Deranged Delusions

21. All Falls Down

Call me crazy, call me a fool, but I think I’m falling for him.

And the funny thing is I’m not falling for him because he planned a pretty amazing night or because the sex was good (ok, fantastic). No, my feelings for Justin are evolving simply because the man got out of my bed, picked up his clothes, and went back to his own room. I know I should have been all about the cuddling or the post chat that was in the back of our minds, but the whole cuddle thing really isn’t my scene. I didn’t get weak in the knees when he kissed me on the shoulder, I didn’t sigh happily when he kissed me on the forehead, and I certainly didn’t think about pulling him back into bed with me when I kissed him. No, the thing that got me going completely gaga was when he grabbed his clothes and left my damn room!

Because he never does anything like that. Ever.

I’ve only ever really known Justin to look after himself and his immediate family. He gets into trouble, his family is there to bail him out, slap him lightly on the wrist, and he goes on his merry way and more than likely does the same thing again that got him into trouble in the first place. Of course last night proved to me that he has a generous bone somewhere in his body towards his employees, but I’m more susceptible to the moody Justin who always bites my head off at me and makes me do impossible tasks that I have to pull out of my ass at the last minute.

But marching around my room and performing what he concludes as the ‘Collection of Shame’ to Trace after his various one night stands, made me realize that maybe he’s finally changed. The old Justin would have given me his room key and made me march around my own room and gather up my things so I could tramp down the hallway and try to avoid any sort of questioning glance from late night passerby. The tables have turned, however, and it was Justin doing the ‘Collection of Shame’ last night and it really got me thinking.

Maybe he really cares about me. Not in the sense of a romantic relationship, but as a person. Jesus, that sounds so fucked up. Yes, Lauren, Justin cares for you as a person so he’s going to screw you to seal that relationship!

Which makes me think that this whole thing was just a pity fuck. I hate rejection like no other person, probably worse than Justin, and to know that JC dodged our date last night nearly sent me over the edge. If Justin hadn’t done what he did, I probably would have stayed up all night, drinking and wondering what the hell was wrong with me. But Justin doesn’t like to dole out pity votes and I don’t think a pity fuck would be among his repertoire of comforting a person.

Can you see why I’m confused?

I don’t know why I kissed him at the end of our night. Maybe I was just looking for something to fall asleep on. I don’t know. We kind of just jumped into the whole having sex thing. There really wasn’t any foreplay and…wow I can’t believe I’m analyzing my night with one Justin Timberlake while I’m trying to show his mother to her seat in the Roseland.

“Thank you, Lauren,” Lynn states as she takes her seat on the second landing of the venue. I haven’t had a chance to talk to Justin yet seeing as in the morning he was doing a crap load of press releases for the new album and then he had the whole Video Music Award thing to take care of. I probably won’t be able to talk to him once he gets done with his concert and by then he’ll probably be absolutely exhausted.

“Think nothing of it, Mrs. Harless,” I state, “Do you need me to get you something to drink?”

“No, not at all. You just go get some rest. You’ve been running around this place all day. Go grab yourself a drink and sit down somewhere. And call me Lynn,” she states with a placid smile before she turns towards a family friend and continues a conversation they had been sharing earlier.

Yeah I haven’t had time to talk to Justin at all. And the funny thing is, I have no clue what we would talk about. I mean what is there to talk about? I suppose I could tell him that our little one night thing shouldn’t be repeated to anyone and that it won’t lead anywhere seeing as by the end of this week his tour is over and I’ll go back to Clive. I just know that sleeping with him has made me cross the line to ‘It will never, ever happen,’ to , ‘there’s a fighting chance something could go on between us.’

Oh God, we’re an ‘us’ now.

Heaven help me.

Speaking of heaven helping people…JC. That boy is going to need a chorus of angels and archangels to help him out of the mess he’s gotten himself into. I still haven’t had a chance to speak with him about what he did to me last night but I hope he feels like shit.

