WILDFIRE
By Aysia Anderson (a.k.a. Nikki)

Chapter Twenty-Five: Honest Mistakes

“After Justin slept with Alyssa his conscience started eating away at him because he was holding this thing inside and he couldn’t talk about it. He couldn’t just walk up to Camille and admit that he had had sex with another woman and as time drew on it became harder and harder for him to deal with.” Trace explained, suddenly sounding a little sad about the situation that had occurred. “He wanted to come clean and be completely honest with his wife but her words were stuck in his head. She didn’t want to be hurt and he knew that telling her any part of what he had done that night would hurt her. All of the drinking she had come to expect but smoking weed and sleeping around? Camille wouldn’t have been able to understand that.”

Gary nodded that he was following the story and proposed a question. “What was it that Justin did to, in a sense, curb all of the things that were going on inside of him?”

“He started staying out late at night because he didn’t really know how to deal with it. Camille was pretending that everything was fine but they both knew that they weren’t.” Trace sighed heavily and reached up to scratch his eyebrow. “They would go out together in public and they would be so on but when they got home things would change. I’m not going to say that Camille was the one changing though. It definitely wasn’t her.”

“Can you go into further detail with that, Mr. Ayala? That just sounds very vague.”

“Well, what I’m trying to say is that Justin was pushing her away. He was shutting her out. He couldn’t talk to her because he was afraid that he would slip up and he wouldn’t touch her because it was burned into his mind what he had done. The only thing that he could think of to do was to keep going out and drinking, to keep getting high, and to keep pretending that nothing at all was going on. It was just all bubbling beneath the surface.”

////

“I’m worried about her.” Nastassia commented as she sat on the back patio of Justin and Camille’s home with her boyfriend at her side. The pair hadn’t been over to visit together in a while. They could feel the negative energy in the air and it wasn’t something that they wanted to be around. It wasn’t the same carefree and love surrounding place it had once been.

“You’re worried about who?” Nelly turned to her, dropping his legs on the thatch footstool before him while running his knuckles over the underside of his chin.

“Camille.”

“Why would you be worried about Cam?”

“She hasn’t been herself lately.” Nastassia shrugged and toyed with the silver chain belt locked around her hips. “Has Justin said anything to you?”

“Justin says a lot to me. Why?”

“Has he said anything about feeling differently toward her or…?”

“He’s still in love with that girl, Stassia, so don’t think like that.”

“I’m just saying,” she began to fidget nervously with her fingers, “he doesn’t seem to act like it anymore.”

Nelly cleared his throat and reached to the side table to retrieve his glass of lemonade. “Maybe they aren’t as affectionate as they were in the beginning but that comes and goes in marriages. It gets routine.”

“So he’s not attracted to her anymore?”

“Nastassia, damn! No! That’s not what’s going on!”

“Then what is going on?” She begged her boyfriend for the answers that neither she or Camille could come up with on their own. Before she could get her answer the sliding glass doors opened and Justin wandered outside with them. Sighing heavily he dropped down next to Nastassia in a chair and looked out over his expanse of land. Nelly took the opportunity to steal a sip of his drink. “Justin, what’s going on with you?”

“What do you mean?” He blinked slowly, not facing her, and laced his fingers together in his lap before twirling his thumbs around one another.

“Do you still love her?”

“Love who?”

“Your wife.” Her voice let on to her agitation as he twisted his neck to look her over speculatively.

“Why the fuck would you ask me that?” His words came out slow yet forceful. “I love that girl more than life itself. I’d die for her a million times so don’t you ever fucking question me on if I love my wife or not. Camille is everything to me.”

“Yo,” Nelly leaned forward to look around his girlfriend and at his friend. “Calm down, man. She didn’t mean it that way.”

Nastassia stood to her feet and stared down at Justin sadly. “All I’m saying is that if you love her so much then you need to start acting like it because they way you’ve been acting lately is effecting her. If she means so much to you then I’m sure that you’ve already noticed that.”

