“I don’t believe that. I almost think you love me.” My heart skips and jumps and he pushes me down on the couch, laying his hard body over me.
And in a matter of minutes, he’s inside of me and I’m moaning.And this, Justin, this is the way it is supposed to go. This is how the love stories unfold. I knew you’d come around, my sweet love, I knew it, because I believe in you. Actually, I believe in you and me because this is right. This is right. I have to save you from yourself, you idiot.
* * *
Iwakeup in his arms, the hustle and bustle of the city audible through the single pane window. Cobain snuck into the room at some point and is lying at the foot of the bed, his heavy weight on top of my foot is causing it to go numb. I shake my leg, but he doesn’t move. Justin shifts in the bed and groans. “What time is it, babe?”
I look around for a clock, finally spotting one on the dresser. “Eleven.”
“Fuck.” He rolls on his stomach, shoves his face into the mattress, then covers his head with a pillow. “I have a meeting I’m supposed to be at.”
I rub over his broad back. His skin is so warm and smooth, and I just want to lie here and touch him all day. “Don’t go,” I whisper.
Laughing, he tosses the pillow to the floor, then wraps his arms around me, tugging my body closer to his and kissing over my neck. “That simple, huh?” Another kiss. “Damn, I do think I should love you.” And what do I say here... “Don’t you?” he asks. I shrug and he pinches my side. “You aren’t good for my ego, you know that, right?”
“You should do whatever you want.”
“Mmm. Whatever I want, huh?” His teeth sink into his bottom lip. His hand sweeps over my hip. “Fuck you are something else.” And then, he rolls out of bed, grabs some clothes, and stumbles into the bathroom.
I sit up, looking around the room for my clothes. My shirt’s by the door. My jeans are on the floor. I throw the sheets back, searching for my underwear.Ah-hah! There they are, balled up at the foot of the bed.Justin walks back into the room with his toothbrush in his mouth, blue foam covering his lips as I’m shimmying them over my hips.
“Where do you think you’re going?” he asks, still brushing his teeth.
“Home.”
“Uh-uh.” He darts back into the bathroom. I hear him spit and the taps turn on. He comes back out wiping a towel over his mouth. “You’re staying right here.” He leans over the bed, caging me in his arms. “I’ll only be gone for like an hour.” He kisses me and heads to the door, stopping to point at me before he steps out. “I mean it, your sexy little ass better still be here when I get back.”
I smile. “Don’t worry.”
I wait until the front door closes and then I hop out of bed and go to the little window above the radiator. I wait until I see Justin step onto the sidewalk, then I turn, slip one of his t-shirts on, and walk through to the kitchen.
The apartment is eerily quiet except for the annoying chirping sound echoing from the air conditioning vent. I fill a cup with water, lean against the granite countertop, and stare out over his living room. My eyes train on all those autographed pieces of memorabilia behind that red couch.His ex-girlfriend.I nearly scoff at the idea of Justin with anyone else, but then I wonder...
The internet, well, social media, makes it far too easy these days to find out anything about anyone. Oh, sure you can set your profile to private, but do you really know half of the people you approve to be your “Facebook Friend”?Oh, well, we’re onlyFacebook Friends,not real-life friends.Yet, you let them see every aspect of your life, where you check in at, where you’re vacationing—who you’re fighting with, who you love, who you once loved.
I pull up Facebook. Chastising myself for not having done this earlier, and I scroll through his pictures. Nothing in 2016. 2015 is a bunch of selfies. 2014 random pictures of him and his guy friends. 2013, 2012—nothing. I’m all the way to September of 2009 before I find a picture of her. There’s only one and it’s of the two of them in front of the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree. She’s all cozied up to him, scarf and coat, her bleach-blonde hair sticking out from a pink toboggan.Blonde? Blonde! Justin, she’s a fucking blonde?Her lips are pressed right up against the scruff on his face, and his arm is around her. I wish I could erase from my memory the look of utter bliss radiating from his blue eyes. I stare at the picture, studying it. Taking her in. She looks like the girl next door who would bake an apple pie for the new neighbors. The Justin Wild I know, well, he wouldn’t dare give this girl a second glance—at least, I didn’t think he would. Then again,thisJustin Wild was a college student. He was scraping by, living off Raman noodles and Sam’s Club sodas. And just when I have convinced myself that it doesn’t matter if he did love her, that it was seven years ago. That guy with the unkempt hair and wool coat isn’t the same Justin I adore. I notice her hand. I zoom in on the picture, and there, on her left hand—her ring finger—is a ring.He was engaged?