He’s been running around the Ballroom all day today, going over things with the band and trying to figure out his staging to the one song he’ll be singing on stage tonight. And every single fucking time he looks over at me, he tries to start a conversation as if everything is normal and that he didn’t stand me up last night.

Seriously, does he take me for a complete idiot?

I start to head towards the box office. Justin should be heading back from dinner with Trace any second now and they’re going to be opening the house doors soon. I have to make sure that the girl who I put in charge of making sure the celebrity guests find their seats hasn’t gone insane from all the pressure. Really the girl is such a nervous mess I’m surprised she hasn’t screwed up.

“Um…Miss Walters,” speak of the devil.

I turn around and see the fumbling young woman standing in front of me with a piece of paper in her hand. She looks like someone in her immediate family was just killed in front of her. She’s pale, shaking, and the way her eyes are avoiding mine, I know something must be up.

“What is it, Danielle?” I question and the girl gulps.

“Um…I sat Jessica Simpson next to her husband…”

Oh shit.

“You mean ex-husband, Danielle!” I groan loudly. Oh shit this is not good at all. The last thing I need is for Super Stupid Simpson to sit next to Woe is Me Lachey. The critics are going to be all over this and they won’t pay attention to the show at all.

Danielle starts to sniffle and I know she’s about to burst into tears. I don’t need this right now. My stress levels are so high right now and I’m ready to burst into tears myself. Taking a deep breath, I pull the two-way radio from my hip pocket and bring it to my lips.

“Walters to Davis. Walters to Davis…”

“Lo-ho! What’s up?” Great. Trace has commandeered Davis’ two-way and it is going to be a bitch trying to get that thing out of his grip.

“Trace, go give the two-way to Davis like a good little troll and I won’t go back there and kick your ass.”

“Well you’re all the way up front and I’m all the way back here. What’s the problem? I’m a Personal Assistant, I can fix things too!”

“Jesus, Trace, is the only reason why you’re on this earth is to make my life a living hell?” I question as I rub my temple with my free hand. What I wouldn’t do for a drink or a nice long nap right now.

“If you play your cards right I can make it heaven,” Trace whispers saucily into the radio and I roll my eyes. Danielle stifles a giggle and I throw her a scathing look.

“Trace, seriously, just give the radio to Davis. I don’t need this right now…” I’m about to rip his head off for being a short little bastard but there’s a slight scuffle over on his end of the radio and, after much swearing, a new voice is presenting itself over the two-way.

“How you holding up out there, Lo?” And just like that, hearing his voice makes everything better. Before it just made me want to vomit. What the hell happened?

“Well if your bumbling best friend didn’t hear me, I’m looking for Davis. He has to make sure the First World War of Awkwardness doesn’t break out in the VIP section tonight,” and I quickly relay the situation to Justin. He doesn’t need to hear this right now. Not after he’s gone through a crazy ass day and has to go on stage in front of hundreds of people.

“I’ll get you Davis if you promise that you’ll sit down for at least ten minutes. You’ve been running around all day,” Justin says calmly and I take a deep breath and let it out quickly.

“Fine,” I promise and suddenly I’m on the radio with Davis and barking orders about how he’ll have to intercept Simpson as soon as she arrives seeing as her husband will be on time and the woman will more than likely be crazy late. 

Returning the radio to my belt loop I turn to look at Danielle before I grab the paper from her shaking hands and look over it.

“Um…Lauren,” she starts, “I don’t want to be a nuisance…”

“Too late, Danielle,” I mutter under my breath as I make various notes about what Justin needs backstage in the green room. Not only do I have to worry about his butt but I have to make sure Three 6 Mafia have what they need and Will.I.Am and T.I. and this is just going to be way too much. If I wasn’t in such an emotional turmoil I’m sure this would be a cakewalk to me, but I can’t stop thinking about last night and about the conversation I know we’ll be having later tonight, or early tomorrow morning.

“Well, I mean, Mr. Timberlake said that you need to sit down for a little bit. Aren’t you going to listen to him?”

