He had to have heard wrong. Slowly, Justin turned around to see Lance staring into the conference room, open-mouthed. Then Lance yelped, "What in the ..." and rushed into the room.
Justin strode back down the hall, feet trying to keep up with his racing heartbeat. The others looked at one another in confusion.
She was hugging Lance and laughing. Her hair was a little shorter, skin a little tanner. They started jabbering at the same time and realized they couldn't hear what the other was saying. Finally she placed her hands on both sides of his face and proclaimed, "What a great going-away present!"
It was then that Madeline looked up and saw Justin.
The partygoers were beginning to disperse, returning to their daily work. Ron put a hand on her shoulder, wishing her luck. She nodded faintly but barely heard him; the blood was roaring in her ears.
Her energy the last few months had been concentrated on picking up the pieces and starting over. She hadn't been in touch with Emma and Lance, thinking it would be easier on her as she juggled the changes. She'd made no indication of her situation to them, but hoped to re-establish contact when life was in order. Madeline had a lot on her mind: Leaving the school she loved and transferring to the more-affordable UCLA, half an hour from her parents but far enough to warrant a dorm room; new classes and new major. Being away from Chicago, making new friends.
All while trying to forget a teen idol who now turned white at the very sight of her.
What a complicated life I lead, she thought wryly. I work so hard to get past him and that's when he decides to appear again. Right when I'm moving on. Next time, Madeline, you gotta pick people who can't fly everywhere so easily.
Her first instinct was to bolt out the door. But it was too late to pretend she hadn't seen him, and there was nowhere to hide. She was unprepared to face him now, after all this time.
After what seemed like an eternity, she took a deep breath. "Hello, Justin."
His throat was dry. He swallowed. "Hey, Madeline." My God, she looks great.
"Been a long time." I hate this. I hate being so awkward.
"Yeah. A long time." She certainly looks like she's moved on.
"Your hair is blond again," she observed. Why is our small talk always centered around his hair?
"Yeah." Say something meaningful, you idiot.
She wasn't sure what to say next.
"I'm gonna take off," Lance said, who had been observing the interaction. He glanced from one face to the other. "Madeline, we were gonna put your face on a milk carton. I'm glad we found you. Justin, we'll wait for you downstairs."
Justin nodded, still looking at her.
"So ... you're the guest of honor here?" he asked in a voice not his own.
"One of them," she replied, waving into the empty room. "There are three of us interns who rotate companies with another group of interns. I've been working here since the summer."
"I see." Justin nodded. "Well, I'm glad we found you," he said, then realizing he'd just repeated Lance's words.
"I didn't know I was lost."
Justin gave a small smile, and Madeline felt her cheeks beginning to warm.
"You were to us," he said softly.
She didn't know how to decipher this, so she glanced furtively around the room and fidgeted with the edge of her shirt. "I should go," she said tentatively. "It's my last day but I still have lots of work to do."
Justin racked his mind for something -- anything -- to keep her there, but came up empty. His mouth refused to produce the right words.
"How long are you here for?" she was asking now.
"We leave tomorrow morning," he replied, almost reluctantly.
"Well then," she said lightly. "It was good to see you."
"You, too."
"Take care, Justin," she said, trying to keep strain out of her voice. She bit the side of her bottom lip tentatively, then tore her eyes off him and left the room. She knew she wouldn't see him again.
He stood alone in the conference room, feeling like he'd warped from another dimension. His mouth felt full of cotton; his heart was pulsing wildly. He felt incapable of moving.
He'd let her go again.
Madeline continued to walk without looking back, forcing herself to push on with each step.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
"Well," Joey sighed, looking at the melancholy figure next to him on the beach. "At least the mystery is solved."
"Yeah, but I'm not seeing better moods here," Chris said, digging his toes into the sand.
Lance squinted into the sun, now a brilliant shade of orange and lowering itself over the horizon. "She looks like she's doing OK," he offered, "for someone who got thrown some real curve balls, what with the financial aid and all."
Justin didn't say anything. His emotions had been in high tumult since the afternoon, and he had been afraid to open his mouth for fear of what would leave it.
"There she is," J.C. called out to his girlfriend, who was picking her way down the beach in bare feet. "Where have you been?"
"I had someone to see," Emma replied, smiling down at his sitting figure and kissing the top of his head. "What've you been doing, checking out other women or what?"
J.C. grinned. "Someday she'll come along, the girl I love," he began to croon. "Her smile will be a song, the girl I love / When she comes my way, I'll do my best to make her stay ..."
Justin's ears pricked up at the familiar jazz tune, and the ache buried itself deeper into him, until his now-functioning mouth finally had to cry out.
"It's my fault," he blurted.
J.C. stopped singing. The others looked at Justin.
"What is?" Chris asked.
