Dance with Me

Natalie’s POV

The rest of the day was almost a repeat of first period. I wasn’t mobbed the same way in every class, but I was constantly questioned. No matter which class I went to someone had a question for me. A few people even started asking Maya questions about the rumors. All in all my day could be described in one word, harassment.

I never knew that so many people knew my name before today. Before today I was simply a normal girl in school. I wasn’t super popular and I wasn’t a quiet nobody, I was simply a girl who knew a few people. Now I was Justin Bieber’s alleged girlfriend.

I slammed my locker closed after grabbing everything that I needed to do my homework. I was angry and stressed. I already had enough to deal with on my plate, I didn’t need to add rumored celebrity’s girlfriend to that list.

“I found it!” I heard Maya’s voice yelled.

I turned to face the direction that her voice was coming from. She was quickly walking down the crowded hallway towards me. I leaned my back against the locker and pressed my books to my chest as she inched closer to me.

She reached me and was slightly out of breath, showing me that she had been running before. She reached into her messenger bag and pulled out a magazine/tabloid.

“I found someone who had the magazine that basically started the rumors” she explained.

I quickly took the tabloid form her hands. I looked down at it in horror. On the cover of the front page in bright yellow letters were the words; Justin Bieber’s new friend, POSSIBLY MORE. There were a few pictures of other celebrities on the cover but most of the space was taken up by pictures of me and Justin.

The pictures that were taken while we were leaving the studio were blurry due to the size of the crowd, and the body guards that were surrounding us. In these pictures you could barely see me. The most you could see was my profile, and even then you needed to focus to see me.

Then there were the clear pictures, the pictures that were as clear as day. These pictures were taken while we were entering the studio. The biggest picture on the page was one of these pictures. It was a picture of Justin leading me into the studio with his hand on my back. There was one picture of the front view where you could see our faces, and another from the back where you could see his arm around me. Both of these views were side by side.

I clenched the tabloid in my fists tightly. I then turned around and slammed my head into my locker repeatedly. My head was beginning to hurt from hitting the locker so many times but I ignored the pain and continued. I was hoping that I would hit myself hard enough, to wake myself up from this nightmare. So far, nothing was working.

I felt someone grab my shoulders and turn me around so that I was no longer able to hit my head against my locker. The combination of me turning around and the headache that I was starting to develop made me dizzy. I used my right hand to grab my forehead and leaned back against the locker with my eyes closed. Maybe, banging my head against the locker wasn’t such a good idea.

“That’s what you get” Maya scolded. I opened my left eye and stared into her crystal blue ones. I groaned once again and closed my eyes.

“Honestly, I don’t see what the big deal is. People are just gossiping, sure it’s annoying after a while but it’s not that big a deal” she spoke.

I opened my eyes and stared at her in disbelief. She simply shrugged her shoulders before adjusting the strap on her bag. “Besides it’s Justin Bieber that you’re involved with this rumor with. Not only is he just plain hot, but after yesterday—”

“Shut-up” I muttered interrupting her. I didn’t want to be reminded of what happened yesterday. I was just starting to forget it. I was forgetting the incident but I couldn’t forget Justin. How could I when someone was always talking about me and him.

“Oh come-on you have to admit that you and—”

“Thank you for not talking Maya” I interrupted once again. Maya smiled and shook her head before we started walking towards the front of the school. Bryan was supposed to be picking us up after he picked Dante up.

As we walked down the hallway people continued to look at me. They all had the same reaction as they did this morning. A few teachers that were in the hallway were watching me carefully as I walked down the hallway. I knew that they had probably heard something about what was going on but didn’t know what it was entirely. I didn’t want them to know either, the last thing I needed was the teacher’s gossiping about me in the teacher’s lounge. I know exactly what a few of my teachers would say; so she could pay attention long enough for a celebrity but she couldn’t stay awake for a pop quiz.

We finally reached the front door, and stepped outside into the humid spring air Atlanta. Normally, it wasn’t as hot as it was now, but for some reason it was hotter today than it had been earlier in the week.

We saw Bryan leaning against his car in the parking lot talking on his cell phone. He looked up at us and smiled before continuing with his conversation. I could see that Dante was in the back seat as well. He looked over at us and waved excitedly. Maya and I both eagerly waved back.

We started walking towards the car ignoring a few of the stares that we were getting. I would have thought that they would have stopped by now, but of course; things never work out the way that you plan it.

“Your boyfriend not picking you up” Matt spoke as we walked past him. He was standing in the parking lot with a group of his friends. Sadly we had to walk past him in order to get to Bryan’s car.

This was the final straw. I was already on edge all day, but this was just too much. Having someone, who I haven’t talked to in months, mad at me because of a rumor is just too much.

I quickly slammed my books onto the hood of Bryan’s car. I then turned on my heel and walked back over to Matt. A cocky smirk was plastered onto his face as I walked over to him. His friends were all smirking and instigating as well as I walked over. Once I was in front of him I didn’t hesitate to grab the color of his blue polo and pulled him towards me. His eyes went slightly wide from my reaction. His face was now inches from mine but I didn’t care.

“Listen and listen good because I’m only going to say this once” I spoke through my clenched teeth.

