=Chapter Eight=Coming to a Realization=

“Lola, are you listening to me?” I heard Dreana ask as she snapped her fingers a couple of times.  I quickly looked over at her.  What was she doing calling me Lola?  Yes, I knew it was only me and her in the room but you never know who could walk in. “You’re not listening to me.  You need to, if we want to pull this off.  What is up with you?”

Dee flopped down on the couch next to me.  I bit my lower lip and sighed.  I felt bad cause I hadn’t told her that Justin and I were dating.  It had only been a couple of days but she was my assistant for crying out loud.  I should have told her the moment we decided to date but I was just too excited and I’d been busy the last couple of days.

Plus it’s not like Justin and I were around each other that much in the few days that had passed.  He’d been doing promotional stuff for the tour and so had I but we were doing totally different shows and events.  So we hadn’t been together all that much in the last week.

“You’re not telling me something.  What is going on girl?” Dreana asked as she turned to face me.  She folded her legs underneath herself and laid her hands in her lap.  I licked my lips and took a deep breath. “You can tell me anything.  You know that.  Hell, you’re like a sister to me, both you and your sister.  You know I never had any siblings.  You two are my sisters.  Now what is going on?”

“Well…” I started but stopped.  I wasn’t sure why this was so hard to tell her.  She was right, we were like sisters and I guess I was sort of ashamed of myself for not telling her. “What would you do if I told you that I was going out with Justin?” I asked in almost a whisper.

“I’d tell you that you need to break up with him…and that…” She stopped and looked me square in the eyes. “You’re joking right?  Lola, you are not dating Justin.” I glanced at her and then looked away. “Lola Rachelle, what the hell are you thinking?  You can’t date Justin.  You know it’s never going to work out between you two, don’t you?  It’s not like you can confess everything to him.  He’ll feel betrayed.  You have to call it off.”

I sighed and laid my head back against the couch.  I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.  Well she was taking this about the way that I thought she would.  I had a feeling she’d freak out on me.  I just hoped that I was wrong.

“You have to end it.  There’s no way that you two can date.  Lola, you can’t concentrate on pretending to be your sister and date Justin at the same time.  That’s too much for you to handle.  Believe me, look at every other celebrity relationship, they never last.  What makes you think that yours and Justin’s will?  You’re holding the mother of all secrets.”

I wanted to scream.  I knew that Dreana was right but I badly wanted her to be wrong.  I wanted mine and Justin’s relationship to work but in the long run I knew it wouldn’t.  All you had to do was look in the magazines and see all of the celebrity couples breaking up.  She was right, I did have the mother of all secrets.  I wasn’t who I said I was, I was pretending to be my twin sister, who was in rehab.  That’s a pretty big secret.

“I know, you’re right…but Dee, I can’t break up with him.  I mean at least not yet.  He’d wonder what was going on.  I’ll date him for a few months.  What’s the worst that could happen?  I mean, probably in couple of months he’ll break up with me before I break up with him.  I can’t bring myself of break up with him.  Plus, you never know, we could make it.  And we’ve only been going out for like a week now.  It would seem to sudden to break up with him now.”

I opened my eyes and looked over at Dreana.  She gave me the look.  The look that said I don’t like this.  She sighed and looked away.  She ran a hand through her hair.

“All right, I’ll let you do this but, if things start getting out of hand, you have to end it.  If things are starting too get too serious, it needs to end.  I don’t want you getting in too deep and regretting it.”

Dreana looked back at me.  I couldn’t help but smile.  It was strange, I sort of felt like Dreana was my mother and I was her teenage daughter wanting to go out with an older guy.  She wanted to protect me.  Which I thought was pretty funny; since Dee was only a couple of years older than me.  But I knew she was here to help me pull this off.

“I won’t get in too deep, I promise,” I said confidently even though I had feeling that I would get to a point of no return.  I feared for that day.  I didn’t want that day to come.

=

“Hey you,” I heard Justin say was he walked up behind me and wrapped his arms around my waist.  He looked around for a second and kissed me on the cheek.  I couldn’t help but smile.  I glanced around the room at the small group that was getting the studio ready for our photo shoot for Rolling Stone magazine.

“Hey, how are you?” I asked as I turned around in his arms.  I looked up into his blue eyes.  I couldn’t help but continue to smile. 

I knew Dee was right, I shouldn’t be going out with Justin but I couldn’t stop myself.  He was too charming and too sweet.  I felt like I could be myself with him.  Well as much of myself as I could be when I was pretending to be my sister.

“I’m doing great, now that you’re here.  How have you been?” Justin released me from his grasp and tucked his hands in his pockets.  I didn’t want him to let me go but I knew he didn’t want more rumors of us dating going around.  At least not at the moment.  We’d already had to fight a few in the last week.

