Deranged Delusions

22. You'll Be In My Heart

 And I royally fucked up.

Like, worse than royally. I can’t even begin to comprehend how much I’ve screwed this whole thing up. And I have no idea how I’m going to fix this. I can’t bring her flowers, cant buy her jewelry, fuck I can’t even freaking talk to her, so how the hell am I going to make this better?

I manage to make my way back to the venue and I’m not in the mood to deal with the various people milling about backstage, ready to talk to me. I really just want to go back to the hotel and sit outside of Lauren’s door and wait until she comes back out so I can get a word in; so I can explain myself. But I wouldn’t even know where to begin.

The first person I see as I stalk back into the green room is JC. I don’t want to look at him and judging by his disgruntled sigh, I can tell he knows that I wasn’t successful in bringing Lauren back with me. Sitting down on the couch, I put my head in my hands and try my best to keep everything together. Not that I want to get anything together. I’d much rather be a mess right now than try to work things out because I’ve just suffered the ultimate rejection.

And for some strange reason I want to talk to her again and face even more refusal if that’ll mean I get to be near her again.

“You’re going to get through this, man,” JC says quietly, “Just give her some space and talk to her in the morning.”

I wish I could wait that long. I have to speak with her, now.

Getting to my feet, I bypass JC and walk towards the exit, garnering many confused looks from the various people milling about backstage waiting to talk with me or someone affiliated with me. I really don’t have the time, energy, or patience to deal with these people so I ignore them. Color me a bastard, but I don’t care.

Out the back door of the venue to my waiting car. I think the driver is surprised because he isn’t expecting me for at least another hour. He’s leaning against the side of the car, looking at a newspaper in the dim alley light but he jumps to attention when he realizes that I’m outside. I wordlessly get inside the car and without asking the guy knows exactly where to take me.

I only pay the big bucks when it comes to people driving me around.

The traffic is terrible considering there are people leaving the show, and then there’s the traffic from the VMAs, so I don’t get back to the hotel for another forty-five minutes. It’s late, I’m highly irritated, and I’m sure that my heart is still trying to save some face seeing as it was trampled on less than an hour ago. I don’t think I’ll be able to deal with anybody’s shit tonight or I’ll explode. Simple as that.

Without speaking to anybody, I get out of the car and head into the hotel via the back entrance. There’s no way in hell I can deal with photographers, fans, and other random people with their fake smiles and them always wanting something from me. Why should I give them what they want when the only thing I need is upstairs in her hotel room, probably pissed at the world.

Yeah, it’s selfish, but I don’t give a flying fuck right now.

On the elevator, ascending towards the hell I know is waiting for me. I know I’ll be asking for it, knocking on her door, but I have to talk to her. I can’t go to bed knowing that there’s this enormous rift between us. I mean, sure, if this were a year or so ago, I’d probably tell her she was being a catty bitch and she needs to get over herself and then go to bed, because back then I just didn’t really care about her that much. But things can change, and I’m happy that it did. I’m a better person because of it.

My feet automatically carry me to her room and I’m pounding on her door. It isn’t a polite little knock; it is full on banging and slamming. If she were sleeping, which I know she isn’t, it’d be impossible for her not to hear me. A deaf person could hear me.

“Lauren, open the door!” I holler but there isn’t a response. I bang harder. She is not going to get away with acting like a little child because I won’t let her. I’ll pound on the door all night if I have to. I’m not leaving until I see her.

“Lauren this is stupid, open the fucking door and stop acting like an eight year old!”

No reply. I’m getting pissed.

Pound. Slam. Slam. Yell. Repeat.

“Christ,” I mutter as I let my forehead rest against the door. My hands are throbbing from the force of hitting them against her door, and my eyes are tired. I just put on two shows for millions of people and I’m exhausted because of one fucking person. “Come on Lauren,” I murmur before I close my eyes and find myself wishing with all my might that she’d open the door.

I don’t know what she wants me to do.

Turning around, I let my back relax against the door and I slowly slide down until my butt hits the floor. I let the back of my head lean again the door and I let out a big, pent up breath.

“I don’t know what to do with you. Honestly, I have no idea how to go about this,” I say quietly. She probably can’t hear me, but I’ll feel better saying this aloud, knowing that she’s on the other side of the door, either sleeping or doing something to ignore me. “I don’t know what you heard tonight, but I never wanted to intentionally hurt you. I just want to love you…” I pause and think about what I just said before I start to laugh, “And I hope you know I just quoted one of my own songs.” Good God I feel like a complete and total tool.

