Author's Note: As always, the song is not mine. It's a Mandy Moore song called "17"
Part Four - Ease My Pain
Neither occupant of the car spoke as they sped down the highway, rain pounding against the windows and the radio playing softly in the background. In fact, neither had said a word the entire forty-five minutes they'd been driving. Justin was in the driver's seat - they'd taken his car and left Lara's at his apartment - and Lara was sitting on the passenger's side, her knees pulled up to her chest and head leaning against the window. Every now and then, he would hear her emit a few quiet sobs but for the most part she seemed to have pulled herself together pretty well. For someone who often came off as fragile and weak, she was actually pretty strong. He guessed that was the result of the type of childhood she'd had. She had probably learned how to cope with this sort of thing a long time ago.
It was the first time in three years (aside from the night after JC's party) when they'd been in close proximity to each other for more than five minutes and it was actually feeling pretty comfortable. Sad, but comfortable. And it was that comfort that was making both of them feel very confused, though neither was letting it show on their faces. They both felt they should be worrying about Lara's mother and not actively obsessing over each other, but they couldn't help it. Lara especially was feeling incredibly messed up inside. For the first time in a long time, being around him was actually making her feel good. She was sad and worried and distraught and a number of other unhappy things, but his presence made her feel warm inside and that sort of threw her for a loop. After the surprise in her bedroom earlier and how kind he was being to her right now, she supposed she shouldn't have been surprised to be having these feelings. But it had been so long since he'd had that affect on her that she wasn't quite sure how to deal with it.
Justin sighed audibly as the song that was playing on the radio ended and another one started. The minute the opening notes sounded, he recognized it. It was one of Lara's songs from her second album, he couldn't recall the title at the moment. He wondered for a minute if he should turn it off, but decided if she wanted it turned off, she would turn it off herself and remained silent as it played.
Some people tell me that you're not my kind
And I believe them but I can't get you out of my mind
Some people tell me that I should stay away
Maybe I will... some other day
'Cause it feels right
And it feels good
And I don't always do what I should
And I know what makes me happy
And in my heart you're it exactly
I don't wanna do right, I just want you tonight
Not just only in my dreams...
"It's about you, you know," Lara's quiet voice startled Justin into glancing at her before he returned his gaze to the road. She was still staring out the window as she spoke and he wasn't exactly sure how to respond.
"Huh?" Justin silently congratulated himself for giving what was quite possibly the stupidest response he could have come up with. He thought he heard her chuckle lightly when she spoke again.
"This song. It's about you," she repeated, pulling her knees closer to herself as if trying to shield herself from him. Like she needed to hide if she was going to confess things like that to him.
"We don't have to talk about this right now," he told her gently. He was worried she was telling him this because she felt she had some sort obligation to do so (not that he had any idea why she would feel that way) and he didn't want her to divulge anything she'd regret letting him know. Truth be told, though, he wanted to hear it. As self-centered as he knew it was, anytime he'd heard one of her songs in the past three years, he'd wonder if it was about him. She continued speaking as her way of saying she did want to talk about it.
"I wrote it the night after we..." She'd been about to say 'the night after we first slept together' but she couldn't bring herself to finish the sentence. Justin knew what she meant. "Joey had come up to me that afternoon and told me that I should stay away from you because you were leading me on and I would just end up hurt if I didn't stop buying into. It was the last time he ever said anything to me about it, I think he gave up after that." Why the hell was she pouring her heart out to him anyway? It didn't make her any more comfortable when Justin didn't respond, so she kept talking. "My mind told me I should listen to him, but I..." Again she didn't finish the sentence, her fingers flying to her mouth so she could bite her nails nervously. And again he didn't respond.
Just this once, I wanna feel like
I can do what I want when I hold you tight
"You should have listened." Justin's voice sounded hollow when he finally spoke and Lara looked at him in surprise. That wasn't the response she'd expected. Where was the insistence that he hadn't used her? Where were all the excuses for why what they'd done was okay? This new thing where he readily admitted he'd been in the wrong still felt so unusual. She was silent as she contemplated her own response. A few hours ago, she probably would have immediately agreed with him. Now she wasn't so sure.
"You're right. We shouldn't talk about this right now," she finally said, reaching to switch off the radio as the song ended. Justin swallowed hard and she leaned her head back against the window, directing her gaze back to the rain that pounded against it.
***
"Hi, we're here to see Anne Trzetrzelewska," Lara informed the first receptionist she could find when she and Justin arrived at the appropriate ward of the hospital. She was a young woman, probably around Lara's age actually, and the way she was moving slowly and looking confused suggested it was probably her first day on the job. Lara sighed inwardly, wishing she'd just hurry up and tell her where her mother was.
