Part Three
Justin had been sitting with Annie for almost two hours when she finally twitched her hand beneath Justin’s. It shook Justin to consciousness and he looked right at her. “Annie, are you awake baby?”
Annie’s eyes slowly opened. Justin finally got another glimpse at her beautiful brown sparkling eyes. Only right now they weren’t sparkling, they were just there.
“Do you need anything?” he asked.
Annie barely opened her mouth and managed to say, “water.”
Justin got up and walked over to the side of the room. The nurse had brought Justin a glass of water earlier, so he got it and grabbed a straw and carried it over to Annie. “Here sweetie,” he said as he placed the straw in her mouth and carefully held the glass for her. When she spit the straw out her assumed that she was finished. She had drank nearly a quarter of the glass. “Better?” he asked.
“Yes,” she mumbled. She tried to reach up to the tube in her nose. She didn’t remember them putting it in and she didn’t know what it was.
“Baby that’s a feeding tube. They had it put in so that you didn’t have to try to eat. You can probably take it out tonight after you judge how much your jaw hurts.” Justin’s eyes went cold when he noticed the look that she was giving him. It was a look of fear and hatred all at once. “Annie I am so sorry.”
Annie closed her eyes as a way to try to make his presence fade away.
“Annie you don’t understand. I didn’t mean it. You know how much I love you.”
“Justin, you put me in the hospital,” she said in a muffled tone. She wasn’t opening her mouth very much because she realized the pain in it when she tried to.
“I know and I will never forgive myself for that. I don’t know what came over me.”
“You need help.”
“No, I am fine. It isn’t going to ever happen again. After this, nothing like this will ever happen. Last night when I thought I was going to lose you, it hit me. I couldn’t imagine my life without you. This isn’t going to happen again.”
“I don’t know.”
“Annie please don’t leave me. Things are going to be different I promise. You’ll see.”
Annie batter her eyes and tried to see Justin as the man that she loved, but she still only saw fear towards him. “I need some time.”
“I can give you time. I want you to know though that I am gonna be here everyday until you get better. I am not going to leave you, or hurt you ever again.”
“Why did you do this?” she asked and a tear filled her eye.
“I don’t,” he started and then had to clear his throat to start again. “I don’t know honestly. I’ve never had an urge to do anything like that before. It scared me.”
“You need help,” she said once again.
“Annie I am fine now. I can’t let this out anymore than it already is. We’ve been so lucky that the press hasn’t found out. I still don’t know how they haven’t.”
“You’re lucky,” she corrected him. It was all about his career being put on the line.
“Yes,” he said and then put his head down in shame. He lifted it again and said, “we’re gonna get through this. You and I. Just give me the chance to prove it to you.”
Annie answered him with nothing but silence.
Lance and JC walked down the hall each carrying a small bouquet of flowers for Annie. JC had told Lance everything that happened and Lance just had to go see Annie. Lance and Annie were friends before her and Justin even started dating. She was almost like a sister to him.
“Now I haven’t seen her, but Justin said that she doesn’t look so hot. I just thought you should know before you go in and see her.”
“Thanks. I am sure that she isn’t chipper looking.”
“No where near it,” JC answered.
Justin had just stepped out of the room when he saw two of his best friends walking towards him. “Guys, thanks for coming.”
“How is she?” Lance asked.
“As good as can be expected I guess. She hasn’t kicked my sorry tail to the curb yet, so I think that’s a good thing. She is gonna get the feeding tube out in a little while. She’s had it in all day.”
“Is she talking?” JC asked.
“Yeah. Not in full blown conversations or anything, but she is talking. She just had another does of pain medicine so you might get a little more out of her.”
“Can we go in?” Lance asked.
“Sure,” Justin said. “I’m gonna stay out here for a few minutes.”
“Alright. Take it easy buddy,” JC said and patted Justin on the back of the shoulder then walked in the room with Lance. They knocked on the door as they walked in. “Care for visitors?” JC asked as he and Lance stood at the door.
“Jace, Lance,” she said and slightly turned her head to them. “Come in.”
“For you,” Lance gestured the flowers toward her.
“Want us to put them somewhere?” JC asked as he help up the flowers from him.
“There,” she said and pointed to the desk on the other side of the room. “Thanks.”
“How are you feeling?” Lance asked.
“Better,” she mumbled. “Long way to go to get ALL better,” she said sarcastically.