“I hope you can forgive me, because I really am sorry and maybe, hopefully, we can get past this. We’ve been able to get through everything else, maybe we can carry each other’s hearts through this mess without completely mutilating them. I know I’ll take care of yours as best I can. Fuck, I don’t even know if I have yours, but you have mine. You’ll have mine for a very long time.”

I feel like such a sap but I don’t care. I laugh softly to help me deal with the silence as I get to my feet. Letting a hand rest on the door, I pat it softly, “Night, Lauren. I’ll be by in the morning.” I can’t stand here and wait for her. She’s a stubborn kid and I’m not going to press her into opening the door because she won’t be ready and I don’t think I’ll be ready either.

I just won’t sleep at all tonight.

New day. New possibilities. New image of me waiting outside of Lauren’s door.

I managed to get some sleep the night before but I was up at eleven o’ clock and outside of Lauren’s room, knocking on the door and hoping that she’s up and ready to talk. I’ve been standing here for the past two hours and so far, there hasn’t been a single sign of her.

A part of me is thinking that she upped and left early in the morning and I had no chance to explain myself further and she won’t ever come back. But something is telling me that she’s still here, just not in the hotel. She’s still in the City and she’ll be coming back sometime today. I just have to wait.

“Dude, what are you doing out here?” I look up and see Marty standing over me, giving me a look that is screaming ‘pathetic loser.’

“Waiting for Lauren,” I explain and he rolls his eyes before he leans against the opposite wall.

“She ain’t here, man,” he says casually before he lights up a cigarette. It’s a nonsmoking hall but I don’t say anything. I just want to know where the fuck she went.

“And where is she?”

“I don’t know. She left the hotel at like, ten. Looked like hell, but definitely seemed like she had somewhere to go. She had that whole ‘business’ thing that she gets whenever she’s doing something important. Know what I’m talking about?” he asks and I nod. She was like that when she first started working for me. Expensive business suits, impeccable manners and dress. Never was one to say something out of place and she carried everything on her shoulders. This is so confusing.

“What do I do?”

“Well are you going to wait for her outside her damn door all day? That reads kinda desperate, not to mention stalker. Just go wait for her in the lobby. Get some coffee, read a newspaper, there’s no way you can miss her there.”

Well there’s no way I can miss her if I’m waiting outside her damn door. But then again I’m sick of waiting in the same monotonous hallway. I need a change of pace. Getting to my feet, I walk past Marty and head towards the elevators.

So it was a pretty big mistake waiting for Lauren to return to the hotel in the lobby. I’m getting all sorts of crazy looks from the various girls staying in the hotel, or loitering around, waiting for me to notice them. I haven’t really noticed any of them, really, because I’m intensely watching the revolving doors that Lauren will walk through, hopefully soon because I’m about to just give up and go back to my room and forget about this whole thing.

But I’ll wait five more minutes.

And those five minutes pass by with a vehement slowness. I want to pluck my own eyes out or stop myself from breathing because if there’s one thing I don’t do well, it’s being patient. And it’s waiting that’s killing me and setting me on edge. It might also be the extra large latte that’s sitting on my knee, and it might also be the fact that this is my third one.

I better head back to my room because if I don’t kill myself out of sheer boredom and anxiety, then I will definitely piss my pants and that won’t look good on the cover of US Weekly.

I’m about to finish off the rest of my drink and set it down on the coffee table so the fans, who have been circling my position like a pack of ravenous boars, can fight over the empty cups when I look up and see a figure push her way through the revolving door.

She’s got huge sunglasses on, as if to ward away any unwanted sunlight, and her hair is down and shadowing her face. But I know that walk anywhere. It’s Lauren and she’s back.

Finally. I was going to report a Missing Person’s Report on her ass.

Getting up, I rush after her, hoping to catch her on the elevator, but she’s moving way too fast for me to catch up. She’s gabbing on her phone to someone and I can’t make out what she’s saying thanks to the din of weary tourists and traveling businessmen. She gets on one of the elevators and, before I can muscle my way past idle people, the doors have closed and she’s on her way up to our floor.

Dammit.

I try to wait as patiently as I can for the next elevator and finally the doors open with a faint ‘ding,’ and I rush inside. Thankfully there aren’t a lot of people sharing the ride and before I know it, I’m on the floor that I’ve been calling home for the past few days. I don’t head towards my room, but I stop in front of Lauren’s and rest my hand against the door. Really, was it only two nights ago that we were standing out here practically ripping each other’s clothes off? I’d do anything to go back to that.

The hallway is so quiet that I can hear Lauren still talking away on her phone through the heavy door. It’s muffled but I can still make it out…

“Just box everything up for me. I’ll pick them up when I get to LA and have them sent out,” her voice says calmly. I hear a thud and she swears loudly which causes me to smile. Why do I love it when she swears? I usually hate it when women swear around me, but Lauren does it so…well.