"Um...she's in 233. The last door on the right there." The girl pointed to the adjacent hall. Lara thanked her and without even thinking about it, grabbed Justin's hand to pull him along with her as she turned to walk away. He didn't pull away from her, but he tried to ignore the tingling sensation he always had when she touched him. This was not the time to be thinking about that.
"Wait!" It was the receptionist speaking and both Lara and Justin turned around to face her, their faces twisted into the same confused expression. "Y-you're Lara Robertson." She said it as though Lara wouldn't realize if she didn't tell her. "And you're Justin Timberlake." She pointed to each of them in turn as she said their names and Lara groaned inwardly, dropping Justin's hand as she realized she was still holding it. She did not need to be seen in public holding hands with Justin Timberlake, no she did not.
"Yeah," she replied with an audible sigh. Why couldn't she even come see her mother in the hospital without something like this happening? Was that so much to ask?
"Oh my god! I love you both so much! Can I have your autographs?" The receptionist hastily gathered a piece of paper and a pen as Lara stared at her incredulously. Surely this sort of thing was against some hospital rules. Before she had a chance to respond, Justin grabbed her hand.
"No, you can't," he stated firmly and walked away, pulling Lara along with him. He knew she would never say "no," but it needed to be said. There were some things you just didn't do and asking for an autograph when the poor girl was their to see her mother was one of them. "She said 233, right?"
"Yeah." Lara was a little shocked by his actions. She'd always known Justin to be kind and obliging to his fans; not once had she seen him turn one down so bluntly. Even more shocking was the way their hands were still connected, neither taking the initiative to drop their hold on the other.
"Justin, maybe we should-" She began to protest and suggest they go back and sign the autographs, but he shook his head vehemently as he strode purposefully down the hall.
"Learn to say 'no,' Lara." He paused for a moment as if contemplating what he'd just said, then added. "To someone other than me." Against her better judgement, Lara burst out laughing. He'd sounded so distraught over the fact that she seemingly had no problem saying "no" to him (she did in fact have many problems with it, but he didn't need to know that) and she found it incredibly funny. That is she found it incredibly funny until she realized this was Justin she was laughing with and feeling too friendly towards, which was still not sitting too well with her. It became even less funny as they approached room 233 and Lara found her Aunt Maureen sitting on a chair outside the door, looking at a magazine and looking both emotionally and physically exhausted.
"Hi, Aunt Maureen," she greeted her softly and the older woman looked up, a small smile spreading across her face. She stood up and gave her niece a quick hug.
"Hi, sweetie. How was your drive?" The woman was her mother's sister-in-law by way of her brother Michael, and therefore not technically a blood relative, but Lara had always felt more of a connection to her than anyone else in her family. Not that it was difficult to surpass any of the others on that point.
"Fine." She shrugged and suddenly blushed, realizing that her aunt was looking Justin over with a curious expression. "Oh, sorry. Aunt Maureen, this is Justin. He's..." Her voice trailed off, unsure how to finish the sentence. Somehow "he's an ex-fling who broke my heart into a million pieces and is unexpectedly finding his way back into my life" didn't seem like the best way to introduce Justin to her aunt.
"A friend," he supplied, smiling and shaking her aunt's hand. "Just along for moral support."
"Ah." Maureen gave an understanding nod and her face sobered as she turned her attention back to her niece. Lara bit her lip uncertainly.
"How is she?" she asked. Her aunt sighed.
"She's doing all right, they just want to keep her overnight to be sure. She has a concussion, a broken arm and she'll be pretty bruised by tomorrow, but I'm sure she'll be okay." Lara let out a somewhat relieved sigh when she heard these words. She had heard stories about women being beat to death by their abusive spouses and was worried her mother's condition would be much worse than what she was hearing now. It didn't change the fact that she was worried, upset and more than a little pissed off at her father, though. Her face darkened as she tried to get more information out of her aunt.
"How'd it happen?"
"I don't know exactly. I came by to talk to her and I found her passed out at the bottom of the stairs." Maureen paused as Lara's eyes widened and she let out a little gasp. The way the younger woman once again grabbed a hold of Justin's arm didn't escape her aunt's notice either. "I called 911 of course and they brought her here. She woke up and started to say something about how mad Charlie was at her about something she'd said, but then she caught herself and claimed she just tripped down the stairs. It was him though, I'm sure of it."
