Chapter 1: Fixing Us

“Tessa, why don’t you go watch TV with Poppy while I talk to Gamma?”

It’s been two weeks since Andrea visited her husband after his concert; two weeks since she told him she wanted a divorce. She’s sure that Justin called his mother nearly the moment after she left. He’s always been close with her. She always thought it was great that they had such a tight bond, but it did get on her nerves a little when he would run to her after ever fight they had. Andrea can’t help but think that Lynn must think that the separation is all her fault, even if she knows that Justin cheated on Andrea and not the other way around. She’s not calling her a bitch or anything, and she really does adore Lynn, but you know how it is.

“How are you holding up?” She asks in sincere concern. Everyone asks her that when they see her. She doesn’t know how the news spread so fast, but it did. The entire cast of Nsync called her as well as their wives, mothers, and girlfriends all asking how she was holding up. Then there was her side of the family—mom, aunts, cousins, her sister. It’s really wearing on her, but she won’t let it show.

“I’m hanging in there.”

“How about Tessa? Has she been asking a lot of questions?”

“No, she just thinks her daddy’s still on tour.”

“You’re going to talk to him aren’t you?”

Andrea sighs at the question, shifting uncomfortably in her seat. She knows that she has to talk to him eventually. It won’t be easy for her. It was hard enough to confront him in the first place. She’s afraid that she’ll back down and take him back.

“Eventually. Tessa knows when he’s getting home from tour. She has a countdown in her room. She’ll want to see him.”

“Honey, I know what he did hurt you,” That’s an understatement, Andrea thinks to herself. “but he’s miserable. Don’t you think he deserves to tell his side of things?”

“I don’t really want to hear his side Lynn. I didn’t end this on a hunch. His best friend told me about Cameron because he couldn’t stand lying to me anymore.”

“Andrea,”

“Don’t worry Lynn, I’m not going to take Tessa away from her grandparents or her father.” She assures seeming to read Lynn’s mind. “I would never do that.”

“I want my son to be happy and I know that he won’t be if you’re no longer in his life.” Lynn preaches. She places her hand over Andrea’s to emphasis her words. Andrea can see the emotion in her eyes and knows that this divorce is going to affect a whole lot more people then just her and Justin, but it’s something that has to be done. She promised herself a long time ago that she would never stay with a cheater. “Will you just talk to him? He’s on his way over now and—”

Andrea holds up her hands to stop Lynn from finishing her sentence. The last thing she needs right now is to face Justin. There Lynn goes again being overly pushy. It’s like to her Justin can do no wrong.

“I gotta go.” Andrea says quickly standing and rushing out of the room hoping to make it out before Justin gets there. “Tessa lets go!”

“Andrea please,” Lynn begs as Tessa comes running towards her mother. Andrea helps Tessa with her coat and scoops her up into her arms.

“Say bye-bye to Gamma and Poppy.”

“Bye Gamma!” Tessa giggles sweetly. “Bye Poppy!”

“I’ll talk to you later Lynn.” Andrea says quietly and turns and walks out the door. She takes deep claming breaths and tries her best not to let her emotions show. She doesn’t want Tessa to think that anything is wrong. She’s going to wait until the divorce papers are at least drawn before she fills her daughter in.

“Daddy!” Tessa yells over her mother’s shoulder. Andrea turns quickly to see Justin pulling up beside her. She groans and rolls her eyes and moves faster to get Tessa into the backseat and away from her cheating father. Andrea sets her daughter into her booster car seat and begins to strap her in. She can feel Justin standing behind her as their daughter screams and cries for him.

“Tessa baby don’t cry,” He sooths, looking over Andrea’s shoulder with tears in his eyes.

“I want to see daddy!”

“Come on Andrea, let me see my daughter.” Justin urges. Andrea backs away from the car and roughly slams the door close before whipping around to face Justin.

“Don’t.” She voices firmly staring him directly in the eyes.

“Don’t what?”

“Just don’t.”

“She’s crying her f**king eyes out because she want to see me.” He answers through clenched teeth as he tries to control his anger. He knows that Andrea is pissed at him and she should be, but it’s not right of her to put Tessa into the middle of all their problems. “Why don’t you let her stay here for dinner? I’ll have her home by eight. I just want to spend some time with my daughter.”

She stares at him blankly for a few minutes debating over her options. She knows that she has to let him see her. He is her father after all and she just, not five minutes ago, promised Justin’s mother that she was not going to take Tessa away from her father.