Justin was silent as Nastassia turned on her heels to retreat back into the house. There was nothing much that he could say. Yes, he had been acting funny for a while now but he had his reasons. He didn’t know how to function when he was lying to her. He had promised her that he never would but seeing how she had practically begged him not to break her heart he couldn’t exactly be completely honest.

“You can’t keep doing this, dirty.”

“Doing what?”

“Look, I’m not one of those girls in there. I’m not going to play the question-answer game with you. You know just as well as I do what’s going on here. If you can’t tell her what happened then you need to find a better way to channel these emotions than you have been.” Nelly advised, sitting back into his seat.

“I tried to tell her when it happened. She didn’t want me to tell her the truth.” Justin retorted. “What the hell else am I suppose to do?”

“Justin, you’re my partner and you know that and Camille is my girl’s best friend. Either way it goes the situation is not going to be viewed through rose-colored glasses. Driving yourself over the edge is not going to make things better and isolating the woman you love is not going to ease the pain. Eventually its going to come to the light and you have to be prepared for that. Decide now how you want it to happen. Do you want to be the one to tell her or do you want her to end up reading it in the tabloids when you slip up in an interview?”

Nastassia stood in the doorway of the playroom leaning against the doorframe as she watched her friend interacting with her daughter. Camille was sitting on her legs in the middle of the floor playing Barbie Dolls with Nicole. The two were giggling and using animated voices as they made their dolls flip their hair and walk around as if they were the hottest thing stepping. Though Camille was smiling and Nicole was completely entertained Nastassia could tell that it was an act. All of the acting and performing onstage had made it easy for Camille to put on a façade. In a way, it was painful to see.

“Does Barbie ever cry?” Nastassia asked gently and Camille froze instantly. Nicole, in turn, smiled widely up at her aunt and dropped her doll to rush over and give her a hug. “How is my favorite niece doing?”

“Great!” Nicole squealed. “Are you going to play dolls with mommy and me?”

“I just might have to do that but in just one second, peanut. Let me steal mommy away from you for five minutes.”

“Okay.”

Camille set down the doll that she had been playing with when her daughter walked back over to her and smoothed her hand over the side of her face. She could have cried right then as the small girl knelt on her knees before her and cupped her hands on the side of her face. Nicole wasn’t blind. She knew that something was going on with her mother and she felt this need within herself to make sure that she was happy. She was the strongest two year old in existence.

“Mommy?”

Camille sniffled lightly. “Yes, baby?”

“Are you going to talk to Aunt Nani?” she asked innocently and Camille nodded her head before her daughter kissed her forehead to comfort her. “Don’t be sad, mommy. We can play Barbie Dolls when you get finished.”

“O, thank you, sweetheart.”

“You’re welcome.”

Camille stood up shakily and crossed the room to the door. Once she was out in the hallway Nastassia twirled her fingers at her niece and closed the door behind her. Her heart went out to her friend. She hated seeing her in the condition that she was in.

“Camille, you need to stop doing this to yourself.” She ordered. “Don’t let this thing get to you.”

“It’s supposed to get to me. He’s my husband.”

“I’m scared for you.”

“Nastassia, I’m fine, alright?”

“No, you’re not fine. You’re not fine and neither is Justin.” She countered. “He’s not the same person that he was and I don’t know if he ever will be again and that’s something that I don’t want you to have to deal with. He is hurting you so much right now and I know that he’s doing it because he is being tormented on the inside by something.”

“What’s tormenting him? If you know so much then tell me what’s really going on.”

“I…I don’t know what’s bothering him but whatever it is, Camille, it’s serious. You and I both know that. Is there anything at all that you think could be the source of the problem? Is there any certain time frame or…”

“Things have been off since that whole JC ordeal that I told you about. He came home the next day and it’s like he did a complete one-eighty.” Camille replied and leaned back against the wall of the hallway. “He told me that he did something that I wouldn’t be able to forgive him for and I asked him not to tell me.”

