Chapter 8
-----------------------
"So, uhh,
what do you want to talk about?"
Justin stumbled.
"Will you just walk with me
and be quiet. I just want to enjoy this
time with you. I have a lot of things
going through my mind and I need to figure them out."
"Sure thang. God, would you look at the stars? I've never seen them that bright before." Justin said looking up at the sky. Meredith turned her gaze to the sky and
smiled. They truly were amazing.
They walked for about 10 minutes
of just silence. Justin had begged
Lonnie to let them go off on their own.
And after a lot of begging, Lonnie gave in.
"Let's go sit on that bench
over there." Meredith said
pointing.
They sat down and an awkward
silence fell over them. They just sat
there listening to the crickets and owls and the flow of rushing water
somewhere near them.
"Meredith, I..."
"Justin..."
They started at the same
time.
"Meredith, please let me go
first. I need to go ahead and get this out before I explode."
"OK."
Justin sighed and took deep
breath. He was scared but he knew he had
to do this.
"You know all the trouble
I've had with women. They use me, abuse
me. The whole works. I thought you would be the same. But...Gosh, this is hard." He looked down and Meredith took his hands.
"Just tell me, Justin."
"OK, I, umm, I uhh, think I'm falling in love with you. Yeah, I know, it's happened pretty fast. I just, every time you are around, I have to
be right beside you. And when you are
not around I go looking for you. I've
never been this wrapped up with someone before.
And it scares me. Literally, I am terrified that I'm going to give you
my heart and you are going to break it. I know you would never, EVER, do that
on purpose. But the terror is still
there." He looked down at his feet
and collected his thoughts.
"That day
on the beach. I never gave you an explanation of why I
acted the way I did. Well, here you
are. I'm going to let it all out. I hope I don't scare you...." Meredith looked at him confused and he just
continued.
"When I kissed you, I started
thinking about things I've never thought about before. I started feeling things I've only heard
about. I started thinking about a
future, Meredith. With
you. I started seeing you and me getting married, having kids. I've NEVER pictured that before. Now, I don't know what it was. If it was the beach?
If it was the fact that I had dreamed about what it would be like to kiss you
from even before I met you? I don't
know. But when we broke the kiss and I
looked down at you. I could have sworn
you were some creature not of this earth.
You stunned me and scared me. And
so being the jackass that I am, I ran away.
And I'm really sorry, I'll be forever sorry that I did."
HE stopped and looked up at
her. Her eyes were watery. She didn't know whether to kiss him, slap
him, and hold him, run away from him. He
was scaring HER now. But, she had to be
strong.
"Meredith, I was falling in
love with you. And it scared me."
He finished.
"Oh, Justin..." She
choked out. Meredith was now openly
crying and she didn't know what to do.
So she did what came naturally. She
reached out and clung to him.
He wrapped his arms around her and
tried to quiet her, but it was no use.
Finally after a few minutes she pulled away. Justin what did you mean
you wanted to kiss me before you met me?"
"I umm, well, when Johnny
told us about you he showed us this picture of a little girl in a pink
dress."
"Oh no...." Meredith
chuckled.
"It was so cute. I thought the little girl in the picture was
gorgeous. I was in a really weird mood
that day so I decided calling the new Intern "little g", meaning
gorgeous girl, even though I had never seen you besides in that picture. I remember looking at the picture and
wondering what you would look like now.
Joey and I were playing around and I was like, "I bet the new
intern girl can kiss." I remember Joey slapping my hand and saying, "Yeah,
I've brainwashed him to think like me." I don't know what my problem
was. But anyway, that's what I mean when
I say I wanted to kiss you before I met you.
Yeah, I know, I'm a complete perverted dork. I was basically wanting
to make out with a 10 year old."
"Timberlake, you make me
wonder me sometimes." She laughed.
"I know, I know." He
shrugged.
"So, you were the
one." She smiled.
"Huh?"
"You were the one to make up
the name G"
"Oh,
yeah." He smiled shyly.
