This borders on self pity, it really does. Actually, this IS self pity. I am currently residing in the town of Loserville, Self Pity. I have a sneaking suspicion I'm the only one in these here parts, but I currently don't give a shit.

Now I think about it maybe I shouldn't have cracked open the wine, what with alcohol being a depressant and all. I just wanted a little something to take the edge off as I finally get around to cleansing my life of Mr Rat Bastard and there was no chocolate immediately available. Will's not really a rat bastard and I know it, but calling him names makes me feel better. It's a total ex girlfriend cliché, but I figure that years later it's time for me to finally embrace it - if only so I can move the hell on already.

Having this box here made me feel oddly better for a while, too. I kind of felt like if I had the mementoes of our relationship then I could prove that it really did happen, and that Will couldn't sweep it under the rug as easily as picking up with some other woman all of three seconds later. I've always shot Kennedy down when she claims that he must have cheated with her, but I'd be lying if I haven't wondered. I've done some real fierce wondering about that but since I can't prove anything I figure what's the difference?

It's just that Will was my first… well, pretty much everything except kiss, slow dance and hand holding. That was Jimmy Dawson when we were thirteen and then it was purely because if you hadn't done those things by the end of the school year you got tagged as gay for the rest of your life. School kids are both stupid and harsh. Oddly enough Jimmy did turn out to be gay, but he has politely told me that I was the only girl he ever kissed in his 'am I or aren't I' period that he even vaguely liked. He was probably attempting to spare my feelings but hell, I'll take it.

My cell rings as I'm rummaging through some snaps of us on Spring Break in Miami Beach, and I flip it open then cradle it between my shoulder and ear. I'm probably giving myself future arthritis but never mind.

"Hello?"

"Hey honey," Kennedy sings into the phone. "You didn't check caller ID?"

"Nope," I shrug. I knew it'd be her or Trace calling me anyway so who needs to? "What's up?"

"Just wanted to tell you I'm going to be late tonight, so can we make it eight thirty instead?"

I glance up at the clock and immediately agree with her. Mostly because the original time we picked was seven and it's half six now - I'd have had a hell of a time rushing to pack all this up before Kennedy saw it, she's always ten minutes early for everything. It's a habit she picked up for auditions, said it leaves a 'punctual and enthusiastic' impression.

"Oh, and I promised Trace I'd drop something off for him at the studio for Justin," I say idly to Kennedy, "so can we take a detour on our way out? It'll be like five minutes, tops."

"You sure do a lot for Trace," she remarks innocently. Well, she's trying to be innocent - I know what she means.

We quickly sign off from the conversation and I start crawling around on the floor, picking up all the letters and postcards and photos that got splayed everywhere while I was going through the box. I probably should have done this a long time ago, but as I look at them I actually let myself hate him for once. I never did, not once. I was trying to be reasonable and adult about it, and people complimented me on that a lot. They patted me on the back or shoulder and told me just how well I was taking it. Of course I wasn't taking it well, I loved that bastard and gave him everything and I had the fucking wedding planned. Still, I didn't want to be the hysterical witch who screams and cries and stamps and gets labelled a psycho so I developed a good game face. Not for the first time in our relationship, I sat back quietly and refused to stand up for myself.

Hence I have this box out now. He's getting married. I don't know what closure I was looking for exactly, but holding onto all this stuff isn't helping. Whatever it is I need, he's not going to provide it so I'll have to do it myself - again, not the first time in our relationship. I've been with guys since, don't get me wrong, it's just… he was my first love and he skipped out on me with no warning. Even looking back, I can't see all those warning signs the girls in the magazines talk about. You read their true life stories and they talk about all the indicators and hints they saw in hindsight, but I look back and just get more confused. He was acting just like always.

Oh fuck. Does that mean that he was always capable of doing that at a moment's notice? Yikes, this may be a necessary cleansing but it's a killer for my ego.

