Part Three - Sorry For You
Have you ever felt so overwhelmed with emotion that you just wanted to vomit? Like your body is trying to purge itself of all these things you're feeling because it's just too much to handle? That's how I feel right about now. I feel so smothered by guilt and remorse and a million other emotions that I'm having a really hard time not just blowing chunks all over my expensive carpeting here. Okay, that was kind of a gross visual. Sorry.
I saw Lara today and can we just talk for a minute about what a complete ignoramus I am? Because I am. I really am a complete and total...there aren't enough negative words in the world to describe what I am. See, I did about the stupidest thing I could have done. I told her that I miss and I still love her, which didn't go over too well, because as far as she's concerned I never did love her. So that covers the part where I'm an idiot, but you're probably still wondering where all the guilt, remorse and otherwise self-deprecating feelings are coming from, right? Well, she said something she's never told me before. Something I think I knew on some level, but I never really knew...god, I'm such a piece of shit. I don't think I can even tell you what a piece of shit I am.
"You make me feel worthless." Those words keep replaying themselves in my mind and I can't stop them. "You make me feel worthless...you make me feel worthless..." I wish they'd go away, but they won't. And the way she looked at me...the pain in her eyes that said she really meant it...have I mentioned that I'm a horrible person who deserves to die numerous slow and painful deaths? Well, I am. Feel free to come and exact some sort of excruciating torture on me, because I really deserve it.
But then I don't think anything anyone could do to me could be more torturous than what I'm going through right now. I came home from recording early because I just couldn't concentrate and I've been sitting here thinking about this for far too long. Do you have any idea how it feels to sit and contemplate the realization that your mere presence has some sort of painful, self-esteem lowering effect on the woman you love? Like I said, I knew I hurt her. I knew I made her feel slutty and all that shit that I've always hated myself for, but I never really realized just how bad I made her feel. And I had no idea that I still made her feel that way. I guess it explains a whole lot. It explains why she doesn't want much to do with me.
I just really wish there was some way I could make it up to her and make her see herself how I see her. I don't see her as worthless and I never have. On the contrary, I've always seen her as being worth more than all the money, fame, power and everything else in the world combined. Even before I fell in love with her, she was worth so much to me. She was always so beautiful and talented and sweet and intelligent and all of the other things she doesn't think she is. That's what makes me feel so much worse about this whole thing. As long as I've known her, Lara hasn't had the greatest opinion of herself. Even now that she's a world famous singing sensation and millions of people adore her, I know that inside she's still that same insecure girl I knew. She hasn't said it (obviously, since we don't really talk) but I know. I can tell. And the thought that I contributed to that when all I ever wanted to do was make her realize how wonderful she is? That kills me.
You want to know the worst part though? "There's something worse?" I hear you ask. Yes, I know it's hard to believe, but there is something worse. I kept apologizing to her today, which isn't bad, but it made me realize something else. Before today, I've never apologized to her for what happened. Not once. The few times we talked about it, I spent the whole time trying to convince her she was wrong about my motivations for persuing her. It never even occurred to me to just accept the way she felt and apologize. I never even took the two seconds it would require to just say, "I'm sorry." How could I have been so stupid? Do I even have a brain? Maybe not. I should get that checked out.
God, I have to find some way to make this up to her. I have to find some way to make her realize how sorry I am and how much I just want her to feel okay about it. I don't even give a shit about whether she cares about me or wants to date me or whatever else, because I don't deserve that. But I at least want her to know how sorry I am. I at least want her to realize how much I care about her. I bet if I were a character in a movie, I'd be able to come up with some really awesome and romantic thing to do for her, but contrary to popular belief, I'm completely lacking in the romance department.
Everytime I've done something romantic for a girl it was completely generic and stupid. Sending flowers or candy, serenading her, all that sort of thing. I guess girls like that stuff, but it's all seems too impersonal and lacking in creativity to me. No, I can't do something dumb like send the girl flowers. I have to do something unique, something personal, something that will make her see how much she means to me. But what? I'm drawing a complete blank here.
Hey, God? If you like me even a little bit, please let me come up with something totally awesome. I promise I'll never ask for anything ever again.
***
Lara bustled around her kitchen trying to throw together something that at least slightly resembled dinner using only one hand as she spoke to her personal assitant on the phone.