Silence enveloped them again and
Meredith finally got up enough courage to speak.
"Justin, I have to say a
whole lot to you. And, umm, you aren't
going to like some of it. But I have to
tell you. I don't know why, I just
do." She stopped and looked away
from him. And finally continued.
"There are two stories. The truth and what people think is the
truth. Only two people know the truth,
and one of them is dead." He looked
at her in shock and she kept on going.
"But, I, for some weird reason,
have decided that I should tell you. You
are my best friend. You deserve to
know." She paused to collect her thoughts.
"You deserve to know why I get depressed. You deserve to know why I take medicine for
depression. You deserve to know why I hate
the name 'Mer-DEATH'.
Well, you basically deserve to know who Dan is."
Justin looked at her shocked and
confused, "Dan?" He asked quietly.
"He is my best friend. Or was. He died 2 and 1/2 years ago." She looked
at Justin and pulled out her purse and rummaged through it. She pulled out the photo she always kept with
her of him with his arms around her and kissing her temple. She looked at it and handed it to Justin. While Justin studied it, Meredith closed her
eyes and continued with the story.
"Dan and I were
inseparable. We knew each over like the
back of our hands. HE was incredible. I
could never asked for someone better to spend my youth
with than Dan. I grew up with him. We were next-door neighbors. We spent every minute together. People would think that we were brother and
sister when we were little. WE were
extremely popular, together. The girls
liked me because Dan was a hottie and I would always
try to help him get as many girls as possible. And so we made a good team. When
we got into high school everyone thought that we were a couple. We never were. I never had feelings like that towards
him. He was my best friend. He was the twin I never had. I loved him more than life itself. I would have killed myself to save him if it
was possible." She looked at Justin and sighed.
"Dan had problems. Problems I didn't know about. People always tried and find something to
blame problems like his on, but there was nothing to blame. Dan was screwed up. I never knew until the night before he died
how screwed up he actually was. People
tried to blame his parents, but his parents were, well are, the sweetest
people. I don't speak to them anymore. I
don't speak to many people anymore in my hometown. People blamed me for strange reasons. 'He spent to much
time with that girl...blah blah blah'. I don't really
know why people blamed me, but they were right.
They had every right to blame me.
He would still be here if I had done what he asked of me."
"Meredith, I'm so confused
right now." Justin whispered.
"Sorry, It's
kinda difficult for me to explain. I mean I've gone
over and over many times in my head what I would tell someone, but you are the
first person I've ever told. I've kept
this locked up inside of me for 2 and 1/2 years. Its been killing me. OK, back to Dan. Umm, I never thought much
about little things Dan would say to me and stuff. He would call me Gorgeous. He was the only other person I've ever known
to call me that." She stopped and tried to explain.
"Lance told me that day when you
guys sang More than a feeling to me, that when yall called me "G" it stood for gorgeous. That's why I was so upset when I came to
sound check. I was thinking of Dan. " She sighed and
continued
"Anywys,
Dan umm, well one night he called me up and told me that he needed to talk to
me about something very important. It
was like 11 at night or so and my parents were out of town for the
evening. So when Dan came over, I brought
him upstairs to my room like I had done a million times before. But I could tell something was bothering
him. I brought him in my room and it
happened so fast, and sometimes it just replays in my head in slow motion. I remember Dan pushing me on the bed and pining me down on it with his body. HE kissed me and kissed me. I couldn't breathe. I didn't know what to do. I had never been kissed before and Dan, he
was like my brother. He was my sole
protector from evil people and here he was being evil, forcing himself on
me. He kept kissing me and tried to pull
my shirt off. I remember fighting with
him and kicking and screaming. I hit him
as hard as I could but he kept on going, trying to remove me of my
clothes. Finally I screamed that 'I was
Meredith' I asked him 'how could you' and I got really mean and called him names
I don't even like to even think about."
She looked at Justin. He was staring at the ground searching to
understand. She kept on talking.
