"Justine, talk to me." Brittany pleaded. The only response that she got was Justine shrugging away her touch.
"Don't touch me." She tried to get as far as she could away from Brittany.
After Justin got over the shock he walked up to the two with wide eyes.
"Justine, honey, please baby, listen to me." Justin kneeled down next to her. Brittany was already falling apart next to Justine, a side Justin had never seen from Brittany-weakness. "Justine."
"Don't talk to me." She slowly looked up at him with tears still rolling down her face, her eyes red and puffy.
"Don't talk to me, don't look at me, don't speak to me, don't come near me, and most of all don't remember me! I want nothing to do with you, or her!" She pointed at Brittany.
Tears started to roll down Brittany's face as JC came up to her and hugged her and picked her up taking her upstairs away from the scene she was put in the middle of. Justine watched as her friend was carried off crying esoterically. She thought that they were friends, a person she could always turn to. Turning back to Justin she could see the tears in his eyes. For a minute, she wanted to hug him and pretend that this was all a joke. She longed for him to say I'm just kidding or start laughing blowing his cover, but when that didn't happen she knew what she had to do.
"Justin, I want nothing to do with your life. I want you to forget what we ever shared or what we might have shared in the future. I can't believe you would betray me like this. After everything we have been through."
Tears were now rolling down his face. "Justine! You can't say that. I couldn't help it!" He pleaded.
"You couldn't help it? You couldn't help it?" She screamed not believing this.
"If you wouldn't have taken the letter, we wouldn't have gotten in the fight and I wouldn't have been emotionally drained. And Britney wouldn't have gotten to me the way she did that night."
"So you are saying that this is my fault?" She heard Brittany swearing and pounding the wall from upstairs. Justine could only make out parts of what was being said but she did get the part with "Justin, I can't believe you said that you asshole."
"So now you are saying I caused this, that I brought it on myself?"
"No honey, please, don't think I meant it that way." He grabbed her arm trying to pull her back as she got up to leave.
"I told you already, don't touch me!" She yanked her arm away from him. "From now on I will only see you as Justin Timberlake from NSYNC, not Justin my best friend." She whipped her last tears away with a brisk action of her hand, turned, and walked away from Justin, who was crying on the floor. Before getting too far down the hall she turned to him once again.
"And I hope now you feel what I have felt like lately, completely alone." Pausing a second to look one last time at him she left the house hoping never to return.
~~Upstairs~~
"Brittany, settle down before you pass out." JC rubbed her back.
The rest of the guys had come up and were all sitting on the floor not fully knowing what was going on, but all of them had a clue.
"I can't believe she doesn't want to be my friend." Brittany got out between sobs. JC continued to rub her back, trying to relax her.
"Brittany, I'm sure she didn't mean it. She is just really upset right now and everything hit her all at once." Lance spoke from his position on the floor pushing Chris away from him who was playing with his hair.
"Stop it, Chris." Chris continued to try to grab at his head.
"I'm not doing anything." He put his hands behind his back. "Really, I wasn't."
Brittany started laughing. "I love you Chris, what would I do without you to make me laugh?"
"Hey, I didn't find what he was doing funny." Lance tried to fix his hair. Everyone in the room continued to talk small talk, keeping Brittany's mind off what had happened down stairs.
~~2 days later~~
"Hello?" Kristin said into the phone.
"Hey Kris, I'm glad you are home. I wanted to call and tell you good bye." Justine looked around her room. Everything she needed for school was ready and she, herself couldn't be anymore ready to leave.
"Good bye? Where are you going? Vacation?" Kristin had heard about the episode with Justin so she figured that maybe she wanted to get away from it all.
"I'm leaving for college."
Kristin's eyes opened wide. She immediately started shoving Lance who was sleeping next to her on the couch. Lance rustled, rubbing his eyes as he stared at Kristin as she continued to talk.
"College?! I thought that you were going to stay in Orlando, plus it's the summer."
"I was, but I got accepted at UCLA and I can't not go. I was going to take summer classes, I have nothing holding me back, ya know?"
"Yeah that's a great opportunity for you." Kristin mouthed 'Justine is leaving to go to California for college.' Lance gave her a confused look and watched her carry on the rest of her conversation with Justine.
"So I was just calling to say good bye. I figured since you are my only friend that is left. So maybe I will see you at Christmas time or something."
"Justine, Hun, you really don't have to leave. And I'm not your only friend. All the guys still care about you I don't care what you think. And Brittany, she is so upset that she has hardly talked to anyone since well...you know."
"I don't hate her, I'm just upset that she didn't tell me. Didn't she think that I needed to know?"
"Justine, she was put in the middle. She didn't know what to do. No matter what way she handled it, it was bound to backfire in her face."
Justine was silent for a minute.
Lance was now staring intently at Kristin and it was starting to make her nervous.
"I guess I am having a hard time having no one to turn to. I needed someone to help me lift the boxes and carry them downstairs yesterday and I was about to call Justin until I remembered...everything." Her voice choked as she held back her tears. "I better go. I have a lot to do before I leave tomorrow, I will call. Bye." she wanted to get off the phone before she lost it completely.
"Alright, bye Justine, good luck with college." Kristin waited till she heard the click from Justine's end of the phone. She slowly hung up the phone looking at Lance who was still looking intently at her.
"Well??" He pushed for her to tell him what was going on.
"She is leaving.""Well I got that much! To where? Justin is going to freak out when he finds this out. He was just saying this morning he was happy she was staying here because that way he could get her to listen to him." Lance rubbed his face, massaging his temples.
"He will understand that she just wanted to get away from everything. I see her side totally." Kristin reasoned.
"Are we talking about Justin here? He will freak and not be able to work. He won't sleep, he already hasn't been." Lance looked over at Kristin once more. "I better go. I will call you later tonight alright?" He sat up and grabbed his keys and cell phone off of the coffee table next to them.
"Ok, be careful driving home. I'm sure everything will work out fine." Kristin stood up and hugged her best friend, hoping nothing like what happened with Justin and Justine would ever happen to them.
"I will, bye." He left Kristin's house in a hurry to get home.