“What do you think it was?”

“I’m not fucking stupid, alright? He came in smelling like roses but he was wearing the same clothes. What do you get out of that?”

“Cam, you can’t honestly believe that he cheated on you?”

“I can believe it but I can’t accept it.” Camille pushed the sleeves of her cool mint shirt up her forearms. “That’s the difference.”

Nastassia took a deep breath and crossed her arms over her chest. “So why not just tell him that you know?”

“Because if I tell him that it opens the door for discussion and I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t want to know who she was or how it happened. I can’t deal with that shit right now.”

“But you need to.”

“Nas, I know you’re trying to help but could you just back off? I can handle it.” Camille moved to go back into the room when her friend reached out to her to stop her.

“If you’re not going to talk to him for you then talk to him for Nicole. All of this drinking that he’s doing is going to catch up to him and you know that that isn’t all that he’s doing.”

“Nastassia…”

“He’s smoking weed with Trace again. I know that he told you he did that shit before he met you and that he quit. He did but he’s doing it again because he doesn’t know how to deal.”

Camille could feel tears welling up in her eyes at her best friend’s words. He had promised her that he was never going to do anything like that again. He had swore that if he ever got that stressed out that he felt like he had to go and get blown he would come to her and figure something out. It was her fault that he was doing what he was doing. He had come to her and she had told him to bottle it up and keep it to himself.

“You know what that did to my grandfather and my uncle.” She swallowed. “It ruined their lives. Its like they aren’t even human anymore.”

“All I’m saying is that you need to talk to him because you don’t want him to get to that point.”

////

“As strong as Camille is, when it comes to Justin the script gets flipped. He’s the only person that I know that can break her down. I don’t mean that in the negative but…it’s like no one can love her the way that he does and no one can hurt her the way that he does either. It goes both ways, I guess. When it came to the drug abuse I don’t know if she was afraid to approach him about it or what was going on but she didn’t say anything for a while.” Trace stopped talking for a moment and seemed to be transported to a different place before remembering where he was and continuing. “Sitting here right now I know that it had to be hard for her. I don’t hate her or anything because she’s a wonderful person and we do get along majority of the time…shit,” he rubbed his eyes, “can we take a break on this for a minute?”

Gary nodded quickly. “Can we cut the feed? Cut it.” He turned back to Trace. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m just thinking about things, you know? You probably think I’m just this jealous kid that came in and tried to ruin my best friend’s life but that’s not the case. Yes, maybe I am a little bit jealous of what he has but I wasn’t trying to bring him under.”

“Then what was the intent?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know…it just got out of control so fast. It was so fast…”

////

“J, ease up on that blunt, man.” Trace advised, watching his friend take a hard hit while leaning back into his couch.

Justin nodded slowly and allowed a billow of smoke to float from his lips. As he began to relax his eyes rolled into the back of his head and his eyelids began to close lethargically. His tongue dipped out to lick his bottom lip as he cracked his neck and brought the smoking blunt back up to his lips puffing only slightly more lightly.

“You’re going to O.D. or something.” Trace warned and brought the mouth of his beer bottle to his lips, tilting it into the air to drain its contents.

“Fuck you.” Justin flipped him the bird and reached down to adjust his pants.

“How’s your wife?”

“Like you care or something, man? Come on! You’re ruining my high, fuck head.”

“She know that you’re smoking again?”

“She know that you’re smoking again?” Justin repeated in a childish voice. “She does not run me.”

Trace rolled his eyes at his friend. “No one ever said that she runs you but she cares about you and you should respect her feelings.”

“Since when have you become the harbinger of goodwill? Let’s not forget that hotel room surprise that landed me here in the first place.”

“Stop jaw jacking and pass the blunt, Timberlake.”

“No!” Justin propped the blunt between his lips and stared at Trace challengingly.

“You’re a hype, you know that?”

“Whatever.” He stood up and collected his keys from the coffee table before handing over the smoking object. “I’m out.”

“Where are you going?”

