Was I The Only One?

Nick was trying, he was trying really hard. I had decided it would be helpful if I joined him on tour, Emma was supposed to be going with him but for obvious reasons she was no longer permitted to go. She had tried to contact us both and so had Joe, for me Emma was easy to ignore and so was Joe as I’d been ignoring people for a long time but for Nick it was hard. Nick had confessed to me that he felt guilty for punching Joe and that he missed Emma, I tried to give him some advice but there wasn’t much to say. He wouldn’t stop missing her for a while, even now I still missed Joe.

I missed his smile, the way he talks, the way he walks… but I missed the small details the most. Like how when he talks he often jerks his head slightly and the faded freckles across his nose. I missed everything about him but I knew that it would be wrong to be with him after all that has happened. I didn’t know if I would be able to trust him and it’s extremely hard to have a relationship without trust.

Tour was going well. It was strange to get used to being on tour with only one third of the Jonas Brothers I was used to but I soon got into a settled place with Nick’s new, older and more mature band mates. Nick and I spent a lot of time together which was also different and nice. Usually when I’m on tour with them I spend most of my time with Joe so it was different and refreshing to spend the majority of my time with Nick. It definitely showed me the large differences between the brothers too.

There were also many new things happening in my life. I decided it was time for me to jump off the Jonas bandwagon and finally do something by myself. Because I was sort of in the public eye lots of things had been offered to me but up until then I had turned them all down, just wanting to tour with them, but now I needed to do something for myself and something to establish myself as somebody or as something worth something. I wouldn’t be able to tour with the boys all of my life, it would all have to come to an end eventually so I took up one offer that was given to me.

Modelling was something I enjoyed. I had done a few little bits of amateur modelling for magazines and things like that, but nothing to the extent that I could get a career out of it. I took up an offer from Elite Model Management and they set me straight to work with amazing designers that had been trying to find a way to book me for a while.

After three straight shows of the four show run Nick and the Administration had set up I was sent to an audition/practice photo run for Donna Karen jeans in West Hollywood. I was very nervous about what to wear, what they would want me to do or if they would even book me. I wasn’t the tallest model, I was only an inch over the ‘drawing line’ at 5ft 8” so I was even more anxious. When I arrived at the house where the actual shoot would be held tomorrow, I walked inside to see a room of about 10 older, thinner and taller models than me. I swallowed the lump in my throat and sat down in a spare seat. It didn’t take the hirers long to pick us all out, one by one models were called into a different room and they either came out or they didn’t and one by one they all came out of the room stroppy and annoyed. All these rejections were making me even more nervous. My cell phone was vibrating non stop in my purse, probably my mom, and my foot would not stop twitching.

There ended up being only myself and another model in the room, a camp looking man in skinny jeans, a white v-neck shirt and a pair of white rimmed sunglasses poked his head around the door with a forced smile.

“You two together please.”

I looked at the other model who smiled at me, I smiled back and followed her into the room. Little did she know that one smile calmed my nerves. In the room there was a large space cleared, a table with three chairs being them, two occupied, sat behind them and the man who had asked us in took the remaining one. Racks of clothes lined the walls, jeans, shirts, jackets… everything, you named it and it was there.

“Thank you two for coming.” One woman said, “I’m Jenny, I work very closely with Donna and know what she wants so, let’s have a look.”

She stood up from behind the table and walked up to us, I tried to stay relaxed as she circled the both of us and examined our faces as if she were looking at a piece of meat to pick and eat.

Jenny stopped in front of the girl beside me. “Allison, you can go. Thanks for showing up.”

Allison forced a smile at her and nodded to me. I was kind of in shock but I knew I had to keep myself together.

“You papers say you’re a 6? Is that right?” The man with the sunglasses asked, I hadn’t noticed him move to the jeans wrack.

“Yeah, it is.” I answered.

“I booked it!” I screamed down the phone to my mom once I was in my car.

“Oh my, are you serious?” Her voice was so high, it made me laugh.

“Yes!”

“That’s amazing sweetie! Denise and I are about to have dinner at Urth, want to join us?” She asked.

I started my car, holding my phone by my shoulder. “Yeah, I’ll be like 10 minutes. Order for me?”

“Okay honey, love you.”

She cut off the call, obviously busy, so I just shrugged and began to check all the missed calls and messages. As per usual I had some from Joe and Emma, they never left me alone, and so I read the texts from Joe.

Joe Jonas
You’re in L.A? Come to mine, please, we need to sort this mess out. I love you too much to stop trying, don’t let 18 years of friendship go to waste… please?

I rolled my eyes deleted the text just like I had done with all of his other ones. I was tired of hearing the same thing over and over, he was like a broken record or a smell you just can’t get rid of. Now Emma, she was more like the annoying noise interrupting a perfect silence but I could never find where it was to make it stop.

I read through some tweets of hers too, all depressing song quotes that were obviously hinting towards her ‘loss’ of Nick and I. Joe’s were more normal but I could tell he was sad, he seemed to be doing everything robotically. But that wasn’t my problem.

What was my problem were the paparazzi that were already outside of Urth caffe when I turned up. It shook me a bit because it made me think that one of the brothers must be there with them, unless there isn’t much happening and they feel like following Denise Jonas. But I soon realised that a paparazzi had been following me so consequently must have told them to be here waiting. Immediately after my car had stopped they were at the windows snapping pictures, I pushed my door open vigorously not caring if it hit any of them then I walked at a brisk pace into the restaurant.

It was a relief to see that it was just my mom and Denise and to see my chicken salad already there waiting for me. My mom smiled and waved me over, I waved back and walked briskly over to the table. Denise and my mom asked me how the casting when and what happened, I answered then tucked into my salad while they chatted about life.

“So, Nicholas is going to meet up with Emma today.” Denise told me.

I froze, my drink resting on my mouth, I snapped out of my shock and took a sip. “Good for him.” I mumbled.

The two older women just looked at me, “He’s going to start talking to her…” My mom said.

“I know, I heard you,” I laughed, shaking my head at them. “I know what you’re hinting at, Nick talks to Emma, I should talk to Joe. But it’s not going to happen. I don’t want to know him.”

“Julia, I can tell when you’re lying.” My mom announced making me frown, I hated her for that.

“So?” I retorted childishly.

“Don’t you think it’s about time you at least listened to what Joseph has to say?”

“No, I don’t. Did you invite me here to ambush me?” I questioned but my mom just ignored me.

“Julia, do you think your dad would like you and Joe fighting?”

I could feel the blood boil beneath my skin at the mention of my dad, “That’s a low blow mom. And I don’t think dad would mind Joe and me fighting if he knew that he’d cheated on me with my best friend.”

My mom smiled, trying to ease the tension she had created. “Your dad wanted you to be happy… I wish he could’ve seen how happy you were when you and Joseph were in love. It would’ve made him feel so much happier inside…”

I paused, “You mean happier to die?”

“No…” She said thoughtfully, “Not to die.”

My mom was having trouble finding the words so Denise took over, “Your father always hoped you’d have every happiness in the world, and although it wasn’t always sun shine and roses with you and my son, you were the happiest we’d ever seen you.”

I listened to their words, but I knew their agenda. “If you think that I’m just going to forgive Joe because Nick might forgive Emma you have another thing coming. And, pulling out the dad card isn’t convincing me, it’s just making me angry. So stop.”

I snatched my purse from the floor and took off from the restaurant, before I left I put a pair of sunglasses on to one, block the sun and two, hide the fact I was about to start crying.