"That I lost her." Justin picked up a handful of sand and let it sift through his fingers. "I couldn't forgive her when she asked me to, and I waited too long. Now she's got a whole new life going on ... I could see it in her face."
He looked up at his friends' sympathetic expressions.
"I thought I was punishing her," he admitted. "I don't know why I thought she'd be grateful to see me. It doesn't matter to her if I want to talk. It doesn't matter to her if I still ..." he drifted off.
"Why don't you tell her this stuff?" Emma asked gently.
"How can I tell her this stuff?" Justin asked, clenching another fistful of sand in frustration. "She was there, and I stood like an idiot and didn't say anything. I couldn't function then; how can I function now, just open my mouth and pour all this out?"
Emma squatted in front of him. "You could start by standing up where you are and walking about thirty feet that way," she said gently, and pointed.
Standing on the edge of the surf in the distance, holding a pair of sandals in her hand and looking out toward the water, was Madeline. She'd changed out of her work clothes and put on a cotton T-shirt dress. Her hair billowed in the wind and head was downcast to the waves lapping at her feet.
She did not see them.
Justin turned his head to Emma but kept his eyes on Madeline. "Did you do this?" he accused.
"Guilty as charged," she said wickedly. "I thought you needed a little help."
"I could kill you, you know," he said in a timid voice that lacked any authority. "What if I'm not ready to talk to her?"
"Then you'd be letting her go yet again, and I'm not talking about the video either. I don't think you're that dumb. Besides, if you killed me, there's this skinny guy I'm close to who might get mad," Emma said, eyes twinkling.
"Yeah?" J.C. cracked with a laugh. "Who would that be?"
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Hold on my heart / Just hold on to that feeling / We both know we've been here before / We both know what can happen
Hold on my heart / Cause I'm looking over your shoulder / Please don't rush in this time / Don't show her how you feel
Hold on my heart / Throw me a lifeline / I'll keep a place for you / Somewhere deep inside
Hold on my heart / Please tell her to be patient / Cause there has never been a time / That I wanted something more
If I can recall this feeling / And I know there's a chance / Oh I will be there / Yes I will be there / Be there for you / Whenever you want me to / Whenever you call I will be there / Yes I will be there
Hold on my heart / Don't let her see you crying / No matter where I go / She'll always be with me
Hold on my heart / Just hold on to that feeling / We both know we've been here before / We both know what can happen / So hold on my heart
--"Hold On My Heart," Genesis
What am I doing here? Madeline wondered. Why do I let myself get talked into these situations?
She'd run into Emma after the group had left and the two girls had joyfully reunited. Madeline detailed her brief and awkward interaction with Justin, and Emma pleaded that she talk things out with him.
"I can't," Madeline answered, shaking her head as she carried a cardboard box of desk belongings to the building's elevator. "I've spent all this time moving on, and to have it all brought out again ..."
"I thought you wanted closure," Emma protested.
"I called him when the video premiered, don't you remember?" Madeline responded, nudging the button for the garage. "I called your cell phone and they were all over at your place. I got my closure then, Emma. I said everything I wanted to say, threw myself down on my sword, and he said goodbye. If that's not closure, I don't know what is."
"But don't you still love him?" the older girl asked.
Madeline waited until the elevator doors opened and they stepped into the garage before she answered. "It was so ironic that the school set me up with an internship here," she mused. "His picture was only on every other wall in this place. I think every time I passed one I'd gauge my pain, hoping it'd go down a little every day."
"And did it?"
Madeline looked straight at her. "You know, every day I knew Justin, I wished he'd do something unredeemable so I'd have a reason to hate him. Then he turned out to be the virtuous one while I did something unredeemable. I never knew anyone who could penetrate me so easily, Emma; who could make me so vulnerable. He's the only one who can top me in an insult match and defuse my hot air just by smiling."
She sighed as she turned the key in the trunk of her Honda Civic and set her box inside. "Do I still love him? What do you think?"
"Then talk to him, Madeline."
"He doesn't love me, Emma. I can't take any more humiliation."
"He wanted to talk when we were in Chicago, and then he went nuts when he found out you weren't there. I think it jolted something in him, because he's been acting weird since."
Madeline closed the trunk with a decisive thump and jingled her keys thoughtfully.
"I tell you what," Emma suggested, putting a hand on her shoulder. "I agree the ball's in his court, but just let him know you're still playing on the other side. Come down to the beach and wait. If you chicken out or he doesn't come soon enough, you can bolt. If he chickens out, he can bolt. But you won't have to see him unless he seeks you out. And then we'll all know for sure."
It was like waiting for a date and half-knowing you would be stood up, Madeline observed now as she stood near the surf. I don't know what I was thinking, she thought sadly. Time won't change what I did.
