Thursday, November 23, 2000

The first thing Justin noticed as he woke up was that it was much too cold. He shivered in his sweatshirt and burrowed into the blankets even more.

The next thing he noticed was that he could smell food. Turkey, pumpkin pie, spices, all of the scents that the media traditionally associated with holidays.

Cathy had come up to him a few days before and asked if he was going to be going home for Thanksgiving. Then she’d asked him to join them, an invitation that he’d gratefully accepted.

And then he remembered that it was Thanksgiving. The time of joy, of giving thanks, of being with family and friends. And where was he? He was hiding.

He looked at the clock and noticed that it was 9:30. It had been forever since he’d slept until 9:30 what with school and practice. He turned over and looked out the window. Flakes of snow were falling gently through the air.

It was snowing. That was something to be thankful for.

He closed his eyes and drifted back towards sleep. A knock on the door startled him.

"Randy?" Maggie’s voice came through the thin wood.

"What," Justin answered.

Maggie opened the door and came into the room. She suddenly landed on the bed startling Justin awake. He rolled over and glared at her.

"It’s snowing!" Maggie said. She had a huge grin on her face and Justin couldn’t help but smile.

"I saw," he said.

"It’s the first snow of the year," Maggie said. "And it’s a few inches deep. It’s been snowing all night."

"And this required you jumping on my bed?" Justin asked with a raised eyebrow.

"It’s tradition," Maggie said. "We’ve got to go have a snowball fight."

Justin blinked. "Have fun!" he said with fake enthusiasm. He rolled back over and closed his eyes.

"We," Maggie said. "As in you and me and the rest of Mill Creek."

Justin rolled over to face her again. "Are you sure you don’t want to just stay in bed?"

Maggie sighed and put her head on Justin’s chest so he couldn’t roll over again. She looked up at him with pleading eyes.

"Come on Randy, it’ll be fun."

Justin sighed, making her head rise and fall with the large intake and exhale of breath.

"Fine. I’ll come." He waited for her to get up. She didn’t. ‘You owe me though Hunter."

Maggie still didn’t move.

"Maggie? Are you going to get up?"

"Maybe you’re right," she said with a hint of amusement in her voice. "Maybe we should stay in bed. You make a very comfortable pillow."

Justin sat up making her do the same. "I meant you in your bed, or at least on the other side of mine."

Maggie looked at him with a slightly surprised look on her face. She got off the bed.

"I’ll meet you in the hall in ten minutes."

"Bastard," Justin yelled as Stu pelted him with five consecutive snowballs. "That fucking hurt man."

Stu laughed and started running away from Justin. Justin scooped up a handful of snow and began crunching it into a ball. It crumbled in his hand.

"Shit," Justin mumbled. He bent down to get more snow when he felt a ball of the cold powder soak his hair. He stood up quickly and saw Maggie smiling at him.

"I told you it was fun," Maggie said.

Justin threw the handful of snow at Maggie and watched it crumble in the air.

Maggie laughed.

Justin saw a hint of red hair out the corner of his eye.

"Emily!" he called and began running towards the girl. "You’ve got to help me."

The running girl stopped. Her cheeks were almost as red as her hair. "You look a little snowy there Randy."

Justin nodded. "I need your help. I’m an amateur at all this snow stuff. How do I make a snowball stick together? Actually, how do I make lots of snowballs stick together? I need to plan my revenge."

"Against those two?" Emily said with a smile. Maggie and Stu were standing about 20 feet away. They were conversing quietly. "Honey, you’re going to need the queen of snowball fighters on your side. And luckily for you, you’ve got her."

Justin smiled as Emily grabbed his gloved hand and led him over a small hill. He was shocked to see row upon row of snowballs. Emily grabbed an armload and Justin did the same. They moved over the hill and went to the snow fort formed by three seven-year-old boys.

"Sorry Jeff," Emily said. "I’m taking control."

A boy with bright red hair glared at her. "Sisters," he grumbled before he and the two other boys ran off.

Emily dropped her snowballs and motioned Justin to hand her some of his. He did.

They both looked around for Stu and Maggie. They weren’t anywhere to be seen. A snowball came flying through the air and flew in between Emily and Justin. It was from behind another snow fort.

"You stay here," Justin said. He palmed four snowballs and began moving stealthily toward the opposing snow fort. Snowballs flew fast and furiously at him, but he was undeterred.

"Revenge will be mine," he crowed into the wind as he descended upon the snow fort.

He looked over the edge of the fort and saw two little girls sitting there giggling.

"What—?" Justin said. He looked over his shoulder and saw Stu, Maggie and Emily all waving at him.

