January 12th, 2008
1 hour left...
Just 1 hour left and her world would change, forever. It was a scary and exciting thing for her. She had never been on her own before, and now she was.
No family telling her what to do.
No boyfriend convincing her her life is perfect when in reality it was full of lies.
No professors breathing down her neck, forcing knowledge and intimidation in her throat.
She was out of college, had her MD, single, almost 27 years old, had her own apartment, her own job, her own life, and a one-way ticket to her new home.
Her attention had been primarily on the American Doctor's Journal, a magazine she subscribed to. She made a mental note to change her subscription address when she got there. Her bright smile captivated the male flight attendant when he re-filled her small plastic cup with the American Airlines logo printed on it of orange juice. She thanked him and he traveled down the single aisle.
But her focus then drifted to a young girl smiling at her in the seat across the aisle and up one seat from her. There was something she had with kids, whether it was her smile or her personality or what, they just became drawn to her. It was the primary reason she decided to go into pediatrics.
The little girl waved and when she waved back the girl giggled and turned sharply in her seat. She was probably no older than 3.
The man that was sitting by the young child sat up straight and inspected who this was his daughter was waving at. He just smiled and wrapped an arm around his kid before relaxing back in his seat.
Memories of her own father flooded her mind and her infectious smile faded into a frown of sadness.
She never could pinpoint what went wrong, but a lot did and after years of ignoring their feelings, a couple harsh words, and about 4 screaming matches their relationship had ceased to exist. When she went home they didn't speak. When forced to sit beside or walk beside the other, they turned their cheek and directed their attention completely away from the other.
She didn't hate him, not at all. But she couldn't see his side on this, and he had her convinced that he could not love her, even if he was her father.
It weakened her, made the spunk she had dwindle and when she found out another person she loved cheated her out of that love, she got the point that she would never receive love from a man, whether it be her father or a multimillionaire or a guy down in her anatomy class or a popstar or...
Shaking her head of her negative thoughts she looked back down at her magazine and started reading the article she had been staring at. She examined the picture of the author and looked over the title. "Pediatrics': the dream job by Dr. Elizabeth L. Meyers."
Her nose turned up at the picture and she tried to stifle her own self gratifying giggle. It was one thing to graduate top ten of her class, another thing to immediately get an internship at the Baltimore pediatric emergency medicine division, and almost too much to get a job as one of the head pediatric doctors in a brand new hospital where her brand new home was.
But to have her own article be posted in the ADJ was a little too much. She had become a miniature celebrity in her field. And that little thought made her smile.
She closed the magazine to end her small time of self gratification and placed the journal in the vacant window seat next to her. She relaxed in her seat and closed her eyes.
An hour of sleep could do her good.
One hour...
One hour and her world would change from the city she knew like the back of her hand, the city she lived in for 26 years, Baltimore Maryland, to a city she had never been to before. A land of blues, barbecue, and Elvis.
In one hour, Memphis, Tennessee would become her home.
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One person had changed his world, forever. He needed that one person so much, it hurt when they weren't around, he couldn't breath, he couldn't think, he couldn't function, and right now...he was sitting there, staring at the wall, waiting, and waiting and waiting for that one person to get home.
He never knew what loneliness was until recently. He thought he knew what being lonely was before, but this feeling, this intense dullness that started in his gut and floated out of him and around him, suffocated him and he knew if that one person didn't get home soon he was going to do something irrational.
It had been 2 years, 4 months, 8 days of sitting, waiting, hoping, and finally realizing the truth.
She was gone.
His blue eyes closed when they began to fill up with tears. And as soon as his sight was taken from the picture he was staring at above the mantel he could see her face, the tears in her eyes, the trembling of her lips, the shaky arm that showed him a few papers and the words.
God, the words.
"Justin...I want a div-"
"No." He whispered outloud. He took in a deep breath and calmed his soaring emotions. Everyone knew it, everyone could see that the man named Justin Timberlake had become a shell of a sad, lonely, scared human being.
His family, his friends, everyone knew it. And what terrified him the most is that the one person who had no clue that he was like this, that he was breaking, was going to find out.
