Leaving paradise was not a good feeling. I could soak up the sun and have no worries with my two-time husband for the rest of my life, but I would be lying if I said I didn't miss my kids after a few days. As much as they drive me absolutely insane most days, I've grown accustom to the insanity and too much silence now actually makes me kind of nervous. So as unhappy as I was to leave Hawaii, it felt pretty good to walk into my house and have my children run up to me with there arms open to give me a hug. Dropping my bags on the ground I knelt down to there level grabbing one in each arm before Tyler wiggled his way out screaming "DADDY," and jumping into his arms. After my big welcoming with the kids I walked over to the island in the kitchen where my own mother was standing whipping up some dinner, kissed her on the cheek and gave her a hug from behind. "Thanks for watching them Ma..."

"It was my pleasure sweetie," she replied wiping her hands on the apron wrapped around her neck before turning to give me a real hug. "You know I love spending time with my grandbabies."

"Mom! I got an A on my project about you and Dad, and guess what...okay don't guess I'll just tell you, I got another letter from my pen pal yesterday and she sent me a really cool magnet with my name on it!" My daughter was glowing as she recited the events of the past week and a half and I couldn't wipe the smile off of my face as I listened to her recount stories and watched my son loving up on his dad.

"See Lily, I told you it would all work out!"

"Yeah and Daddy called and said he's taking me to the Dodgers game this weekend, to make up for the one that he missed."

I kissed her forehead, laughing at Tyler who was now hanging upside down, held by his ankles hysterically laughing. "Well it looks like someone had a good time while we were gone. I'm glad Daddy is taking-"

"Sophia I need to talk to you in the living room," my mother interrupted me quite abruptly, and a knot formed in my stomach the second she called me Sophia because that meant something was wrong.

"Okay let me just put my bags upstairs and then-"

"I need to talk to you now, both of you," Tyler was quickly turned right side up and we looked at each other knowing that the vacation of a lifetime was officially over. He bent down kissing Ty on the cheek before sending both of them upstairs to wash up for dinner. He laced his fingers with mine as we followed my mother into the living room and even though it didn't put me completely at ease, it made me feel a little bit better knowing that I wouldn't be taking this hit by myself. "It's Jay," she said it before my butt was fully on the couch cushion. Apparently she was taking the rip it off like band-aid approach.

"He's bailing on her again," I said it with an attitude, pissed off that my daughter gets stuck with this fuck up for a father. And mad at myself for doing this to her.

"He doesn't really have a choice Soph-"

"You know what Mom! He does have a choice! And I'm so sick of giving him all of these chances only to let her down every single time. He chooses every time he pops a pill or inhales whatever his drug of choice is that day. Lily gets stuck with a deadbeat just like I did and he needs to learn that if he continues to do this he's never going to see her again because I'll get his ass thrown in jail and find a way to make him stay there. This has gone on long enough and I won't take-"

"HE'S DEAD!" I don't know why she screamed it. Maybe she was trying to get me to shut up and I was tuning her out. Maybe she had been holding it in for so long it just bubbled over and she had to get it out. Or maybe...maybe she was pissed that her grandchild ended up with the same fate as her daughter.

My hand went over my mouth and I heard everyone take in a breath. From day one I've wished that Lily would have had a different father, but never would I ever wish this. Not on him, not even on my worst enemy. I closed my eyes, praying that when they opened again this would just be a dream but it wasn't. This was real life, and I hate real life. "How am I supposed to tell her?"

"Tell her the truth..."

"I know that you know what it feels like to find out someone you loved overdosed mom, but you don't know what it feels like to hear that your father overdosed. Especially when you're that young. I can't do that to her..."

"You can't lie to her Sophia. She deserves to know the truth. And it's not like she doesn't have another father in her life...she won't take it as hard as you did."

I stood up instantly letting tears slide down my face. Not because I was overcome with the fact that he had died, but because I knew exactly how my daughter was going to feel when she found out, and because sometimes I had to wonder if my mother even had a heart beating inside of her chest. "You know what...it's when you say things like that, that I question if you even have a brain!" And with that I took off with my husband on my tail, leaving her downstairs alone to find out where she put her common sense.