He threw all four snowballs in quick succession. Two hit Stu and while one hit Maggie. Emily, the queen of snowball fights managed to dodge.

"I need your guy’s help," Justin said. "See those three evil people over there? Well they’re going to try to take over your fort."

The two little girls looked aghast at Justin.

"No they aren’t," one of them said.

Justin nodded sadly. "They are, but I’ll protect you guys if you make me lots and lots of snowballs."

The second girl giggled. "Okay."

"Great," Justin said. He grabbed three snowballs that were sitting beside the fort and began running back towards his friends. He ducked, wove and generally acted like a little kid.

An hour later he lay collapsed in the six-foot tall snow angel he’d just made.

He looked at Maggie. "You’re right. This was fun."

Maggie just smiled.

If Justin had thought the smells were wonderful when he’d woken up, they were a hundred times more wonderful when he walked back into the house cold, wet and feeling like the kid he hadn’t been in forever.

"It smells wonderful," Justin said to the three women standing in the kitchen.

"Thank you Randy," Cathy said. "Oh, you don’t know my two sisters. This is Lorna and this is Fran." She turned to her sisters and smiled. "This is our boarder, Randy. He’s the point-guard."

Justin smiled a greeting. Point-guard. That was his identification now.

"I’ve heard wonderful things about you," Lorna gushed from the pie she was making.

"Thanks," Justin said. "Do you need help with anything?"

Cathy shook her head. "Don’t be silly Randy. The men are in the den watching the game."

Justin looked at her oddly for a moment. Okay. He headed upstairs to change.

"Go! Go! Go!" Bob yelled at the TV. Two other men and three boys were sprawled around the living room. Justin stepped over one of the boys and sat in the chair in the corner of the room.

"Yes!" One of the men brought his arm down by his side in a celebratory move. "Die you suckers. Die."

Justin looked at the two teams on the screen. The players were small, hardly more than ants running on a field of green grass.

"Look at the game ref," one of the boys yelled. He had moved to a sitting position and was leaning forward on his hands and knees. "Use your eyes."

Justin leaned forward trying to figure out which team the men in the room were yelling for. He couldn’t tell.

He could be of much more use in the kitchen.

Justin got up from the chair and began to make his way out of the room when Bob noticed him.

"Where you going Randy?"

Justin looked at Bob. Going to the kitchen would not be an acceptable answer, that much was pretty clear.

"I couldn’t see that well from over there," he said.

Bob scooted over and patted the spot between him and one of the other men. "Have a seat. Do you want a beer?"

Justin moved over to the couch and sat. He grabbed the beer that the other man held out to him. "Thanks."

The players were slightly more distinguishable now.

The table was filled to overflowing with food. At the center of the spread was a large turkey on a bed of lettuce and parsley. It was steaming in the soft candle light, it’s skin a crackling brown. The rest of the dishes were filled with heaps of stuffing, blood red cranberry sauce, green beans, mashed potatoes, steaming gravy, green salad, jello salad, corn cobs, carrots and three bean salad. There was hardly room for the eleven place settings.

Justin stood awkwardly by his normal chair unsure of where to sit. Maggie smiled at him and motioned for him to sit down. He nodded and pulled out the chair. He was between Cathy and Maggie.

"Let’s say thanks," Bob said. He mumbled a prayer and then looked up expectantly.

Cathy smiled and leaned toward Randy. "We traditionally give thanks for something that’s happened to us this year."

Justin nodded.

"Would you like to start?" Cathy asked him. The entire table looked at him expectantly. He smiled trying not to show that he was feeling suddenly ill.

"I would like to give thanks that I’ve met such wonderful people here and that they’ve become the family I’ve needed this year."

Justin felt a lump grow in his throat. He smiled through it as Cathy nodded with an encouraging smile. She opened her mouth to say her thanks, but Justin didn’t hear her. He felt a hand on his left thigh and looked over at Maggie. She smiled at him and he rested his hand on top of hers, giving it a gentle squeeze. She left her hand there.

The thanks went around the table and finally it was Maggie’s turn. "I’d like to give thanks for the new friends that I’ve made and I hope the friendships last for a lifetime."

She gave Justin’s leg a slight squeeze before pulling her hand back.

Somewhere in Mississippi

"You mean he ran away?" Diane leaned across the table. "How could he do that to you boys?"

Lance sighed. The normal ‘nice’ Thanksgiving that he’d been hoping for had become a distant wish. "He buckled under the pressure."

Jim Bass made a sound of disgust. "I knew he was a primadonna."

"Don’t!" Lance said jumping up from his place at the table. His mother and father looked at him in shock. "Just don’t even start."

"It’s true," Rob said again. "He’s always been craving the spotlight."

