Invisible Handcuffs

“So what does this mean for us?”

She sighed as she crossed her arms over her chest as she stood in front of me. The wind began to pick up, blowing her brown hair into her face. She wasn’t fazed by my words. Her face was still as blank as when we began the conversation. She pushed her hair out of her as she licked her lips.

“Don’t make this more complicated than this already is Justin. There is no us,”

The way the words flowed out of her mouth without hesitation knocked the wind out of my chest. My stomach twisted into knots as I stared at her. She wouldn’t look at me. I didn’t know if it was because she couldn’t look at me, or because she didn’t want to. Either way, my stomach tightened even more at the sight.

I stood in front of this girl, waiting for an explanation and I couldn’t get one. She wouldn’t give me one. After everything that we had been through, after all that I had done for her, that we had done for each other this was the way she was going to treat me. This was how she was going to end this. This was because of him, I knew it was. She was only acting this way because of him.

I walked towards her until I was close to her I could almost touch her. She continued to stare at the ground, avoiding me. “Why are you letting him control your life?” I softly whispered.

She closed her eyes as she sighed. The wind blew her hair into her face once again as she whispered “He is my life,”

I tucked a strand of hair behind her ear before tilting her chin upwards. Her brown orbs were filled with emotion as she stared at me. My heart thudded against my chest as I stared into the eyes that I have grown to love. She had been through so much; I couldn’t stand to see her like this.

“And you’re mine. I won’t let this happen. I love you Tatiana,”

I jumped up, breathing heavily. My hands were gripping the arms over the chair as I gasped for air. My body was warm, almost as if I was sweating. I looked around finding myself on the seat of an airplane. It was Usher’s familiar private plane that I had flown on occasionally when I had business. I had been dreaming. I didn’t know if this was a good thing or a bad thing. I didn’t even know what to think about the dream. An even better question was who was Tatiana and why was I dreaming about her?

“You look worse than you usually do.”

I looked up at the sound of criminal’s voice prepared to comment on her insult, but my voice caught in my throat. I began to grip the arm rest even more. It took all of my energy to control my breathing as I stared at criminal.

She was Tatiana. She was the girl from my dream. How could this be possible? I didn’t even know her name. I never called her by her name. Her name was criminal, yet in the dream I called her Tatiana. Making things even worse, I had said I loved you to her.

That was impossible I couldn’t love criminal. I could never love criminal. I hated her, especially after what had happened yesterday. I would never tell criminal I loved her, I knew this was true. I must have been driving myself crazy from lack of sleep. That could be the only explanation for this.

She looked up from her phone and glanced at me. Her brow raised in confusion as she looked at me. She adjusted her beats around her neck before pushing the brim of her snapback up slightly. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

My voice was still caught in my throat. No matter how hard I tried to speak, it wouldn’t work. Instead I was sitting in front of criminal opening and closing my mouth like a fool. I was in complete and utter shock. Her face only contorted to display how stupid she thought I was right now. She stared at me with the same look on her face that students have when the slowest person in class volunteers to read aloud.

“What is wrong with you?!?!” she spoke loudly.

Luckily I didn’t have to embarrass myself any longer. Scooter immediately appeared from behind the curtain that separated us from the other section of the plane. “Hey, remember what I said.”

Before we embarked on this early morning trip to New York for my Smile video shoot, Scooter gave criminal and I a long and stern lecture. He stressed the separation of business and pleasure as well as saying this is criminal’s last chance. If she messed up again then the deal would no longer take place. He didn’t want her to ruin my reputation and that was more important than any deal that we had. He said that criminal and I would have to start getting along with each other or at least being cordial with one another. If we weren’t criminal would be out of the door. After this dream I didn’t know if that was a good or bad thing.

She licked her lips as she set her gaze back on her phone. “I’ll be good, but someone should check on the weirdo over there,”

Scooter’s gaze landed on me and as if on cue, I found my voice. “I’m fine.”

Criminal mouthed the word liar as she continued to scroll through her phone. I swallowed as I set my sites on the window. “Just a bad dream”