The whole Will thing was a killer for my ego at the time, too. I've mentioned how I have a somewhat stormy relationship with my mother who I love but drives me completely nutso, and Lisa and I are at two different stages in our lives. We love but don't necessarily understand each other. My dad isn't a particularly affectionate man and Kennedy while fabulous isn't really the person I go to when I want to be loved. That's a family or boyfriend thing, and I never felt able to go to my family for that. If I was homeless and destitute or under indictment my parents would be all over that shit, but plain old comfort and affection isn't something we do well.

So I always went to Will. When he left, I felt not only like I had nobody left to love but that I didn't deserve it. That had to have been why he went away, in my mind, because I wasn't worthy. That's dumb and I know it, but insecurity and logic don't exactly go hand in hand. Will left because Will was going in a different direction. Whether that was selfish or just wise of him I'm not sure, but it really is time for me to quit with the moping. It's not even like I want him back; I haven't wanted him back for a really long time. I guess I was just looking for an answer I won't get. I want to know how I didn't see it coming.

Never mind. I'll stuff this in a trash bag and toss it; it's about time. Trace gave me the idea when I realised how oddly cathartic him torching the wedding invitation was.

Oh, and may I say, the ones I mentally picked out were so much nicer. That thing was supremely tacky - Sophie said the same, too. She's always been pretty scathing when it comes to Will, she can be extremely protective of people she cares about. I bumped into Will one time because the cops were keeping check on the crowd at a somewhat controversial premiere (fur, PETA, bad combination) and Sophie totally snubbed him. She was nice to every cop in that place except him; she either ignored or just glared at him while holding my hand and making a show of being my friend.

So immature of her, but it ranks even above that time she got shown into Galliano's showroom and used one of her two freebies to get me the most awesome shift dress ever seen.

***

"Excuse me, this is a closed rehearsal…"

Eric's already in Chelsea's face before I can wave it off, so it forces me to yell out. "She's cool, man!"

"I come on behalf of the short and stinky one," she adds helpfully and Eric immediately relaxes.

"Well why didn't you say you were here for Trace lil' lady?"

I can't help it; I let out a pretty sharp laugh. I just love the way she said 'short and stinky' and nobody had to question who she was referring to. It's a good thing Trace isn't here to bear witness to that or he'd throw a bitch fit. You'd think that years later he would have accepted that we rag on him about his height just as they rag on me for ever being in a boy band, but no. I've learnt to just remind them how I pay their salary out of that boy band and that I scored a ton of chicks from it - Trace, however, has yet to think up a decent comeback for the short thing.

She's striding across the floor in my direction now, Kennedy trailing behind. It's only the second time I've seen Kennedy since that Marco Lame-o thing, but she doesn't look like she's suffering any after effects. That's good. The two of them look oddly cheery - or oddly for Chelsea, at least, I wouldn't know about Kennedy. Kennedy's in this little blue dress that shows up her hair colour and Chelsea's looking just about the most dressed down I've ever seen her in this little white gypsy thing and a pair of denim shorts. I also think it's the first time I've seen Chelsea without make up (except for that whole answering the door in hair curlers incident). She's got a pretty large package in her arms.

"Hey," she says with a smile. Man, she's chirpy. I wish I could say the same but they're screwing with the lights and I'm sweating like a pig. I should do what the rest of the band do and just wear black, it wouldn't show so much.

"Hey. So what's Trace offloaded on you this time?"

I'm joking, but not without a little edge. I'm still kind of pissed off that he's using her as his substitute. That's partly because I don't need a middle man between me and my best friend, and partly because it's pretty unfair on Chelsea. It's not like Sophie leaves the woman with nothing to do all day. That said… she seems pretty cool with doing all his shit for him. Maybe I ought to just take it at face value and quit bothering with it.

"Oh, this…" She taps on it with a pink manicured hand. I notice that she has what looks like a red Kabbalah bracelet on, but if you look closer you can see it's a pretty clumsy braid - one of those nieces or nephews she mentioned, maybe? "He said it was a book of fabric swatches and sketches for that emergency rethink for your t-shirt range? He's marked off the ones he thinks will work but he said you needed to agree it first."