“Danielle,” I say with a heavy sigh as I pull the radio off of my belt, “If I listened to everything Justin had to say I think I’d be a lot more haggard and definitely more stupid than I look, alright?” And then I’m back on the two-way, barking orders at one of the poor interns backstage who are waiting for the gallons of alcohol to arrive at the loading doors.

“Lauren!” and there’s his voice again, sounding highly affronted that I’ve disobeyed his orders.

“What is it Justin?” I ask exasperated.

“Would you sit down for at least five minutes? I’m afraid you’re going to have a heart attack or something!”

“Justin, if I don’t get this done now it isn’t going to be completed and I’m going to be the one that you’re going to blame!”

“I wouldn’t blame you, Lauren,” now he sounds offended. Whatever, he’s a hypocrite and if one of his friends isn’t happy backstage then there’ll be hell to pay.

“Please, Justin. Those are some famous last words. I’m pretty sure you’ll be eating them later tonight when you’re yelling at me for something going wrong.”

“Why are you being so cynical? Seriously, Lauren, what is the matter with you?” I take a deep breath and lean against the wall, holding the radio next to my ear and I know Justin is waiting for a response. I don’t know why I’m acting like this. Maybe I’m just stressed out for tonight. No…I’m stressed about after tonight. I’m freaking out about this conversation I know Justin and I are going to have and I don’t want it to come. I don’t want to know what’s going to happen between us. I just…

I’m scared.

“Sorry,” I breathe, “I just…it’s nothing. I’m just stressed.”

“Okay, well go sit down, okay? Don’t make me worry on top of everything else I have going on tonight.”

If there’s one thing he can never stop doing, it’s being an ass. God love him for it.

“I’m going for a walk. I’ll be back later,” I say to Danielle as I hand her the radio and start towards the exit of the Ballroom. I just need a quick walk around the block to keep my mind off all this crap that’s going through my head.

I took a quick fifteen minute walk around the block before I came back to the Roseland. And once I returned, it was a quickly blur of getting people where they needed to go, making sure all of Justin’s special guests were well situated, and dealing with the stupid Lachey/Simpson fiasco.

Now Justin’s concert is about halfway over and JC has about twenty more minutes before he goes onstage and I’m the unlucky bitch who has to go back to the green room to alert him that he’ll be on stage in just a few minutes. I’m not looking forward to seeing him because I know he’s going to want to ‘talk,’ when, really, there isn’t anything left to say. He stood me up, made me feel like shit, and I’ve moved on.

Of course that won’t mean that I won’t give him a piece of my mind if he decides to corner me and ask me stupid questions that he already knows the answers to.

Pulling my hat low over my face, I shove my way through the throngs of people that are lining the halls of the backstage area. They’re all straining to hear through the thumping bass of the drums, all of them trying to catch a bit of Justin’s new material. I could probably do the whole show with him seeing as I’ve had to sit backstage at every single show and listen to the songs over and over again.

I approach the green room and I can feel the bile rise in my stomach. I’m going to try my best to avoid the man at all costs because I’m sure he doesn’t want to go out on stage with a busted lip. I walk in and see him sitting on the couch, fiddling around with a random piece of string and he looks up and smiles at me.

“Hey, Lauren,” he grins and I throw him a scathing look before I walk over to the small buffet and grab a glass of wine. I’ve been looking everywhere for a glass of something, anything that can take this edge off, and I take a big swig of it before I turn around to face him.

“You’ve got about fifteen minutes, JC and then it’s time for you to make your way to the stage,” I explain and then I turn back and shove some celery in my mouth. I hate celery but that was the first thing I managed to grab. If my mouth is full, I don’t have to talk to him.

“Are you okay? You’ve been avoiding me all day.”

Shit, I swallowed the celery. Now I have to talk.

“I’m fine, JC,” I say simply before I lean against the buffet table and cross my arms. I can hardly see him due to the brim of my hat obstructing my view and I really don’t care. Anything to not look at him.

“Do you want to talk about it? You know I’m here if you want to talk…”

“Oh so now you want to talk?” I ask him, I really don’t feel like picking fights tonight but I can’t help myself. The stress is just making me all the more irritable, “You didn’t feel like talking last night when you stood me up.”