"Lara, are you listening?" Lisa asked in exasperation. She was attempting to go over tomorrow's schedule with her employer, but the woman kept getting distracted by some soup she was making or something. Lisa couldn't help but wonder why she didn't just order out. It wasn't like she was short on cash.
"Yes, sorry," Lara apologized immediately. "I'm trying to find some basil. I know I have some around here somewhere, I just don't know where it got to." She paused for a moment as she looked around her kitchen, tapping her foot and trying to decide if there was a cupboard she hadn't looked in yet. "I bet it's been stowed away in my cupboard for a year too. Does basil go bad?"
"I don't know," Lisa replied honestly. She wasn't much of a cook herself. "Lara, sweetie, why don't you just order out so you don't have to worry about dinner and I can actually get through this thing with you sometime before I die?"
"Sorry," her employer apologized again as she sighed and hoisted herself up onto her counter. "You have my complete attention. I'll postpone my basil search until you're done. Go ahead."
"Good. Thank you. Okay, so you record until noon, then you'll get a break for lunch, then you have an interview with Teen People at one..."
"Will you tell them Justin questions are off limits?" Lara requested quickly. It had been a week since she'd been stuck in that studio with Justin and she still hadn't recovered entirely. The "I love you" parts of the conversation kept coming back to haunt her and she'd only barely restrained herself from hitting her head against a brick wall every five minutes. Therefore, she didn't exactly feel like answering a bunch of stupid questions about him. Not that she'd ever felt like doing so in the first place, but now she wanted the subject to be left alone even more than usual.
"Sure will, but you know that isn't any guarantee they'll listen," Lisa reminded her gently. It was true. Interviewers often asked all the questions they were told not to ask, and since Lara wasn't much into confrontation, she'd just find some way to skirt around the question until they got tired and gave up.
"Yeah, I know. Thanks, Lisa. You're my hero."
"Of course." Lisa chuckled before continuing. "Anyway, they're scheduled to be with you until around three, then you have a photo shoot to do for Vogue at four. Then you can grab some dinner, and you have a meeting with the director for your new video at eight thirty to go over the treatment and all that good stuff. And that's it for tomorrow."
"Sounds cool," Lara replied with a nod to herself. It sounded like a pretty full day, which was good for her. The more time she spent working, the less time she had to think about how much she hated the world. "Anything else you need for me or can I get back to my doomed soup?"
"By all means, get back to the doomed soup." There was another chuckle from her assistant and Lara suspected the woman was shaking her head. "There'll be a car there to pick you up bright and early in the morning, and Ron and I will be in it."
"Okay. See you tomorrow, Lisa. Thanks as always."
"No problem, sweetie. See you tomorrow. Oh, wait!" She cut herself off before hanging up, realizing she had one more thing to talk to Lara about.
"What?" the woman on the other end of the line asked curiously.
"Have you been in your bedroom since you got back?" Well, that was an odd question to say the least.
"No," Lara replied slowly. "I only got home from the studio about half an hour ago and I've been working on this damn soup ever since. Why?"
"No reason," Lisa lied nonchalantly. She'd done her part of the deal and no matter how much she wanted to elaborate, she knew she'd said enough for Lara to go look in the aforementioned bedroom the moment she hung up. "Just wondering. Anyway, I've really gotta go, sweetie. I'll see you later."
"No, wait-"
"Bye, Lara." There was a click and Lisa was gone before Lara had a chance to protest again.
The blonde frowned as she tossed her cordless phone onto the couch and looked at it curiously as though it held the answers to her questions. Why in the world would Lisa care if she'd been in her bedroom yet? That had been completely bizarre. For a moment she contemplated just shrugging it off and getting back to looking for her basil, but curiosity got the better of her and she headed to her bedroom.
The minute she stepped inside the room, Lara let out a gasp as her emerald orbs widened considerably. She'd lived in this apartment for two years and while she'd had an interior designer decorate all the rooms, this was the one room she'd never quite gotten around to finishing. She had wanted to decorate the walls on her own, since it was her bedroom and she wanted it to be personal. She never had the time, though, and the walls had remained completely bare. Well, until now. Now the walls were decorated pretty much exactly how she would have decorated them if she'd had the time. They were mostly covered in old album artwork, with the exception of a few paintings by her favorite artists. Who in the world had known that she collected the covers of albums? And more importantly, who had spent the money and taken the time to buy these things and put them up on her walls for her? That's when she realized there were small cards hanging from the corners of each picture frame and she frowned as she walked over to the first one, a replica of the Beatle's Yellow Submarine cover. She'd been wanting that one for years. She opened the card and read it curiously.