***

And then there was silence. Lots and lots of silence. I tried to form sentences, hell I even tried to form words and it wasn't happening. And he...he was just staring in shock with his mouth practically on the floor. I didn't know what this meant. I mean what if he never had any intentions of meeting me and now I'm sitting in front of him and he doesn't know how to break it to me that he wants nothing to do with me outside of an E-Mail every now and again. Or maybe he's happy and is just in too much shock to express it. I don't even know how I feel about this. This whole time I've been E-Mailing Justin Timberlake and didn't know, and lets face it, he's kept a lot from me in 10 years when I've spilled my heart out to him. A knock on the door shook me from my thoughts and I looked up to see the same woman that escorted me in sticking her head inside the room, "Five minutes Ms. Callahan."

"I...But...Can I-"

"Stacey I need you to cancel the rest of my interviews today," he interrupted my stutters taking his eyes off of me for the first time since he realized who I was.

"But Mr. Timberlake you still have quite a few left..."

"I said I'm done for the day. Reschedule for tomorrow, and please let Rachel know that I won't be needing her for the rest of the day."

The woman was visibly shaken, not knowing what to do. "Mr. Wright gave me strict orders to get these interviews done today and-"

"I'll call Johnny myself. You don't need to worry I'll tell him it was my fault, he'll be mad at me, not you."

"Justin you don't have to do this, I can-"

"No...I need...I want to do this," he cut me off placing his hand on top of mine. A chill went down my spine the minute I felt his skin on mine. "I'll call him Stacey, I promise."

"O-Ok. I'll tell Rachel..."

She closed the door and it was just the two of us again. This time there was less staring and more fidgeting but still silence. "Say something," I whispered not able to deal with the silence any longer.

"Sorry I just can't believe...I can't believe it's really you. It is you right?"

We both laughed and it took a load of pressure off, suddenly I felt relaxed, "It's really me..."

"I-I don't know how I didn't connect the dots..."

"After that whole rant about your friend I don't know what took me so long TO connect the dots."

"I can't believe...After all these years." He leaned back on the couch shaking his head, "10 years and this is how we meet."

"Is that good or bad?"

"It's...I don't know what it is. I just can't believe it's really you."

"It's me. And you're...you." This was getting more awkward by the second. Where do we go from here?

No one said anything for a while, we just went back to staring until he sat up leaning his elbows on his knees, "I wrote back to you Soph and you just...you didn't respond."

"Well from the looks of it, you wrote back to me about 10 minutes ago and I was sitting right here so how was I suppose to get it?"

"No I wrote to you like a month ago, from my new E-Mail address. I had to change it because somehow fans got a hold of it and I was getting like a million E-Mail's a day."

Now it was time for me to be shocked to silence. For a month I thought he hated me when the reality of it is that he wrote back right away. "I-I didn't get it. Maybe it went to my spam, I swear to God I never read an E-Mail from you...My god I thought you hated me..."

"I don't hate you," it was a whisper with the slightest puddle of tears forming in his eyes. And then it was a reach over the coffee table before we both stood up and hugged each other. My life was all sorts of fucked up, but in that moment I knew everything was going to be okay.

***

"Okay so here's the poster that got me an A...I mean pretty creative if you ask me since you two didn't leave me any pictures to use don't you think?"

I had composed myself enough to sit Lily down and give her the news after dinner, at least I thought I did. I'm sure it was written all over my face that something was wrong especially when the smile was wiped quickly off of her face once she looked from the poster board to me. "Come sit Lil..." She looked back and forth between the two of us before she planted herself where I was patting in between us on our bed.

"He's not coming again right?" It killed me to hear her say it. I know that she knows her father is basically a deadbeat but she's never said anything about it out loud. I shook my head feeling tears form in my eyes, but willing them not to fall. She took a deep breath letting it out with a sigh, "You know Mom I was thinking that maybe I don't even want to see Daddy anymore. I mean I have fun when we go out but when he breaks promises it makes me sad and I don't like feeling sad."

"I don't think he means to make you feel bad I just think-"

"Well I was thinking that Dad could adopt me. He does everything with me anyway and it's not fair that I don't have everyone else's last name."

A tear slipped down my cheek and I looked past Lily to the man that she's considered her father all along. There were tears in his eyes but I couldn't tell if they were tears of joy over what she had just said about him or fear over how she might react to this news. No words were forming in my head, so I shook my head at him prompting him to jump in. "Something happened to your dad Munchkin..."