It’s now or never. I knock on the door loudly and wait.

“Nothing Charlene, it’s just the bellhop. Look, I’ll call you later. Thanks again, bye.” And on that last word she opens up the door quickly and her face falls when she realizes that it isn’t the bellhop, but her dear old boss.

“Where did you go?” I ask as I shove my way past her and walk into her room. The entire place is in disarray. Clothes are strewn everywhere and her two suitcases are sitting on her bed, clothes peeking out of them.

“I don’t think that’s any of your business,” she says curtly as she lets the door slam behind her. She walks into my line of site and continues to throw her clothes in her luggage, throwing her cleanliness to the wind. I’ve never seen her like this, in such a disorder.

“Of course it’s my business,” I counter, “You work for me.”

“Like hell I do.”

“Why are you doing this?” I question loudly before I sit in between her suitcase and start to play around with the zipper of her luggage. I’m nervous but I don’t want her to see it, I don’t want her to see that this distance between us is upsetting me, because then she’d never let me hear the end of it. “Why can’t we just talk?”

“I don’t want to talk right now,” she whispers quietly and she disappears into the bathroom. I’m silent for a moment, listening as she gathers what I’m assuming to be a dozen toiletries.

“Then when can we talk?” I ask and she reappears, arms full with shampoo bottles, makeup, soap, and not to mention the lotions and gels that the hotel sets up for their guests. And I thought I was the only one who took those at the end of a stay. She bites her lip and throws her items in one of the suitcases.

“Hmm…how about, never?”

“Lauren, please just hear me out!” she walks towards the closet at the front of the room and disappears inside it, no doubt getting things out of the in room safe or something like that. The beeping and opening of a mechanical door solidify my thoughts and I sit on the bed, still playing with the zipper. I spot a bit of the bra she was wearing two nights ago and I have the slight urge to reach in and touch it.

Not the time or the place, buddy.

“Lauren?” I call out after a few drawn out seconds of silence. 

“What?” her voice is hollow, desolate, and I know that my presence is bugging the hell out of her but I’m not going to leave until she tells me where she went, and where she’s going. I’m stubborn like that.

“Would you just talk to me, please?” I’m pleading now and I don’t care. I don’t want to not talk to her about this and I want to talk her out of going wherever it is she’s going, “I just want to talk.”

“About what? I don’t see what we need to talk about,” she says in a no nonsense voice as she reappears from the closet, holding a few jackets and a bag of what I’m assuming, is jewelry. I should have bought her jewelry, she would have liked that. Peace offering gift, God Justin you are stupid!

“You know what we need to talk about, and you need to just sit down, stop packing…where the heck are you going anyway?” I ask her. She rolls her eyes oh so eloquently and picks up her laptop, throwing it in her oversized purse.

“I’m going home.”

“What, Worden?” I ask her. Do flights from New York City even land in Montana?

“No dumbass, LA,” she snaps and I automatically recoil at her tone. I hate it when she gets super bitchy at me, which is what she’s been doing a lot these past couple of days, but hey, I deserve it. But I don’t need it right now, not when I’m giving her a peace offering.

“You can’t go back to LA. You still work for me, remember?”

“As of one thirty this afternoon I don’t have anything to do with you anymore,” she reveals before she closes the suitcase on my left and zips it shut. She turns away to keep packing and I indignantly zip her suitcase open again and start to pull out her clothes. Like hell she’s going anywhere.

“What are you doing?” she yells and rushes forward, grabbing the clothes from my hands, “Put those back! Justin, I’m serious, just leave me alone.”

“I’m not leaving you alone until we can sit down and talk and you can tell me what the fuck you mean about you not working for me anymore. Last time I checked Clive had you with me until the end of my tour, and if my memory serves me right, there’s still another show left!”

“Well look at you, big boy and all, remembering your schedule,” she jeers, “Looks like you don’t need me anymore.”

“But I do need you, dammit! I need you a hell of a lot more than you realize,” her eyes widen and she snatches more clothes from my hand before shoving them in her suitcase. I refuse to be beaten down this time and I finally go the extra mile and overturn her suitcases onto the floor, clothes and all spilling all over the place.

“Do you realize I have a cab waiting for me downstairs and I have to be on a plane in under two hours?”

“Sorry, you aren’t going to be on that plane, not if I have a say about it.”

“Well you don’t have a say because, one: you aren’t my boss anymore and two: I don’t have to listen to a damned thing that comes out of your mouth and I’m doing that right now,” she scowls before she overturns her suitcases and starts to pack again.

God damn this girl just won’t quit.

