A few days later
"Hey Liz!"
-crap-
She minimized the AOL screen on her laptop and clicked on the Excel spreadsheet she was making on the stats of her patients. She looked up and smiled at the man that sat down across from her in the doctor's lounge.
"Oh hey Dr. Macon."
He rolled his eyes with a smile. "You can call me Al."
Liz's eyes lit up. "That's like that Paul Sim-"
With a hand in the air, he stopped her, like he knew what was coming. "Please, don't sing that song."
"Me, SING? oh funny." she laughed.
"Well, I just thought I would remind you about the meeting tom..."
Liz drowned out what the head doctor, Al Macon, in the pediatric wing of the hospital was telling her about some meeting they had the next day. She was in the middle of giving her advice to her new friend on the Internet and she didn't want to be caught doing that on her lunch break when she actually did have work to do.
Suddenly a beeping noise was heard and they both instinctively looked down at their beepers.
"Oh that's me. I'll talk to you more later Liz. Bye."
"Bye."
Liz sighed and immediately brought up AOL.
LakeJ0321: So yeah, its a slight problem.
LakeJ0321: I don't know what to do ya know? I wanna see her, but I don't.
LakeJ0321: And Hunter needs her.
LakeJ0321: So do i..but I cant have her.
LakeJ0321: Hello?
Drliztn: sorry...boss just walked in..AHH
LakeJ0321: Ouch, are you sure you need to be online?
Drliztn: Hush...so your ex wife is in town, when ?
LakeJ0321: Two days.
Drliztn: ....Talk about ouch.
LakeJ0321: Tell me about it.
Drliztn: Ya know, I think...I think this will be a test. It's been 3 years. If you can deal with her, and make it out ok. It'll show you, you CAN move on. This is a test.
LakeJ0321: You sound like the emergency broadcasting thingy. "This is a test..."
Drliztn: Ok, I'm the doctor, I'll tell you what's going to happen. Because, ya know, doctors are smart and shit.
LakeJ0321: :) Dork
Drliztn: No, seriously. You should go. It'll show you that you can actually move away from her, and live a separate life. But your son DOES need to see her. Does he understand the situation at all?
LakeJ0321: Not really. He is 5, and he remembers his mom but he doesn't really remember much. He knows he has a mom, and that at one point she was around. He questions why his friends and the kids at daycare have a mom that hangs around and he doesn't.
Drliztn: I'm sorry.
LakeJ0321: Why?
Drliztn: Well, I dunno. It just would be hard for me I know. I see single parents ALL the time. I don't think I would be able to deal with it.
LakeJ0321: ME either. But sometimes you are forced into situations you didn't plan on, and you don't have a choice but to deal.
Drliztn: Hey listen, I gotta run. My breaks almost over, and I DO have work to do. Wanna chat later about this?
LakeJ0321: Sure, when you gonna be on?
Drliztn: Tonight, 9ish or so...
LakeJ0321: It's a date then.
Drliztn: Oh nuh uhhh, date? Me? you? hell no. Don't get your hopes up buddy.
LakeJ0321: You know you want me.
Drliztn: Damn, you figured me out Randall.
LakeJ0321: :) bye Liz.
Drliztn: cya
Justin watched her name disappear from his buddy list. He felt bad for lying to her, but he didn't want her to know it was him, because she might not give him a chance. If he was her he wouldn't give himself a chance.
He needed to prove to her first that he cared.
Weeks before he wasn't even thinking or remembering about Liz Meyers and here she was for the 3rd time back in his life. HE took that as a sign, that maybe, SHE had the answers he had been looking for.
That first night after he realized it was his Liz, he didn't get one wink of sleep. But the next morning, when the sunlight blinded him through his windows, he realized, he...was happy. Something about having her back in his life reminded him of a time when he didn't have worries, and life was bliss and carefree. He longed to have that back. The next evening he talked to her again, and the more he did, the more he was convinced it was her.