"Did he go to jail again? Because I know that he goes to jail and you guys don't tell me."

"No sweetie he's not in jail. He...Your dad, he got sick and the doctors and the nurses tried really hard to help him." I watched her face drop. I saw the tears start to roll down her cheeks. She knew, he didn't even have to say it and she knew, "He passed away yesterday." Then I saw it...The blank stare. The same blank stare I had when I saw those ambulances on my street all those years ago. The tears stopped and she just looked at the wall not saying anything. Handling it the exact same way I did.

I wrapped my arms around her shoulders, vowing to be different then my mother in this situation. I had to let her know that I loved her and that I'm here for her to talk to, a shoulder to cry on, whatever she needs. Everything that I didn't have. "He loved you so much Lily, you have to know that."

"Did he die from the drugs?"

Knife in the heart. All this time and I thought we all did a really good job hiding it from her, but clearly I thought very wrong. My gut instinct was to lie to her and make her think it was something else, but no matter what I said I knew that she knew the truth, so I sucked it up and told her the truth. Then the three of us sat there for more hours then I remember letting her cry, letting ourselves cry every now and then, until we all fell asleep. Vacation was over. Hell had begun...again.

***

"So I guess I understand why you didn't go to college..." I was now sitting next to him on the couch with one leg tucked under me. We'd finally gotten over the initial shock of being in front of one another and he had gotten me a bottle of water and some crackers and cheese to munch on.

"Yeah, I'm well...A little busy to say the least."

"What's it like to be Justin Timberlake?"

"See," he popped a piece of cheese in his mouth, "That question right there was why I never told you who I was. You already know what it's like to be me. All of this," he motioned around the room with his hands, "this is just work. You know the real me."

"So your work has absolutely no effect on your real life whatsoever?"

"Well...I guess when you put it that way..."

"I think my article is shot to hell," I laughed after a few moments of silence, pointing to my notebook and pen that I hadn't picked up since telling him to spill his guts to me.

"Are you kidding me? If there's anyone out there that can write an incredible article on me, it's you. You've got all of the inside info!"

"I wouldn't do that," I was shaking my head almost as if to reassure him that I wouldn't out him like that, "Whatever this is that we've got going on here its...its special to me, I'm not about to write an article on it. Though I guess I could officially write a truthful article on the fact that you are cootie free!"

He let out a chuckle looking down at his hands that were sitting in his lap. The pressure was off sure, but the awkwardness still hung in the air. Where do we go from here? What happens now? Remember how we were fighting with each other does that just go away? All questions that I wanted to ask but couldn't build up the guts to do it. I was looking around the room when the clearing of his throat snapped me out of my daze, "Hey Soph?"

"Yeah?"

"This whole knowing each other thing...That's not going to mess us up is it?"

"God I hope not," the words came out of my mouth before my thought even finished processing.

"Good because these past few months when it's been weird has kind of sucked major ass."

I let out a loud laugh putting my hand quickly over my mouth, "I'm glad we both agree."

"Are you happy?" The look on his face told me that he didn't mean to actually ask the question, but the way he was looking at me confirmed that he really wanted to know the answer.

"Like right this second?"

"I don't know, just in general."

I opened my mouth to say yes, but it would be a lie. He's the only person that I've never lied to and I didn't want to start now, "I'm trying..."

He stood up holding his hand out to pull me up as well, "Lets go get some dinner and then we can write your article, how does that sound?"

"That sounds great," I smiled my first real smile in a long time as he pulled me in for a hug.

"I'm really sorry about your dad Soph."

My heart dropped into my stomach. It had been 5 years since anyone said something like that to me, and while we talked about it often actually hearing him say it, and feeling him mean the words hit me like a ton of bricks, "It's been so long, why do you say that now?"

"Because I can hug you now. Before you just had to trust that I was sorry, and now you can know for sure."

"Thank you...You don't know how much that means to me."

"Oh but I do. This may be the first time we've actually met, but I know you," he pinched my cheeks playfully before placing a kiss on my forehead, "Come on...let's go chat about this husband of yours and try to figure out how to not break your kid into a million little pieces."

"I will not break my kid!"

"You are right, now that I'm involved you will not break your kid."

"You're an asshole you know that right?"

"You've mentioned it once or twice..."