He wanted to be happy. He so desperately wanted to be happy, but the black void of depression had swept over him. And now, he didn't want to do anything, let alone be happy. He wallowed in his sadness, he thrived in it. And right now it was washing over him like a gigantic wave, tumbling down on unexpected beach-comers.
He gasped, he choked for air. Tears fell slowly from his dark pools of eyes, like rain from a dark approaching storm. Quiet, yet pitiful whimpers like an animal in pain surfaced from his heart and escaped his mouth. His eyebrows merged in suffering and his large arms wrapped around himself, providing the only comfort he had felt all day.
His body didn't have strength to sit up on the couch anymore, he fell slowly to his side, bringing his legs up on the couch and curling himself into a tight ball, crying, sobbing, and praying to God that that one person would get home, as soon as possible.
He had been there alone in the house for an hour.
And he had 4 hours until that person returned to him.
He would just have to wait...and cry until that person came through his door and showed him, that there was a reason to live.
3 hours and 45 minutes later, Justin had woken up from his nap, eyes swollen and puffy, nose rubbed raw, and the imprint of the couch cushions on his pale cheek. He usually would stretched like a big lion, muscles rolling and un-cramping themselves, finding comfort again. But this time, he just woke with the opening of his eyes.
He didn't move, just stared at that picture that had brought him to tears earlier. He didn't know what time it was, and frankly didn't care.
Sleep was his only time of peace. He went to bed early and got up late just because he loved it so much. He hated it when he woke up and couldn't go back to sleep, because then, he was forced to think about things, and thinking about things had become a problem.
A major problem.
He didn't need any more problems right now.
What he needed was that one person.
His body moved, slightly, when his arm reached out for the picture on the mantel. He was clearly too far away from it, in fact if he wanted it he would have had to gotten up and walked to it. His arms stretched far, his fingers spread hoping by some miracle reaching out for the picture would make the person in it appear and calm all his fears.
But soon his arm got tired and it fell like dead weight to the couch, hanging off of the cushions.
He closed his eyes, praying once again for sleep.
His prayer wasn't granted, but the wish from earlier was. In the deafening silence of his house he heard keys jingle, a door creak open and soft giggling, whispering voices.
He smiled. The first smile of his day when he heard the patter of running feet and soon an image that he found eerily familiar to his own was forced into his view.
A cheeky grin, with a small tongue slightly being bit between the perfect teeth.
Big dark brown eyes, squinted into a smile.
Unruly, straight sandy colored hair that was thick and curled at the ends.
Chubby tiny fingers suddenly blocked his view, holding up a tannish piece of paper with red, blue and green markings on it.
And that voice, a voice that belonged to that one person that had changed his world.
"Daddy, I made you a picture."
Justin sighed and sat up against the couch. His arm stretched out again, but this time it was for the real thing and not just a photograph. He pulled the small boy up on his lap and held him against him, his sons back to his chest. "Do you like it?"
His blue eyes turned down to his son that was looking up at him with big questioning eyes. "I love it Hunter. Go put it on the fridge ok?"
"Kay, daddy." With that, Hunter hopped off the couch, his tiny hands, pressing into his father's knees as he pushed himself. He ran around the couch and out of sight.
Justin closed his eyes once again, taking a deep breath. Now, he was ok.
He opened his navy eyes when he felt someone move beside him and sit on the couch next to him. He didn't even have to look at them, just tilted towards him and rested his head on their shoulder. "Thanks for taken him today momma."
"Sure, baby."
He sighed when her hand rubbed his back affectionately, in a maternal manner that only she knew how to do. "Did you have a good time?"
"Of course we did. What did you do?"
Justin bit his lip and shrugged, picking the lint off his flannel pants. "Little bit of everything."
His mother sighed and Justin knew she was going to say something. "Justin, you are still in your pajamas."
"Mom, not now ok?" He sat up abruptly and looked away from her.
"Did you get those papers to Britney's lawyers in time?"
