She Knew
by Skeabs

She was my once in a lifetime

Her hair spread over the pillow: a golden, tangled halo, damp from the exertions of lust and love. You stared at it, at the barely discernable edge where her real hair began, hidden by extensions and dye and careful combing.

She turned over and ran a small, warm hand over your chest. You always thought love was best conveyed through touch. Britney must have loved you a lot. "Do you believe in entropy?" she asked.

You didn't answer for a while. You knew that Britney resented her "dumb blonde" façade almost as much as she resented the critics who said she couldn't sing and you knew that when you were alone, she liked to remind you that she wasn't as dumb as she looked, as dumb as everyone believed her to be.

"Babe?" she angled her head on your shoulder so she could look in your face. "You asleep?"

You shrugged and ran a big hand up her arm. "No, I don't know what it means."

"Entropy," she said. "That the natural order of things is to break down."

"You mean things fall apart?" you asked, remembering the title of a book you 'd seen once.

"Yeah."

You told her you didn't and pulled the sheet up over both of you, warding off the chill as the sweat dried. You held her close and asked her if she thought you'd always be together.

"I don't know," she said, and you learned to live with that.

~..~

She told you once that she was dying and it took you a while to realize that she didn't mean the eventual sense in which everyone dies. You asked if she was sick and she looked up from her notebook and laughed.

"No," she said finally and didn't elaborate.

She always had her notebook with her, somewhere close. She never let you see what she wrote, but she showed you the first page once. In big black letters it read, "Blame no one." She never would tell you what it meant.

"It doesn't really matter," she'd say, and the conversation would be over.

Happy ending come true

She didn't tell you to your face in the end; she called you up from some anonymous hotel room in some anonymous town.

"We don't need each other anymore," she said. It was a lie, you knew it was a lie and you told her, thinking she might laugh and say, "You're right, just kidding." But she didn't.

She sighed and you knew that her right hand, the hand not holding the phone because she always used her left ear, her right hand was rubbing her temple.

"I'm sorry, Justin," she said and hung up and you finally believed it was real, standing there in your living room, surrounded by light and life with a dead phone in your hand, still pressed to your ear.

"Entropy," you finally said, staring down at the phone. You threw it against the wall.

~..~

You know, because being apart has given you time to think, that it's hard to be objective about loving someone. You're cute and you pout and you've always been given what you wanted, what you thought you needed.

You love Britney, you love your mom, you love the other guys.

And it's easy, really easy, to be selfish about it. You get caught up in your shit; in the way they make you feel. The way they smile at you or hug you or kiss you that makes you really feel loved, and you forget that it's also about them.

She said I took her for granted

She showed you her notebook for the first time, the only time, two months later. You wanted to take it as a sign, as a peace offering, a truce, a white flag saying, "we should really be together and I'm sorry for freaking out."

You felt it was due.

You'd gone on Rosie, on CBS, on TRL and claimed to still love, still be in love with her and you knew it was still true, still real. Still something you needed to believe.

She held out the notebook. "Just the last one," she said, watching you flip to the page.

It was a story. The first line was the same line from the front of her book, "Blame no one." The rest was about a girl that didn't think anyone loved her and killed herself. It's painfully obvious to you now but it wasn't obvious to you then and it didn't occur to you until two weeks later when her mother found her body in the bathtub.

But then, then you read the entire story and thought in the back of your mind that it was really good, but all that ran through your head, over and over, was "blame no one."

"It's good," you said, and watched her smile. "Little depressing though."

"That's life," she said and took back her notebook. You watched her eyes but didn't see hope in them, didn't see acceptance. Only pain.

I thought she knew

She left the notebook in your room when she went home. You didn't find it until two weeks later, after Lynne called you in tears, hysterical and sobbing and screaming into the phone until Jamie Lynne took it away from her. She scared you with how old she seemed sometimes and she told you calmly that her sister was dead and would you please come over so you could give them a ride home from the hospital?

You went and picked them up and half of the time you thought that she should have people that do this for her; she's "Britney Spears' mom" and you shouldn't have to. Shouldn't have to move, to think, to feel.

The rest of the time, all the time, in whispers and shouts and quiet "indoor" voices, was "blame no one," over and over and over again.

Blame no one.

You finally understood what it meant.

Blame no one. Blame no one.

~..~

You ignored the phone for a week. You found Britney's notebook in the drawer you kept your boxers in. You couldn't figure out why she would hide it there and you pulled it out, wondering if you should read it, if you were allowed to read it.

You held it to your chest and lay down on your bed.

Her words against your chest felt like life, like hope but you knew they weren't. They were dead, as dead as you felt.

I'd sell my soul

Chris found you two days later. You'd broken your mirror and crawled through the shattered glass to huddle in the corner under your sink. He couldn't tell how long you'd been there, but the blood on your hand was crusted.

He pulled you up and washed your hand and you didn't make a sound even though you knew, in some distant, other part of your brain, that it hurt. It hurt a lot.

"What happened?" he asked.

You didn't answer because you weren't sure you knew. You remembered staring, for what felt like hours, at your reflection. Wondering if you stared long enough, hard enough at yourself that you'd change, turn into the kind of person that was needed, loved.