"Okay," I say, taking the packet from her and feeling a little placated. At least the dude's not making these decisions without me. "Thanks, I'll take a look at it later. So where are you two ladies off to?"

Kennedy smiles lazily at me, flicking her hair back. "Food and then to a gallery opening. My friend set up the display so I said I'd go. Chels is just coming to save me from boredom."

"Well you guys are welcome to hang out here for a while if you want," I offer. "Watch the rehearsal."

The last day of filming was a week ago, and I feel like it's been a while since I've seen either of them. That's true of Kennedy but not so much Chelsea - she did kind of disappear for the last few days of filming though. The couple of times I did see her in passing she had a phone clamped to her ear. Sophie was bitching about it to me, apparently her flights and hotels all got screwed up and her poor PA got stuck trying to fix it all while Papa Enrique hung back and glowered.

Yeah, he was on the set for the whole of the last week. Are you surprised that I made myself scarce?

Kennedy looks like she wants to take me up on that and Chelsea looks a little uncomfortable. It's all in the fidgeting, you can tell it from the way she does that. One hand went up to her hair to push it behind her ear and the other's gripping her purse. Her head ducked a little too. I however only have a second to notice that before I see my mom coming down the stairs from the top floor (where the VIP area will be) with Sophie and Ken Sunshine. Shit, that's never good.

They reach us where I'm sitting on the stage next to the forgotten swatch book and Chelsea looks extremely confused by Sophie's presence as she throws an arm around her shoulders and says something to her in Spanish. She called me earlier and kind of… well, no, she didn't invite herself along, more like I politely suggested she drop by sometime and she took it to mean instantaneously. To be honest I think she's one of those who gets bored when she's not working, craves company; she never takes too long to reply to any text messages I send her.

Ken makes the coughing noise he makes when he wants me to shoo people away, but fuck that. "It's fine, Ken, you can talk in front of them." Heck, Sophie and Chelsea are in the business too, they get it.

My mother, ever the Southern lady, quickly introduces herself to Kennedy - obviously she knew the other girls from the set. Ken kind of pulls himself together, straightens up so he's standing a little taller, and then begins.

"Bad news, son."

"Oh what now?" I sound like a petulant child, but I really despise the fact that I'm seeing him so much lately. Normally all is good and we can just talk over the phone, but he always comes personally when shit happens.

Ken ignores my bratty mood (he's used to it) and pulls out yet another tabloid masterpiece. This one isn't ostensibly about me, so I don't quite get it. I'm looking at a picture of Britney, what the fuck is this to do with me?

My mom, ever the mind reader, quietly lets me in on the secret. "It's an article about her troubles, sweetie. It pretty much blames you for all of them."

"What else is new?" I ask boldly. "Why the concern?"

Chelsea must have been reading over my arm, because she gives me the answer. "There's allegations that you hit her too." Then she realises how that just sounded and struggles to backtrack. "Not that you hit anybody else, but…"

"Don't worry, I get what you meant." I brush a quick hand to her shoulder, my little 'I'm not mad' signal.

I mean, I am mad, just not at Chelsea. For fuck's sake, I got mad and I threw some shit and Monica got in the way, it was a fucking accident. I am not a woman beater. And Britney… okay, maybe I wasn't exactly the world's greatest gentleman to her after we broke up but she broke my fucking heart and I was 21. I was a kid who got hurt and lashed out, like hurt kids do - like she did too. I am not to blame for her life getting screwed up and I sure as fuck didn't hit her.

Excuse me for dropping the f bomb so much, but I just fucking hate the way that I am not allowed to make a mistake, ever. Whatever I do it always gets blown up fifty times bigger than it ever really was, and then the next time I make a mistake all the newspaper reports will bring the first one back up. Like, nobody mentions the Superbowl thing normally in their reports on me, but if I say or do something else that gets their panties in a bunch you can bet they'll bring up that, all those drug comments that got pulled out of context, all my failed relationships… the whole damn shebang. Every less than perfect thing I do gets replayed fifty million times and it's really fucking boring for me who has actually moved on from them. I mean, fuck, I'm the guy this shit happened to so if I've moved on why can't they?