"I'm sorry I never let you know how beautiful you are." That was all it said. No name, nothing. Just that. She moved on to the next one - Creedence Clearwater Revival's Mardi Gras.
"I'm sorry I didn't cherish you the way you deserved." Still no name.
"I'm sorry I made you feel worthless, because you are worth everything to me." That's what the card next to a painting by her favorite local impressionist read. Still no name, but she was beginning to figure it out. Tears began to well up in her eyes as she read the next three, accompanied by Fleetwood Mac's Rumours, a Van Gogh she'd been wanting to get her hands on forever, and Elton John's Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.
"I'm sorry I never said I was sorry."
"I'm sorry I can't take back all the pain I caused you."
"I'm sorry you don't realize how perfect you are."
The last piece of artwork hang above her bed, and there was no card hanging from it, but rather a bigger card sitting on top of her pillow. She examined the painting for a moment; at first glance it looked like it was just a large painting of a rose, but as she looked closer she realized that the rose was made up entirely of the phrase "I'm sorry." The tears she'd been fighting finally spilled over as she read the card.
"Lara,
I know this doesn't make up for what I did to you, and I'm not even asking you to forgive me. I just want you to know how sorry I am and how much I really do care about you. I hope you like all the album covers and paintings and if you don't I can always take them back and give you cold hard cash." She laughed a little through her tears and tried to brush them away before she continued reading. "I especially don't know if you'll like this last one, but for me it has the most meaning. I had it made just for you by this guy over in SoHo. In case you couldn't tell, the rose is made up of 1182 'I'm sorry's. One for every day of the past three years, because I should have told you I was sorry every day for the past three years. Just like I should have told you how beautiful, amazing and wonderful you are, and how much I love you, every day since I met you. I'm so sorry for being such a moron, but I hope you like the painting.
Love, Justin
P.S. Don't be mad at Lisa for telling me how to get to your apartment and convincing the doorman to let me in. And please don't be mad at me for telling her everything about us. It was the only way I could get her to agree."
Lara read the note over and over as she sat on her bed, tears cascading down her face. She wanted to be mad, she really did. She wanted to think about how much he'd hurt her in the past and tell herself she wanted nothing to do with him. She even wanted to be mad at him for telling Lisa their secrets and she wished she could be mad at Lisa for helping him out. But she was so overwhelmed with other emotions that there didn't seem to be any room for anger. She couldn't even identify what she was feeling, but the anger, bitterness and remorse that had held her together for the past three years were nowhere to be found. Somehow she thought this was all she'd ever really wanted. All she'd wanted was for him to say he was sorry, but he never had. Not before last week anyway. And here it was in so many different beautiful ways - the apologies she'd subconsciously been waiting for - and now she had no idea what to do with it.
The shrill ring of the telephone brought her back to reality and she wiped her eyes quickly as though afraid the person on the other end would be able to see them if she didn't. Taking a few deep breaths, she grabbed the phone next to the bed and answered it. "Hello?"
"Lara?" an uncertain female voice responded.
"Yes," Lara replied slowly. She was always hestitant to answer that particular inquiry because it wasn't unheard of for the uncertain person on the other end of the line to be a fan who had somehow gotten her number. The woman let out a sigh.
"Oh, thank God. Honey, it's Aunt Maureen."
"Oh! Hi!" Wasn't this day just full of surprises? Lara couldn't remember the last time she'd heard from her Aunt Maureen. In fact, she couldn't remember the last time she'd heard from anyone in her family. They'd all sort of grown apart since she'd become famous.
"Hello, sweetie." Her aunt didn't sound nearly as enthusiastic as she did and Lara immediately suspected something was wrong.
"What's wrong?" she asked immediately and was greeted with another sigh.
"Honey, it's your mom."
***
Justin sighed and fingered his fork absentmindedly as lighting flashed across the sky for what seemed like the hundreth time that week. They'd been having an especially rainy spring, and once again the city was being bombarded with buckets of water. It was really pretty depressing for him, sitting here alone in his fancy dining room, eating take out and listening to the rain pounding against the windows. He'd just spoken to his mother on the phone and she'd been trying to convince him to go out with Jessica again. He thought maybe he should give the girl another chance, but then he remembered how awkward and boring that entire night had been and immediately decided against it.
