is glad that I’m home.”
I crossed back over to the sofa and sat down. “Of course I’m glad that you’re here Justin.”
“Could have fooled me.”
JC chose that moment to insert himself into the conversation. “What do you want her to do? Turn a cartwheel?”
Justin looked at JC. “Was I talking to you?”
JC returned Justin’s nasty look. “No, but I was talking to you.”
“I know you’re not trying to get smart with me. It’s bad enough you’re all stretched out and comfortable like you pay the bills around this piece. Now you’re trying to get a flip lip too. ”
“I’m just saying, you drop in unannounced and act like you want Kay to bow and scrape because you decided to grace her with your presence for a couple of hours.”
“Unannounced?” Justin’s eyes bugged out like he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “How the hell can I show up unannounced in my own home? You must of bumped your head on something, cause you’ve got this situation twisted.”
Justin’s tone was already salty and JC wasn’t being especially friendly himself. I didn’t know what was wrong with them, but I tried to stop things from getting out of hand. “Justin, you must be tired. Don’t you want to go upstairs? Maybe take a shower and get some rest?”
“Is that your polite way of getting rid of me so that you and C can be alone? If I’m interrupting something, all you have to do is say so.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” I went over to Justin and took Jonah out of his arms. “It’s time for his nap. I’ll be right back.” Nap, my ass. I was lying and Justin knew that I was lying. Jonah wasn’t the least bit sleepy. Hell, he’d just woken up. I was just trying to get him out of the room before Justin started doing the clowning that it was becoming increasingly obvious that he was about to do.
I took Jonah upstairs and hung around up there for about fifteen minutes. I was hoping that if I stayed gone long enough, Justin and JC would have had time to chill out. Wrong.
I cut through the kitchen and got Justin a beer on my way back to the living room. I leaned over the back of his chair and put the bottle in his hand. I tried to give him a kiss on the cheek, but he jerked away from me.
I don’t know what JC and Justin had said to each other while I was gone, but they had not chilled out, if anything, the discomfort level in the room had shot sky high. I sat back down on the sofa and when I took a look at Justin he looked pale and nauseous. He kept looking back and forth between me an JC as though he was searching for something. JC on the other hand, had an uncharacteristically smug look and a cat that ate the canary grin on his face.
“Are you okay, Justin?”
He seemed to snap out of the trance that he was in. “Yeah. I’m fine. I was just thinking about something.”
“What?”
He looked at me like I was a complete stranger. “It doesn’t matter.” He took a sip of his beer and then sat the bottle down on the coffee table. He leaned back in his chair and just started staring at JC. An unwavering, unnerving stare.
Finally, JC couldn’t take it anymore. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“I was just wondering why it is that you don’t have anything better to do than hang around in my house all damn day. Shouldn’t you be working on your cd? Oops, my bad. That got pushed back again, didn’t it?”
JC’s slick smile dropped. “You would know.”
“Fuck’s that supposed to mean?”
“Means that maybe you had a hand in my release date being pushed back.”
“Don’t blame me if the record label doesn’t want to promote your shit.”
“Maybe if I had some radio friendly bullshit and a bunch of lies to tell about my broken heart, they’d promote me too.”
I looked back and forth between them and I couldn’t help but feel like I had missed some important part of the conversation. They seemed to be so mad at each other and for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why. “What’s wrong with you two? What are you fighting about?”
But neither of them would answer me. JC just got up and headed for the door. “It’s pretty obvious that I’m not wanted here.”
“JC, you don’t have to leave.”
Justin piped up. “Yes, the fuck he does.”
JC just shook his head. “It’s okay. I’ll see you later.” I walked JC out to his car and by the time I had come back into the house, Justin had polished off the first beer I’d brought him and started on a second.
“Why were you being so mean to JC? He hasn’t done anything to you.”
Justin looked at me like he wanted to say something and then thought better of it. “You don’t know JC like I do. Believe me when I tell you that I didn’t hurt his feelings.”
“Were you two fighting about his cd? Did you have anything to do with the trouble that he’s having with the label?”
Justin took a sip of his beer and then gave me a weak smile. “Between the two of you, you could find a way to blame me for everything from the extinction of the dinosaurs to the hole in the ozone layer. I don’t run Jive. I don’t have shit to do with what cds they release or when. I’m not actually all powerful, you know.”
“I was just asking.”
“Is that the kind of mess that JC’s been filling your head with while I’m not here?”
“He just mentioned it to me and I thought I would ask you about it.”
“That’s nice. There’s nothing I like better than coming home to a bunch of bullshit accusations.”