“You look good,” Lance said.
“Don’t lie,” she somewhat laughed. “I look like a train wreck.”
“Well,” JC started to say, but shut his mouth when Lance stepped on his foot. “Ouch,” he yelled. “Uhm, cramp.”
“Where’s Justin?” she asked.
“Out in the hall,” JC answered.
“He has to get help,” she said.
“I know,” JC said.
“I am sure that he is going to do that very thing,” Lance said.
“No,” she said. “He said he is okay.”
“He lost it,” Lance said. “He needs some sort of counseling.”
“Talk to him for me. He thinks he can deal with it on his own,” she said in a sympathetic tone. She hated him for what he did to her, but in the same, she loved him. She didn’t know how she was supposed to react. All she knew was that she couldn’t be alone. Definitely not now with all of this. Justin loves her and she knew that.
“We will,” JC said.
“You will what?” Justin asked as he walked in with a soda for himself and everyone else. “I got you a strawberry coke thing baby.”
“Thanks,” she said and reached for it.
“Nothing bro. Just talking,” Lance jumped in. He knew that this was something that they had to discuss with just Justin so that he didn’t feel out numbered.
“How long are you guys here for?” he asked.
“Just a minute. I gotta do some stuff for my mom while she is in town,” Lance said. “I just wanted to come see her.”
“Thanks for coming,” she said.
“I’ll be back tomorrow,” Lance said. “C are you gonna leave with me or catch a ride with J?”
“Justin, you’ve been here all day. I think you should go home and get some rest,” Annie broke in. “I’ll be fine.”
“I don’t want to just leave you.”
“I need some time alone Justin,” she said. “Come back tomorrow okay?”
“If that’s what you really want,” Justin said as he set down his soda.
“It is.”
“Okay, tomorrow I will be here. Get some rest sweetie,” he said and bent to kiss her.
Annie turned her head away from him enough so that he got her forehead instead. “I will. See you soon,” she said.
Justin felt the brush off that she just gave him and it scared him. He was afraid that once she got out of the hospital that she would hit the road and leave him. He wasn’t going to let that happen. “Are you ready guys?” he asked.
“Yeah,” they both answered in unison. “We’ll see you soon,” they said and then all three of them walked out of the room together.
Once in the hall JC asked, “Justin do you wanna go out and get some grub or something?”
“Sure,” he answered.
“Lance I’m gonna hitch a ride with him. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
“Alright. Later guys,” Lance said and parted a different way from them so that he could catch the set of elevators closer to where he parked.
JC figured that maybe he and Justin could talk. Maybe he would be able to convince Justin to at least go see a private counselor or something. He trusted Justin and everything, but he didn’t want to see any of this happen again. Even if it wasn’t as serious, he didn’t want Justin to lose it again.
JC and Justin walked through the back doors of their favorite pizza place. There was a secluded room in the back that the owner always let the celebrities use so that they weren’t hounded by fans while they were trying to eat. They pulled up a table and placed their orders for pizza and drinks and then JC started off the conversation.
“Annie seems to be doing well.”
“Yeah, she is really pulling through on this. I expected her to hate me for life.”
“You got lucky dude.”
“Yeah no kidding,” Justin said.
“So are you going to see Rae about getting some private counseling or something?” JC asked. Rae was their own personal counselor. She was always around in case the guys needed to blow some fumes or just talk about things. She was hired by Johnny Wright and loved being with the guys.
“C, I am fine really. I don’t need to have someone psychoanalyze me on this. I know what I did, and I know that it isn’t going to happen again. Let it be,” Justin said. He was getting frustrated and just wanted to drop the whole issue.
“Justin, Annie said that she would give you another chance and work through this with you if you got help.”
“Well if Annie really loves me she will realize that I don’t need Rae to talk with me about this stuff. Does she really want our personal business all over?”
“No, but she doesn’t want to see it happen again,” he answered.
“It isn’t going to happen again!” Justin yelled. “This is exactly the shit that we were arguing about. Everyone thinking they know me and they know what I am going to do or not do.”
“You just contradicted yourself Justin,” JC said in reference to Justin saying that people should know that it wouldn’t happen again.
“Damnit C. Who’s side are you on anyway?” Justin argued.
“I’m not on sides J, but I think...”
“You think. I think. He thinks. She thinks. Yeah yeah. Well I KNOW alright!”