"He abruptly stopped. He hadn't hurt me, physically. He hadn't raped me or anything. But I was emotionally ruined. He just stood up and stared at me lying on
the bed trying as hard as I could not to cry. And the last thing I remember was
him whispering "I'm sorry" and running out of my house."
Meredith looked at Justin. He was crying. He was angry, upset. He use to never be
the crying type, but ever since he met Meredith, his feelings seemed to
sharpen. He had become more
sensitive.
This explained a lot and she knew
he was beginning to understand. But it wasn't over yet.
"Justin, that night Dan
killed himself." Justin jerked his head towards Meredith who was contently
watching the stars.
"He got home and sometime
during the night put the gun to his head and pulled the trigger. He used his dads. His dad was a police officer. He also wrote a note. But it was just a notebook sheet of paper
with the words "I'm sorry" written over and over and over again. He signed his name on the bottom but
addressed it to no one. His parents
found him the next day. When police came
to look around they found a huge box in his closet. It had all types of weird poetry and writings
in it. Stuff about
death, about Satan, about sex, about being alone. Even about me. I remember the cops handing me one poem
called "Mer-DEATH," asking me if I had ever
seen it before. It said that I was the
only person that had the power to destroy him. Perverted, gross, scary stuff
was written in the poem. I still have
nightmares about that poem. The doctors
determined that he had some type of psycho-persona inside of him. He wasn't the guy we all grew up to
love. He wasn't my best friend
anymore. He was a sick guy with a
twisted brain, who had killed himself."
She stopped and exhaled a much-needed breath as to breathe out all her
misery.
"No one knows that Dan came
to my house the night before he died. No
one but Dan, but he is dead. Of course I
know. But now you know, too. I know you won't tell anyone. I trust you."
She sighed and shrugged. "And
THAT'S my story. THAT'S why I'm
depressed. THAT'S why I take medicine to
get me through the day. And THAT'S why I
don't think I could love you the way you want me to."
She looked at Justin. Her cheeks were soaked and so were his. He didn't know why he was crying, he just
was.
"Justin, I want to be with
you more than anything. But I don't
trust myself with you. In a week I'm
going back to
Meredith was finished. No more questions were in Justin's head. He knew. He understood. Yeah, he was
upset. He wanted to be with her. But sometimes things just don't work out that
way.
"Meredith, I never knew you
had this much going on with you. If I
was in your position I think I would have killed myself by now." His eyed focused on nothing as he shook his
head.
"It's not like I haven't
tried before..." She mumbled not really wanting him to hear.
He snapped up to look at her,
lovingly. "Ohh,
Meredith, don't say that. You are
amazing. You are beautiful. I don't know
why Dan would ever want to hurt someone as angelic as you are. You are so strong. I use to wonder why you
get nervous when people complimented you.
I thought your innocence and insecurities were because you were
naive. But, damn, you have to be the
strongest person I know to have gone through all that and still be
standing. You are breathtaking. And I love you. And I will wait for you as long as it
takes. I'll help you. I'll be there for
you when you need me. I will always be
there."
"Thank you Justin, you are my
angel." She smiled and he cupped
her face with his hands and wiped the tears from her with his thumbs. She in returned wiped his away with her index
finger and whispered:
"Will you kiss me, softly, please. Just one more time until I hit reality."
He didn't say anything he just
brought her face to his and placed his lips on hers. He wanted more. He wanted to consume her and
let her know he would always protect her. But this was what SHE wanted. And he was willing to do anything to make her
happy. He gently caressed her lips with
his and finally pulled away.
Meredith kept her eyes closed and
rested her head on Justin's shoulder.
Her feet were pulled up and resting on the bench. She hugged her knees. Justin wrapped his strong arms around her and
placed his hands on hers in front of her knees.
They stayed like this for who knows how long.
"Hey you two, it's REAL late.
Johnny probably has the FBI out looking for us.