Until now, she'd held one last kernel of hope that he'd come. But the last rays were flickering over the horizon, and her spirits were sinking with the sun. Tears began to sting her eyes. She turned to leave the beach.
"Madeline?"
It was his voice speaking her name. She turned around slowly. He was next to her, as he had been that afternoon, now in a sea-green button-down open over a tank shirt and long khaki shorts, wearing an expression as curious as a child's.
"Were you going somewhere?" he asked.
Finding her voice this time was harder.
"Uhh ... I don't know," she murmured.
"Someone told me you'd be here."
She nodded. "I guess I've been found again."
Their eyes met, and no words came for a few moments.
"How've you been?" he asked.
"OK, I guess. Busy."
"I hear ya."
"How did the tour go?" she asked.
"Good, good." He nodded emphatically. "We finished the arena tour and then did an outdoor one that ended a couple months ago. Now we're pushing the new album, so ..."
He drifted off. "I guess you already know that, being at RCA and all. How'd you end up there, anyway? Are you out of journalism?"
"Yep."
"Why?"
Madeline's lips pursed. They both knew fundamentally why she'd changed her major.
"Someone told me I'd be better off in public relations," she said after a pause, smiling privately at the prophetic truth in Professor Duarte's words. She walked a little farther into the warm water until it lapped her knees. She turned and tilted her head as the breeze caught her hair.
Justin watched her. "So, you're doing all right, then," he said tentatively. "Life is good."
She was silent, not wanting to continue with small talk. "Did Emma force you to come here, Justin?" she asked, not looking at him.
He shook his head. "No. I somehow got here on my own. I don't know how, but I'm here. Maybe it was the Force or something, I don't know."
She smiled a little at his feeble attempt to break the ice. "Then why'd you come?"
The two stood side by side, both looking at the water. Madeline's breathing turned shallow as she waited.
"I had some things on my mind," Justin said, fumbling for the right words. "I just don't know how to say them, exactly."
"Whatever it is, just say it. I can handle it." She seemed to be bracing herself for his words.
Justin shifted his weight back and forth and looked out over the horizon. "The last few months ... well, I won't pretend they've been easy. Pretty unsettling, actually. I've been doing a lot of thinking about the way I left things when you called, some stuff I said when I was mad. I thought everything was resolved, but it didn't feel like it."
"It seemed to me that they were." Her voice was quiet.
"They weren't," Justin said, shading his eyes as he noticed a sailboat in the ocean. "I hoped they were, because I was so angry, but ... well, you're not very easy to forget, Madeline."
He stole a quick peek at her profile. Her face went unchanged, but he could see her eyes liquify for a moment.
"I don't know when I stopped," he went on. "I really wanted to stay angry, somehow. It worked for a while. But thinking about everything over and over ... I guess I ran out of reasons to."
He seemed so calm; no trace of the angry young man who refused to look at her eight months ago. The hard edge was gone from his expression. He was older, more sure of himself, and spoke with tenderness. She looked at the water surrounding her feet, not wanting to hope.
"It may not matter much to you now," Justin said, taking a deep breath. "And I know I'm too late with this, but if there's any part of you that needed to hear that it's all in the past -- well, it is."
There was silence on her end. Justin was dying to know what was going on inside her head. Finally he turned so that he faced her profile.
"Madeline --"
"Why do you think you're too late?"
It wasn't the response he expected. "What?"
"Why do you think you're too late?"
"Because you moved without telling Emma or Lance why, settled into a new life, and when I ran into you today, you were so self-assured and happy," Justin answered. "It had been six months, you know."
She turned to face him directly, and something shiny caught a sunbeam, forcing Justin to squint. When his eyes adjusted, he saw a familiar shape dangling from a black cord around her neck.
* * * * * * * * Flashback to eight months ago * * * * * * * * *
Madeline watched numbly as he thundered out, flinging open the courtyard door with a thud and letting it slam behind him.
She walked five steps to follow him, then felt her knees give out. She lowered herself onto a stone bench and covered her teary face with her hands.
This can't be happening. I didn't even get to tell him.
The anger and hurt was obvious on his face. She would never forget that look.
I can't stay here, she thought. I don't belong.
Madeline stood up gingerly from the bench to leave the party, and out of the corner of her eye spotted the velvet object she'd seen him toss aside. After a moment, she wrested the box away from the bush and opened it.
Instantly she knew it was hers.
* * * * * * * * * end flashback * * * * * * * * *
"Justin," she was saying. "Those six months were the hardest of my life. Leaving Chicago, moving here, everything. And the hardest part about it was knowing you were still out there somewhere, hating the sight of your own video simply because I was in it."
He was still staring at the snowflake charm. It brought Justin back to that fateful day, which he'd struggled for months to overcome. But it also told him something else.
