Chapter Ten

"Oww!"

"Sit still!" Marissa exclaimed. "I'm going to poke you in the eye if you move again."

Dru groaned. "Why are you pulling my eyebrow hairs out?"

She chuckled. "Have you ever seen Sesame Street?"

"Where's that?" Dru inquired.

Marissa sighed. "Nevermind. I'm doing this so you don't have thick bushy eyebrows anymore."

"I don't have thick, bushy eyebrows." Dru pouted in an offended tone.

"Correction, you don't anymore." Marissa nodded, and pushed Dru's head back down. "Don't move." She said, and continued her work.

"Oww!" Dru whined. "That hurts!"

"Pain is beauty." Marissa provided. "And you need to look your best today."

"Why?"

"Because..." Marissa began, as she put her tweezers away and pulled her jar of wax off of the hot plate it had been resting on. "Today you're going to have lunch with Lynn."

She cocked her head to the side. "Who?"

Marissa smiled, remembering that Dru didn't know who Lynn was yet. "That's Justin's Mom." She nodded, pushing Dru's head down yet again.

"What?"

"Shh." Marissa said sternly, smearing the goop on Dru's top lip.

"But..."

Before Dru could inquire further, Marissa placed a sticky piece of paper over the goop...and ripped it off.

Dru screamed. Nothing...nothing could have been more painful than that. "What the hell was that for?"

"Upper lip hair." Marissa snickered.

"I don't have upper lip hair." She pouted.

"Not anymore." Marissa winked. "Now sit up."

"I hate this." Dru whined. "Why do I have to be all made up?"

"You don't hate it." Marissa reasoned. "You're just not used to it.
And you have to be made up because...it's the thing that girls do. Girls get made up." She opened her gigantic makeup kit, and stared into it, pondering which colors to use.

"And what do I have to meet Justin's mother for?"

"You ask a lot of questions, you know that?" Marissa chuckled. "Lynn is Justin's co-manager. She has a right to meet you."

"Well, I don't want to meet her." Dru shook her head. She was
tired of seeing all these new faces. She just wanted to go back to her room. She didn't want to do all this.

Marissa became annoyed. She was suddenly getting the feeling that this girl was taking all that she had been given for granted. "Well you're gonna." Finally finding the right colors, she walked back over to Dru, and pushed her head back down. "Don't move."

"I'm sorry Marissa." She said after a moment.

She sighed. "Don't be. You're just overwhelmed. I understand."

"Is Lynn mean?"

Marissa cracked up. "The woman is a saint."

A saint...the words made Dru feel somewhat relieved.

"Don't smile, keep your face relaxed." She murmured. In reality, she didn't like this girl. She was only being nice to her for Justin's sake. In her opinion, Dru was nothing more than a money hungry bum. She despised people like her. But she would put her feelings to the side for Justin. Justin was special, he deserved to be happy...and if helping Dru become a better person was going to make him happy she would do it...

Because she was in love with him.
***********
"Why are we here?"

"Physical."

"You didn't tell me you had a doctor's appointment."
Justin shrugged. "It slipped my mind."

"It's a good thing I didn't book anything for this hour." Trace nodded. "Or we would be screwed."

"You know," Justin began, glancing at his watch. "Dru's at lunch with my Mother right now."

Trace's eyes widened. "Are you serious?"

He nodded. "She snuck around behind my back and planned it all. I should have known she would." He chuckled. "I can't blame her, I know she just wants me to make the right decision. Good ol' Mom."

"What happens if she doesn't like her?" Trace questioned. "What then?"

"Nothing," he said. "My mind is made up."

"Mr. Timberlake, you can go in." The secretary called from her desk.

"That's my call." Justin nodded. "Why don't you go get some take out...or go shopping...whatever. I'm gonna be at least an hour."

Trace cocked his head to the side. "You always know about your doctors appointments months in advance J. Why was this so sudden?" He pondered a moment. "What's the matter with you?"

Justin rose out of his seat. Why did he have to be asking so many questions? Trace was making him feel guiltier about lying than he already felt. "I know I always book these things ahead of time. But...I scheduled an extra physical in this month. You know, I want to make sure I'm all good before I start gearing myself up for tour season. Really, I'm perfectly fine." He nodded. He felt like scum. He hated lying to Trace. Trace was the one person he knew he could trust, and he was totally shutting him out.

Trace stared at him a moment, before giving into his friend's explanation. "All right. I'll see you in a bit."

"Bye."

Justin watched him go.

He trembled with fear. Now...he was going to find out what was really wrong with him, and, knowing that there was a chance that it could be serious, scared him more than anything. He pushed his way into the doctors office, knowing that this day could be the first day of the end of his life.
****************
"A confidentiality agreement?"