We need to go." Lonnie called out from 20 feet away. He was trying to look like he wasn't spying
on the two but it wasn't working. The
dim light of the lamp above them casted a glow and
Meredith laughed when she saw Lonnie's neck stretch to try and see them.
"EY, Lonnie, why don't you
just wait until the home video is out.
It will be a lot easier than breaking your neck." Justin yelled to
the big man. Meredith giggled and Lonnie
approached them.
"What am I going to do with
you two?" Lonnie shook his head at the two. They were still in their same position with
Justin holding her and hadn't even bother to move.
"What time is it L-dawg?" Meredith asked.
"It's past my bedtime AND
yours. It's
Meredith tilted her head back to
look at Justin who shrugged sheepishly and said,
"Who knew?"
"All right, come on. Let's
get you lovebirds back."
"We aren't lovebirds, are we
Justin?" Meredith asked walking hand in hand with Justin to the limo.
"Nope. Just Best friends, always."
Justin placed a kiss on her temple and the three people made their way back to
the limo.
--------
A week later in a backstage lounge
in
"Can you believe it's almost
over?" Lance said as he lay down on
the couch.
"WHOO HOO! I'm goin HOMMMMMEEEE" Joey yelled.
"I can't WAIT to see Dani." Chris
put his fist in the air triumphantly.
"Guess what?" JC entered the room putting his cell phone
back in his pocket. He plopped down on
the couch and sighed.
"What C?" Justin asked
not looking up from the cards he held in his hand.
Meredith smiled smugly at him and
placed down her cards. "Gin."
Justin glared at her.
JC continued. "I just talked
to Cindy and told her about the closing show and asked her to come. You know what she said?"
"She didn't want to..."
Meredith said turning to give him a worried look.
"How did you know?" He
asked hurtfully.
"She called me 30 minutes ago
and told me she was thinking about breaking it off. She kept asking me what to do. I didn't know what to say because I didn't
want to be put in the middle of you guys."
"What did you tell
her?" JC asked quietly.
"JC, I stuck up for you. I told her about how much you missed her and
how many times you had the chance to go after another girl, but didn't. And she kept saying that she knew in about
two months you would be gone again. She
didn't want to keep having her heart taken away. I can understand that. But, she should have at least given you a
chance."
Meredith got up from her place
across from Justin on the floor and sat down beside JC.
She looked in his eyes;
"She's a fool for doing this to you."
He rested his head down on her
shoulder and she wrapped an arm around him. JC quietly said, "What are we
going to do when you're gone?"
"Meredith we are going to
miss you and your booty so much." Joey said winking.
"Please do not start talking
about her booty. Last time she slapped me in the back of my head." Justin
glared at her.
"Oh OK, Mr. Timberfake, you want to be like that? Bring it onnnn..."
"You don't want a piece of
me." He said grinning evilly.
"Yup, you're right. I go for more of the quiet, laid back
type. The ones on the
rebound. Right JC?" She said sweetly, changing her position so
that she was in JC's lap.
"YEAHHHH
BABY!" He imitated Austin Powers and began tickling
her.
"*Nsync
to sound check, *Nsync to sound check..." A
voice was heard from a speaker.
"All right boys, get your
lazy butts up and go sing." Meredith pointed to the door.
"You coming
with us?" Justin asked sweetly and
hopefully.
"Maybe..." She said like
it was not a big deal.
"MAYBE?...hey
you guys go on, I'll meet you down there." He turned his attention to the
rest of the guys. They left and he
turned back towards Meredith.
"You ALWAYS come to sound
check." He said in a fatherly tone.
"I know,
it's just.... This is the last one,
Justin. I don't want it to end. I leave tomorrow."
"I know." He whispered.
"I don't want to go
back."
"Believe me, I don't WANT you
to go back either!" He said gazing
at her.
"Come, sit with me..."
She patted the space beside her. He sat
down and immediately engulfed her in a hug.
"I said sit, not
suffocate." Meredith laughed
against his chest.
