Choices
SS by Chris
Part 1
Justin sat quietly in his bedroom thinking about his life. Over the past three weeks, he has gone through a tremendous amount of stress. The relationship between him and Cameron ended, Britney released her new CD with Everytime on it, and now he can’t seem to get his mind off of Britney.
He hasn’t had a good night sleep in a long time. Every since that little boy asked him about Britney and whether or not they were still friends. What harm could come out of a question so simple, yet at the same time so complicated. Things between him and Cameron were strained before this and this was just adding fuel to the ever-growing fire that was eating at him.
Britney consumed his thoughts constantly. He would think about her when he awoke, during the middle of the day, and before he went to sleep. She was the first thing he thought of in the morning and the last thing he thought before falling asleep.
Cameron noticed this and that only strained things even further. Finally, she had enough and left. While normally, this would have upset Justin, he seemed not to really feel very disappointed. He was consumed with Britney.
“You’re still awake,” Lynn said as she entered her son’s bedroom.
“Yeah, what are you still doing up at this time of night?” Justin asked.
“Well, I couldn’t sleep and you haven’t been yourself lately, so I thought that I would check on you. That is still okay for a mother to check on her son right?” she said walking over and sitting next to him on the bed.
“Yeah, I was just thinking,” he said.
“About?”
“Stuff”
“Would you care to elaborate on that Mr. Tight lips?” she said.
“I don’t know mama. I’m thinking about all kinds of stuff. Like what should I do next with the band or should I write another solo CD? I mean I have all these ideas running through my head, and nowhere to really put them. I would love nothing more than to write another CD with the guys, but I don’t want to do the kind of music that we did before. It is just not me anymore. I guess that part of me died when…” he trailed off and stopped talking and just continued to look at his hands.
“Britney left?” his mother finished the sentence.
“Yeah, I guess that would be about right?” he said, “I miss her so much mama. She is all that I think about. She consumes my every thought. I keep playing Everytime in my head over and over. I can’t get rid of it. All I hear is the pain and emotion that is in that damn song. I keep thinking that I put all that pain there. I’m the reason that she has so much pain. I broke my promise mama. I promised her that I would never cause her any pain and then I broke it.”
“Yeah, but you can’t keep beating yourself up over this. You both have hurt each other. She hurt you, and then you hurt her in retaliation. Now you both are paying the consequences, because you both weren’t strong enough to work through the pain. You both have to work through you’re pain and you both did it through your music. You wrote Never Again and asked her to say she was sorry. She has responded to it with Everytime. She has said she was sorry Justin. What more do you want her to do?”
“I want her to be in my arms but I don’t know if I can trust her again. She broke me once, what says that she won’t do it again. What says that she won’t break down again and cheat on me again? What says that she” he was cut off.
“Justin, if you all the ‘what ifs’ of the future run your life, then you’re really not living. Ask yourself this question; are you happier with or without her? Only you can choose if you want her to be a part of your future. Only you can choose if you want to be a part of her life. Only you can choose whether to move on with or without her. This is your choice Justin and yours alone,” she said getting up and leaving the bedroom.
After a few minutes, Justin reached for his phone…
**Britney’s side**
Britney had been going through much the same emotions that Justin had. She hadn’t been sleeping well. Ever since the SNL performance of Everytime, she had been expecting him to call, but he never did. Finally, she had give up all hope of him calling, but then she heard that he and Cameron had split and she was both excited and sad at the same time. She was excited that Justin wasn’t seeing anyone anymore, but she was sad because that meant that he was hurting again and she couldn’t do anything about it.
“Brit, are you about ready to leave. Your rehearsals start in a half hour,” Fe said as she walked into Britney’s bedroom. She found Britney crying on her bed.
“He still hasn’t called me,” she said through the sobs and tears.
“I know sweetie, but you can’t let that get you down. You have to go out there and show the world that you’re stronger than he is. You need to show that you’re the better person,” Fe said pulling her off the bed.
“But I’m so tired of always having to be the stronger person. How am I supposed to be this strong person when I don’t have my rock anymore? How am I supposed to be the one who shows the world how strong I am without my reason for being strong?” she said through the tears that were still falling.
“Sweetie, you have to find the strength from within yourself to go out there and do your absolute best that you have, because you know that he wouldn’t want you to do any less because of him.”
Britney got up and went through the rehearsals flawlessly, but it drained just about everything she had. She spent the rest of the day in bed sleeping.
The next day when she awoke, she found her mother sitting next to her.
“Mama, what are you doing here?” she asked sleepily
“Felicia called me last night and said that you were having had bad couple of days and asked if I could come out and cheer you up,” she said pulling her up out of the bed.
“You didn’t have to come all the way out here to cheer me up,” Brit said walking into the bathroom to brush her teeth.
“Well, when Felicia told me why you were depressed I figured that it was time that we had a Mother-Daughter talk in person,” she said as Britney emerged from the bathroom. “So sit down and lets talk.”
Britney did as her mother asked and she sat down. She didn’t quite know what was about to happen.
“What’s wrong?” Lynne asked her eldest daughter
“I miss him so much mama. It isn’t the same going out there knowing that he isn’t with me anymore. I never realized how much I performed because I knew that he would be watching. Now, he isn’t watching anymore mama. I don’t have anyone to hold me up; when I don’t think, I can do it. I mean I know that I have you guys, but it was the little things that he would say to help me through the hard parts and now he isn’t there anymore. It isn’t fun anymore,” Britney said starting to cry.
“Sweetie, if you don’t want to do it anymore, then why didn’t you say so? All you had to do was so say so and we would’ve accepted your decision and moved on,”
“But that is in mama. I still love to do it, but I don’t have the motivation to do it. When I get out on that stage there is only one better feeling in the world, but I don’t have the want to get out there. The only person who I wanted to get out there for is gone.”
“Britney, you can continue to live your life like this, concert to concert and living in the valley’s or you can go back out there and get what you want in life and live on the mountain tops. The choice is yours honey.”
After a few minutes, Britney reached for her phone…
They each picked up the phone and let it ring, but it just kept ringing. Each of them heard the phone beeping meaning that there was somebody on the other line, but they didn’t care they wanted to talk to one another.
They reached each other voice mail at the same time.
(A/N: Justin’s words are in regular print Britney’s are in italics)
“Hey you reached Britney. I’m too busy to answer the phone right now, but leave your name and number and I’ll call you back”
“Hi Britney, it’s Justin. I was just calling to say hi and I thought that I might get to talk to you, but I guess that you’re busy so I’ll try again later…. Bye I guess”
“Hey its Justin, I either can’t hear the phone or it’s not on, so leave your name and number and I’ll get back to you later”
“Hi Justin. It’s Britney; I just wanted to talk to you. I guess that I’ll call back later. Bye Justin.”
They had both called each other at the same time and gotten each other’s voice mail. It only took a couple of minutes before they realized that they had voicemails and called each other back. This time they got through
“Hello,” Justin said