Maybe his mother was right. Maybe he needed to just suck it up and find himself a woman. Maybe he should just stop obsessing over Lara and move on. Of course, he'd only just bestowed his big apology on her this afternoon, so for all he knew she'd be showing up at his door and throwing herself at him any minute. No, that was definitely not going to happen. If the past three years were any indicator, she'd tell him she accepted his apology, but she still didn't want to be friends. He'd blown it three years ago and he wasn't going to get another chance. He needed to come to terms with that and find someone else.
Before he had a chance to continue feeling sorry for himself, somebody began ringing his doorbell incessantly. People didn't usually ring the doorbell; he normally had to buzz them up in the first place, so he knew they were coming. How had this person gotten up here without his permission? Apparently he needed to be having another discussion with the doorman about security measures. Rolling his eyes as the doorbell continued sounding over and over, he stood up and made his way to the front door.
"I'm coming! Calm down!" he exclaimed as he flung the door open. His eyes nearly bulged out of his head as he found himself facing a bleary-eyed, tearstained, rain drenched Lara Robertson. "Hi." His voice softened as he greeted her. She didn't bother returning the greeting as tears flowed out of her eyes and she began speaking quickly.
"I'm really sorry, I know I shouldn't be bothering you but I couldn't think of anyone else to turn to and I really need someone and you're the only who knows, I can't tell anyone else, so I just had to come here and I need you to help me and I know you probably won't want to, but I just really need someone to be with me right now." That's what she'd said, but as far as Justin could tell, it was more of a, "I'mlkjalkdnflaknhlkjdalkfjlkadjflkdjlakdjlkjdsf...right now." He caught the tone of it though and led her into the apartment, shutting the door behind her. He wrapped an arm around her, half expecting her to pull away, but she didn't and he rubbed his hand up and down her arm in an attempt to both warm her up and calm her down.
"Okay, sorry babe, but could you repeat that in English?" he requested. At any other time, he suspected Lara would have flinched at the use of the word "babe" but this time she didn't seem to notice as she closed her eyes and took a few deep breathes. As she opened them, she pulled away so she could look at him more directly.
"I'm really sorry, Justin. I know it's weird of me to come here after, you know, everything, but I really need you right now." She spoke slowly and steadily, forcing herself to be coherent for his sake. Justin tried not to feel too ecstatic about these words, as the girl was obviously upset about something. He'd initially hoped this visit was about his apology, but it clearly was not.
"It's fine," he assured her quickly. "What's up?"
"It's my mom. Dad, um," she choked back more tears and forced herself to continue. "Apparently Daddy got really mad at her about something and, well...he...um...she's in the hospital and I just..." Her voice trailed off as the tears came again and she couldn't finish. Justin's heart broke for her as he pulled her into his arms and held her as tightly as he could. He paid no attention to the fact that she was soaked and this act would result in him being wet as well.
"Oh god, Lars," he whispered softly. "I'm so sorry. Shhh, it'll be okay." He stroked her hair, hoping to offer her some comfort as she sobbed into his chest. He understood now why she'd come to him. Lara had never told anyone other than him about how abusive her father was, and as a result, he was the only one she had to turn to. He continued running his hand down her hair, whispering comforting words and holding her for at least five minutes before the sobs started to slow and she looked up at him, not loosening her grip around his waist.
"I know this is probably way too much to ask," she began and Justin cut her off.
"Nothing is too much to ask," he assured her and meant every word of it. She smiled weakly and nodded before continuing.
"I have to go see her, but I-I don't want to go alone," she stammered. "She's only an hour away, Paris is just over the border and I..." She couldn't bring herself to just ask him. This was such a huge burden, how could she ask him to cancel whatever he had the next day and come with her to the hospital so she didn't have to go alone? Especially considering the fact that they hadn't exactly been on good terms with each other for a while. Justin seemed to read her thoughts as he brushed a tear away with his thumb.
"You want me to come with you?" he asked softly and was met with a wordless nod. "Of course I will. Just give me a second to grab my keys and phone and we'll be on our way." She nodded again as he stepped away from their embrace and headed towards the hall.
"Justin?" she stopped him.
"Yeah?" He turned back around to look at her. She looked so small and weak standing there, her eyes red and puffy and her arms hugging her chest.
"Thanks," she said softly. He smiled sadly at her.
"No problem."
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