He wasn't too late. He didn't have to ask -- Justin knew how she felt. The simplicity of it all hit him hard. He felt the warmth flood through him as he looked down at his sandy feet, a shy half-smile spreading across his face.
Madeline toed the sand as she weighed her next words. He seemed to be finished. What happens now? Is this all you came to say? her mind cried. But not wanting to scare him off, she refrained, keeping her expectations low.
"I really am sorry," she said, catching his eye as he lifted his head at her words. "I probably always will be. But it means everything that you're here. However hard it was for you to come, I really needed to hear this from you, Justin. And I ... hope everything is resolved for you now."
She sounded as if she were leaving. Indeed, she was taking a small step backward.
"Where do you think you're going?" he demanded.
She froze in her tracks. "What do you mean?"
"Are you actually thinking about leaving? After all I did to come here?"
Her instincts kicked into gear. "You only walked a few feet. I can still see your friends from here."
"But you thought this was all I came to say, didn't you?" he said, his beam broadening in the way that disarmed her.
"Isn't it?"
The familiar rhythm of their bantering settled in. "You know," he said, appraising her. "You used to be better at this. You lost your touch a bit."
"Yes, yes," she sighed, making a mock sorrowful expression. "I've turned into a big mush ball."
"We'll have to toughen you up, then."
They fell silent at his words. Madeline tucked a lock of hair behind her ear and looked up at him.
"Does this mean you're willing to tolerate me again?" she asked meekly.
In response, Justin grinned down at her, reached forward and pulled her close. To her shock, he engulfed Madeline as gently as possible in his arms, releasing into her the forgiveness he was finally able to summon.
"I missed you," he said quietly.
His touch and his words sprang tears in her eyes as she gladly hugged him back.
"I missed you, too," she choked.
Justin rested his chin on top of her head and breathed in the scent of her hair, now warmed by the sun. "I wanted to hold out, but for the sake of having you back in my life I guess I'll have to acquiesce."
She held him a little tighter and his heart fluttered. When they stood this way, old feelings resurfacing, the beach around them dissolved into the worn carpet and small confines of the trailer. The elements were there: the charm, her scent, her touch. The perfect way she fit into him. He could easily lose himself in the moment, almost as if the past hadn't happened.
Almost.
Madeline seemed to be thinking the same thing. She lifted her head from his chest and said quietly, "How am I back in your life, Justin?"
Justin opened his mouth to respond, but no words came out. He knew the words he wanted to say. You're back in the way that tender kisses and loving embraces and hair-dyeing and snowball fights go. The way things were before ...
But his brain was stuck on these words, and she could see his expression turn to anguish as he struggled with conflicting answers. He could simply kiss her and hope everything would work out on its own. But her question unveiled crumbs of uncertainty Justin thought he'd swept away.
Being with her again was right. But it wasn't simple.
Madeline understood and quietly withdrew from his arms.
"Justin, it's all right," she said softly.
"No," Justin responded immediately. "Madeline, I want you --"
"I know," she said in a gentle voice. "But you can't yet. I have your forgiveness, but we can't just pretend nothing happened. I lost your trust first and foremost, and it doesn't return overnight. You said yourself you felt like you didn't know me."
Justin shook his head, trying to buy time as he attempted to sort out his emotions.
She stood a couple feet from him now, tucking another windblown lock of hair behind her ear. "It's all a little overwhelming, but we have time. It will be good to start over, I think," she said plaintively. "Start fresh. You can get to know me all over again, like we're acquaintances. Only this time I promise I won't be so cold." She gave a small chuckle.
He stuck his hands in his pockets. "But what about --"
"We'll deal with the other stuff later," Madeline promised, mouth set in a determined line. "Right now, I don't want you ever to have doubts about me. I want you to believe every word I say, even when I tick you off."
Sincerity spoke plainly in her words, as Madeline grasped the second chance that had miraculously come her way. They held each other's gaze.
Hold on my heart / Throw me a lifeline / I'll keep a place for you / Somewhere deep inside
Hold on my heart / Please tell her to be patient / Cause there has never been a time / That I wanted something more
Other stuff. She was referring to the feelings still filling the air between them, even as they stood a safe distance apart. She was referring to her admission of love six months ago, a declaration they both knew she still felt.
"It's a deal," Justin answered, and she smiled, turned and began to walk toward the spot where the others were sitting.
He followed her, marveling at this turn of events. She was lovely, carefully walking around shells and seaweed, a new spring in her step and a cloud clearly lifted from her shoulders.
She was right. He couldn't give his heart away just yet.
He had her love. But she wouldn't ask for his until she had his trust.
But Justin knew, as he sprinted to catch up to her, that there would come a day.
A day when he'd be able to tell her she had both.
©1999 by Twinkiegurl