“I thought Justin explained it to you,” JC said as he got up out of his seat. He’s wearing exceptionally tight pants and some crazy belt that I’m sure will be his latest clothing obsession. What is with those tight pants, they look good on him…

Sometimes I wish my mind would just shut down.

“He didn’t have to explain anything to me. It was clear as day that you didn’t want to go out on our date when we saw you gallivant back into the hotel with fucking Thai food when you had indigestion,” I growl and JC takes a step back, clearly affronted by what I’ve said.

“Dimples, didn’t he tell you?”

“I don’t see why you couldn’t just tell me that you didn’t want to go out with me. I don’t know why you had to send Justin out to do your dirty work. I was under the impression that you weren’t a coward and that you actually cared –”

But I stop my small rant when I hear JC’s frustrated sigh. He turns away from me and runs his hands through his hair. I can tell there’s something that’s upsetting him and I’m guessing it’s because I caught him in his little game and now he has to explain it.

“I’m going to kill him,” he mumbles under his breath and he turns around to face me. “Lauren…”

“JC…” I counter and I wait for his explanation. Hopefully he doesn’t give me a lame ass excuse like Justin always does. I’m not in the mood for shitty responses right now.

“I don’t know how to explain this because I’m not supposed to tell you this because he was supposed to tell you last night…”

“Okay can we stop being cryptic? This isn’t the fucking DaVinci Code,” I snap and he shakes his head sadly and lifts his head to look at me.

“Dimples, he was supposed to tell you I had indigestion at the start of the date but by the end of it, he was supposed to say something else…”

“What was he supposed to tell me, JC?” Does he think he’s going to leave me hanging like that? I’m going to get an answer out of him if it’s the last thing I do.

“I can’t tell you, Lauren. That’s Justin’s business to tell you and he’s a complete asshole for not doing what he promised me he would. I never had indigestion to begin with. That was just a ploy to get Justin to go instead of me.”

“What?” I ask, my stomach filling up with complete dread. What is he going on about?

“I’m saying Justin had to go out with you for a reason and…” but suddenly the truth is so very clear to me.

The romancing, acting like the fake son of a bitch he was back in Worden, making sure I saw JC when he knew I would be upset about him ‘standing me up,’ this was all a trick to get me to sleep with him.

“Yeah it’s so perfectly clear to me right now,” I stumble over my words and I try my best not to start crying right there in the middle of the green room. That’s why he was so quick to get out of my room last night, he didn’t want to deal with the aftermath and…

I feel sick to my stomach right now.

“Lauren…”

“No, stop. You have to go get ready for your performance. Have fun and all that shit. You don’t want to be late.” And before he can say anything else I’m physically pushing him towards the door and, once I’m sure he’s out of the room and won’t be coming back, I slam the door and stumble over to the couch, sitting down on it as I try to hold back my tears.

That stupid, no good, horny bastard. He is so dead.

“Thank you New York!” I’m met with a thousand cheers as I take my final bow and march off the stage with Tim and JC, the fans still screeching loudly and begging me to come back on stage.

Sorry, I’m done for the night. I’ve got to go talk to my girl.

Hah, my girl, I like the sound of that. Hopefully once we have our ‘talk,’ she’ll be my girl for a very long time. I’m practically giddy at the thought.

One of the interns hands me a towel and I wipe the sweat from my brow and I walk over to JC and give him a huge pat on the shoulder. He moves away and gives me a scathing look before he adjusts the vest he’s wearing.

“Yo, Jace, what’s up man?”

“You tell me what’s up,” he says shortly and I know something’s wrong.

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about how you didn’t keep your promise. You told me you were going to tell her and you didn’t!” Shit, how did he find out about that? “I thought you told me that you had feelings for her? Did you have to play her like that?”

“What the fuck, JC? I’m going to tell her tonight,” I explain, “We’re going to talk tonight.”

