March 20, 2000

"Justie, you gotta go to sleep," Justice said.

"I can’t," I replied continuing to pace around my hotel room.

"You’ve got to! You’re gonna be so busy tomorrow," she said grabbing my hand.

"I know but I can’t sleep," I said sitting down next to her. "I’m so nervous about tomorrow!"

"Hon, you don’t need to be nervous! You watched the news, there’s girls already camped out there waiting to get their copy and it doesn’t open for what seven hours?"

"I know but what if they don’t like it?" I asked.

"How could they not? I love it!"

"You don’t have any taste, though," I joked.

"You’re one to talk about taste, Justie! Who’s the one going out with JC?" Justice shot back.

"Don’t you be dissin my man, Benda! You’re the one who went out with Lance when he looked like a girl!"

"Whatever! Lance was hot and you’re just jealous that he’s gettin hotter than both you and JC!"

"As if! Lance could never be hotter than me or Josh!"

"Thanks for the vote of confidence, Justin," Lance said.

"He can’t help it if it’s true," Josh said. "Hey baby," he added hugging me.

"Hey sweetie."

"Thanks for listening to our conversation," Justice said rolling her eyes jokingly.

"You’re looking lovely, Justice," Josh said.

"Screw you, JC!" Justice said making a face at him. "Hey Lance," she added nodding toward him.

"Hello, Justice."

"So what can we do for you two?" I asked.

"Well we figured if none of the rest of us could sleep and we hadn’t seen you, you were probably in here driving Justice crazy with your worrying about tomorrow," Josh explained, "so we decided to come recuse her from you."

"Well thank you, JC and Lance," Justice smiled. "Anything you can do to get Justin to calm down would be great! He’s been pacing for an hour."

"Well Chris, Joey, Lance, and I were going to play basketball and we all know how much you two enjoy basketball," Josh explained, "so we thought we’d ask you to join us."

"Only if you, Justice, and I are on a team," I said looking at Justice who shrugged.

"That can be arranged I’m sure," he nodded.

"Sounds like fun then," I smiled.

"Hope you three are in the mood to lose," Justice said digging through her bag to get her tennis shoes.

"We’re used to loosing to you three so it won’t bother us none," Lance said.

"All right, now what?" Joey asked after we grew tired of playing basketball.

"We need something to keep our minds off tomorrow," Chris put in.

"Hmm... how’s school, Justice?" Josh asked.

"It’s good. English and Government aren’t anything hard and the rest of my classes are a breeze," she answered.

"Rest of your classes?" Lance repeated. "I thought you only had two."

"Her other classes are ‘work experience’," I said.

"What’s that?"

"Basically since the school gets money for every class a student takes they offer crap classes so that students who have all their required classes have full schedules and none of their other classes fit my needs so like last semester I got credit for recording my album and this semester I am getting credit for all the work I’m doing to prepare for my tour," Justice explained.

"Man I wish they would have had classes like that when I was in high school," Joey said and Chris nodded his head in agreement.

"I wish I could get credit for stuff like that," I said.

"You don’t have all your required classes completed, Justie, or you would’ve graduated cause your credits are different than mine," Justice said.

"True but it’d still be nice."

"Yah, they work really good at padding my GPA."

"When’s your graduation?" Chris asked.

"May 20th, I think," she answered. "You all gonna come?"

"We’ll try," Josh said while the others nodded.

"I’ll be there," I said. "Are you going to be able to come to mine on the 12th?"

"I’m planning on it but I’d either have to leave that night or early the next morning cause prom’s on the 13th."

"I’ll make sure you get there on time as long as you’re able to be there," I promised. "Do you know who you’re going with?"

"I’m not really sure. There’s a guy in my English classes that asked me to go with him," she answered. "He’s a real sweet guy so I’ll probably go with him."

"Details?" I suggested, noticing a brief darkening of Lance’s face. I’ll have to ask him about that later, I thought to myself.

"You met him when you were down last I think, Trevor Cook?" she said. "Anyway he’s got like the punk/skater look going on. He’s been a real sweetheart to me since school started."

"I think I know who you’re talking about. He was in that band that we watched perform, wasn’t he, the singer?" I asked.

"Yah that’s him," she nodded.

"You got a dress?" Josh asked.

"Not yet. Renee and I are gonna go shopping next week in Topeka cause they’ve got a shop with some Goth dresses I saw online and wanted to check out."

"Lord if it’s anything like your dress from when you went with Lance, you’ll definitely stand out," I said.

"I think you’d look cute in like one of those fluffy dresses that look like princesses’ dresses," Josh said.

"A baby blue one would be cute," I nodded.

"What about lavender?" Justice asked.

"That’d look really cute too," I nodded

"All right ladies, as much fun as this is, I’d rather not listen to you three talk about what Justice would look pretty in," Joey said. "No offense cause I think you look great in anything, Justice," he added.

"Thanks, Joey," she smiled. "So what else is there to do?"

"Movies?" Lance suggested.

"Sounds good," we all agreed.

"Justie, come on, calm down," Justice said, grabbing my hand.

"Are you gonna be out there?" I asked referring to the audience.

"Front row," she nodded. "Sells are really going good at Virgin," she added.

"If they’re doing half as good everywhere else, it’d be great," I replied.

"I’m sure they are. I was talking to one of my friends at works at Wal-Mart in one of the towns near Independence and she said that copies are flying off the selves, so much that they’re got a box at the checkout counter and just have the people looking for them come there since that’s all most of them are there for," she said.

"Really?" I asked looking at her with hopeful eyes. She nodded and smiled in reply, giving me a hug.

"Justice, hey can I borrow Justin for a moment?" Josh asked, coming over to us.

"Sure, maybe you can get him to calm down a bit," she nodded getting up.

"You gotta calm down, Jus," Josh said, wrapping his arm around my shoulder.

"I’m trying to," I sighed, laying my head on his shoulder. "What if all the people who bought the album hate it?" I asked.

"They won’t hate it, Jus! It’s our best work ever, they can’t hate it," Josh said.

"I hope they don’t."

====

"Why didn’t you call me?" Justice yelled when I answered my phone.

"What?" I yawned looking at the clock which read seven making it six in Independence, a time she rarely saw.

"Why did you call me and tell me you all broke the record?"

"What record?"

"First day sells and first week sells!!"

"We what?" I yelled sitting up.

"You didn’t know?" she exclaimed.

"No one told me!! How’d you find out?"

"Edward came in and woke me up. It’s been on MTV since like one o’clock this morning apparently," she explained.

"I can’t believe it!! This is amazing," I exclaimed. "I gotta tell Mama," I added getting up and running toward her room, yelling for her while listening to Justice laugh through the phone.

"Justin, what on earth are you yelling about this early in the morning?" she asked meeting me in the kitchen.

"We beat the records for first day sells and first week sells, Mama!!" I yelled wrapping my arms around her.

"Oh Just, that’s wonderful! Congratulations, baby!" she squealed hugging me tightly.

"Thank you, Mama," I said. "Thanks for calling and telling me, Benda," I added to her.