I was playing with my modeling blocks when the doorbell rang. I looked up eagerly. The house used to be overrun with guests just a couple of days ago but now everything was quiet. Too quiet. But what was I supposed to do about it? The doorbell rang again. It had a chime that I would remember for my entire life. It was custom designed for my mother. The doorbell rang one more time. I stood up and walked over to the door and looked at the large, flat handle that got us in and out. I wondered if it was still daytime. The house was always dark so I could never tell.

The heavy door creaked open and I jumped away and fell over, surprised.

"Justin?" Uncle JC peeked his head inside. Then he spotted me. "Hey Will! Big Willie!" I smiled as Uncle JC scooped me up into his arms.

"How are you doing?" Uncle JC said as I wrapped my arms around him. I looked into his blue eyes and I felt safe. There had been so much confusion and change in the past few days. At least this was the same.

"How are you doing, Will?" Uncle JC repeated, kissing me on the forehead and on the cheeks. Then he held me tightly again and didn't say anything.

"Hi Uncle JC," I said.

"Where's your daddy?"

I shrugged.

"Hey, are you hungry? Did you have lunch, Will?" Uncle JC looked at me concerned. He readjusted his grip on me, but kept me high in his arms. I was glad because I really didn't want him to let me go.

"You know what? I'm going to take you out." Uncle JC declared. "For lunch! And then... maybe we'll go to the zoo. And I don't know. We'll spend the day together. How about that?"

I nodded because that did sound like fun. I wanted to get out of the house.

"Where do you want to go to lunch?"

"Burgers!" I declared.

"Well, you always want that." Uncle JC laughed and began moving through the house. "You can't just eat burgers for the rest of your life."

"Burgers," I insisted.

"Yeah, burgers. It's fine for now. Anything you want, Will. Right now."

The house wasn't dirty. It was as clean as one of those children's museums Mom used to take me to during the weekends. And we had a lot of food, we just weren't eating it. There used to be a ton of people around but then Daddy told them all to leave. That was a couple of days ago. Daddy put me to bed and he woke me up. He called to me throughout the day to see where I was. But other than that, I hadn't seen him much. And I hadn't seen Mommy at all.

I played with Uncle JC's hair as he walked up the winding staircase. Our house was big but I didn't know that the next one would be even bigger. Uncle JC finally put me down when he stood in front of my parent's bedroom door. He knocked twice.

"Justin, it's JC. I'm coming in so you'd better be decent." Uncle JC looked at me and made a funny face. I laughed as he opened the door.

"It's dark in here, man," Uncle JC said. He found the light switch on the wall and flipped the lights on. "Turn out the lights. Light a candle."

Daddy was sitting in the bed, well half sitting and half laying down. He was wearing the dress shirt he wore to the funeral and some of those lounge pants that Mommy and I picked out for him for Christmas. He looked over at Uncle JC like he didn't recognize him at first. Then he closed his eyes wearily and sighed.

"Justin..." Uncle JC and Daddy shared a long look. I wondered if I was supposed to be there. I wandered away from the bed, towards the entrance to the closet. There were a lot of clothes on the floor. I flopped down on a sweatshirt. It still smelled like her. I pulled over one of my dad's shirts and pulled it over me. I could hide in here and wait until she comes back and everything goes back to normal.

I could still hear Uncle JC and Daddy from my hiding place in the closet. I could see them through the half opened door.

Uncle JC sat on the bed. "Justin, you've got to get up. What are you thinking about?"

Daddy looked darkly at Uncle JC and shook his head. "What do you think I'm thinking about? I'm thinking about revenge."

"Well that's a crazy thought," Uncle JC said. "I mean, what are you going to do?"

"It can't be hard to figure out."

"You've got a kid, Justin." Uncle JC hissed. Daddy sighed wearily.

"I'll take him for the day," Uncle JC continued. "And you can... pull yourself together. Take a shower and... think about where you're going to go. Because you can't stay here. You should call your mom. She's been begging for you guys to go over there."

Daddy shook his head. "I don't want to leave here."

"Justin, don't talk crazy. They could come back. You've got to get out of here."

"Well, if they do, I wanna be here. I want to meet them. I would... I..." Daddy's voice trailed off.

"No, that's what I'm saying! Justin." Uncle JC clamped his hands on Daddy's shoulders, leaning over the bed. "You can't think like that right now. William cannot lose two parents. He doesn't deserve it. Don't do this to him!"

