Six Months Earlier

        “I’m going to get all of you. Every last one. You guys better feel uneasy about sleeping at night. That’s not a threat, that’s a promise,” Rachael dragged her through the last centimeters of the doorframe. She looked at her surroundings. She was beet red, but not from embarrassement. Rather from being extremely angry with the four people who were walking in with her.

“You never said not to,” Trace shrugged his shoulders making sure, however, that he was long enough away from her so that she couldn’t tear his eyes out. Instead, she let his comment slide due to somebody else laughing next to her ear.

“And what exactly is your excuse?” She paused, making him bump into her. He only laughed more. She crossed her arms over her chest, putting all her strength against Rachael’s.

“Why don’t you just hush and enjoy okay?” He slid past her easily going to meet all of his friends that he had invited here. She watched his back, glaring at him, almost willing him to turn around. He didn’t.

           “Who did this? Whose idea was this?” She turned to the three eyes that were left standing there with her. She glared at Rachael, the seemingly innocent cousin. She moved her eyes onto Trace, the annoying best friend of the new king of pop. Last but not least, she moved to Andrea. It couldn’t be Andrea, seeing as she was the only one without connections and one of her best friends. She knew better.

“I don’t think we have to answer that one. Although, I’m surprised you just let him slip away like that,” Andrea giggled, eyeing her friend’s furious glare.

“Well just so you don’t get too mad, I heard Orlando Bloom was going to be here,” Rachel caught Shay’s weak reaction and pulled her the rest of the way in. Everything was overdone. There were masses of people there, all the faces blurring in with the rest of the crowd. It was exactly the thing that she had been trying to avoid for most of her life.

“There is the birthday girl!” She whipped her head around at the familiar voice. She took the embrace with ease. At least it was familiar arms wrapping around her.

“Oh JC! How very nice to see you. Have you seen an annoying little guy around here by the name of Timberlake perhaps?” JC laughed boisterously. Everybody knew that she hated having her birthday celebrated. It only made her feel that much older. She was single, turning twenty-five, and with each passing year her hopes and dreams were flying out of the window without a second glance.

“Actually, I think you might check the…oh…well I guess that does it,” Her eyes turned vicious, like a cat’s ready to pounce. Her face turned red, steam almost blowing out of her ears. She put her hand in front of her eyes to block the bright spotlight that had just been put in her face. She barely heard the claps and happy birthdays as the guy previously mentioned announced her arrival. She tracked his every move from across the room. She politely said hello to everybody she passed on her way, never letting him out of her site.

“Can I have a minute?” His smile was not as infectious as it always was. In fact, she was so livid right now that she could possibly kill him. Maybe she didn’t need to be alone with him.

“Sure, have two. After all you are the birthday girl,” He thought his jokes were funny, but she just wanted to throw up all over his newly brought shoes. Perhaps she would for enjoyment. She grabbed his arm and stalked him into the woman’s bathroom. She checked to make sure nobody was in there and then wedged the door shut so that nobody could enter.

“What the fuck are you doing? Are you trying to make me have a heart attack? Have you lost your fucking mind?” Her tactic was not going over well, as he was still smiling. He was leaning against the sinks looking overly amused with the situation and himself. He had the cocky one-sided grin going on. The only thing he hadn’t accounted into this situation was that none of that worked on her, “Well?”

“Twenty-Five is a big year,” He shrugged his shoulders like the whole scenario was no big deal. He had known her for most of her life, yet now he was shrugging her off like no big deal.

“Actually, it’s not. To me it’s not. You know that Justin. Just because you have the fucking means to do this, doesn’t mean you have to disregard my feelings and do it. You of all people,” She knew she struck a nerve, every inch of his body having faltered. His smug smile had turned into a neat straight line, no emotion on his face.

“I was trying to make you feel better. See if I fucking do that again,” This time it was her turn to cringe. Not necessarily because she felt in anyway sorry for her attack against him, but because he made her think of things she didn’t want to think of.

“So by throwing me a birthday party, which by the way, I have not had in all the years that you’ve known me almost because I hate them, it would make me feel better? Well check this Justin. I AM FUCKING FINE! I don’t need you to try to make me feel better because I am FINE! FUCKING FINE!” Her voice went weak. She was always the sentimental one that broke down at everything. She was trying to be strong, breathing in and out as deeply as she could, “Fine. I’m fine.” Her voice was getting smaller. She lost it as his arms wrapped around her like all the other times they had in the past two months.

