Justin was putting the first copy of his newest book on the shelf when he saw the old photo album on the coffee table. Curious, and more than a little nostalgic, he picked it up.
It had been ten years since he had opened that album, still afraid of the power only he believed it held. He had wanted to get rid of it originally, but both JC and his therapist believed it would be a sign of healing when he could open it without fear, so it was still there, reminding Justin of those insane months in which he kept jumping in time, relieving the same day over and over again.
Even when he knew that the old pictures were closed, that he couldn’t jump again to the same times he had jumped to already, he still feared it a little.
Gathering his courage, he opened it. The first picture was still the one of JC’s birthday, the last jump he had made. Joey, JC and his younger self, the one he had traumatized for life, smiling at the camera. Behind them, the blurry figure of Chris, and the Bass family watching Chris. Behind them, a strangely familiar figure in a gray sweatshirt.
Frowning, Justin adjusted his glasses. He knew that sweatshirt, it was still hanging in his closet.
“Impossible,” he muttered. But curious, he pressed on, flipping the pages until he found the Pleasure Island pictures. The one he had jumped into, where they were smiling at the camera, was still there. And behind Joey’s head, he could see again the same gray sweatshirt, the hood pulled up so he couldn’t see the face of the man wearing it, but he knew it was himself.
His twenty six year old self.
He wasn’t in every picture he had jumped to, but he was in many of them. And he was in others. There was no sign of changes in the Daily Show picture, for example, but a second picture that showed the crowd had part of an arm in the first row. And in the arm, Justin could see his cross tattoo.
All the jumps were there. And he knew that if he compared the dates of the pictures with the dates of his panic attacks, described not only in his book, but also in the diary of the psychiatrist this version of himself had been seeing since he was fifteen, he would see that they matched every one of his jumps.
They all had happened. It hadn’t been just one thing that had caused the different timelines, it had been everything. Him, traumatizing his younger self. Him, introducing *N Sync for the first time, calling his own name last. Telling Chris not to sign with Transcon, even if in the end Chris had done so because the young Justin, the one who had decided he didn’t want anything to do with the show business anymore told him to. Telling Chris to keep an eye on all of them. Bumping into a table, talking to himself again in the Grammys, and this time causing his younger self to spend a week in a psychiatric hospital due to the panic attack that followed. Telling Chris that Lance was gay, even though Chris already knew it.
He had almost driven himself crazy, trying to go back to that time when he had been the only one who mattered.
There was one picture almost at the end of the album, that Justin didn’t immediately recognize. It was himself, twenty six years old, writing in his studio. He was turning to see the camera, frowning. While it had taken a while to teach himself how to write, now Justin understood his other self even though it was hard to get the words out when someone else was watching.
The picture rippled.
Scared, Justin closed the album. He didn’t want to risk losing everything again. Not when he had found what was really important in this timeline.
He had his friends, and they were happy. They had even recorded one more album, after Chris finally released the Nigels 11 debut; but by then, Justin had found out that he really enjoyed the work behind the scenes more. As none of his albums existed in the timeline, he had re-written all of his songs, and gave them to Chris, JC and the Backstreet Boys, who were still together once this Brian had convinced his cousin that it was possible to raise a family *and* be part of a band at the same time. By doing that, Justin had started to make a name for himself as a songwriter, and from time to time he still collaborated as a producer. The one thing he didn’t do was go up on the stage.
And as the years passed, it was less of a sacrifice and more of a comfortable choice. Putting the album away, his eyes rested on the framed photograph on his desk, where he and his lover of five years smiled at the camera.
He had sacrificed his fame, fortune and the chance of perform in front of the public. But he had gained everything that really mattered in exchange.
Still smiling, he turned off the lights of the studio and went downstairs to meet with his friends.
The End.
Number of reviews: 114
Print:
Chapter or Story