He pushed you onto your bed and knelt to take your shoes off.

"Listen, J." he started, and you cut him off, pressing your lips to his in a desperate attempt to make him stop, make him make you feel.

He tried to pull away and you pushed closer, pressed further and further into him until you couldn't tell where you stopped and he began. You knew he believed sex cured everything, changed everything, brought everything together. You knew because he told you once, when he was drunk, that it helped his mom, got them food for the night sometimes.

You knew you were using him but it was your shit, your need to feel loved, so you put your hand down his pants and thrust your hips up, panting heavily in his ear. He moaned and pushed down, pressing against you, pushing you further and further into the sheets.

My world revolved around her

Part of loving someone is forgiving them before they even ask. Sometimes, before they even know they've done something wrong. Part of being loved, truly feeling loved, is seeking that absolution, watching in their eyes and having that sweet sense of satisfaction, of absolute love that means you've been forgiven.

It's in the way Chris laughs with you over morning cereal, or the way Joey hugs you on his way home. It's in the way she used to hold you after sex, after the wild rush of lust had cooled, leaving the faint echoes of desire in its wake.

You grow to depend on that, everyone grows to depend on that, and that's what makes getting up in the morning truly worth it.

You can't get it from her anymore. You can't look into her eyes and feel that, know that you're forgiven for ignoring her, for not understanding. But you can get it from them.

~..~

The next day you went to Lance's house really early, before even he would be up. You didn't shower, didn't shave, couldn't remember the last time you'd done either. The cleanest part of your body was your hand, washed clean by Chris and covered with foamy white gauze.

You let yourself in the back door and waited at his kitchen table. He came down several minutes or hours later; you didn't pay attention and it didn't really matter. He didn't see you for several moments and dropped his mug of coffee when he finally did.

"Shit, you scared." he trailed off when you didn't move, didn't acknowledge that he'd spoken. "Justin?" he asked, moving closer to you.

You finally moved and though you couldn't see your own face and hadn't ever looked in the mirror in moments of extreme pain, you knew its echo was visible on your face. "Lance, I need." but your voice was broken and gravelly and you stopped.

He gathered you in his arms and took you upstairs to his bedroom, which always smelled like cedar and vanilla. He wrapped his arms around you and though he never used sex the way Chris did, you eventually got from him what you wanted, what you needed.

~..~

He never told you when you had to leave, when you were done, because he wouldn't; he wasn't like that. Lance was brutally honest about numbers and money and people you, as a group, employed, but not about his feelings or your feelings. Those were the things he lied about.

"Can I just." You ran a shaky hand down his bare back.

"Can you what?" he asked, rolling over.

"I just. I just need to leave. Is that okay?"

He ran his hand over your face. "Why wouldn't it be?" He frowned at the wrinkles his hand found.

You shrugged with the shoulder not pressed into his side. Your breath hitched and he drew you closer, up against his chest.

"It's fine. Do what you need to."

Oh I'll never understand it

You left Lance's in the early morning, before he woke up. Your house was dark and cold. Not cold, maybe, since it was May already and eighty degrees outside. You felt cold though, and shivered as you walked in the house.

Chris had cleaned your bathroom after you fell asleep that night. The glass was gone from the floor and there was a big empty spot on your wall where your mirror had been.

Your hand itched and you pulled the bandage off, scratching at the healing skin. It tingled as the air hit the exposed wounds and you looked at your knuckles, hardly remembering how the cuts had happened.

Britney's book was still in the middle of your bed, and you picked it up, staring at the cover. The front was a collage of pictures of herself from magazines: Tigerbeat, YM, Bop. The back was plain and bare, completely exposed.

You held it again to your chest. You didn't read anything because you didn't feel you should. It was her book, her private thoughts, not yours.

Nothing was yours anymore.

You fell asleep on the floor, leaning against the bed.

~..~

She told you once that she didn't know what love was, what it felt like. You ran your hand down her body and told her that it felt like that, like her, like two people touching each other out of love and desire.

She giggled when your hand hit her belly and pushed your arm away, mock scowling.

"I'm serious."

"So'm I," you said.

She stared into your eyes. "I think you are," she finally said, sounding resigned.

~..~

JC's house reminded you of him, like it was an extension of his personality, his body, rather than just a dwelling. You loved his house. You felt peaceful there.

JC found you in his kitchen, sitting against the refrigerator because you liked the hum of the appliance.

He crouched next to you and you could see the pink polish chipping on his toenails.

"Something wrong?" He put his hand under your chin and angled your head up, checking your eyes.

"Not high," you said, pushing his hand away.

"C'mon." He helped you to your feet and pulled you upstairs.

It wasn't a first for you and JC, but it was the first time you'd begged him to top and the first time you cried when he came, collapsing on your back as you shuddered against the sticky sheets.

"You o-"

"Yeah, I'm fine."

He pressed his nose into the baby curls at the back of your neck. "You will be, I think. Maybe not yet."

"Entropy," you whispered. You didn't think he heard.

~..~

Chris was waiting in your living room when you got back. Your living room was pristine and white and you'd hated it almost since you first purchased the house.