"I need you to do it Larry." Justin nodded, handing his doctor a
pen.

"This is serious stuff Justin." Dr. Larry Johnson nodded, taking the
pen from his patient. "What exactly do you need me to do this for?"

"Because...I don't want anybody to know what's going on with
me." Justin confessed. "I'm going to work regardless if I'm sick or not. There's no way I'm going to be able to if the people that care about me know about all this."

Larry sighed. "Justin, if it turns out that you are sick...I wouldn't suggest..."

"I'll decide what's best for me." Justin interrupted him, shoving the pen in his hand. "Just sign it...or I'll find somebody else who will."

"This isn't right Justin." Larry grumbled, reluctantly signing the paper. "But I would rather be the one that helps you, rather than some other doctor who only cares about money." He nodded. "Now, we've done the basics, so what seems to be the problem."

"I've been sick...for about two months." Justin supplied.

Larry pulled out his clipboard. "What's been going on?"

"A lot of stuff. Sometimes it'll be stomach pains, other times it'll be headaches...but most of the time I'm just coughing up blood." He was silent for a moment. "It's...horrible."

Larry looked up from his writing, his eyes were wide, and full of fear. "You've been dealing with this for two months without seeking professional help?"

Justin looked at the floor. "Yeah."

"And nobody else knows about this?"

"Well..." He hesitated a moment. No, he didn't need to know about Dru. Enough people already knew about her. "No."

"This is serious Justin." Larry nodded. "You're going to have to come in for some tests."

"Serious?" Justin questioned. "How serious?"

"I can't say for sure until we test." Larry said softly. "But...you
could have Cancer."

His eyes widened. "You're not serious."

"Like I said, I won't know for sure until we test. It could be a number of things, but I've been in this business a long time..."

"No!" Justin yelled. "You're not gonna f *cking tell me that! I don't have any f *cking Cancer Larry! It's not like that!"

"Calm down." Larry said in a calming tone. "No one said that it was for sure."

"I won't believe it." Justin said, wiping the tears out of his eyes. "I have too much going on, I can't get sick." He shook his head vigorously. "I just can't...I won't."

"How is next week for you?"

"No good. I'm going to be in LA next week." Justin muttered. "Press."

"You can't put this off Justin."

"My career comes before anything." Justin nodded.

He shook his head. Obviously, Justin wasn't going to follow his orders. "I can test the blood samples I took today. That can tell us a few things. It'll take at least a week to get the results back, so that will give you the time you need to do work in Los Angeles." He nodded.

"I can be back in New York a week from Sunday." Justin nodded. "That's when my vacation starts."

"Good. That will work fine." Larry nodded. "Until then, you should try not to do anything..."

"I already told you, my career comes first."

"Of course." Larry rolled his eyes, and walked over to the door. "Just take care of yourself, ok?" He swung open the door. "I'll see you soon."

Justin walked out the door, not saying another word.
Damn. Why did fate have to work in such screwed up ways? This couldn't have happened when he had been with the group, no. It had to happen now, when he was on his own. Now, when his career was just beginning to take off. It was asinine. He didn't deserve this. He had worked too hard for this to happen now.

"Hey." Trace smiled. "I didn't know what you wanted, so I just got you a couple of cheeseburgers." He rose up out of his seat. "Damn, you were in there forever. What the hell were you doing?"

"It was just a check up." Justin muttered, pushing the clinic door open. "Let's go."

Once they were out in the hallway, Trace spoke again. "You sure that..."

Justin whirled around. His expression was dark, angry. "Dammit Trace...I'm f *cking fine all right. Just f *cking fine."

Trace stood back. He was shocked. Justin never talked to him that way. He felt it...pain. "Why...are you yelling at me?"

He chewed his bottom lip nervously. "I'm sorry."

"Tell me what's the matter." Trace persisted. "Don't f *cking lie to me Justin."

"I'm fine." Justin lied again.

"You little bastard." Trace seethed. "I'm not a moron! There's something the matter. I can read you like a book Justin, I've known you my whole life. What is it J? Are you sick?"

Justin sucked in a breath. "I...I don't know Trace."

"You don't know?" His voice was barely audible. "What does that mean?"

"It means I might be sick." Justin nodded. The tears were apparent in his eyes.

"H-how sick?" Trace stuttered.

Justin narrowed his eyes at his best friend. "Sick."

"Oh."

Silence followed. The two life long friends stared at each other, knowing that this might have been the biggest challenge that they had ever come to face. There were no more words to be exchanged about it. This was too big...

There was nothing else that either of them could say, that would change the fact that Justin's life might be cut short.