I hated lying but at this point that’s all I’ve done for the last month.  So the lying wasn’t near as hard as it had been in the beginning.  Which I felt bad about.  It wasn’t right to lie and I hated doing it but I had to.  If I wanted to pass as Kenzie, I had to.

“Busy but good,” I answered with a small yawn and added, “and tired.”

“Well wake up, we have a photo shoot, we have to act lively for,” Justin said as he wrapped his arm around my shoulder and started guiding over toward the group of people.  I shook my head.

“But I don’t want to, I want to curl up in bed with you,” I whined as I looked up at him.  He laughed and pulled me closer.

“We can do that later,” Justin responded then leaned down and whispered in my ear, “and maybe more.”

My mouth fell open and I gave him a small shove.  He was thinking about sex this early in the relationship.  Well…he was male so I guess he was always thinking about sex.  I never had any intention of sleeping with Justin.  I knew as soon as I did that I’d be in too deep and I was trying my best not to do so.

“Kenzie, we need to get you into hair and makeup and wardrobe.  Same with you Justin,” Dreana said as we approached her.  I looked over at her and nodded.  I was a little happy that she’d rescued me from the slight awkwardness that was starting to develop.  At least on my side of it.

It probably didn’t phase Justin.  Me on the other hand, I’d only slept with one other person.  And I was never really the kind of person that talked about sex.  I usually kept that all to myself.  That was something that I wanted to keep my own.

“Thank you,” I whispered to Dee once we were out of earshot range.  I put my arm around her shoulders and laid my head on her shoulder.

“Sure not a problem.  Now what was I saving you from?” Dreana asked.  I laughed.

“An awkward moment.” She nodded and smiled.

I yawned as I walked with Dee toward wardrobe.  I was fussed over for almost an hour until they finally decided what I should wear.  I didn’t have much say in the matter despite what most think.  Dee was the one that had the final say and Justin and I had to sort of match.  We couldn’t be wearing anything that was complete opposites and clashed with one another.  I just sort of stood or sat there yawning and wanting all of this to be over with.

=

“What are you doing?” I asked as Justin grabbed my hands and started pulling me toward the back of my bus.  We’d been alternating which bus we would spend time in and tonight it was mine.

“You wanted to curl up in bed with me didn’t you?” He asked with a smile.  I smiled in response.  As we reached the back of the bus Justin put his arms around my waist.  He leaned down and kissed me.  I wrapped my arms around his neck and kissed him back.  He removed his arms from my waist and grabbed my hand.  He pulled me over toward my bed.  I giggled as we got closer.

I wasn’t sure why I’d become so giggly all of a sudden.  I guess it had to do with the fact that I was about to crawl in bed with Justin.  Never in a million years would I have thought that I would be in bed with him.  But I knew we weren’t going to do anything more than kissing.  How I knew that?  I wasn’t going to let anything else happen.  Cause if I did that would be the end of me.

I sat on the bed and slipped under the covers.  Justin did the same and looked over at me.  I crossed my legs under myself and smiled over at him.  Justin leaned over and kissed me.  Instantly Justin wrapped his arms around me and the kiss became a little more deep.  I didn’t have any problem with that.  We laid back on the bed as we continued to kiss.

I’d gotten lost in the kiss that I didn’t realize that Justin’s hand was up my shirt until I felt his hand stop on my breast.  I quickly stopped kissing him and pulled away.  I didn’t want this to happen.  Not at all.  Damn it, he was already getting to me.  I didn’t want his to happen this fast.  We’d only been going out for a week.  I wasn’t about the have sex with him.  Hell, I never had any intention of having sex with him.

“What’s wrong?” Justin asked as he looked down at me.  I chewed on my lower lip and looked away for a moment.

“I…I’m not ready for this yet.  I mean, I don’t want to mess anything up.  It’s not that I don’t want to do this with you, I just don’t want to do it right now.  Not yet,” I said hoping that he’d go for it.  I mean in a way it was the truth.  I wasn’t ready to do this with him.

“That’s fine.  I don’t want to make you do anything that you don’t want to do.  I care about you too much.  We can wait,” Justin said as he kissed me lightly.  I smiled.

He was way too good for me.  I didn’t deserve him.  Not in any way.  I was a lying piece of shit and here he was saying that he cared about me.  Hell if I cared about him as much as I think I do then I should tell him the truth.  But I can’t bring myself to do it.  I can’t.  It would tear him apart.  It would tear me apart.  No I just have to bite my tongue and keep quiet.

Justin climbed off of me and laid next to me.  I wrapped my arms around Justin’s waist and rested my head on his chest.  All of a sudden I felt melancholy.  I knew why but hoped that Justin wouldn’t ask about it.  And he didn’t.  He just kissed me on top of the head and rubbed my back.