A/N: Sorry it took so long for and update, but I've been kind of busy and I was having trouble completing this chapter. I hope ya'll like it. I'll be getting to those reviews form the chapters eventually. I just wanted to let you all know that I did read them all and I really appreciate them. Thanks so much to all of you who read and review and I hope to read more review form you soon about this chapter. :)
Chapter 5: Maybe When Hell Freezes Over
When Elisha and I finally got to Joey’s party we’d already missed the big drama of the night. Joey’s wife Kelly literally ran right up to Elisha spilling the gossip of the night. I can’t decided what was more shocking, the slap or the push into the pool. Man do I wish I could have seen the look on Justin’s face. That must have been friggin priceless.
As much as I hate to say this because I am Justin’s best friend and all and my loyalty ultimately lies with him, but he deserved what he got. Justin likes to tell people that he didn’t really cheat on Elli; I believe he sues the word ‘technically’ when describing how he did not cheat. Well, let me clear this
up for you. Technically Justin cheated on Elli.
I’ve known for a long time about the relationship he’s had going on with Allison the skank”sorry about the skank part, that just slipped. Anyway, they’ve been in this when I’m lonely I’ll come see you relationship thing since Justin and Brit split. I warned him about it and the possible complications, but he assured that it meant nothing. I didn’t know that he went to her while he was with Elli. If I had know I can assure you that ya’ll would have know because I would have beat his ass to a bloody pulp. I was beyond pissed when I did find out and he knew that. He didn’t really care at the time thought because he was so distraught over losing Elli. I’ve seriously never seen him so torn up before”not even with Britney. I mean it was bad with Britney, but that was different. Then Brit hand been the one to wreck the relationship, but this time he was all to blame and that was hard for him to swallow.
Seeing her after all this time is taking it’s toll on his conscious again. He pretends that it doesn’t affect him but I know better. Elli’s the same way. Neither are really over one another yet.
I shake these thoughts from my head and walk into Justin’s house. I surprised to hear the sound of the guitar playing and voices talking from the kitchen. I follow my ears to the kitchen where I find Justin with a guitar on his knee and JC sitting next to him looking over a tablet of yellow paper. As I’m about to make my presence known Justin opens his mouth and beings to sing.
“What hurts the most was being so close/And having so much to say/And watching you walk away/And never knowing /What could have been /And not seeing that loving you /Is what I was trying to do.”
“Okay we’ve gotta put something before that,” JC voices as Justin’s voice fades out and he stops strumming at his guitar. “How about we take this line, ‘I can take the rain on the roof of this empty house, that don’t bother me.”
Is it just me or does it sound like this song is very personal to Justin and what happened between him and Elli? He looks like he’s been up writing this song for a week without any sleep, food, and certainly not a shower or shave. His eyes are blood shot and he looks about ready to drop. I know him though and once he gets an idea for a song he doesn’t stop for anything or anyone until it’s complete and it’s to his standards.
Justin sings the same lines from before, which I’m assuming is the chorus, but adds JC’s line. He continues on though seeming to pull the words from somewhere deep inside him. His face looks pained as he sings and I’m afraid he’s going to start crying.
“I can take the rain on the roof of this empty house/That don’t bother me/I can take a few tears now and then and just let ‘em out/I’m not afraid to cry every once and a while/Even though going on with you gone still upsets me/There are days every now and again/I pretend I’m okay but that’s not what gets me.”
Then he breaks into the chorus again. When he’s finished he stops, opens his eyes and look up at JC asking if he got that. I laugh as JC frantically writes down what he remembers of what Justin just sang. Justin looks up at me when he hears me laugh and motions me to come in with a wave of his hand. I walk hesitantly towards my two friends and take a seat across from JC and next to Justin as Justin wipes at his eyes. Was he just crying?
“What are ya’ll working on?” I ask dumbly.
“A song I started writing a few days ago.” Justin answers still rubbing at his tired eyes.
“Have you slept since you started writing it?”
“No, man I can’t sleep,” He grumbles. “I close my eyes and hear this song. I can’t sleep till I finish it.”
See?
“Don’t let me interrupt,” I sigh, leaning back in my chair to a more comfortable position.
“What are you doing here?” JC asks curiously. “Don’t you have a wedding to plan?”
“Why do you think I’m here?” We all laugh. Elisha has been driving me mad with all this wedding crap. What color tablecloths? Chicken or Beef? What kind of flowers? The questions and decisions that have to be made are freakin endless. And if I answer wrong I get in trouble because Elisha is so stressed out that she blows up over any little thing that goes wrong.
“So where’s the inspiration for this one coming from?” I ask with a knowing smile. Justin rolls his eyes at me because he knows that I already know the answer to my own question.
“Where do you think?”
~*~*~*~
I can’t believe she pushed him into the pool. First I couldn’t believe that she slapped him and then I couldn’t believe she pushed him into the pool”and in the middle of a thunderstorm! All I keep thinking is ‘go Elli!’ I was proud of her. She was embarrassed and just messed up about the whole thing, but I was proud and would have done the same thing. Well actually I would have done something a lot worse that would have hurt him physically and it would have happened like the moment I found out about him cheating. Elli and I are a bit different though.
Back to the party the other night: I remember watching Elli go running out back to the pool area and seeing Justin go after her, this all just after Elli slapped that bastard for bringing that filthy bitch to the party with him. My first instinct was to go after them and probably pushing Justin into the damn pool myself, but decided against it. Elli needed to cope with Justin on her own in order to get over him. This is just what I told her mother who was about to go beat down on Justin.