JC was frightened at the reaction that Justin was having. “Calm down Justin,” he said.
“Me calm down? Every time I turn around someone is telling me what I need to do. Don’t you think I know what is going on? Do you think that I don’t see what I did to Annie... to the girl I love? Do you think that I am proud of it?”
“Justin,” he tried to say.
“No. All of you are so angry with what I did that you aren’t there for me. Maybe I need some comforting too JC. Maybe I need someone to tell me that things are going to be okay and not to insinuate that I am going to fuck everything up again. Maybe that’s what I need. Not for Rae to say, ‘so Justin, how are you feeling about this?’ That is so not what I need right now. I need for my friends, for you, for Annie, to try to forgive me for what I did one night... for my one mistake. No one yelled and screamed at you and told you you needed therapy when you screwed Alicia behind Crystal’s back.”
“That isn’t what we are talking about Justin and you know that.”
“What, you don’t like it when people talk about your faults huh? Well I don’t like it either.”
“Look Justin I am sorry. I’m just worried about you.”
“You aren’t worried about me. You’re worried about Annie.”
“I am worried about her too, but she isn’t a part of me like you are Justin, you know that.”
“Whatever JC,” he said with pure anger in his voice.
“Justin, just...”
“Just what JC?” he said and turned his head up to him.
“Just forget that I even said anything.”
“I’ll tell you what. I’ll talk to someone. Let me deal with it though. I don’t want to talk with Rae about this. She is a part of us and I don’t want to have her in it.”
“That’s fine Justin. Just someone.”
“Fine. Someone,” Justin said. “Look, I’m not even hungry anymore,” he said and stood up. “Can we just go?”
“Sure,” JC said and followed Justin back out to their car and they were silent the whole ride back to JC’s place where Justin dropped him off and then took off on his own way.
Justin drummed his fingers on the side of the steering wheel and stared, with a blank look, at the road in the front of him. “‘You need help. You need help,’” he mocked. “The hell I need help. Do they really think that something is wrong with my head? God,” Justin uttered to himself as he drove down the street. “Like I did this for fun. ‘You need help Justin,’” he repeatedly mocked again. He was tired of hearing it. He knew that it was a mistake and he couldn’t understand why no one else saw that.
Out of no where he swerved his car due to the car beside him furiously honking the horn. “Damnit!” Justin yelled. The guy in the other car flicked him off and sped up his speed until he was out of Justin’s path. Justin was in such a zone, and a world of his own, that he almost ran the other guy off of the road and that was why he was honking at him. “Get it together Justin, Jesus!” he yelled at himself.
Justin pulled his car over on the side of the road and put his head within his hands. “I can’t handle this,” he cried. “What is wrong with me? Why did I beat Annie the way that I did?” Justin really didn’t know why he did it, and yet he didn’t believe that he needed help understanding, or finding out the reason. “She pushed me to it. That’s what it was. She just was pushing me to do something,” he tried to convince himself. “No she wasn’t!” he yelled and hit himself in the forehead with the palm of his hand. “Don’t blame her. It wasn’t her fault,” he corrected himself. “Maybe I just need some time off. Maybe I need to get out of here and relax,” he said.
Justin pulled out the book from his glove department and skimmed the pages. He then took out his cell phone and dialed the number. “Yes,” he said when the woman answered. “One,” he said. “Non stop to Mauldache Island tonight?”
“Sir there is only one flight out tonight and there is a layover in Cancun. Will that be alright?”
Justin tapped his fingers on the steering wheel again and chewed on his bottom lip, and then said, “book it.” He gave her the information she asked for and shoved all his papers back in the glove department.
“Justin Timberlake on flight 1406 at 8:17 pm tonight. One layover for fifteen minutes in Cancun. Is this information correct?”
“Yes it is,” Justin said.
“Your ticket will be available at the desk before take off. That you for calling and booking through us,” she said and then hung up.
Justin started his car back up and headed towards his house to grab a few things and to leave the guys a note. They had plenty of time off, so Justin knew that he wouldn’t be getting in trouble for that, but he needed to let them know that he was alright. Justin didn’t want to call because he knew that they would try to talk him out of leaving. He felt safe without any body guards on this trip because he was going to Mauldache Island. It was a very calm island and really no one knows about it. The airlines have a small plane that flies out there with only the richest of people. He needed time away from everyone. Time to think. He didn’t want to get help for what he knew he needed. So instead, he ran.