I recite the lines to the beginning of Chapter 32, book 3 of his series:All of love is but a façade, a lie we tell ourselves so we don’t feel alone. We want to belong and be important, we want to hold meaning, and what better meaning is there than to be loved by the one you adore above all others? To look into her green eyes…I zoom in closer. Her eyes are green…and see your unborn children within them. To know that within her soul lies all your future desires and wants and needs? And what can be more tragic, I ask you, than the moment you realize there is no future with that woman? When you understand that her words were thorny lies and unkempt promises, that your reality, for so long, has been nothing but one of life’s most grandiose facades. Love. Is. Dead. And so shall she be.
He wrote that passage about her. My stomach twists and knots, kinks and bunches. He wrote that book a year and a half ago, but the pain seemed so fresh.What are you hiding, Justin?Whatare you hiding?
Setting the phone in my lap, I take a good look around his apartment. There’s a bookcase on either side of the window. I cross the room, stopping in front of the left bookshelf and thumbing over the titles. They’re all his books. Every last one. Copies of his own books. The bottom shelf is crammed full of other author’s books, most likely thrown at him during a signing, the author praying to God that he reads their book, likes it, and mentions it on social media. Kneeling, I pull a random title from the shelf:When I was Youngby A.A. Madison. Well, that’s a fluffy sounding read. I flip open to the front page.
Justin,
Couldn’t be any happier with how close we’ve become. Such an “inspiration”.
xx- Amanda
I find myself curling the pages back in an angry grip. It’s obvious he hasn’t touched this book. Not one page is bent, not one smudged fingerprint over the ink. But still—she put inspiration in quotations and I can’t help but wonder if she was his fuckbuddy, too. I shove the book back in its place, right next to—mine? My book has been slammed in here with those other whore’s books? I clench my jaw. I want to yank that book out and throw it across the room. I want to take the other book and rip every page out and litter the floor of his expensive apartment with them. Set them on fire, but I don’t. I just move to the other side of the bookcase. I expect Stephen King, James Patterson, John Grisham. But—much to my dismay, there’s only one fucking copy:Revivalshoved carelessly amongst books on Nirvana and the life of Kurt Cobain, books on Jim Morrison and Zeppelin, Steven Tyler. All books about musician’s lives. Where areMiseryandThe Long Walk, Carrie? Where is the goddamn literature, Justin?I spin around, taking in the room again, thinking surely I must have missed something. Surely the Stephen King’s and John Grisham’s have their own very special spot. And then…thenmy eyes land on a diploma, halfway hidden behind a framed picture of him and his damn dog. I move the frame to the side and gasp. Emory University bestows upon Justin Wilder Thompson, all the rights and privileges…yadda, yadda, yadda…that come with the degree of... Exercise Science? What the fuck? His name isn’t real, and he didn’t even major in forensic psychology? He is a liar through and through. One book by King, none by Grisham. Exercise Science instead of psychology. Thompson instead of Wilder. The girl next door over the bombshell whore?
Anger floods me, heating my skin just below the surface becausethisis not the man whose words are beautiful beyond compare—oh, he may have strung those sentences together as an outlet for his own rejection, but the man he has led the public to believe he is, this—my gaze drifts back to the shelves filled with autobiographies of musicians—this is notthatman. This is not the cocky, arrogant little shit that all the girls swoon over. This is a weak, pathetic liar, uncomfortable in his very own skin.And if you can’t be who you really are, if you can’t love yourself, Justin, how in the hell are you ever going to love me?
I stand and pace, Cobain following me. I walk around the coffee table, through the kitchen and back, and then, I see his laptop on the ottoman. I know I shouldn’t, but... I grab it, open it, and—no password, Justin, really? Tsk-tsk.
First, I go to pictures. Book covers, pictures of Cobain and then... then there are the pictures of all those girls he’s fucked. Selfies of them. Pictures of the naked on hotel beds.His bed.Some faces I recognize from the signings, and those, well—I look around in a panic for his iPhone charger, clapping when I find it next to the sofa. I grab it, pull the outlet piece off, and hook my phone up to the laptop, downloading those pictures for safe keeping.You little shit, Justin.Just when I’m about to close everything out, I notice a PDF of his book set to release next month—his traditionally published book. I download it, because why should I have to wait for it to release? I am, after all, fucking him. That gives me privileges. Cobain’s ears perk up and he trots to the door with a low, gruff bark. My pulse bangs in my chest and I quickly snatch cords and shut things down before I toss the laptop back onto the ottoman. I grab the magazine from the coffee table, open it, and lie down on the couch.
The lock to the front door clicks, the knob twists. I can’t help but think of all those women who have seen me with him at signings who must think I’m a fool. It flames anger deep inside my chest. The hinges creak and Justin steps inside, dropping his backpack to the floor.