“Oh, ho, you bet you’re going to have a talk tonight,” JC says with a small, manic laugh. I don’t like the tone of his voice and I’m suddenly kind of freaked out about what’s going on. I don’t like it when things that I don’t know about are going on behind my back.

“Well, do you know where she is?” I ask, deciding to not pay attention to JC’s weird attitude.

“Last time I saw her, she was in the green room, but she might have gone back to the hotel,” he explains and I give him a thankful gaze before I take off towards the green room.

I already know most of the guest performers have already hightailed it to one of the many after parties and I’m hoping that I can join them later on in the evening and I can introduce them all to Lauren as my sweetie. I can’t wait. Hopefully she’ll be all alone in the green room so we can chat, and maybe do some other things.

See what happens when I sing ‘Sexy Back?’ It makes me horny. Got to love it.

Finally, the blessed green room door. It’s closed and I can only hope Lauren is the only one in there right now. It would suck having to kick some people out but I’ll do it if it gives me the chance to be alone with her for just a couple minutes.

I knock on the door and, when I don’t hear an answer, I open the door and step in.

That’s when an empty bottle of wine goes sailing towards my head and crashes into the wall behind me. I duck down almost instantly and cover up my head to avoid any sort of damage. Looking around, I try to find the psychopath that is demolishing the green room, but the only person in the room is Lauren.

But she does look like a crazy person. I can hear her ragged breaths coming from the other side of the room and her hat is cocked haphazardly to one side. Her eyes are bloodshot from crying and it seems like she’s in a type of rage I’ve never seen before.

“Lauren…”

“You stupid asshole! You fuck!” she screams at me and I slam the door behind me and lean against the wood for support. She’s on the rampage and I don’t think I can get a word in edge wise while she’s flipping out like this.

“What’s the matter?” I ask her and she dramatically rolls her eyes and stops to look at me, her chest heaving up and down like she just ran a decathlon.

“You know what’s the matter! You’re a pathological liar, a fraud, and I can’t believe you could do something like this. I always knew you were an asshole but I never would have thought you would stoop this low,” she snarls and I have now reached a whole new level of confused.

“I don’t understand…” I start to say quietly but she cuts me off with a flick of her hand.

“I don’t understand either, Justin. I don’t understand how you can stand there and think that everything is okay in your world when you can’t stop lying to yourself and me. I don’t understand how last night meant nothing to you!”

“What are you talking about? How can you say last night meant nothing? It meant <i>everything</i> to me!” I say shrilly. Is this the kind of talk she wanted to have? If I knew she was going to go completely insane I never would have come back here. Is this what happens every time she wants to talk? Did Neal have to go through this bull shit?

“Oh so I guess ‘everything’ means screwing the one thing you could never have and having your friend cover for your sorry ass?”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Don’t give me that act! You told JC to give up his date with me so you could have a good chance to fuck with me! Not only did you do it physically, you did it emotionally too!” she practically screams at me. The tension is reaching all new levels and I can tell she’s about to throw something. Sure enough she grabs a glass of some unknown liquid and throws it in my direction. It sails past me and crashes into the door, the shards of glass raining down on me.

The girl is insane.

“Lauren…”

“And the fact that you had the audacity to act like you really care today when I was busting my ass for you all day! You really are something else, Justin.”

Okay, I’ll admit it, I fucked this up. Big time. I should have told her last night, or at least before the whole hubbub of today, but I didn’t. Because I didn’t have the balls to do it. And now this whole thing is falling down in flames and I was the one who caused it.

“But I do care, Lauren. I care about you, I care about us…”

“There isn’t an ‘us,’ Justin.”

“But there was last night. Lauren, believe me when I say that my intentions weren’t to take advantage of you in the least. I care about you a lot,” I begin and I know it’s now or never, but like always, Lauren always has something to add.

“You have a real fucked up way of showing it, Justin,” she mutters to herself and I can see that she’s grappling with the tears swimming in her eyes.