"Of course it was." Lara's voice sounded uncharacteristically bitter as she rubbed her left temple with her free hand and continued clutching Justin's arm with the other. She didn't know why she kept holding onto him, but she supposed she just needed some comfort and he was the closest option. "Can I see her?"
"Yeah, I think she's awake." Maureen gestured towards the door and Lara let go of Justin's arm as she walked inside without a word. He just stood in the doorway, hanging back in case she needed him but not wanting to get in the way of her time with her mother. This was all so unreal to him. Just a few hours ago he'd been sitting at home alone and trying to convince himself to get over this woman, and now here he was offering her unconditional support and comfort as she dealt with some crazy shit he couldn't even begin to imagine dealing with. He didn't even want to think about how he'd react if his own mother was in the hospital due to injuries sustained by a beating, but he didn't think he'd be dealing with it as well as Lara was. She seemed eerily calm as she walked over and sat down next to her mother's bed.
"Hey Mama," she greeted her mother quietly as she lowered herself into the chair next to the bed. She could already see the bruises forming on her mother's shoulders and her lip was swollen. Her left arm also looked as though it would be bruised in the morning and Lara suspected the right one would look the same way if it weren't for the cast.
"Lara!" Anne Trzetrzeleska's face lit up as she saw her daughter. The two women hadn't seen each other in over a year; Lara had eventually stopped coming around when every visit home resulted in an argument with one parent or the other about what a terrible daughter she was for leaving them. "How are you, honey?"
"Not so good, Mom," Lara replied grimly and honestly. She wasn't much in the mood for small talk. "It kind of sucks to get a phone call telling you your mother's in the hospital because Dad got a little upset with her over something." Lara watched as her mother's smile faded and a scowl formed on her face in response. That was pretty much the reaction her daughter had been expecting.
"I fell down the stairs," she stated simply. Lara shook her head, annoyed with herself for the tears she felt stinging her eyes.
"No you didn't," she contradicted softly, absentmindedly fingering the chain that hung around her neck. "What really happened, Mom? You know you can tell me."
"I fell down the stairs." The claim was much firmer this time, as two identical sets of eyes focused on each other, each daring the other to contradict them again. Lara sighed, leaning back in her chair and rubbing a hand over her face in an attempt to get rid of the tears that had started to fall. She didn't need to cry in front of her mother. Her job in this family was to be the strong one. It always had been.
"Why are you trying to protect him?" she finally asked. "You know I know it was him. Why can't you just tell me?" It wasn't unlike her mother to deny her father's abusiveness to those outside of the family, but she'd always been honest with Lara. Mostly because Lara was usually there when it happened and there was no point in trying to deny it. But she was in a public place now and she couldn't risk being heard. Tears formed behind her own eyes as she watched her daughter begin to cry.
"Lara, you know how he is." Anne's voice was much gentler now. "What's it going to help to say anything, huh? It'll just make him angrier."
"Mom, if you say something then he'll be gone! He won't be able to do this anymore!" Lara exclaimed in exasperation.
"I'm not going to turn in my own husband." The gentle quality was gone again. "Besides, he isn't that bad. And if you hadn't left this wouldn't be a problem. You're supposed to help me with this, Lara. You're supposed to protect me, not go gallivanting around the world doing God knows what with God knows who." Lara stood up immediately, sniffling as her tears continued to fall. She should have known this was going to happen. It was the very reason she never came home anymore - it always resulted in one of these guilt trips. It wasn't going to work anymore, though. She'd forced herself to stop blaming herself for her parents' problems a long time ago.
"This is not my fault," she replied in a low hiss, hoping no one in the other rooms could hear. She didn't notice Justin, who was standing in the doorway and hearing every word, his mouth hanging open in surprise. "This is his fault. I am not the one who hits you, Mother. It's him and I just wish...I just wish you would do something about it. Will you please do something about it? Will you please just tell them the truth?" She looked at her mother pleadingly, but the determined expression didn't leave Anne's face.
"I fell down the stairs," she repeated one last time and Lara sighed in defeat.
"Fine." She leaned her forehead against the wall, not able to look at the bedridden woman in the room. "Fine."
"Where the hell is she?" a loud voice boomed, interrupting the relative silence in the room and Lara whipped around, barely catching the fear in her mother's eyes before she saw a familiar figure come shoving past Justin and into the room. "There you are, Anne. Are you okay, honey?" 'Honey?' Lara wanted to vomit. How dare he call her mother that after what he'd done to her?
