I'm Not Losing You
A Story of Dedication to Those I Love
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The show was incredible. They threw in some old songs and dance moves as well as some new songs from their second album. But since we were Chicago, their hometown (well, Jackie’s ADOPTED hometown…) we got a special treat. They were going to give us a little preview of a song off of their upcoming third album. Standing on the catwalk, right in front of us, they introduced the song.
“This next song is a little something that no one else but Chicago is going to get to hear.” Justin said. The crowd screamed with excitement. “Since you guys are our hometown and you have showed us just an incredible amount of love and support, we wanted to repay you. So here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to perform a song for you that no one else has ever heard. It’s a song that we worked on a long time ago, but it never made it onto any of our albums. But! But! We finally got around to finishing it up, and it’s going to be the first single off of our third album which will be out sometime this year.”
“Yeah, we hope you guys really enjoy this one, because we worked extra hard to put it together just for you guys here in Chicago.” Lucas said. I thought to myself what song it could be. If they’ve been working on it for a long time, then I MUST know what it is. But I just couldn’t think of anything. I was drawing a blank. “This song is called “I’m Not Losing You” and it goes a little something like this…” Lucas finished. The track started and I froze. This was MY song. I don’t know how many times I had begged Justin to make sure it gets on an album, but this was MY song. I threw my hand up to cover my mouth, and I turned around to look at Sam, Rachel and Mardy.
“Mya! It’s our song!” Rachel said to me. I nodded and went back to looking at the guys singing right in front of me. They started singing and I got tears in my eyes. I was beyond happy that they were performing this one. I kept my eyes glued on them as they sang. They wandered the stage and the catwalk, picking up roses and teddy bears that were thrown on the stage. One landed right in front of me on the catwalk, and Justin walked by to pick it up. I was singing along to the chorus, and he looked straight down at his family, and then at the four of us. He saw us singing along, and as he bent down to pick up the rose, he looked straight into my eyes. He stayed there for a moment and just sang to Rachel and I. Sam looked up at the giant screen above the stage, and saw that this whole moment was being enlarged and shown to the whole crowd. As he finished singing his part, he exclaimed,
“Yeah, I got my Angels right down here!” And the camera went back on us. The Romans cheered behind us, and Rachel and I gave a big wave and a kiss to the camera and then to Justin. He was so cute. The song kept rolling on, but was over much too soon. By the end of it, I was about to start crying because I was so excited.
The show ran on into the night, featuring a beautiful performance of “Eyes Closed So Tight” that had the whole crowd singing along. At the end, Lucas had the whole crowd sing an extra chorus. They stopped singing and the track dropped out, and all you could hear were the thousands of voices singing the chorus to the song. It was such a sound to hear. I saw the guys grinning up on stage, and I looked around. Every person in the arena that I could see was singing. Not a single one was silent. It was enough to make a long-time fan start crying. I could just imagine all of us girls crying over something like that. It was simply amazing to hear. After that, they left the stage.
After a few hours of a hyped up, absolutely phenomenal show, ending on a ballad was not right. The crowd knew that there had to be more. They hadn’t even done their trademark song! Sure enough, with encouragement from the crowd and cheers louder than you could ever imagine, the guys returned to the stage and they launched into “Go-Get-Her” which finished up the show in an encore. The breakdown was just as great as we knew it to be, and the four of us knew every move to the entire thing. They concluded their show with their sincere thank you messages and a bow, and then they left the stage for good around 10:45. We said good-bye to the Romans, and told them we were going to head out to the “after-party” as fast as we could. They gave us all a few hugs good-bye and said that they may see us out there if they don’t get caught in too much traffic. Rachel, Sam, Mardy and I grabbed all of our things, clutched onto them tighter than ever before, and we pushed our way out to the parking lot. We jumped into the car, and sped out of the lot as fast as we could. We beat most of the traffic getting out of the lot, and we were on Mannheim Road faster than we ever thought possible. We stopped at the McDonald’s to get a very quick bite to eat, and we were off again. By 11:30, we had finally gotten to the club. Parking was alright, since no one knew that the guys were going to be here. So we found a space rather quickly, and started walking inside. Then it occurred to me that I didn’t have any cash left over for the cover. Shit. I asked who had some extra cash, and none of us did. We barely had enough to get three of us in, so we started to freak out. That is, until we heard that if you got here before midnight, it was half price. Phew! So they spotted me some cash for cover and all was settled. I walked into the familiar club, finally warming up a little bit. (Rachel and I had both left our coats in the car in our rush to get inside. Yes, we were idiots sometimes.) We saw a few people standing around the back where they had remembered seeing the guys after the B-Bash of 2002. I squinted a little to see who it was, and I recognized Sadia and Shilpa once more, and then I made out the figures of Jen, Angela, Krystal, Lety, Kristina, Krissy, Crystal, Suzy, Beth, Kelly, Smurf and Amanda. There weren’t many of us here, and I kind of hoped that it would stay that way. Especially since NO ONE knew before tonight that this was happening. We greeted all of the girls with hugs and words about the show.