"We okay?" he asked when you walked in.

You fell into the couch next to him, almost on top of him. "Yeah," you said.

"You sure? Because if you say yes I'm going to believe you and not be responsible if you really aren't."

You knotted your fingers together and stared at them, thinking. "Maybe not yet," you finally said.

"But you will be?"

You told him you didn't know and he nodded.

"I'm here."

You turned and pressed tighter against him, until his arm came up around you and held you close.

"I know," you whispered into his shoulder.

Last thing I would do

When Chris left you went to Joey's because you hated your white, empty room. Too sterile, too pristine, too like her and your relationship and you wanted to get new couches in red and brown and black, maybe.

Joey came to the door, bleary eyed and fuzzy and not quite aware of the world. He let you in; the baby was with Kelly and they hadn't been together since before she was born.

You followed him back to his room when he motioned for you. Followed him into bed. He wrapped his arms around you and almost fell asleep again before you started running your hand up his back.

"What's up?"

"Nothing."

He nodded and settled again, still with his arms around you. You fell asleep with his breath in your ear and his hands on your waist.

~..~

She never had a favorite song because it changed every week, but you remember one time when she called you up and played a song from her dressing room in Denver, so you could hear it on the bus in New York.

It was simple, a folk song and a departure from what she normally listened to, but you liked it and made her play it again. You could hear her singing along in the background and you smiled.

"And every breath we drew was hallelujah."

"I like it, Brit."

She turned the music down a bit. "It's just, it's broken and it's hopeful at the same time. He's strong, but he's searching."

"Yeah," you said, sounding dull to your own ears.

"It's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah."

~..~

You woke up in the middle of the night because lately you found it hard to stay asleep. The words to the song she'd played on her cell phone were running through your head, and you couldn't stop yourself from humming the melody.

Joey stirred beside you.

"What?" he muttered.

"Nothing."

"No, somethin's wrong."

You angled your face towards his and found him staring back.

"Can I." you trailed off, pressing tighter against his side.

"What?"

You ducked your head into his neck, pressing your mouth against his warm skin. He cradled the back of your head and stroked up and down your back, muttering nonsensical words against the side of your face.

He stilled when he felt your mouth moving, rubbing along his neck and collarbone. He tried to pull away but you clung to his shirt.

"Justin, what."

"Just let me," you said against his skin. "Let me."

You wormed your hands under his shirt, pulling it up and away from his skin.

"No, Justin." He pushed sleepy hands against yours, pulling away from you carefully.

"Just, please, let me," you said, pushing, straining towards him, aching to be held and loved and wanted.

Joey pulled away, held you at arm's length and forced you to meet his gaze.

"You don't need to do this."

"I do. You don't understand."

He looked in your eyes and his were worn and broken. You thought maybe he did.

"I do," he said, and you knew.

A heart full of words left unspoken

The therapist Joey made you see was nice, but you didn't think she could tell you anything you didn't already know. You listened with mild interest and responded appropriately and came home to Joey's house until you could get your living room redecorated.

But then one day the therapist said something and you broke down. Her words shattered your consciousness and you cried and sniffled and rubbed already blotchy cheeks. It was so "Good Will Hunting" of you, but you knew, finally, that it wasn't your fault. You couldn't save her, couldn't save them, could barely keep your own shit together and you knew that you were hurting them, hurting yourself.

You went home that day and hugged Joey and cried and told him you were sorry. He held you and nodded and told you he understood and you never really wanted to know why or how, but you accepted it and rubbed your nose across his shoulder.

You went home and Chris reupholstered your couches and Lance painted your walls and they all came over to your house more often. Chris watched SportsCenter and Real World with you on your new maroon couch. Lance let you sleep on his lap while he balanced your checkbook and checked your tax return and JC let you pull him into your lap while you went over a new song.

But it wasn't the touching anymore that mattered and you knew they loved you, knew they knew you loved them and everything else didn't matter.

Now that we're through

Joey slept at your house a lot because there were still nights that you woke up in a cold sweat, looking for them frantically and not able to find them. You needed to be held after that, hugged close until you believed.

He was with you one night when you woke up screaming, clutching at the sheets and him and your own shirt. He held you close and you didn't cry but you sobbed a lot.

He ran his big hand up over your head and it always felt so much warmer than yours did, than anyone's.

"You okay?" he asked.

You shrugged and didn't answer. Instead, you asked, "Do you believe in entropy?"

He didn't answer for a while and you thought maybe that he didn't understand, or hadn't heard. Or that he might have fallen asleep.

"Joey?" you lifted your head a little, to look into his eyes.

One of his warm hands cupped your cheek. "Maybe," he said. "But I believe love can keep things together."

You laughed at the utter cheesiness of his comment and he leaned forward and kissed you, pressing his laughing, smiling lips against yours. You felt something stir, almost leap in your heart and you knew, finally, what you'd always thought you'd known: what love really was.

You thought, maybe, that she knew. That she'd always known but didn't know how to tell you, to show you. And you nodded, banging your forehead against Joey's and you both laughed and you knew that you finally understood and you thanked her for loving you and you finally let her go.