“Look, Lauren,” I begin to say and I take a few steps towards her. She walks away from me and I know that she doesn’t want to be near me right now and I can understand that. I didn’t exactly tell the truth but she has to know that I would never, ever use her for sex. I’ve stooped low in my life, but I would never go that low, “the reason why I took JC’s place was because I had to get you alone so I could tell you something important, but I was too much of a coward to do it last night and I was going to do it tonight, but…well you got your information mixed up. Probably because JC didn’t want to tell you what I promised him I would say to you last night…”

“Yeah okay, whatever,” Lauren dismisses and I can feel my reserve starting to break. She’s going to make me clam up and then I’ll never get it off my chest and that would be a very bad thing. I don’t want to destroy whatever it is we could have before we even start.

“Dammit Lauren, you’re making this harder than it needs to be! Please just shut up and listen before I lose my nerve again…”

“What are you going to charm me with your winning ways and get me to sleep with you again?”

“The only reason why I went as far as I did last night is because I really care for you…” well that came out wrong. ‘I care for you,’ what kind of fucked up thing is that to say? Way to be articulate during one of the most important moments of your life, Justin.

“Again, you have a real fucked up way…”

“No, I-I love you. I don’t know when it happened, I don’t know how it happened, but I love you and I know that that’s all that matters to me. And I know that you love me too.” That last statement was a little bit cocky, but I know she does. She has to, I mean, she wouldn’t be acting like this if she didn’t have some feelings towards me. And aside from the lying here and there, what’s not to love about me?

And now it feels like my heart is about to be ripped out of my chest. It’s on standby as I wait on bated breath for Lauren’s response. I have no idea what she’s going to say, I don’t know what’s going through her head right now. But it looks like she’s trying to compute what I’ve just said through her brain. I’m on pins and needles. Oh God…

She’s laughing. Hysterically. To the point where she’s almost rolling around on the floor. Tears are flowing freely from her eyes and she pulls her hat back to reveal a jovial face that makes my heart soar.

“You have got to be fucking kidding me.” And just like that my heart has just been shot down and it’s about to be mounted on the fucking wall. “You love me? That has got to be the best thing I have ever heard. Like…wow. Justin I knew you liked to lie, you liked to cover up your shit, but saying something like that? A new low. Bravo for you,” she manages to get out through her laughter.

“Wait, you think I’m joking?” I ask her and now it’s my turn for my blood to boil.

“You can’t be serious with this!” she exclaims and I nod my head solemnly to show that I am, in fact, not kidding around. I don’t throw the ‘L’ word around lightly and she knows this. “I mean, really. You…love me? Ha!”

“Fuck, Lauren,” I mutter under my breath. I thought this was going to be so easy. Tell her how I feel, she’ll fall into my arms and we’d live happily ever after. I never thought in a million years that she would assume I was joking about this.

“Yeah, that’s right. ‘Fuck Lauren.’ You do that well don’t you?” she growls and I can feel something inside of me snap.

I’ve been rejected, I’ve been shot down, and I’ve had my heart broken, but never like this. Britney went behind my back, Cameron was jealous and stopped caring, Melissa was jealous and became too clingy, but none of them have ever done something like this to my face. In fact, I prefer the whole behind the back thing because then they don’t have to see my reaction. They don’t have to see the tears well up in my eyes, they don’t have to see that I’m vulnerable. Lauren is seeing all these things and she doesn’t care. She just doesn’t give a flying fuck. And I think that’s what just sent me over the edge.

Before I can gather what I’m doing, I’m crossing the room in three quick strides and I have Lauren pinned up against the wall by her shoulders. She’s squirming, she’s yelling for all she’s worth, but I don’t care. I want her to get a real close look of what it feels like to have someone’s heart break in front of them and know that they’re the cause of it.

“What are you doing? Let me go!” she squeals but I ignore her blatant cries of indignation. “I swear to God if you don’t let me go I’ll cry rape!”

“You can be a huge bitch sometimes, but I love you just the same,” I say steadily and she stops yelling long enough to hear what I’ve had to say. I try to blink away the tears that are threatening to fall but one manages to escape. Great, way to look like a pussy when you’re trying to scare some sense into her. Good job, Justin.