"I should have done something. This didn't have to happen." Daddy broke off. I could tell he was crying by the way his shoulders were shaking. So many people had been crying lately. I felt like I should be crying too, but tears wouldn't come. I clutched the sweatshirt and took a deep breath. I missed Mommy so much. If she were back, I bet Daddy wouldn't be crying.

"We can't change things. Justin. You can't change what happened. You can't." Uncle JC sat beside him on the bed. "It's a matter for the police. You have to focus on your family."

"It's not a matter for police. JC! God. This is something... I have to take care of. I just don't know how."

"No, not right now. Justin, you're too emotional. You're not thinking rationally. You're--"

"Yeah, JC. That's the point. If I don't do it now, I'll never do it!"

"Will!" Uncle JC called out suddenly. "Willie, where are you?"

I jumped up from underneath my pile of clothes and ran over to them. I jumped on the bed and crawled in my dad's lap and wrapped my arms around his neck. Daddy hugged me back.

"God... he looks just like her. He's all I have left of her."

"Yeah, that's right," Uncle JC said. "Don't jeopardize this, Justin. You've got to listen to me. You have to walk away from this."

Daddy squeezed me so hard it was starting to hurt but I didn't want to pull away.

"It's not that easy," Daddy said in a low voice.

I squirmed in his arms and Daddy loosened his grip on me.

"Hey, Will, I'm going to take you out to lunch like I said. And then we're going to spend the whole day together and do lots of fun things. How about you put some jeans on. I'll help you. We'll be back tonight." Uncle JC took my hand and gave my dad a look.

"I'll see you tonight, Will," Daddy said. "I love you."

"Daddy," I said while we were all standing there together. "When I get back, is Mommy going to be home? When is she coming back?"

Uncle JC and Daddy shared a look. Then Daddy laid back and covered his face.

"Come on, Will, come on." Uncle JC said dragging me out of the room. "We'll talk about this."

I didn't understand then, but she was never coming back. She was dead. There was nowhere to go but down after that moment. Our lives would never be the same.

* * *

I wake up in my father's bed.

In my father's body.

Holy crap, this is still real. I was dreaming but I'm not dreaming anymore. I'm not five years old. I'm not even 18. Well, I'm 18 in my mind, but in my body, I'm 19 and I'm Justin Timberlake.

I've got to find a way to accept this. How can accept this, this is insane! Well, I'm stuck here for now. Until I can find a way to figure this out. So I'll have to fit in.
Think. Justin Timberlake.

Oh god. Isn't there a website that can help me?

That's a plan! The Internet ! They still had that back now, didn't they?

I pull the covers off and step out of the bed. I am in some room. My room? I mean, Dad's room? Justin's room? This is so confusing. Well, I hope it's Justin's room which is now my room by association. I walk over to the first set of drawers and pulled one of them open. It is full of underwear. Designer though. Though I have never heard of the designers, I know they are fancy. Expensive underwear. I should be used to this. I mean, Dad has always been rich. But I don't know, it is different now. I look at myself in the mirror and touch my face. Did he grow facial hair back now? His face is pretty smooth.

I go to the window and open the blinds. Wow, this place is pretty rural. There's a large backyard with a basketball court and lots of trees all around. It's pretty. A pool too. Dad is definitely hooked up. I wearing the same clothes I was wearing when I jumped into this body, a t-shirt and track pants. I pull off the pants and then change the underwear too, because it seems polite. Is it sick that I checked my dad out? Well, I had to see the equipment. We are comparable in that area. Though, he's probably had more experience than me. 18 years old, I'm a virgin sadly. I bet my dad isn't. I should know but he never told me when he lost his virginity. We never had a sex talk. He gave me a book and told me to pay attention in class.

I choose some nice boxers and then this D&G shirt he has. Wow, he has a lot of sneakers. I'm looking in the closet, just amazed. I find some nice jeans and the best sneakers I can find, old school Chucks, these are so rad. They would go for thousands of dollars nowadays. I mean, in 2025. But right now, they are probably ordinary. I'm feeling pretty good. I'm ready. I'm ready to be my father.

So what's the first thing he would do? Oh yeah. I got sidetracked. I was going to check out the Internet . I see his laptop on a table in the room. I walk over and pick it up and walk over to the bed with it. I open up the laptop and push the on button. It powers up so slow. Why do I have to wait? I groan as it's still blinking and whirring. Ancient technology, this sucks! How did anyone live back now?

Ugh... I'm still waiting. It's been at least two minutes. Finally, the blue window screens awaits me. I have to sign into the system. What's wrong with fingerprint recognition on the keys? This is so ancient. Anyone could guess a password. Except me, I guess. Because I don't know his password. Well, I've got to think. I'm Justin Timberlake for goodness sake! I should know my password. Okay... I take a deep breath. I'm trying to think like my father. What would he do? Hmmm... Okay, I'm just going to try.

