We arrived in Maryland for a few days and Justin and Trace are still not speaking. Well, Trace is talking, Justin is just ignoring him. What does that all mean for me you ask? I’m am so glad you asked. It means that I have an equivalent of a golden retriever insisting on following me wherever I go. I’m lucky I can pee alone. Justin drags me along to whatever he has to do, which means I no longer have down time since when he did things with Trace was my time and when I have to do something, he insists on coming. Sometimes I swear I fantasize about putting him to sleep. Being around Justin all day can get tiring when I can’t relax, I always have to be ready to work. Ugh.

Justin and I sit in a dinner as we grab a little dinner at around twelve thirty. I ordered a hamburger and fries, but I only had a few bites before I was done. The schedule has caught up to me and I am feeling beyond tired right now. Justin looks about the same as he barely touches his pasta. His bodyguards watch the table to make sure nothing happens to him and it’s a little unnerving that someone is watching your every move. I guess when you are that popular though you need some kind of security.

“You okay?”

I realize I’ve been day dreaming out the window of finally being able to go to bed, “Yeah, I’m just a little tired.”

“Me too. You get a high being on stage but once I get off, you could stick a fork in me.”

I look at him humorously at the choice of words. He looks confused for a moment at my expression but I see his face change as he goes over his words and I laugh a little, “Oh, well not a real high. At least not the one you can get from a illegal substance.”

“Well where would the fun be if it wasn’t illegal and deadly.”

Justin rolls his eyes, “You wouldn’t understand.”

“Oh yeah, it’s so hard to understand that you are eventually going to kill yourself and it will be your own fault, no one else’s.”

Justin looks annoyed and ends the conversation, “Well we can agree to disagree.”

I try to eat a fry, “Whatever you say.”

“You should tell me that more often.”

I take a sip of my coke, “I would if you were right more than once in a blue moon.”

“I’m right a whole lot more than that.” He argues.

“Right, and I’m going to run for the presidency.” I say.

“Well it’s going to take a whole lot more than a smart mouth to get me to vote for you.”  

“I’m sure. You need me in a school girl uniform and on a desk before you would vote for me.”

Justin smirks, “At least you understand where I’m coming from.”

I look at my watch and groan inwardly. I just want to go to bed, curl up under the sheets and get up when I feel like it. Justin yawns, “Are you ready to go?”

I nod and he pulls out a few bills and puts them on the table. We get up from our seats and make our way out of the dinner. It is only a short drive back to the hotel and I make sure to know what the schedule is tomorrow before I fall asleep. Justin gets out of the car and hands me a bottle of water I had left in the car, “So how is everything looking?”

“Fine, nothing pressing for tomorrow so you can sleep in until ten. You have a short radio interview to do around eleven thirty and then the concert.”

He nods, “Okay, goodnight.”

“Night.”

I ride the elevator up to my floor and out the card in the designated slot, opening the door. I can barely keep my eyes open as I search through my suitcase for a tee shirt and shorts. The door opens to the adjoining room and Gia comes through it, “Hey, I thought I would never see you again.”

I smile and go over to her, wrapping my arms around her waist, “Me either. Justin’s got me whipped.”

She groans, “I have no idea what has gotten into him. In all the time I have worked for Johnny I have never seen him fight with Trace, let alone cling to his assistant afterwards.”

I shrug, “I guess there is a first time for everything.”

“We need to get them talking again if we ever want to spend time together.”

“What are we going to do? Lock them in a closet together and tell them to make up?”

Gia giggles, “If I could have locked him in a closet I would have done it a long time ago.”

“It’s funny though, I don’t even know what they are fighting about.” I muse, pulling down the covers to my bed.

“Probably wanted to bang the same girl and it turned out she was a lesbian.”

“Mmmm, you are probably right.” I laugh.

“I always am.” Gia says, going back to her room.

“Oh, I forgot to tell you, I got some flowers from Jake.”

Gia gasps and turns right around, getting on the bed, “I knew you guys hit it off! He was so into you.”

“I guess he liked me. He gave me his phone number so I might just call him.”

“Go for it. You have been sex deprived for far too long.”

That is the understatement of the year, “Thanks G.”

“No problem. You get some sleep and hopefully I’ll see you tomorrow.”

I grin as I turn over onto my stomach and drift off to sleep.

______________________________________________________________

I haven’t gotten high in two days and I am starting to get really antsy. I feel really disoriented and lost. Unfortunately since I’m not talking to Trace right now so all I have is Beth, who we all know is not real happy about my drug use and flushed what I had left. I had some whisky to drink before I went to bed last night which calmed me some, but it’s still not the same thing. All I want is to be as carefree as I feel when I take them.

I stumble out of bed and get dressed, getting into the awaiting car with Beth and heading to the radio station. We pull up and go inside where the screams start. Beth covers her ears as security keeps the girls from attacking me. The door is opened to the room were supposed be in and we go inside. I sit in the chair across from the idiot with the head set on and Beth stands in the corner.

“So Justin, you have a whirlwind tour going on right now, a scandalous magazine article written from your own mouth and a reputation for knowing how to party. How do you balance that with your work?”

If only I could slam my fist into this guy, “Well, only believe half of what you read. I’m thrilled to be touring again and as for the article, everybody is just looking to sell their magazines.”