"He’s trying to get out of the spotlight dad," Lance said. "I’ve been close to caving before and I don’t have nearly the pressure that Justin does."

"But you didn’t," Dianne said. "That’s the difference between you and Justin. You respect the group more."

"That’s not true," Lance said. A sob caught in his throat. "The difference between me and Justin is that I was too much of a coward to run away. He respects the group more than anyone else. He saw that he was losing it and that’s more dangerous than him running away. If he’d lost it, if he’d snapped, it would have been over. This way he’s giving us all a chance."

Lance walked away from the table and from his startled parents. Tears prickled in his eyes. The last thing he’d wanted was to get into a fight with his parents over Justin.

He walked into his room and flipped open his cell-phone. He dialed a number that he’d almost forgotten. He heard the ring twice.

"Chasez residence."

"Hi, is um, Josh there?"

"Lance?" the voice said. "This is Karen. How are you honey?"

"Good," Lance lied. "Happy Thanksgiving."

"Thanks sweetie. You too. Let me get Josh. He’ll be happy to hear from you. I think he’s missing you guys."

"Thanks," Lance said. He waited a few seconds and then heard a gruff "hello?"

"Hey Josh."

JC sounded happier immediately. "Hey bro, whassup?"

"I just had to get away from my parents," Lance answered. "I told them that Justin ran away and they just went off."

"I haven’t told my parent’s yet," JC said. He sounded worse again. "I thought he might call today, you know."

Lance nodded even though he knew that JC couldn’t see him. "I was hoping."

JC sighed. "Do you think everything’s going to be okay Lance?"

"Yeah!" Lance said with fake enthusiasm. "Maybe."

"I guess I should be happy we had as good a run as we did…" JC trailed off. "I just don’t want it to be over, you know? There’s so much more left for us to do."

"We’ll do it Josh. We are the premier boy band in the world. We’ll make it work."

"Do you believe that?" JC asked.

Lance contemplated the question. "Yeah, somewhere in my mind I think I do."

"Good," JC said. "One of us needs to keep the faith."

At dinner today I had to give thanks for something that’s happened this past year. I couldn’t say everything at the table without giving myself away so I figured I’d say it all here.

I would like to give thanks that we won our lawsuit and were able to keep our name.

I would like to give thanks that NSA was obscenely successful.

I would like to give thanks that the guys and I grew even closer than we’ve ever been before.

I would like to give thanks for my one kiss with Britney.

I would like to give thanks that the rumors about us flew and that she freaked on me.

I would like to give thanks that that pushed me over the edge because if she hadn’t freaked, I wouldn’t have had the will power to run away.

I would like to give thanks for ending up in Mill Creek. And for meeting Stu the first night.

I would like to give thanks for Cathy for being the mother I haven’t had in forever.

I would like to give thanks for Coach McGrath and for his faith in me.

And finally, I would like to give thanks for Maggie, the girl that’s becoming my best friend, my comforter and my strength.

Oh, and one last thing. I would like to give thanks for this opportunity to be me.

Thank you.

A knock sounded on his door for the second time that day.

"Yeah?"

Maggie peered her head in the door. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah," Justin said. He closed the journal on his desk. "Why?"

"You sort of left quickly from downstairs."

"Oh," Justin looked at his hands. "I just had to get a moment of me time."

"Oh. I’m sorry." Maggie began backing out of the room. "We’re going to play CLUE downstairs if you want to join us."

"You don’t have to leave," Justin said quickly. He stood up. "I’m done with my me time."

Maggie stopped. "I’m glad you were able to stay with us for Thanksgiving."

"Me too," Justin said.

"Don’t your parent’s miss you though?"

Justin nodded. "I guess. They’re out of the country right now."

"Oh," Maggie said.

"Can I have another hug?" Justin asked suddenly.

"Sure." Maggie blushed slightly and looked down at the floor as Justin walked toward her. He wrapped his arms around her and she rested her head on his chest. Her arms fit well around his waist.

"Thanks for everything Mags," Justin said. "I don’t know what I would have done without you for this past month."

"You’d be in Laura’s clutches," Maggie said with a small laugh into Justin’s chest.

"Hell no," Justin said quickly.

"Well thank you for proving me wrong so many times," Maggie said quietly. She looked up at Justin with trusting eyes.

Justin let go of her. "Any time." The smile was back in his eyes. He grabbed Maggie’s hand. "Did you mention CLUE? Let’s go."

Maggie followed him out of the room, but not before her eyes rested on the journal still sitting on Justin’s desk.

He pulled her out into the hall and she grabbed his door handle trying to slow down. The door ended up slamming. Laughing they ran down the stairs.