I type in some random words like Nsync and William. Well, he always liked his grandpa, that's one thing I know about him for sure! That's why I had such an old fashioned name when everyone else was Blake and Caden. Finally, after trying about 30 random passwords, I groan in frustration and typed TIMBERLAKE. The password goes through. How obvious. I've got to laugh at my father for a moment. He certainly is full of himself.

The stupid computer takes another two minutes to load again. Then I have to plug it in to the Internet . I have to PLUG IT IN! What's that about? So I figure that out and finally I'm at his homepage, which is AOL. I click away from that and try to find my favorite search engine Zeta.com. But the Internet tells me that page doesn't exist. So what do people in the year 2000 use to search the Internet ? I eventually find Yahoo.

Now what am I looking for? I type Justin Timberlake into the search box. Thousands and thousands of hits come up. I click on the first one. It's the official site for Nsync and I can hear Bye Bye Bye playing. Great. I can learn the song at least. I listen to Bye Bye Bye a few times. I feel like I already half know it. The next time the song loops, I sing along with it. Thank god that I still have Justin's voice and not my own. Because I can't sing at all, much to my father's dismay. He always hated that about me. I also scroll through the other songs on the site and sing along with the ones from the first CD. I assume I have to know them too. It's surprisingly easy to learn the songs and all of my parts, the harmonies and everything. It's like they are a part of Justin's DNA or something. Maybe this won't be so bad after all.

Now I just have to learn the dance moves. Can you learn that off of the Internet ? I am scrolling through search results when I hear a knock on the door.

"Yeah?" That high voice. It makes me laugh.

"Justin?" It's Lance. "You okay in there?"

I'm more than okay. I open the door, looking like a million bucks.

"Hey Lance," I say. He looks me up and down carefully.

"Hey..." Lance says. "I was worried about you."

"Don't worry. I was just a weird day, you know." I say. It's not going to be difficult to play this roll, I don't think. Justin is an easy person to get. Even if I don't really know him.

"Yeah..." Lance doesn't look convinced. "You wanna go out to dinner tonight? Like we were supposed to?"

"What, me and you?" I ask. I wonder if Dad knew Lance was gay back then. I don't know. This seems a little strange. Maybe my dad dabbled in homosexuality himself.

"Well, everyone. I mean, we made the plans last week, remember?"

"Oh! Everyone!" I widen my eyes like I know what he's talking about. I have no idea. Who's everyone? "Um... I don't know, it's been a long day." What am I supposed to say?

"That new club is opening," Lance says. "And we already promised to make an appearance. And Britney is expecting you too."

Oh! Britney Spears! My father dated her. Were they dating now? Wow. Britney Spears.

But then I think... did I really want to be tied down? I thought of those girls who had started to swarm me on the sidewalk. And there were the comments I saw while browsing websites. Thousands of girls wanted my Dad. And he was going to be tied down? By Britney Spears? That's laughable, considering how nuts she is. I mean, it's a miracle Sean and Jayden turned out so normal. I know them from my prep school days, well, kind of. And my dad and Britney were always friends. But that doesn't mean they have to be dating. Oh no. They are going to break up sooner or later. Why not now?

"So there are going to be a lot of girls at this club, right?" I ask. Lance is still looking at me strangely.

"Uh, yeah. Look, are you sure you're okay, Justin? You seem... different."

"I'm fine, I'm fine!" I insist, waving my hands. "I'm allowed to have a bad day, right? Look... where are we meeting? When? I'll be ready. I just have to take care of a few things, first."

"Let's meet at the restaurant," Lance says. "Give me a call."

"Sure, I will. Thanks for coming over. And checking on me. And all." I smile at Lance and follow him to the front door so I can get a good look at the house. Do I live here all alone? This is so unreal. It's not a huge house, but it's big and it's nice and it's all mine!

Well, my dad's technically. But mine now.

"I'll talk to you soon," I say, leaning in the doorway as Lance heads down the stairs.

"Bye Justin, see you later!" Lance calls as he head to his car. As soon as Lance is gone I run back up the stairs to my dad's horrible little computer. I open up his email and look through the contact list until I find what I'm looking for.

Britney Spears.

I sit down with the laptop in my lap and type solemnly.