“I mean, it’s not like we didn’t all know you were snorting away and hooking up, you just confirmed our suspicions. You take advantage of being around people who worship you.”

I become visibly annoyed, “I have slept with a few girls and done drugs. So what? Why don’t you call the presses and tell them to stop rolling, I have done what no other musician has done before.”  

“Well, can you even call yourself a musician? You don’t even play an instrument.” He says, obviously trying to get a rise out of me by the fact that his smile widens with every one of my aggravated sighs.

His ass is mine, “Uh, yeah I am a musician as apposed to arrogant dick who will be replaced by another disk jockey in a year.”

The guy laughs, “I wouldn’t call your music timeless kid.”

“At least I don’t sit on my ass all day and eat doughnuts till I’m the size of a blimp.”

“Ladies and gentlemen, the great and almighty Justin Timberlake at his best. I mean really, you preach about loyalty and honesty when the second you spilt with a girl, you do a huge kiss and tell on whatever radio airwaves you can get on. Not only have you shared sexually explicit material about past girlfriends, you treat the women in your life so poorly that Cameron Diaz doesn’t having anything positive to say about you.”

I just sit there as Beth motions to the guy the interview is over, “Well, Justin Timberlake is leaving us now. Thanks for the whole five minutes, I’m sure your fans really appreciate it.”

I get up and throw the headphones down, storming out of the interview and into the car. Beth gets in after me and sighs, rubbing her forehead.

“Why didn’t you stop him?” I ask her angrily.

“Why didn’t I? I would have had to stop him three seconds in. You saw Rolling Stone, you knew what you were in for. What about you? You didn’t have to attack him they way you did. Maybe if you were nicer he might have been easier on you.”

I don’t say anything, instead choosing to pull out a mini bottle of alcohol and drinking it in one sip. Beth goes for the bottle but I don’t let her get a chance to get her hands on it.  

“Fine, go ahead and pout.” She says in frustration.

We get to the arena and go inside. I make a beeline for the gym and start pounding the basketball into the floor and aggressively shooting the ball, if that is even possible. Beth walks in and sinks to the floor and watches me.

The door on the other side of the gym opens up and a kid about twelve starts running down the court, “Belle!”

Beth’s head jerks up and freezes as the kid slams into her with a bear hug, “I missed you!”

“Sam? What are you doing here?” Beth asks in alarm.

I stop bouncing the ball and come over to them. Sam has got his arms in a death grip around her and Beth looks worried and confused at the same time.

“I was staying with Grandma and she dropped me off for the day so I could spend it with you.”

“Oh hon, I thought I would call you when you could come and see me.”

“I know, but Grandma said I could come.”

Johnny comes into the gym angrily, “Bethany, can I speak with you now?”

Beth looks down at Sam and doesn’t know what to do. I step closer to the two of them and put a hand on Sam’s shoulder, “You must be Beth’s brother.”

Sam nods eagerly, “Yep.”

“Well your sister has to do something for a few minutes, you want to hang out with me and play ball until she gets back?”

“Sure. Not everyone can play ball with a superstar.”

I smirk, I like this kid already. Beth tries to interject but Johnny calls her again so she bends down to Sam, “I’ll call my friend if I’m gone more than fifteen minutes to take you back to my hotel room alright?”  

Sam nods and grabs the ball from my hands and starts to dribble it, sinking into the hoop. Beth reluctantly leaves and Sam throws the ball to me, “So how is it being famous and all?”

I guess the kid isn’t shy or star struck, “It okay most if the time. You in school?”

Sam nods, “I am, I have one last week to do and then I am done for the summer.”

Memories flood my head, “I used to love when school ended. It meant I could sleep in every day.”

“I love my school. I really like math and science, so Belle pays for me to go to a special school.”

“A special school?” I ask confused.

“Like a magnet school, an advanced school. It’s kind of like skipping grades even though you’re not because the school work is harder.”

“And you like that?” I ask, shooting the ball.

“I was bored at my other school. Now I don’t get bored.”

I stand in awe, “How old are you?”

Sam dribbles before shooting, “Twelve.”

“Are you the youngest?”

“Yeah. Belle calls me hers because there is such an age difference.”

 “Is Beth your only sibling?”

Sam thinks about it before tossing me the ball, “She’s my only living one.”

“What do you mean?”

“My sister Sarah died from a drug overdose when I was seven. I don’t really remember her because she lived with my dad and we lived with my mom, but Belle does.”

I stand in shock. It’s like when you are trying to do a jigsaw puzzle when you are missing the pieces and then all of a sudden, you find them and put the whole thing together. Everything Beth has done up until this point suddenly makes sense. She saw her sister in me.       

Beth comes back into the gym and looks like she might cry at any moment, which Sam picks up on immediately, “Belle, you okay?”

I look up at Beth and I see her study me before getting more upset. I’m sure my expression tells her that I know about Sarah. I don’t want her to feel like I was prying; it’s a normal question to ask a kid when you’re meeting one for the first time. It’s not like I specifically asked who Sarah was.

Beth holds out her hand, “Yeah, I’m fine. Let’s go get you something to eat.”

Sam gives me back the ball with a wave and I watch the two of them leave the gym.