He turned his head sharply to hers, and narrowed his eyes slightly. "Yes, momma. I don't really want to talk about it."
"Justin..." She reached for his hand but he sat up and moved across the room to the mantel, re-positioning the picture he had been obsessed with that day.
"Just let it go." He whispered.
Lynn bit her lip and closed her eyes. It had gotten worse, when they all thought he would bounce back and get into swing of things again, he just plummeted downward. It was now overcoming their lives as well as his. Whenever someone called it was always about the same thing. After the initial greeting they would always ask 'how's he doing?' For awhile she masked it, she lied for him and told people he was getting better, that his depression didn't have a hold on him, but now the truth could be seen in the dullness of his smile, the cloud in his eyes, and the sloppy wardrobe he always was cloaked in.
She had gone through it herself, years ago. She could remember crying after her own divorce, screaming and cursing God for letting this happen to her. But Justin was different. He bottled it all inside and pretended he was ok. But that facade was weakening and the misery, sadness, hopelessness, the depression had conquered his mind, his body, and now his heart. She had one last shred of hope that his soul had not been touched by the horrible disease that had claimed her son. It was hard enough trying to re-assure him it would be ok, but now she was having a hard time re-assuring herself.
She looked up at his back that was to her. "It'll get better honey. I promise you, It'll get better."
He turned his head to the side and watched her get up from the couch and turn towards the kitchen.
He turned a bit more and whispered so only he could hear. "Yeah...you said that 2 years ago."
He watched as his mother bent down and hugged her grandson. "Bye Hunter."
"Bye Gra'ma, I love you."
"I love you too baby."
Lynn walked further into the kitchen, running a hand through her hair before turning and waving with a half-smile. "Bye Justin."
"Bye Momma."
He turned his eyes back on Hunter, who was pushing himself up on the couch. "Justin..."
"Wha?" HE languidly moved his eyes from his son to his mother.
She smiled, holding the kitchen door open. "I love you."
He nodded. "I know you do. I love you too." When the door closed he sighed and walked over to the couch.
He sat down and ran a hand over Hunters, soft curls. "So what do you want to do tonight, lil buddy?"
"I'm hungry." He said in his cute little 4 year old voice.
"Wanna go make a snack?"
"Yeah." He nodded, his hair shaking around his head and a piece of hair with one curl at the end fell on his forehead. His eyes crossed and he tried to blow the hair back into place. Justin laughed at the serious look on Hunter's face and leaned over to press a kiss to his head.
"Why don't you pick out a movie for us to watch and I'll go make you a snack, ok?"
"Kay." Hunter pushed himself once again off the couch and walked over to the TV in front of them, opening a cabinet beside the television, near the ground where all his movies were at.
This was their thing. They watched movies together. They had a large collection and most of their time was spent laying together on the couch, watching a Disney movie or a children's program on TV.
Justin stood off the couch to go in the kitchen, but for some reason he couldn't move. He was frozen, watching his son ponder over movies.
He was in love...with his son.
He was mesmerized by him in every way.
And it was sometimes hard to grasp that Hunter Lee Timberlake was a part of him, a part of his creation.
And it made him hurt, literally to know that that beauty, that inspiration, that perfection that was his son, had made him lonely.
It was still hard for him to figure out how his son had drove his wife away.
He loved her, too much.
She was the one person that could make every trouble that had existed in his world disapear. But when what he had found as a blessing had become her curse, that love faded.
It faded into fights, yelling, a crying baby and finally divorce papers that he had yet to sign.
In one way he blame it all on her.
In another way he blame it all on himself.
But it reality it was no ones fault. They wanted separate things, him a family, her a career.
They just found that out too late.
And now he was left with no wife, no career, a world of loneliness, and kid, that he loved more life itself.
"Daddy how bout Tarzan?"
Justin's eyes met his sons. "That's perfect."
It was perfect. For an hour and a half he would be able to lay beside his love, hold them in his arms and know that he didn't need anything else in the world.
With a sharp breath, a turn of his heels and a wipe under his left eye he went towards the kitchen, with all of his thoughts on that one person...
...his son.