“Justin Bieber, is. Not. My. Boyfriend. Nothing has changed, I’m still single and don’t have time to date. So stop being so jealous that I told you no, and get over it”

“If you ever breathe another word about me and Bieber again, I swear on your extremely small balls, that I will torture you so slowly and painfully that veterans from Vietnam will come and visit you in the hospital”

“Do I make myself clear?” I questioned as I tightened my grip on his collar.

He quickly nodded his head without breaking eye contact. I scowled once more before I let go of his collar. He quickly stood up straight and tried to fix his shirt. I continued to glare at him with my hands folded across my chest.

“And make sure to spread the word” I added. I then turned on my heel once more and walked over to Bryan’s car.

Maya had already taken her seat on the passenger side of the car. Her window was rolled down due to the amount of heat outside and possibly in the car. She had a smile on her face as she shook her head at me.

Bryan was no longer on his cell phone as I approached him. He had s smirk on his face as he looked down at me. He shook his head before walking around the car and getting inside. I knew that I wasn’t going to hear the end of this.

-X-

“I hate geometry” I muttered as I shut my math book.

Maya and I have been in her basement doing homework for about an hour. After we got home we ate a small snack which consisted of a few leftover chocolate cookies from yesterday. After that, Bryan took Dante to the park so that we wouldn’t be interrupted during our homework.

I had been attempting to do my geometry homework for over fifteen minutes. I was currently passing geometry with a 78 or a high C. I was good at algebra but geometry was not my forte. Maya was in Algebra 2 honors so she would help me out once in a while but sometimes she would get stuck as well.

Since I decided not to go to the studio today I actually had time to do all of my homework. Normally, I have to take Dante somewhere and rush off to the studio so my homework was either completed wrong or simply not done. Surprisingly, my grades weren’t horrible because of this. There was room for improvement but I have a low B average.

Homework wasn’t the only reason why I didn’t want to go to the studio today. I didn’t want to go because somehow I knew that Justin would be there. If he was there and I was there then the press would only make the situation worse than it already was. Who knows how everyone at school would react if they saw us together twice in a row.

“Well I hate Spanish” Maya muttered as she shut her Spanish II book.

We looked at each other and sighed. I quickly tossed her my math book as she tossed me her Spanish book. This was nothing unusual for us. We would attempt to do the homework that we hated the most before we would give up and let the other do it. Since Maya took Geometry last year, she would do my geometry homework.

I on the other hand, was taking French but Spanish was almost a second language for me. My mother’s best friend was from Puerto Rico, and my mother was simply fluent in Spanish. I was raised speaking Spanish as well as English. My mother taught me so that anytime we needed to have a private conversation we could talk without my father leaving the room. Not only had that, but her best friend’s daughter soon became my best friend so we would have conversations in Spanish often.

After fifteen minutes of silence Maya slammed my geometry book closed showing that she was finished. The sound caused Prince’s head to rise as he looked around the room for the source. He then stood up and walked over to Maya. She began to stroke his back as he laid down next to her.

“Done yet?” she questioned.

I didn’t respond. I simply finished conjugating the verbs on Maya’s paper. After two minutes had passed I closed her book completely satisfied with my work.

“Done” I beamed. Suddenly there was whining head from my feet. I looked down to the floor from the couch and saw Vader. I smiled before picking him up and placing him on my lap. He was simply too cute to resist.

“Finally, I thought you would be working on that forever” she joked while rolling her eyes.

“Look who’s talking” I laughed as Vader rolled over onto his back. I started to absent mindedly rub Vader’s stomach.

Maya opened her mouth to speak but was cut off by the sound of her brother’s voice from upstairs. “You guys may want to get up here!” he spoke.

We looked at each other out of confusion. Bryan must have literally walked into to house, so what could be so important that we needed to see it right now.

I set Vader down and followed Maya upstairs. I heard the sound of footsteps and voices as I walked up the stairs. The voices seemed to be coming from the kitchen, so that’s where Maya and I headed. The closer we got to the kitchen, the more familiar the voices sounded. We entered the kitchen and I froze from disbelief.

Justin was leaning against the counter drinking a bottle of sprite. Bryan was leaning against the counter next to him drinking a coke. Dante was sitting on the counter next to Bryan with a Capri-Sun in his hands.

I couldn’t believe this. He was here. I was trying to avoid him by not going to the studio so what does he do instead, he comes here. How would he even know that I was even here? As far as he knew this was just my best friend’s house, why would this be the first place that he comes to?

Bryan then looked at me and raised a brow as he took a swig of his coke. “So when were you guys planning on telling me that you knew Maya’s crush?” he questioned.

“He’s a celebrity crush, there’s a huge difference” Maya clarified as she glared at her brother. Bryan rolled his eyes and muttered a small whatever before taking another swig of his coke.

Justin then set his gaze on me. His eyes seemed to light up the way that they always do, as a smile appeared on his face. He took a swig of his sprite without taking his gaze off of me.

He seemed so relaxed and calm. It was as if what had happened yesterday had no affect on him. If he had of seen the tabloids then he was unfazed by them to. He maintained his normal composure as he continued to stare at me.

I folded my arms across my chest as I looked at him. How could he be so calm about all of this? He should have been just as freaked out about this as I was, if not more.

He set his sprite down on the counter behind him. He then walked over to me and stopped directly in front of me.

“Let’s go for a walk”