Yesterday. Yesterday I got lost in circles.

Yesterday turned into days, turning into weeks. One bad turn lead to another, bringing me right back to my same problem. Nothing I did, seemed to be the right choice. Living without learning.

Sprawled out all over the table were photos... weeks of photos. Images of myself, going into a bar, stumbling out of a bar, or somewhere along a pool with an alcoholic beverage in hand, but the photos were nothing compared to the ones Sam still held in his hand.

"This cannot happen." He forcefully points down at the stack in front of him, "This... ends now." The disappointment on his face was not something I had seen on him before. "This has to stop." He waved them in front of my face, tapping them off the edge of the table. "We have worked our tails off and avoided a lot of press from what could have been bad but this..." he shook his head in disappointment. "Malia..."

I took the photos into my hands and in my view, looking at the choices I had made. I was in the arms of a man, in Las Vegas, in the door way of what looked like my hotel room, his hands already underneath the hem of my top, clearly giving the image of why I would want a man in my room to begin with.

This was the moment I had chosen to block out. This was the event I couldn't stop thinking about, but yet couldn't remember too much about.

I covered my face in embarrassment. Guilty. My behavior had spun out of control and I was very aware of it. I always said I wouldn't be one of those celebrities who couldn't handle their own lives and used ‘things' to help cope with it. But I had turned into one of those people. I may not be buying drugs on some corner of Sunset Blvd, but I was no better than any of them. I had slipped into a level of depression, covering it with alcohol to avoid what was really going on around me. Worst of all, I involved a great man, who I never deserved, into my mess, only to have fallen for him at the worst possible time.

Without his arms, I have no home. I feel so lost without him.

            I didn't think a heart as broken as mine was, could love again. He changed that. He pulled me in, more than I ever wanted to be and a part of me that didn't want to let him in, let him in.

It was time for me to either tie our hearts together or cut the ties completely. I couldn't let Justin be strung along, I couldn't let my own heart live in heartache anymore. I was in love with him.

I had fallen, for Justin.

I glared down at the photo in my hand again. "Where is Justin?" I asked abruptly. "Do you know where he is?"

Sam looked across the table at me, "I don't know..." he said slightly confused. "We have things to take care of, let's not worry about Justin... that's another situation to deal with."

Justin was the only situation I wanted to deal with. He, was what I wanted to be dealing with.

I stood up, placing the photos on the table, "I have to go to him."

"Malia..." he said with force, "You have a show to do." The manager side of Sam was out in full force.

"The show is tomorrow. I can go to him and be back." I nearly begged as if I was a child. "My mind is clear for the first time, in a very long time. I need to go to him. I needed to tell him I loved him." I loved him. The words that I thought would never say again, let alone feel that way again, were all I wanted to do at this moment.

He lowered his head in defeat. "I'll find out where he is... I'll get you a private jet but you have to..."

"Sam." I said waving smile across my face. "I promise everything will be better after I do this. I will be back to the workaholic and tabloid drama free artist..."

            He takes his phone out of his pocket, dialing a number, asking a few questions, placing the phone back in his pocket with a smile on his face he says, "The plane will be here in an hour."

"Do you know where he is?" I asked surprised he had answers so quickly.

"You know... you could pick up the phone and just call him."

I laughed. "I know, but that would take away from the grand gesture, now wouldn't it?"

"He is closer than you think." He shook his head, rolling his eyes, "Malia... this..."

"I got it Sam." I threw up the scouts honor. "I promise."

I wasn't sure what he meant by he was closer than I thought, but it didn't matter. I didn't care how far I had to fly, where I had to end up. I just needed to be standing in front of him, telling him everything. I didn't know how the next conversation was going to be started, I didn't know how it was going to end, but the one thing I knew, was going to change everything.

Just as I began to get comfortable in the chair of the empty private plane, the pilot tells me we are about to land in Memphis.

He was on the east coast. He went home.

I stepped off the plane into the fresh crisp night air of Tennessee, with a heavy heart of the mission ahead. A mission I couldn't hold back from anymore. Just as my feet were planted on the pavement, my phone began to ring.

"I take it you are Sam's connection?"

Trace laughed, "Sam and I go way back."

"Of course." I laughed at him. "You just seem to know everyone."

"Well the one person I do know very well, is the only one that matters. And he... he needs you."

Trace's words meant so much and hurt just as much at the same time. I knew that it meant Justin was in pieces as well, which was going to make this task even harder.

"Black Diamond on Beale Street." He blurted out.