“I’m sorry. Just forget that I said anything. I really am glad that you’re home.” I sat down in Justin’s lap and put my arms around his neck. “I’ve missed you.”
“Really?” He sounded skeptical. I sat there waiting for him to put his arms around me, but he was stiff and unresponsive.
“Of course I have.”
“Has JC been over here a lot while I was gone?”
“I guess. He keeps me and Jonah company.”
“Do you go out with him or do you just hang around the house?”
“It depends. Sometimes we go out, sometimes we stay here. I’ve already told you about the time that JC and I spend together. Why are you asking me all these questions?”
“I’ve got my reasons.” Justin cupped my chin in his hand and positioned my face so that he could look into my eyes. “I know we’ve had some rough patches and I haven’t always been the kind of man that you deserved, but I want you to know that I’ve been completely faithful to you these past few months. Since what happened last year, I have not touched or even looked at another woman. Do you believe me?”
“I want to.”
“I know that the things I’ve done in the past make it hard for you to believe in me, but I swear I go back to my hotel room every night, alone. I completely understand why you wouldn’t trust me on that. I can see how somebody might have taken advantage of the situation and tried to get inside your head.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Kayla, I need to ask you something. All I want is for you to tell me the truth. I won’t get mad because I know that I’m not in any position to judge you. If you tell me the truth, we can just call it even and move on.”
“You’re scaring me, Justin. Just say whatever you’re trying to say.”
“Are you sleeping with JC?”
“What?”
“It’s a simple question, Kayla. Are you and JC having sex?”
“I can’t believe you’re asking me this.”
“I can’t believe that I’ve asked you twice and you still haven’t given me an answer.”
I stood up and walked away from him. “I would never do that to you. Just because you don’t know how to keep your hands to yourself, don’t accuse me of the same thing.”
“So, you’ve never done anything with him? No touching, no kissing. Nothing.”
My mind flashed back to the kiss that JC and I had shared. I thought of the times we’d held hands or I’d taken a nap with my head against his shoulder. I thought about the times I’d told JC intimate details of my relationship with Justin; details that he had no right to know. I started to feel guilty. I hadn’t cheated physically, but maybe I had betrayed Justin emotionally.
I tried my best to keep the guilt I was feeling from registering on my face. I wondered if I looked as shady as I felt, but I met Justin’s eyes and I answered him. “I’ve never done anything at all with JC. We’re just friends.”
Justin looked at me for the longest time before saying anything. “I’m sorry that I asked. I’ve just been hearing some foul stuff.”
“What kind of stuff? From who?”
“I don’t want to get into it.”
“Well, I do.” My thoughts immediately went to my mother. She had already expressed her dislike and suspicion of JC. She and Justin were thick as thieves and I wouldn’t have put it past her to try to put me on blast.
“It doesn’t matter who I heard it from. If you say it’s not true, then I guess I have to believe you.” I didn’t really care for the way he phrased that, but my residual feelings of guilt stopped me from saying anything. “I want you to stop spending so much time with JC. I don’t trust him anymore.”
“But you trust me, don’t you?”
“Yeah.”
We both pretended not to notice that he had hesitated before answering.
Justin could only spend the night before having to catch a flight to Canada, so I tried to dismiss the conversation from my mind and make the most of the time that we had together. He spent the rest of the afternoon and evening smothering Jonah with attention, but he would barely speak to me. He even had more conversation for Mari than he did for me, and those two couldn’t stand each other.
When we went to bed that night, Justin gave me a dry kiss on the cheek and then turned his back to me. When I woke up in the morning, he had already left again.
When Justin came home again for the rest of his time off, he was so quiet. He didn’t want to talk, he didn’t want to do anything. And even worse, he had little to no interest in sex. That’s when I knew that we had a problem. He wasn’t mean, he just didn’t seem to care if I was around or not.
Whenever I tried to pin him down on an exact date when we would be going to Tennessee, he would put me off. I would ask him what was wrong and he would just smile and say nothing. Then he would kiss me on the forehead, wander out of the room and go right back to ignoring me.
I convinced myself that his energies were focused elsewhere. He had a few local appearances to prepare for and he was also rehearsing for the Kid’s Choice Awards. I told myself that things would be better after the awards.
Justin’s mood did seem to improve after the awards. He was happier than he’d been before, but he still seemed not to have any time for me. He always had somewhere that he just had to be. Some important lunch meeting that he just had to go to. And all talk of going to Tennessee had been forgotten. I tried to be patient and hope that he was just having some sort of mood swing. In my heart I felt like he was up to something foul, but I ignored my intuition. The same way that I ignored the heavy feeling of uncertainty that had resettled against my chest.