“You don’t love me,” Lauren whispers back and we’re staring at each other eye to eye, “You don’t love me. You used me and how long would it be before you left me high and dry? How long would it take for you to find the next leggy model and leave me in the mud? When would you wake up and see that I’m not the one that you want? Let me go. I’m done as of tonight.”

“You aren’t done with me,” I say firmly, “You’ve got two more days left.”

“Fuck that. I’m through.”

“Lauren…”

“No. I’m done. Let me go I don’t want to be around you anymore. I can’t stand you right now. You may be able to take advantage of my time, but you’ll never have the chance to take advantage of me again. Period.”

“Don’t –”

“Yeah, I am. Let me go now. I’m out of here.” And I have no choice but to loosen my grip on her shoulders. She slams her hat down harder on her head and grabs her tan purse before she stalks towards the door. Her heels crunch into the glass that she threw at my head and I don’t know what to do. For the first time in a long time, I have no idea what I’m going to do.

Not two seconds pass and JC’s by my side, asking me what happened. I sit down on the couch and rest my head in my hands as I try my best to relay to JC what happened. “She wouldn’t listen,” I say softly and JC pats me on the back to offer some sort of solace.

“Why aren’t you going after her?” he questions me and I look up at him trying my best to hide the fact that I’m pretty much three seconds away from sobbing.

“Because she’s done,” I squeak and JC shakes his head.

“If you let her go now, you’ll lose her forever. Do you realize that? Don’t you dare let her get away this time,” he says firmly and for some odd reason, his words ring true. Since when do I really listen to what Lauren has to say? She tells me not to do something and I do it anyway. She says one thing and I do another. Since when is professing my love for her and getting shot down and letting her leave any different?

Leaping to my feet, I rush out of the green room and book it towards the exit. I know she’s heading back to the hotel and I have to stop her before she gets onto the subway or in a taxi. I’m not going to let her go. I can’t give up this easily.

I’m running down the street just outside the Roseland at quarter to four in the morning and I don’t see hide nor hair of Lauren anywhere. I keep looking however, and my heart leaps when I see her standing in the gutter, trying to hail a cab.

“Lauren!” I call and I see her visibly tense up in the lamplight before she frantically tries to hail another cab. “Stop!” I call again and I take off after her just as a cab pulls out of the early, early morning traffic and heads over towards her.

“Wait!” I’m at least four strides away from her and she’s won’t stop moving! Would she just fucking stop so I can grab onto her and knock some sense into her? “You aren’t getting into that cab!”

“Try to stop me!” she hollers back, her voice strained. Is she crying? She’s crying! That’s a good sign, it has to be! If this weren’t affecting her, she wouldn’t give a fuck and she’d be totally fine with leaving. But crying is a good sign! Oh thank Jesus!

“Lauren, we need to talk!”

She’s stepping off the curb, her fingers are curling around the door handle and suddenly she’s opened the door and shouting out the name of the hotel to the driver. I surge ahead and grab onto the car door before she has a chance to close it.

Lauren looks up at me and glares through her tears and I quickly lean forward and grab onto her arm, preventing her from getting into the cab all the way. She shoots me a threatening glare and I have a feeling that she’s going to kick my ass, but I don’t care.

“Stop this right now!” she cries but I shake my head.

“I’m not going to let you go. We aren’t going to end it like this,” I say frantically and she tries her best to yank herself free from my grasp but I hold strong.

“We never had anything to end in the first place! You do realize that we’d never be able to have anything because we’d be in a tailspin before we even got started…”

“But it did start!”

“And look what happened? Look what’s going on right now! We can’t do this, Justin… I can’t do this. I just can’t. Now please, let me go,” her voice has reached a new level of begging and my head is telling me to let go but I can’t. I won’t.

“I’m not going to give up this easily. I can’t, please Lauren. Please, we can talk this out…”

“I’m sorry,” she whispers and before I can get a better hold on her arm, she’s yanked it out of my grip. In a flash, the car door closes, locks, and the cab pulls out into the night leaving me standing on the curb. I let her go.

I lost her.

***