Was I The Only One?

When I got home, I laid on my bed staring the ceiling with Muffins laid on my stomach cleaning his paws. I had to walk home from the Jonas home because Nick obviously couldn’t just say ‘Oh, be right back guys I’m taking Julia home, she’s been hiding, ‘kay bye!’ The walk home was relaxing though, a nice way for me to unconsciously clear my mind for a space of time and I got some much needed fresh air. Though, I couldn’t get the image of Joe from my mind. I tried to ignore it as much as physically possible.

But, I finally found something for me to do.

Beyonce had asked me to come and write some songs with her; why she wanted me when she could have some of the best song writers in the world was beyond me but I wasn’t about to say no to her. I had many song ideas but no will to put them to instrument of lyrics to paper. I hoped that I could get all the songs inside of me out of me with this session of writing.

Just as I was about to leave the house, the postman slotted some mail into our box, so with a sigh I went outside to bring it in. I unlocked the box and grabbed it then ran back inside in a slightly bouncy way; I was in the best mood I’d seen for a while.

When I dropped all of the mail onto the kitchen table for my mom, one caught my eye. It was hand written and addressed to me, I knew the writing as soon as I saw it and I got that immediate twist in my stomach. In the top right hand corner of it there was a number 19 in a circle and then it hit me like a ton of bricks. He couldn’t get me by technology so he’d turned to letters and my mom had been keeping them from me because I told her I didn’t want to hear from him. She was hiding the letters from me.

I clutched the letter in my hand and ran upstairs to her room, I pulled open all of her drawers looking for the letters. I pushed everything aside like a crazy woman, frantically trying to confirm my thoughts. Then, on draw 8 I found 18 other letters bundled together with an elastic band.

I pulled them out of the draw then knocked it shut with my thigh. I swallowed hard, trying to get rid of the nerves, as I looked at the bundle. I couldn’t open them yet so I put letter number 19 into the bundle and put them into my messenger bag. I was going to tackle everything, no more putting off reality.

It was time to rejoin the world.

I made my way to my own bedroom and grabbed my Blackberry from under my bed and threw that in my bag to join the letters. Before leaving for the studios I checked over my outfit; a simple white vest and knee length jeans with brown gladiator sandals. I looked pretty much the same everyday apart from varying jeans and different coloured vests. I’d get my mojo back sometime though, right?

With a heavy grumble, I pulled my car keys from my bag and left the house after locking up. I drove with Rihanna’s new album blasting, I enjoyed her new darker edge, it kept me happy but I could relate to it very well too. It was hard to focus on driving when I had my phone and letters with me now, I was itching to read everything. Now that I’d seen him I wanted to know what he wanted from me, what his excuses were and just how sorry he actually was for cheating on me.

That was one thing that barely crossed my mind oddly enough, who had he cheated on me with? I didn’t question it much, it didn’t seem like a priority because the bottom line was that he had done it; it didn’t matter who with or where, he’d done it. But you know what they say; curiosity killed the cat. And I was very curious.

I found a parking spot reserved next to Beyonce’s car which immediately made me giggle, it was all in her writing too; ‘RESERVED FOR SONG WRITING CHILD: JULIA BELL’

Paparazzi were hanging around near cars and snapped a few pictures of me but didn’t even move, just used their zoom. I put it to the fact they were bored of hanging around waiting for a shot of Beyonce herself, or maybe Jay was here too, who knows?

I followed the signs to studio 10 which were all pretty straight forward, I let myself into the room and greeted everyone. Jay was here and there was another man named Keith there who was also writing, they played me an up beat tempo track and explained they were having trouble coming up with any ideas for it. Oh, and there was a camera crew here recording a segment for Oprah, no pressure.

“I really wanna use this track.” Beyonce whined as we all sat just thinking of something with the track playing in the back ground.

I sung some lyrics quietly under my breath, people turned to look at me but couldn’t hear well enough from where he was at but he just seemed relieved I had some sort of idea for the track.

“Okay, urm, so I think I have an idea. It’s a very dance like track so it could just be about missions towards going for a night out?” I suggested nervously, they all just looked at me.

Beyonce nodded, “Sing what you’ve got then.” She pushed the door to the recording booth open with a sweet smile.

I skipped inside and put some head phones on, there was a blank piece of paper on a stand in front of me with a pencil so I scribbled down some rough lyrics and gave Jay the thumbs up to play the track into my ears.

I cleared my throat and began to sing.

“Mission one: I'ma put this on. When he see me in the dress I'ma get me some.
Mission two: Gotta make that call. Tell em get the bottles poppin' when they play my song.
Mission three: Got my three best friends like we do it all the time we gone do it again
Mission four: Got the vintage Rolls. Drop a couple hundreds tell him leave it at the door.

I ain't worried doing me tonight
A little sweat ain't never hurt nobody
While you all standin' on the wall
I'm the one tonight
Getting bodied.”

And that was the start of our creative roll, we managed to finish the song within half an hour. I was amazing how one push could set everyone else off, once that song was finished we knew it needed something else so what we did was create an extended version.

Just joking around, we began to create our own little dances to it. We’d managed to incorporate them into the song which was the cool part. So, all the while I was dancing and singing there was one thing that wasn’t in any part of my mind; Joe. I’d been so busy immersed in working (if you can even call it that) that he hadn’t crossed my mind until I realised he hadn’t then he was there.

Once we’d written a few more songs, we decided to call it a day but not before I was sat down and told to explain what was going on; they’d read stuff in tabloids but wanted to hear it from me.

It was painful to retell the story and explain to them how I’m not okay at all. Not one bit. But they both seemed to have faith in me.

“The thing is, when you let a man get too comfortable with himself then he’ll get cocky, you need to remind him that he can be pushed to the side if necessary.” Jay said with a soft smile.

Beyonce pushed my fringe away from my face then rested her small hand on my cheek, “You set the standards sweetie.”

“I know.” I sighed, “It’s just hard. He was my best friend since I was born. A part of me is gone.”

The two of them consoled me for a while, but I decided it was time to go home. I made sure to watch them drive away before I left the studio lot, once they’d disappeared from my sight I pulled my Blackberry from my purse and turned it on. My hands were shaking as I entered my passcode to my phone, it began to beep as soon as everything had loaded.

I sat for a whole minute just listening to it load email after email, message after message, missed call after missed call. I got so annoyed with the beeping I turned it on silent and began to drive home with the music on to distract me.

My phone sat on the passengers seat, the screen flashing continuously as I drove.