"I'm going to miss you little
g."
"I'm going to miss you,
too..." She paused for effect and screamed "...TIMBERFAKE!" She then jumped up and ran down towards the
stage area with Justin sprinting behind her.
"OH that's it missy. You are going DOWNNNNNNN." He yelled.
She just laughed and kept running, but Justin's long legs soon caught up
to her. He picked her up and swung her
around finally throwing her over his shoulder.
She could have protested, she could have fought
him. But she just went limp on his
shoulder and enjoyed being carried into the huge coliseum.
"Wowweeeee. This is a NICCCCCEEEEE view!" She
exclaimed sarcastically as she was staring at his butt, not like she really had
a choice to look anywhere else.
"You can touch it if you
want..." Justin said sexily.
"Ewww, gross." She made a face but reached and grabbed a
cheek.
"WHOA NOW!! Meredith we have officially corrupted you." He said
flipping her over and standing her straight.
"Wow, we are on
stage." She said looking
around.
"Yup, it looks a lot
different without the lights and everything."
"Yeah, last time I was up
here I wasn't paying much attention to the crowd." Meredith blushed,
remembering last week when they had sang to her and the other women. Justin laughed nervously and they walked to
where the other guys were getting their microphones on.
"Bout time you got here,
J. We thought G might have killed you or
something." Chris said.
"Or screwed you..." Joey
winked at them.
JC, Lance, and Chris fell silent
in shock and Justin glared at Joey. All
the guys had bothered Justin about Meredith and their date. And even though he
confirmed that they were just friends, Joey kept picking on him about it. Justin was extremely tired of Joey's
remarks. But Meredith laughed and knew
exactly what to do.
"Joey, was it THAT obvious? Opps. Oh, Justin I forgot to zip up your
pants." Everyone's eyes fell towards Justin's crotch, but Meredith stood
in front of him before anyone could see that he actually did have his pants
zipped up. She nudged Justin and he just
pretended to zip up his fly. He then
placed his arms around Meredith and said, "I guess we should tell them,
huh M?"
"Guess so Justin..." She
glanced at him and back to the rest of the guys.
"Tell us what?" Chris
said cluelessly.
"We're a couple." They said at the same time. The guys all hung their mouths open and just
stood there in shock as the two 'lovebirds' shrugged.
"I fell for this last time...prove it!" Lance said.
"Come here, babes..."
Justin said leaning towards her.
Meredith stood up on her tiptoes and they both closed their eyes. They rest of the guys stood their wide-eyed. When Meredith and Justin were inches apart
they both erupted into giggles.
"You...guys.... Should
have...seen...the look on...your...faces..." Justin said between laughs.
"OK, guys, enough goofing
off. Get to work." Johnny said walking towards the stage.
"Sure thang
boss." Chris saluted him and they
began their sound check.
"Meredith, can I see you for
a moment?" Johnny asked.
"Awww,
you're in trouble!" Justin
teased. She just stuck her tongue out at
him.
"Sure." Meredith hopped off stage and she and Johnny
walked to about the 15th row and sat down.
They watched the sound check and laughed at the guys singing various
songs and doing stupid dances. After about 10 minutes Johnny spoke.
"Meredith, have you thought
any more about the job?"
"Yeah, actually I have."
"Well..." Johnny turned
and looked at her. She looked straight ahead and stared at the guys on stage
that she had grown to love.
"I think I should go back
home for about a while. But...."
She paused for effect and smiled at the guys on stage and waved to them. They waved back and she knew her decision was
final.
"I've been accepted to
FSU. Classes start in about a month. My
parents have already found an apartment for me in
"GREAT!" Johnny exclaimed. "I can't wait to tell the guys, they'll
be thrilled."
"Wait, Johnny, don't tell
them. I want it to be a surprise."
"Well when are you going to
tell them?"
"The first
day on the job. None of them know I'm going to
"You deserve all the love,
M." Johnny hugged her and left her alone to watch the rest of the sound
check.