“Mya! We all saw you and Rachel on the screen!” exclaimed Sadia.
“Yeah, when did you go blonde?!” Asked Krissy.
“Today…why? Is it bad?”
“No! It’s awesome!” she said, petting my hair. We all kept on chatting for a little while as we were waiting for the guys to arrive. Sure enough, they came in through the back door and saw us all standing around waiting for them. Their faces lit up as they walked towards the bunch of us that was around. We were greeted with hugs and kisses from the guys as they asked us if we enjoyed the show.
“Of course we did! We had killer seats!” said Rachel to Jackie as he asked the two of us.
“Yeah, I thought that was you guys by Justin’s family. I just couldn’t tell for sure!” he replied.
“Yeah, SOMEONE changed their hair again and it totally confused me too!” Lucas said, messing up my hair. I laughed a little and tried to fix it again.
“Yeah, I did. Like it?” I asked. He nodded.
“Of course. But dude, you need to stop changing it. Just as I get used to one, you go and change it on me again.” I got a good laugh out of that one. After finishing up that conversation, I went to say hello to Justin.
“Hey! It’s one of my angels!” He exclaimed, giving me a big hug. “Did you like the show?” I told him that I loved every second of it. Especially “I’m Not Losing You” and when they had the crowd singing “Eyes Closed So Tight.”
“I almost started crying for both of them!” I told him. He smiled at me and gave me a big hug again.
“Awe, for real?” I nodded and he smiled once again. “How did you know the words to “I’m Not Losing You” by the way?” he asked. I smiled and told him that I had seen a little bit of it on a video a long time ago, and ever since then, I had adopted it as “My Song.” “Oh that’s right!” he said. “You kept asking me what was going on with that one. I remember.” I laughed at him for almost forgetting after I had pestered him about that song so much.
“Yep. That was my song Justin! I’m SO happy you guys did that one. For real.”
“Yeah, we are too. It went really well…WAIT A MINUTE!” he shouted, finally noticing that my hair was a totally different color than it was the last time he saw me. He touched my hair and asked, “When did you do this?! I didn’t even see this from the stage and I was looking right at you!”
“I did it today before I came. Is it bad?”
“No! Not at all! I love it!” He said back to me. I smiled.
“Good. Because everyone likes it so far, and I was hoping you wouldn’t hate it just to throw off the balance here…”
After talking to Justin for a minute or two, I went back over to where my crew was. They were off standing by Jackie.
“You need to quit doing that. Every time I see you come over here, I think it’s someone new, and then I realize that it’s just YOU again.” Jackie said to me. I gasped and said,
“Thanks Jackie. Sorry it’s ‘just me’ again!” and I pretended to look hurt.
“I’m just messin’ with you! You know that!”
“I know.” I laughed. He looked down at my shirt.
“I saw Rachel’s, so I just had to see yours too.” He said to me, turning me around so he could see the whole thing. “Cute!” He said, “But when do I get an angel shirt? Huh? What about JACKIE’S angels?” I looked at Samantha and said,
“That’s up to HER over there. She just doesn’t want to make one.” Jackie smiled and laughed a little at the comment.