My god you should have seen Elli’s mom after she found out about Justin cheating. I’ve never seen her mother so angry before in my life. She was seriously going to go over to his house and give him a piece of her mind for hurting her baby. Elli was so unbelievably torn up over it, I can’t really say that I blame her. She’s still hurting because of him. She’s so different now because of him. She’s too thin and always tired and smokes and swears”sometimes”and drinks and wears makeup and dresses differently. Everything is just so different and I blame him completely.
I think that he’s even the reason she got into the whole Hollywood scene. I think that she did it just to prove something to him or maybe to herself, I don’t know. I’m not quite sure of just what that thing she’s trying to prove is though”maybe that she’s stronger then he thought and more independent. I don’t know, but if you ask me she has nothing to prove to that son of a bitch.
And can you believe that she agreed to work with him?! I was completely against it and she knew it. I told her it was the worst idea that I had ever heard and that she was a fool for agreeing to collaborate with them. Well I didn’t use those exact words, I was much more tactful. That first day that she actually showed up”you know when she wasn’t faking being sick; yes I knew she was faking it”was proof enough for me that it was a terrible idea. I didn’t say that to her though. I just did my best to help her get through it. She was a wreck though. She could barely get out the first line of the song.
FLASHBACK
I tap my foot to the rhythm as the music cues for the beginning of one of my all time favorite Christmas songs. JC says something like ‘now Elli, don’t even think about going out into that cold.’ Now we wait for Elli to begin the opening line, but she just stares at the lyric page. The guys are looking around the recording booth awkwardly at one another not really knowing what to do. The music stops and Joey whispers something to Elli. She nods her head, but doesn’t look up form the music sheet.
When the music cues for the forth time and Elli still has yet to open her mouth, I take the initiative to stop the music and pull Elli from the booth. I lead her to the privacy of the hallway and suddenly become aware of how violently her hands are shaking.
“Are you okay?” I ask sincerely concerned for my friend.
“I’m fine.” She answers back defensively and rips her hands from my grasp. I have to literally bite my tongue to stop myself form saying something snippy back”I know she’s just stressed out.
“No you’re not.”
“Liz, I just told you””
“You can’t even get out the first word!” I exclaim, my patience with her wearing thin. From the look she gives me, for a moment I think she’s going to cave and finally open up to me, but then her face-hardens and she puts that damned wall back up.
“I need to get back in there.”
END OF FLASHBACK
She did finally start to sing when she went back in there, but it was monotone and sounded almost robotic. I ended up having to stop them again when Elli looked about ready to burst into tears and this time instead of just pulling her outside for a talk, I took her home.
So then she comes to me the next day and says that she’s going to go hang out with the guys for the first half of the day. You can imagine what I was thinking, but let her go and I didn’t even join them. She claims everything went fine and Justin didn’t bother her at all. I’m sure he didn’t mutter even a single sentence to her the whole time, but that doesn’t mean a thing. Sometimes the silence can be a whole lot worse.
Anyway, I was talking with Elisha earlier today and she told me about how worried her and Trace are about Elli. I tried to assure her that Elli was fine even though she’s not, but Elisha didn’t believe me. It’s obvious to anyone who knew her before that she’s changed and not in a good way. We’ve decided to help Elli get over Justin. Elisha seems to think that it’s a good idea to set her up with someone. I’m not too sure about this. Elli hasn’t dated anyone since Justin”that’s three years of nothing. Well she did go out on a few dates, but it still wasn’t much. So in order to set her up, Elisha will be throwing a New Years Eve party at some big hotel and I’m in charge of making sure Elli actually shows up. She claims to have the perfect guy for her, but she won’t tell me who it is. That’s probably best though because I’m not too great with secrets like that especially since I know, from what she’s told me, that he’s famous and a heartthrob.
“I’m done.” Elli announces as she exits the room she had her last interview of the day with. I think this one was with Teen Beat”no Glamour, yeah that’s it.
“How’d it go?” I ask curiously as we begin walking towards the exit. She shrugs silently and I know that it didn’t go well or they asked at least one question she wasn’t comfortable answering. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” She sighs dejectedly. “They just asked about working with Nsync and I didn’t really have anything to say.”
“You mean they asked about you and Justin.” I clarify.
Everyone knows about the pictures that premiered in People Magazine three years back of Justin with Elli and Allison. In the beginning, there were reporters constantly parked/camped outside of Elli’s house”this was before she was famous. She couldn’t even go to school without being bombarded by paparazzi. Justin held a press conference after a while trying to clear her name, but that didn’t really help that much. Eventually though, it all died down. By eventually I mean when Elli and her mom moved to a nearby county and basically went into hiding. Elli had to change schools and everything. So then when her single came out we were surprised that the rumors hadn’t resurfaced. Well they’re back now.
“Yeah. I just said that our relationship was strictly professional.”
“Good because that’s the truth.” I reinforce making sure that she keeps this non-relationship with him going.
“Yep,” She sighs again letting it be known how disappointed she really is about that little fact. It’s sad to know how head over heals she was for him and then to see what he did to her.
“Elli, please tell me that you are not starting to feel things for him again.” I plead, stopping her from reaching the door leading to outside where the car is waiting. She stares down at her feet. “Tell me that you’re not even considering letting him back in your life again.”
“I’m not.” She answers softly after a few moments of hesitation. She’s really worrying me now. Where’s that though exterior of hers now? Her demeanor suddenly changes as she stands up straighter and looks at me confidently. “The day I let him weasel his way back into my life is the day hell freezes over.”
That’s my girl.
TBC....
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