"It's not the actual report that worries me, Justin," Ken explains. "It's the fact that the media really seems to have picked up on this domestic violence angle. I'm worried that this is going to be a witch hunt."

Kennedy looks confused, but Sophie and Chelsea look at me with grim understanding. They put you up on that pedestal to tear you down, and when they find a decent hook they will never let up. Take Britney, since we already mentioned her. That whole 'white trash terrible mother' thing they had going on with her is the same kind of deal Ken's talking about. I mean, for now it's just a handful of articles. But if they really get going then they will find liars who claim I hit them, they will find 'sources' to claim I hit every girlfriend I ever had…

"Shit." I rub my face in my hands and try not to panic. Well this has screwed the rehearsal now; I can't even remember the lyrics to my own damn song right now.

"Well… it's only been a few weeks." Surprisingly, Chelsea has piped up. "And it's been a few weeks where he hasn't really been visible, work wise. They have to talk about something. My guess is that Monica will just deny the whole thing again, they'll get distracted because Justin's on tour and they have that to write about, and then Paris Hilton will fall out of another nightclub or get herself arrested or something and they'll forget it. I mean, I know it sucks in the meantime but you could probably just wait it out. Likely if you respond it'll just make them see they rattled your cage and encourage them."

Mom's nodding emphatically. "I agree, honey. They've got nothing, and you can see just by who's printing this stuff that they've got nothing."

"That's true," Ken says slowly, like this hadn't occurred to him earlier. "Mainstream are pretty much ignoring it for the time being. Clearly there's a lot of people not putting any stock in this right now."

"So we just… wait it out?" Great. Nothing like sitting on my ass to make me feel impotent. In a non sexual sense, I mean. There's nothing wrong with Justin Junior.

"It's probably better, Justin, don't rise to it" Sophie says. Kennedy looks pained to nod her head in agreement.

"I just… ugh. Where's Trace and Rachel when I need them?" I bitch. "I need a PA."

This may seem like an odd tangent, but it's usually my PA who does all the running around for this stuff. My PA is the one who keeps a check on the stories and liaises with Ken, who calms me down when I want to hit something (or runs out to pick me up some comfort food). Trace is also particularly good at sending a few anonymous sources out with the real story, kind of dilutes the coverage a little.

"Take Chelsea."

"What?" As my voice rings out I realise that me, Chelsea AND Kennedy all just said that. I wish Chelsea didn't look quite so horrified at the thought.

"Mi padre is coming out on the press junkets with me anyway, the travel is all booked and I don't need her. You can take her for a few weeks, I don't mind."

Sophie may not mind, but I have the distinct feeling Chelsea does. For a moment I see a scary little fire light behind her eyes and she draws breath to say something; then, unexpectedly, she lets it out quietly and her shoulders sink back down, her gaze going to the floor. To be fair, the way Sophie just put it she sounded like she was loaning out a CD or something rather than a person. I don't know if she's considered the possibility that Chelsea may not want to up sticks and go on tour with a bunch of people she's never met. It's not like Trace will be around to keep her company like he did on set.

Oh, and Kennedy looks like she wants to slap Sophie - really hard. She keeps looking at Chelsea like 'are you going to just take that,' but Chelsea's not meeting her eye. My mom and Ken are too busy chatting about minimising further coverage to pay attention.

"Well..." I say awkwardly. This is bad - I could totally let Chelsea off the hook here and refuse, but then I do need a PA and she's good from what I can tell. Or would she take offence if I made out like I was refusing her services, like she wasn't good enough? (Yes I know she doesn't want to go anyway, but women can be touchy).

"I mean, whatever you guys want," Chelsea says meekly. Boy, Kennedy's scary when she's pissed off; she looks like her head's about to do an Exorcist.

"Then it's settled!" Sophie beams brightly and I guess the deal has been made, with or without my or Chelsea's approval.

Shit, this could get awkward. Possibly one of those mistakes I mentioned has just been made, though I doubt the press will take much interest in this one unless Chelsea turns up with a black eye.