"A club?" I asked confused.

"The car that is sitting ten feet from you... get in the car and tell the driver you need the Black Diamond on Beale Street. At the front door give him my name."

"I don't think a club is the best place-"

Trace cut my words off, "Malia. Just listen to me."

I did just that. I climbed into the back of the town car that awaited me, and watched the buildings in the night sky pass as the car slowly pulled up to the long line of clubs on Beale Street.

            I approached the front door covered in security.

"Ma'am, can I help you?" The security guard turned quickly to stop me from entering the club.

What the hell was going on here? I thought to myself seeing a line barricaded around the building all blocked off everyone from entering the club.

"I'm meeting Trace Ayala. He said to come to the front door."

"Malia?" He questioned.

"Yes." I nodded my head.

"Follow me." He said before moving quickly towards the door.

He lead me through the dark club that had a man sitting at a piano, playing it softly of the stage. The stage was lit very dark and fit the mood he was playing.

A man's voice exhaled deeply into the microphone as I approached the sound booth. I stepped up the single step leading to a view of the stage. "So, I was sitting at my mother's house last night..." The man sort of chuckled at himself, "the house was quite and the TV was on in the background... I was looking at some things from my past..." he looks out over the crowd shaking his head. "This song... it..." He voice broke and the light revealed his face to me. "Like most incredible song writers, I bet when he sat down and the words came to him and the pain he was in, he never thought it would affect others in the impact that it has..." He adjusted the microphone in front of him, sitting up straighter on the bench, taking one last sip of his drink, placing it in front of him on a coaster, looking at the crowd again as the spotlight grew brighter on him. I knew that deep down he liked it better that way. The less he could see in a moment like this, the better. His nerves wouldn't get the best of him and he could sing without second guessing the looks on the faces in the crowd. He was ready to break open the pieces of his heart and lay them on the piano.

At the first notes be began to play, I knew what he was about to do. And I knew that I was about to be a puddle of tears on the floor of that sound booth. I looked at him, looked at the pain in his eyes as he continued to press each key. I turned away from him, turning to look at the Trace who was standing behind me. "I can't do this." I said with the first set of tears streaming down my face, "I can't listen to him sing this song... these lyrics and know that this is exactly how he is feeling right now."

Trace took my hand into his. "You have to stay. You have to see him. You have to make this right between the two of you."

I slowly pulled my hand out of his, "Sometimes, there is a reason these things don't work out. Sometimes, it's just not meant to be."

"And sometimes... they are just simply meant to be." He turned my body back around to look at his hands dancing along the keys to a song that was undoubtedly shattering me into pieces.

His voice began to escape his lungs, "Alone in this house again tonight, I got the TV on, the sound turned down and a bottle of wine." His voice smooth and perfect echoed through the club. He closed his eyes tight, feeling the pain of lyrics. "There's pictures of you and I on the walls around me. The way that it was and could have been surrounds me. I'll never get over you walkin' way."

His eyes revealed the most pain. I watched as his fingers flowed, the veins in his arms inflated over the surface of his skin. He swallowed hard. "I've never been the kind to ever let my feelings show and I thought that bein' strong meant never losin' your self-control. But I'm just drunk enough to let go of my pain, to hell with my pride, let it fall like rain from my eyes." He swallowed hard again, "Tonight I wanna cry."

His fingers traveled across the black and white keys with ease, like he had done so many times before but this time, his eyes seemed lost.

"I've never been the kind to ever let my feelings show and I thought that bein' strong meant never losin' your self-control."-He looks over at the sound booth for the first time of the night. The tension in his shoulders and his face released. The veins in his arms and neck, that were always present when he was stressed, vanished. Color returned as a smile started to creep up on his face. His hand goes up over his face, shading the light from his eyes. Through the tears in my eyes and a puddle around me, I smiled back at him. This silly southern boy, has stolen my heart and I didn't want it back.

"I see you." He said into the microphone, exhaling a breathe he dropped his head, smiling from ear to ear. His hands went to the back of his neck as he stretched into the air. Back to the keys in front of him, his fingers spread out over the keys, he doesn't begin to play, he simply finishes the song with just the words, and his voice. "But I'm just drunk enough to let go of my pain, to hell with my pride, let it fall like rain from my eyes..." He looked over at me one last time, smiling. "Cause, tonight I wanna cry."

The crowd erupted into cheers, clapping and wiping the tears from their own eyes, he took in their compliments for a moment before standing, nodding his head in thanks and exiting the stage.