“To see my wife. I’m tired of hearing you talking about her like you’re in love or something. Maybe I should have my eye on you instead of JC?”

“Go home, Justin.” Trace took a hit of the blunt before standing up to go to the kitchen for another beer. “You’re fucking out of your mind right now.”

“Yeah, I am high as a mother fucker.” He laughed.

“Don’t get pulled over, shit for brains.”

“Don’t worry. If I do I’ll tell them where you are to get ‘em off of my ass. They’d love to catch you in the act, you know? I can‘t be arrested for being high but they can get you while you‘re doing it.”

“Depart, Timberlake.” Trace walked pass him and into the hallway.

“Damn, I’m gone!” Justin headed into the opposite direction and made his way to the front door.

////

“He was getting high all of the time, man, and it was getting out of hand. Like, before he was with Camille I guess it was an everyday thing with us but it was different when a wife and kid came into the picture. It was on my conscience then.”

////

Justin closed the bedroom door behind himself after taking his first steps into the darkness. He could see the outline of his wife lying in bed asleep but he wasn’t sure if she was really sleeping or not. He wasn’t even sure if he cared as he began to strip down to his skivvies and climbed into bed.

Camille stared out of at the balcony as she felt him climb into bed beside her. He was just getting in and it had to have been about four in the morning. He was his own person and he could do whatever he wanted to do but she wasn’t going to pretend that she liked the behavior. She clenched her teeth tightly together as he rolled her over onto her back ready for action.

“You weren’t sleeping, were you?” He whispered into her ear, sucking on her earlobe suggestively.

“Would you have cared if I was?” Her eyes were transfixed to the ceiling as she posed her question.

Justin stopped his assault and looked over her face quizzically. She looked annoyed by just his presence alone. “Are you mad at me for something?”

“Where have you been all night?”

“With Trace.”

“You could have called or something, Justin. If I would had pulled that shit on you you’d be in hysterics.”

Justin raked his teeth over his bottom lip. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know it was a requirement to check in.”

“J, don’t start a fight. Seriously.”

“I’m not starting a fight.”

“Then don’t get that tone in your voice.” She looked away from him and shook her head. “It’s like we’re always fighting now.”

“We’re not always fighting.”

“You’re right, Justin. We’re happy and civil all the time.”

“What is wrong with you tonight? Damn! All I wanted was to come home and make love to my wife! Is that a fucking sin nowadays?” Justin climbed off of the bed angrily and stormed into the master bathroom slamming the door behind himself.

Camille breathed in heavily, arms crossed over her chest, before throwing the covers off of her body and following after him. Without hesitation she snatched open the bathroom door and closed it behind her. Justin stared at her as if she had no right to barge in on him as he stood before the commode relieving himself.

“Do you still want to be married to me?” She asked seriously.

“Baby…” Justin finished his business and flushed the commode before coming to stand in front of her. “You know I don’t want to be with anyone else but you. You’re beautiful and amazing and I love you like crazy.”

“Then what is happening between us?”

“Babe,”

“Will you stop smoking?” She asked suddenly, cutting him off. Did he really think that she didn’t know? Every time he kissed her she could taste his herbal remedy on his tongue suffocating her own lungs.

Justin stared at her wordlessly before nodding his head.

“I’m serious.”

“I know. I’ll stop.” He noticed her chin quivering and cupped his hand over the side of her face. “I promise.”

“I just don’t want you to end up like my grandfather did. I don’t want that for you. I don’t want that for any of us.”

“Hey, hey. Look at me. I’m not high anymore. That was the last time ever, okay?”

Camille nodded and held back her tears as he kissed her. Could she really believe in his words? Did she really have a choice?

////

“Y’all can start rolling tape again, Gary.” Trace took a deep breath. “Justin and Camille had been getting on together better but he was still boozing hard. It all boiled over the night that he and a few of the guys went to Suede for a few drinks. He must have forgotten who he was because the cameras were on his ass like white on rice.”

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