Dear Britney,

Hey, how are you? You know I like you and stuff, but I think we need to take a break. I think we need to break up. I mean, I know it. We aren't going out anymore. You are free. Let me tell you something. In a few years, you're going to get married. You will have two wonderful sons. They are great! Even though you get divorced, you will find true happiness. But it won't be with me. I marry someone else. And she's my soulmate. So I'm going to spare us the trouble, I'm going to save you years of turmoil. Let's end this now. I'll always be one of your very good friends. That's a fact.

Love (but not love!)

Justin Timberlake

I lean back, smiling. That sounds really good, probably better than my father could come up with. This is just something that needs to happen. So I send the email.

I close the laptop, feeling good. So good that I decide to take a shower. After that, I do my hair. I dress up real nice because we're going to a club and I'm a pop superstar. Dad has two cars in the driveway. I find the keys to the BMW. It's cool, in an old school way. I find my way behind the wheel. I'm pretty sure I can drive it so I pull out of the driveway. I'm on the road.

Is this what it's like to be young, good looking, and happy? Man, my dad had the best life! At a red light I see a group of good looking college girls in a nice red corvette. I roll down the tinted window and lean out of my window. When they notice me, they all stare, incredulous.

"Hey ladies!" I call.

"Hey, you're Justin Timberlake, right?" One calls back.

"If you're in the neighborhood, you should go to that club opening tonight," I say, suavely. I have never been this smooth with a woman in my life. Hell, I have never really talked to girls this good looking before!

"Oh yeah?" The girl in the driver's seat says. "Well, maybe we will. Do you think we'd be able to get in?"

"Just tell them you're with Justin. I'm sure they'd let you in. But only if you're looking hot!"

All the girls giggle. The driver says, "Well, you got it, Justin."

"See you tonight!" I shout and the light turns green. I stomp on the gas and sped away. Oh man, my heart is beating so fast.

I'm going to have a lot of fun as my father!

I call Lance on the way and he tells me the restaurant we were meeting at. I step out of the car feeling good and some dude from Valet took my keys and drove the car away. I walk into the restaurant and people stare. I smile and wave. It feels so good to feel famous.

"Hey there, Justin," Joey says as I come up to the table. "So you're not going to go crazy on us, right? Turning into your alternate personality."

"Oh that?" I wave a hand. "You know, I was just testing you guys. Seeing how much you care about me."

"Oh please," Joey rolls his eyes and everyone laughs. 'Everyone' is just the guys in the group, plus Justin's best friend Trace and a couple of girls. I think one of them is JC's old girlfriend, but I don't know her name. The other girl, I have no idea. "I'm ready to eat. I'm starved." I realize that is true. I hadn't eaten all day. I take my seat and open the menu.

"So where's Britney?" JC asks.

"Huh?" I realize I should acknowledge Trace. "Hey man, how's it going? Haven't seen you in a while."

"Justin you saw me yesterday," Trace says.

Oh. Maybe I should just keep my mouth shut.

"Britney?" JC repeats.

"I don't know. Is she like supposed to be here?"

"Didn't you invite her?" Chris asks. I don't know! They are making my transition hard.

"We broke up," I say, so they would shut up. Everyone is staring again. "I was going to tell you but... I mean, later. But it just happened. Today. Don't feel bad. I broke up with her."

"What?" Trace spat out the word.

"Are you serious?" Lance echoed.

"I wrote her an email. It wasn't going to work out." I wave a hand. "Let's just forget about it. And eat."

"You broke up with her over email?" Joey starts to laugh and leans back in his chair. "Oh man, Justin. You're worst than me."

"Justin," Trace says, still staring. "Yesterday, you were telling me how much in love you two were. That you were like... the happiest you've ever been with her and you were ready to go public with the relationship. Remember?"

No, I don't remember. But it doesn't matter. I shrug my shoulders.

"Well, a lot can happen in 24 hours. Things change. Circumstances change. People change."

"You're a dog, Justin!" Joey is still laughing. The girls give me disapproving looks. So what? I don't care.

"Look," I tell them all. "I'm not going to moping around about love lost. I'm going to have fun tonight. And if you don't want to do the same, then you'd better not roll with me. Because I'm about to get my freak on."

"I'm in, oh man!" Joey says, still chortling.

"Let's just get some food, huh?" I say, opening my menu. Okay, so everyone might give me funny looks for the next couple of days, but they'll get used to it. If I'm trapped here, I'd better make the best of it, until I can find a way back to my old life.

Or maybe I never will.

Would it really be so bad to stay? I could be the best pop star the world has ever seen. And I would do it better than my dad.

It's a possibility. But right now, I'm going to eat.