This girl was more mature, more grounded, and not as aggressive and a lot more kind and the other Liz he knew, but she still had her dry wit, and still had that amazing ability to make him give a huge, goofy smile...to the computer.
He sighed and looked at the clock in the corner of his screen. It was just a little bit after one. He had a few minutes before he needed to make his way to pick up Hunter from daycare. He really didn't know why Hunter was there, it wasn't like he was working.
Well, at least not this week. But starting that next Monday he would be in the studio, going back to his passion. Music. He felt like a traitor to his musical side, and he almost thought that he might not be able to conquer it, and maybe all his love and passion and talent had left him.
He shook his head and stood up. He would worry about that later, right now he needed to go get his son, and worry about that, his new passion.
---------
That night
Drliztn: So where do you work, R?
LAkeJ0321: Well right now I'm just being a full time father, but...I'm in the entertainment business.
Drliztn: Uh ohhh...
LakeJ0321: What?
Drliztn: I just don't take famous people very well, or rich people, or anyone that has any time of celebrity attached to their name. They aren't as great as the world makes them out to be.
LakeJ0321: Speaking from experience?
Drliztn: Yup. New topic...
LakeJ0321: Sorry I didn't mean to push the wrong buttons.
Drliztn: It's ok. You don't know me, so you don't even know about my buttons :)
Justin couldn't help but smile at the screen. If only she knew that he did know what button's to push. He knew her.
At the same time it hurt. He knew that Trevor had a big name to him, but he had hurt her, and even though he had realized that long ago, it came back to him and made him ashamed. She didn't deserve what he had done.
He had pushed her away, ignored her, and then lost her.
But this time he was going to make sure he didn't lose her again. He didn't know how he was going to do it. But somehow he was going to get her back...back into his life.
And he was going to do whatever it would take. Changing his name, becoming a different person, whatever...he just needed her, badly.
He could have just been reading into things, taking this the wrong way, but somewhere deep inside of him, that part of him that had been missing ever since Britney left him had surfaced. He had once believed in destiny, fate, but that had shattered a while ago. But now...something told him, that this..this right here was his fate.
----
She didn't know what it was, because she had this need to know what Randall looked like. She had 3 pictures floating in her head.
One: The regular old Joe, maybe with a mustache or beard, not skinny, not muscular, not fat. Average in every way. With dark or sandy hair. Maybe glasses?
Two: Fat, older, big goofy smile, the regular old teddy bear figure. Cute and cuddly, but not the man of her dreams.
Three: Strangely familiar, handsome in every way, tall, lean, muscular. Mysterious, with a joyful smile, but a distant sadness in his dark blue eyes. Perfect lips and defined eyebrows, broad shoulders, strong arms. Intriguing short ringlets of hair. Sexy, soulful, sometimes looking like he is merely a scared child, other times a controlled, powerful man.
Liz shook her head and cussed her self out mentally. Of course she had to picture, HIM. She couldn't help it. It was eerie to her. Once again she had found herself wrapped up with a anonymous person on the Internet. Just like before after a week or two of talking she found herself captured by him.
When she was 17 it was nothing, just a friendship, something to pass her time. But now, 10 year later, it was almost her last resort. People her age were marrying, engaged, and dating, and her eshe was...all alone. Now it was a way to suppress the loneliness and know that there was a least one other person out there, just as lonely as she was.
So of course she pictured Justin. Of course. He was the most logical visual she had. She knew there was no chance it was him, and it was almost unfair to whoever this guy was to make picture him that way, because frankly, this Randall guy probably didn't even look like Justin Timberlake.
With a deep breath she continued her online conversation with Randall, LakeJ, whoever...trying her best not to think about the one guy that still haunted her after all these years.
She was quite successful and ended up getting wrapped up in Randall until around 12 that night.
But when she went to bed, and closed her eyes....she still saw that man, strangely familiar, with short curly hair, and dark blue eyes, exuding sexiness and soulfulness, and once again, capturing her heart, even if it was only a screen name.