“Lauren you have to listen to me please, I’m begging you.”

“Begging would have worked a long time ago, it isn’t going to work now. Now get out of the way or I’m calling security,” she grumbles while she throws more clothes into her suitcases.

“Okay, really now Lauren, this is fucking ridiculous. You’re acting like a child and the last thing I need to do is babysit you until the bellhop gets here.”

“Last time I checked no one was asking you to stay. In fact, I prefer that you leave.”

“You know I’m not going to leave until we talk,” I point out and she rolls her eyes yet again as she runs her hand through her hair. I can see her reserve failing and finally her shoulders sag and she turns to look at me.

“Fine. What do you want to talk about?”

“Where did you go today?” I blurt out before I can really get a grip on what it is that I really want to talk about. I just want to know where the hell she went.

“I went to the Jive offices today,” she starts and already I know this whole thing is going downhill really fast.

“Why?”

“I asked to be moved,” she says quietly while she kneels over the overturned suitcase and I don’t know whether to be angry or upset.

“What do you mean?” I ask, hopefully she’ll be able to elaborate. And it won’t be what I’m thinking. Maybe she’ll be moved to working for JC and I’ll be able to see her a lot more, or maybe she’s being moved to work somewhere else under my account, but it can’t mean…

“They’re transferring me to the European branch in London,” she says surely, her words sounding as foreign as the place. And she’s left me more dumbfounded than before.

“But you aren’t going, are you?”

“Oh? I’m sorry, did you not see me packing?” Lauren questions sarcastically as she holds up a piece of clothing, “Did you not see my luggage?”

“Now is not the time to get smart with me, Lauren. Please,” I say. I don’t think she knows that she’s treading on extremely fragile ground. Hearing her saying that she wants to get away from me…it hurts.

“So when is the right time to get smart? When is the right time to be <i>anything</i> around you? One minute I think I can be your friend; you turn into my worst enemy! I think I can be a good employee, you make me feel like I can’t do anything right! You make me start to think that I could love…” her voice fades away and she brings a hand up to her mouth to stifle what I’m thinking is tears, “It doesn’t matter now. Because I’m leaving.”

“But you can start to think those things because they’re true, Lauren. They’re all true. You’re one of the closest friends I’ve ever had. My life would be a mess if you weren’t there helping me through every single step of the way. And you can love me, it’s okay because I love you,”

“No, no, no, no, no!” Lauren chants loudly and she slams her suitcase shut before she picks it up and pulls her other suitcase away from me and heads for the door. I get up off the bed and follow her, hoping to God I can talk some sense into her before she leaves.

“Lauren you’re being an idiot! Please, let’s talk about this okay?”

“I told you I don’t want to talk about this! I’m going back to LA, getting my shit together, and leaving,” she snarls as she opens the door and starts to yank her suitcases down the hall. I guess the bellhop be damned.

“Lauren,” I say quietly…well, as quietly as I can in a hallway while Lauren is swearing under her breath and trying her best to roll two enormous suitcases on her own, “You don’t have to be afraid.”

“I’m not afraid,” she says with indifference as she waits for the elevator, trying her best to keep her eyes off of me.

“Nah, you are, and that’s okay. We can get through this together, if you just let me in.”

I look up at the top of the elevator doors and see that there’s one that’s six floors away. I have at least thirty seconds to convince her to stay and yet I have no idea what I’m going to do. I’m about to say something again when I hear a door open down the hallway and suddenly someone is calling my name.

“Justin!” Lauren and I both turn to look at who it is and I find myself rolling my eyes as Trace leans farther out of his room and motions for me to come towards him. I shake my head and turn back towards Lauren, our eyes meeting for a split second before she turns away.

I could still see the tears in her eyes.

“Laur…”

“Justin you ass, come here!” Trace yells louder and I wonder why I don’t keep a muzzle on the fool whenever I don’t want to hear from him.

“What, Trace? I’m kind of busy right now.”

“Did you forget that you have a Z100 interview in like…a minute? Come on man! What could you be doing that is so important?”

Um does he not see Lauren with her suitcases and the fact that she’s about to get out of my life forever? Does he not understand the urgency of this situation? Jesus, I guess Trace is fucking stupid.

The bell on the elevator sounds and the doors slide open and my heart starts to completely deflate. She takes a step forward and enters the elevator, finally turning around to face me.

“Justin, would you hurry up?”

“I guess duty calls, huh?” Lauren says hoarsely as she looks at me, her eyes brimming with tears.

“Lauren…I’m sorry.”

“It’s a little too late for that,” she says quietly and the doors slowly slide shut, leaving me staring at the brass doors, Trace still yelling in my ear.

***