After a little bit of conversing with each of the guys, I decided that I wanted to take a few pictures with them. I mean, I did save a whole roll for this, so I should use it. So I approached Lucas first, and got my first picture of the night with him. Then I moved to Jackie, and finally Justin. After taking my picture with him, Justin finally remembered that Rachel and I had matching outfits again, and he pulled me back towards him by my arm.
“Wait, wait, wait. I have to see these outfits.” Rachel and I stood in front of him while he looked at our shirts, both front and back and read each phrase out loud to himself. “…Made in Vi3 Heaven. Awe, that’s so cute guys, thanks so much!”
“Mya, Rachel, Justin, get together for another angel picture.” I heard Mardy yell towards us. I handed her my camera to take one along with her own, and took my place on one side of Justin.
“Yep. I’m pimpin’ the angels tonight.” He sighed as we got next to him. Rachel and I just laughed. We smiled for the pictures, taking two on each camera, just in case.
The night was going great. We were all having a good time, and the guys were happy as they could be. There wasn’t that big of a crowd around them, and it was very relaxed and easy-going, just like the old days. I took more pictures with each of the guys, and took a few with some of the girls too. Now that the guys were all over the place, we really didn’t get to see each other very often, so every time we did, it was like a giant reunion. It was a reunion of all smiles. Not a harsh word was spoken from what I could hear, and it was absolutely wonderful.
After a while, I looked down at my watch, Erik saw me and did the same. We both realized that it was already 2:45 am, and that it was just about time to head out. Erik told the guys to wrap it up, and my crew and I started to say our good-byes as well. We hugged each of the guys one last time before we left.
“Bye Mya! Have a safe trip home and thank you so much for coming out!” said Jackie to me.
“Thank you so much sweetie. It was awesome to see you, as always. Take care!” said Lucas.
“Mya my hottie, you take care. Thanks so, so, so much for coming out to the show and out here to chill with us. We’ll see you really soon. We’ve got some stuff coming up, so watch for my emails, alright?” said Justin.
“Of course I will. I’ll see you soon hun!” I said in return.
“And I better have a ‘Jackie’s Angel’ next time!” Yelled Jackie as we were walking away. I yelled back that I’ll see what I can do, and I pointed at Sam. She hit my hand away and waved to Jackie. He thought it was funny for some reason.
Walking outside, we remembered just how cold it was, and that Rachel and I didn’t have coats. Mardy told us to wait here and huddle while she went to get the car, but just as she was about to walk away, the guys came out the back door to leave.
“Hey!” Erik said, waving at us again.
“Mya and Rachel, where are your coats crazy girls?” Justin asked. “You are going to get sick! Put a coat on!”
“Um, Mya and I were stupid and forgot ours in the car, so we kinda can’t until we get in the car.” Answered Rachel. Rachel and I were both shivering from the cold and crossing our arms in an attempt to stay warm, which was obviously not working. Justin came up to the two of us and wrapped us up inside his coat to try and warm us up a bit. While we weren’t looking, Mardy and Sam both snapped a picture of that with my camera and Rachel’s as well. Mardy sent Sam to go get the car while we said our good-byes for the millionth time. Justin wouldn’t let either Rachel or myself out of his coat until the car was here, so it was pretty difficult to give Lucas and Jackie another hug.
“Sorry, I’m definitely not letting my angels freeze and get sick. Because what good are sickly angels?” he joked with us. Not like either Rachel or I was complaining about our situation…
Soon enough, Sam pulled the car up front and Justin let us escape from his big coat. We each gave him a hug, and thanked him for the “portable heating service” and we jumped in the car. They did the same, and both of our cars drove off. The car was full of conversation about the whole night and how everything happened, and then we all went silent for a second. With nothing to say and the ringing in our ears, we all noticed one thing. Sam said it best.
“OH MY GOD THIS CAR SMELLS LIKE JUSTIN!” and for that, Rachel and I laughed the whole 4 blocks back to her house. Yeah, it was definitely a GREAT night.