“It’s okay. We can go home if you want. I’m sorry. I just wanted to get you out of the house. You were worrying me,” She pulled away and looked up at him. Maybe she was being too harsh on him. After all, maybe he was just trying to help. The past couple of months had been some of the worst of her life, and Justin had been there to comfort her for every last one of them.

“I don’t want to go home. As long as you point me in the direction of a cute guy, maybe I’ll let you off the hook,” He smiled broadly at her. She wasn’t quite over all of this, but seeing as how it would be rude for her not to enjoy her own party, she might as well have fun herself.

“Well you won’t have to look far,” His smile got wider and she hit him on the arm before rolling her eyes.

“As intriguing as that sounds. I think I’ll settle for somebody a little less like my brother,” They laughed together before going back out to her party. As soon as she was in site, most people came over to talk to her. This time instead of acting as if she didn’t have time for them, she stayed and bullshitted about every topic you could think of. The truth was even though Justin knew these people far more than she did, she wasn’t a stranger to most of them. Ever since Justin had gotten famous, she had been with him a lot of the time. She remembered always whining to her mom and dad about having to go to school when Justin didn’t. Her life had been almost as hectic as Justin’s back in the day. Every summer, she would visit Justin and tour with him for a little while if he were on a tour. Her and the rest of the NSYNC guys were pretty good friends.

She had a lot of memories from those times. She had gained a lot of friends, but lost many. While in fantasyland with Justin, her and Britney Spears had gotten pretty close. They were like sisters in a funny way. They could complete each other’s sentences, and sometimes even accidentally match their outfits, but by no means on purpose. When her and Justin broke up it wasn’t only Justin’s heart that got crushed, it was hers. Her loyalties lied with Justin, which was why any sister-like relationship that had lasted for a couple of years didn’t matter anymore.

It was the same with everybody like that. When Cameron and Justin broke up, just recently, she was again devastated. But she still kept in contact with Cameron, which was nice. Justin hadn’t objected to that because they hadn’t really ended on bad terms, but she rarely had time to do anything with her because she was always around Justin. Not that she was complaining.

Just like with Justin, it was much the same with Trace. She had had many best friends, the likes of Elisha Cuthbert to Britney Spears, all relationships that had been shattered. The only one that had been hers and hers alone was Andrea. Andrea Livingston had sat with her in the 10th grade at lunch despite every bad thing everybody had to say about her. Most people hated her, or envied her, there really wasn’t a difference. When people usually talked to her, it was because they wanted her life. Andrea was different. She was friends with Shay for three years before even being introduced to Justin.

That’s why the other side of her life, not the flashing light bulbs side, but the real side, was pathetic or practically non-existent. Everybody wanted fame and fortune, neither of which she had. They used her to get to Justin, always, which was why Justin was always there to catch her when she fell. He knew he was a great part of why she cried at night.

The great thing about it was that she did have a job to go to everyday like every other normal person. A job she loved more than anything in her entire life. A job that she had worked hard to get, that nobody else had just gotten for her. She was a nurse practitioner at a local women’s health clinic and an on-call labor and delivery nurse at the hospital every other weekend. She had endured six long years of college education to get to where she was today, and nobody was telling her she didn’t get that by herself.

“Are you kidding me? Tell me he didn’t,” She stepped out of her daze as a gigantic birthday cake was rolled her way. If she weren’t so against birthdays, she would have cried right then and there. As it got closer she started laughing. She hadn’t genuinely laughed in a long time, but this was definitely a genuine laugh. She saw the outline of a big picture on the cake. It was a picture that Justin’s mom had taken not too long ago. It was after getting off a seventeen-hour flight and she was half asleep. Her hair was standing up and her eyes were closed. She was leaning her head on Trace’s shoulder and Justin was holding her up. Even though her eyes were closed, she was smiling for the picture. She wasn’t the only one to get hell for this picture. Rachael was in almost the same position, except her eyes were open but no smile.

        She was still laughing all the way through happy birthday. She leaned her head down and blew out all twenty-five candles on the cake on instinct. She was now twenty-five, a year that was already starting off wrong. She was being thrown a party she never asked for or wanted. If that wasn’t a bad omen, she didn’t know what was.