"Dad, get out of here." It was Lara who said it, but she was just as stunned as everyone else to hear the words come out of her mouth. She never spoke to her father that forcefully. He turned to face her slowly, a dangerous gleam in his eyes. Lara felt strangely unafraid, though that was probably to due with the fact that she knew her father well enough to know he would never raise his hand to her in a public place.
"What did you say?" he asked. He sounded relatively calm, but his daughter could see that he was angry with her. Instinctively, she shrunk back as she spoke again.
"I said get out of here. Get out now and don't come back." Justin was staring at Lara incredulously as she spoke. He had never known her to be so courageous and as strange as it seemed in the midst of such a situation, he felt kind of proud of her.
"Your mother is hurt and I'm suddenly not allowed to come make sure she's all right?" he asked, daring his daughter to say the words again.
"And since when do you care if she's all right?" she retorted. "You're the one who did it to her, aren't you? What'd she do this time, Dad? Didn't get the right kind of bean dip? Cried too loudly during your favorite television show?"
"It was an accident," Charlie stated through clenched teeth and Lara raised an eyebrow, feeling stronger and stronger with each word exchanged between them.
"Oh, really? An accident? You mean like the time you broke my arm in third grade and I had to go around telling everyone I fell off my bike? That kind of accident?"
"Shut up, Lara." He was now clenching his fists, but his daughter paid no attention as she continued rattling off memories.
"Or is it more like the time you shoved me into that wall in fifth grade and it hurt to breathe for a week?"
"I said 'shut up.'"
"Or the time when I was thirteen and you gave me a black eye because I laughed when I caught you watching porn? Was that an accident too, Dad? Did you accidently sprain my ankle the night before my junior prom?"
"Shut the hell up, you stupid little bitch!" The frantic order did not come as a surprise to Lara, but the fist that made contact with her jaw and caused her to stumble a few steps back did. Had her father really just hit her in front of witnesses? That was a first.
Justin was immediately at her side, pulling her behind him and standing in between her and her father as Lara started sobbing uncotrollably and clutching at the spot he'd hit. "I think you'd better leave, Mr. Robertson," Justin said dangerously.
"It's Trzetrzelewska," Charlie spat back. "I'm not ashamed of my family. Unlike some people in this room." Lara's sobs hardened at these words as Justin took a step closer to her father.
"Leave," he ordered. No more words were exchanged between the two as Charlie spat a few last venomous curse words at his daughter, shoving past her and out of the room. The second he was gone, both Justin and Maureen started crowding around her and trying to make sure she was all right, but Lara retreated into the hall, trying to control her tears and muttering to herself. Justin followed.
"He's a bastard," she wept, not speaking to anyone in particular and only mildly aware of Justin's presence. "He's such a...such a stupid fucking bastard! How could he do this to her? How could he...fucking bastard!" She let out a scream and punched the wall. A sharp pain immediately shot through her arm and she yelped, jumping back and crying harder than Justin had ever thought possible. He watched in disbelief as she continuing screaming expletitives and physically lashing out at the furniture around her. He had never seen her so upset about something that she would physically attack anything, even if it was only furniture.
A nurse appeared at the end of the hall to see what was going on and Justin grabbed Lara's arm, pulling her into him to stop her from hitting anything else that would cause her to hurt herself. She clutched at his shirt and sobbed onto his shoulder, sliding down to the floor as though she couldn't handle standing anymore. He slid down with her, wrapping his arms around her as she cried.
"I'm just like him," she sobbed. "Did you see? I just...I get mad and I hit things and I...fuck, fuck, fuck."
"No, no, no," Justin whispered immediately, combing a hand through her hair and instinctively pressing his lips to her forehead. "You're nothing like him, Lara. You hit furniture, not people. There's a huge difference."
"Yeah, but I...and he...and how could he...why...shit." She was understandably at a loss for words and Justin took her right hand into his as tears continued to roll down her cheek. The knuckles were red where she'd slammed them into the wall and he softly kissed each one individually. He thought he heard her breath evening out mildly as he did so.
"It's okay, babe," he assured her quietly, releasing her hand and holding her to him as he placed a tender kiss on her jaw where she'd been punched. "You're better than him and you always will be. And your mom's going to be fine and it's all going to be all right, you'll see. You'll see." Lara just continued crying and he continued running his hands up and down her arms soothingly. There were a number of people swarming the hall now and they could all plainly see the way Justin was holding her and placing kisses on various parts of her face, hands and arms. Any one of them could undoubtedly go tell the tabloids of how she was clinging to him and silently begging him not to leave. Lara didn't care.
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