“Okay.” She relents turning back to the backseat door and pulling it open. She lifts the crying little girl from her booster car seat and hands her over to her father. Tessa stops crying immediately and a smile takes over her pure face as she wraps her arms around her dad’s neck. “I want her home by eight, not a minute later.”

Justin nods a smile taking over his features as well as he hugs his daughter tightly to him. “You know, you can stay too. We really need to talk.”

“I’m not ready to talk yet.”

“I can respect that.”

Andrea nods sadly and Justin walks away from her and up to the front door of his parent’s house. He and Tessa wave from the door and Andrea waves back. They disappear inside the house and Andrea gets into her car. She takes a deep breath and tightly clutches the steering wheel. Her fist pounds into the wheel as tears start to flow uncontrollably from her burning eyes.

When did her life get so screwed up?

~*~*~*~

7:53, Justin has seven minutes to get Tessa home. Andrea paces the floor anxiously. She’s afraid of having to face Justin again, of having him back in their home. She misses him like crazy especially at night. Their house looks so cold and empty without him in it. Sleeping in that big bed all alone is unbearable for her. Most nights she doesn’t sleep. She’ll wonder to Tessa’s room and watch the small girl dream and just last night she caught herself flipping through old photo albums and watching home videos of when they were happy; when they were still a family.

She stops in front of the fireplace and takes a picture of her and Justin from the mantel. It’s from their honeymoon in Jamaica. Justin’s in his swim trunks and Andreas wearing a bikini. He’s holding her in his arms with one arm under her legs and the other supporting her back. Her arms are draped around his neck and they both look like their freezing. She laughs lightly as she remembers the moment that picture was taken. They had paid fifty dollars to climb to the top of this waterfall and get their picture taken in front of it. The water was ice cold and it’s apparent on their faces.

“I can still feel how cold that water was.” Justin’s voice startles her and she nearly drops the picture. She quickly places the picture back in its place and wipes at her cheeks to rid her fallen tears.

“How did you get in here?”

“I still have my key.” He whispers adjusting Tessa in his arms. She’s sleeping soundly and Justin is holding her much like he was holding Andrea in that picture. He moves through the family room and walks Tessa upstairs to her room. Andrea follows and watches as Justin tucks their daughter in and kisses her goodnight. Andrea kisses Tessa on the forehead and smoothes back her curls before following her husband out of the room.

“Thanks for letting her stay with me.”

Andrea shrugs in response and walks back to the living room. She wishes that she could tell him to go screw himself and never come back here again. She can’t though because she still loves him just as much as she ever has. As she looks at him now she wants to cry, but more so she wants to pretend that nothing ever happened. She wants to go back to being happy and in love. She wants her husband back.

“You should go.”

“Andrea,” Justin urges taking Andrea’s hands in his and looking at her pleadingly. She lets him hold her hands for a few moments, revealing in the familiar feeling, but quickly regains her senses and roughly pulls from his grasp. “Can we please talk about this?”

“I told you I’m not ready to talk.”

“You don’t have to. I’ll do all the talking. I’m just asking you to listen.”

“I don’t think I want to hear what you have to say.”

“Please,” He pleads motioning for her to sit on the white sofa. They fought over this sofa when they bought it. Andrea found it too impractical with a baby on the way, but Justin insisted on it. He had a white living room in his other house and he loved it, besides the couch was beyond comfortable. Andrea gave in, obviously. She smiles inwardly at the memory as she sits down.

“I’m not going to sit here and tell you how sorry I am,” He begins. Andrea bites her tongue. “You know how sorry I am and I know that you hate to hear apologies because, as you’ve told me before, they’re just words and they don’t really fix anything.”

“I know that I’ve screwed up a lot in the past and this one just topped them all. I can’t explain to you why I did it—I don’t know. I could tell you that I was lonely and weak, but I know that’s not something you’ll consider an acceptable excuse. There is no excuse. I know it’s gonna be really difficult and it’s going to take a lot of time, but I want to fix this, fix us.”

Andrea wipes her tears, and Justin wipes his own way as well. A sob escapes her against her will and it takes everything in Justin not to run to her and wrap her in his arms and hold her until she’s okay again. The next words she whispers shatters his heart as well as hers because they both know it’s the truth.

TBC.....(Please let me know what ya'll think.)