Chapter One
Rachael Jacques stared at the television screen, seeing but not really comprehending the images that flashed before her. She felt absolutely terrible �“ her muscles ached, her ears hurt, her head pounded, and her throat was burning. She thought that this was quite possibly the worst she’d felt in about five years. It was such terrible timing, too �“ she was a couple of months into the fall semester, and in the week and a half that was left before Thanksgiving she had at least three or four big tests to study for, plus two jobs to work, and rehearsals to go to. She could not afford to be sick now, she just couldn’t.
The front door opened and slammed shut, but Rachael couldn’t be bothered to sit up and look to see who’d just come in; she assumed it was her roommate. “Laura?” she asked.
“Nope. Laura’s better half,” Laura’s boyfriend and Rachael’s dancing partner, Brian, replied as he sat down in the armchair next to the couch she was on.
Rachael would have snorted in response to this, but she didn’t have the energy. “What are you doing here?” she questioned.
“Laura called me and asked me to come check up on you. She said she won’t be able to make it back here until late tonight. Honestly, I thought she was kidding when she told me how deathly ill you were, but…wow.”
“Tell me about it.”
“So how are you doing? Do you need anything? Medicine? Soup?”
“Nah, I think I’m good. I’m just gonna get some sleep.”
“Okay. Now that I have fulfilled my boyfriend duty, I’m off to class. Call Laura if you need anything, ‘kay?”
“Yeah,” Rachael replied with a yawn as a she closed her eyes. She faintly heard the door open and close again, but was fast asleep seconds later.
***
A few hours later, Rachael woke up, her head still pounding and her body still aching, but the rest of her symptoms having temporarily ceased. Her eyes fluttered open and she found herself staring into a pair of bright blue eyes. “Okay, so now I’m hallucinating,” she muttered to herself, a huge yawn escaping her lips and her eyes falling closed again.
“No you’re not,” the hallucination of her best friend replied.
Rachael’s eyes flew open once more in disbelief. She stared at Justin’s grinning face in silence. “You wh*re!” she finally exclaimed, a sudden burst of energy running through her body as she sat up.
Justin laughed and made his way around the couch to sit down next to her. “Hello to you too.”
“What are you doing here? How’d you get in? Ow.” She put a hand to her head as pain pierced through it once again.
“I’m seeing you. You showed me where you keep the spare key. What’s wrong?” Justin replied with concern.
Rachael sneezed. “I’m sick,” she replied, her voice so hoarse, Justin was surprised he hadn’t noticed it the second she’d opened her mouth.
“That sucks. How sick?”
“I feel like death,” she replied dramatically, collapsing and draping her body across his lap for effect.
“And how does death feel?”
“Bad. Real bad.”
“Well don’t go breathing on me or anything. The last thing I need to do is get sick.”
“Gee, I hope I’m not contagious,” Rachael said, faking a few loud coughs onto his arm.
Justin pulled said arm away from her. “Gross! Get off me, woman!” He pushed her slightly, but not with enough force to move her anywhere.
“You shouldn’t be attacking the sick, you know.” Rachael sat up again so she could look her friend in the eye. “God, I am so happy to see you! Why are you here? I thought you had tour rehearsal down in LA!”
“I do, but I have a few days off, so I figured I’d come up and see you. Didn’t expect you to be all sick and crap, though,” he said with a slight frown. “I guess you don’t feel up to going anywhere?”
Rachael shook her head, emitting a few genuine coughs. “Sorry, no. I had to call in sick to work today, and skip my classes. And you know I wouldn’t have done that if I didn’t absolutely have to.” She leaned against the arm of the couch, stretching her legs out and resting her feet on Justin’s lap. “I’m sorry you came up here for nothing. You didn’t drive, did you?”
“Nope, I flew.”
“Good.”
“And it wasn’t for nothing. I still get to see you, don’t I? Do you mind if I stay?”
Rachael smiled at him. Justin was one of the only people in the world who would still want to be with her when she was in this state. “No, I don’t mind, J.”
He grinned. “Good. I’ll make you dinner or something.”
“Ugh. I’ve already got a fever, I don’t need to be nauseated too!”
Justin pouted playfully. “Well, you must have something I could just stick in the microwave or something.”
Rachael laughed, causing the pain in her throat to increase. “Actually, there’s some chicken noodle soup in the kitchen that I was contemplating heating up. You could do that for me, slave.”
“Suddenly, taking care of you does not sound so appealing. Perhaps it’s that ‘slave’ thing. I am a slave to no one.”
Rachael pouted and gave him puppy dog eyes. “Please, Justin?”
He sighed dramatically. “Except for you. Yeah, okay,” he said, jumping up and heading into the kitchen as his friend grinned at him appreciatively. She refrained from giving him a verbal thank you, as her throat was killing her from all the talking she’d been doing, but her smile was all the thanks he needed. She closed her eyes, feeling a hundred times happier than she had a few hours ago. It had been so long since she’d seen Justin, or even talked to him. Having him there always seemed to make her feel comforted. Like she knew that he would always be there to take care of her when she needed him.
Justin started the soup heating on the stove in the kitchen, then wandered into Rachael’s bedroom to find a pillow and some blankets for her. He’d really been hoping they’d get to hang out together, but he supposed this was just as good as anything else. They could sit together in the living room and talk, and after all the times she’d taken care of him when he was sick, he figured he owed it to her.
Stepping into her room, he looked around at the pictures that adorned her walls, dresser, desk, and table. He knew she’d been taking some photography classes recently, and the increase of photographs in her room showed it. There were a few pictures of the city �“ the Golden Gate Bridge, the Bay, and Fisherman’s Wharf �“ but most of them were of people. The strange thing was that he, Rachael’s best friend, wasn’t in most of them. They were all of Laura, Brian, Lance, and even some of Wade and Jen. Sometimes he felt as though he’d been replaced by her other friends �“ especially Lance. He knew that they’d become really close in the past year or so, and that was fine. And it made sense of course, since the two of them hadn’t been speaking for so long, that he wouldn’t appear in the pictures she’d taken in that time, but it still bothered him. He knew it shouldn’t, but it did.
He finally did spot two pictures of himself. One stood on her desk, with no other pictures surrounding it. It had been taken a couple of years ago on the porch swing that hung on the porch of his family’s house in Millington. He was sitting smiling at the camera, and Rachael was lying there, sprawled out on the swing with her head in his lap, her hands covering her face because she hadn’t wanted anyone to take a picture of her. The second hung on the wall next to a picture of Rachael and Brian that he assumed had been taken at one of their dance concerts. It was a group picture of him and his fellow members of N Sync that Rachael had taken just last year when they were in Hawaii.
Justin grabbed her pillow and a blanket, heading back into the living room. At least they were friends again now. Friends…just friends… After all they’d gone through, they were back where they started. They were back to being best friends who never talked about all the times they’d considered being more than that.
“Here, Rach,” Justin said, covering her with the blanket and propping the pillow up behind her head. “The soup should be ready in just a minute.”
“Thanks,” she croaked.
“No problem.”
***
“So the tour is starting on New Year’s Eve?” Rachael questioned, setting her bowl down on the coffee table and folding her legs underneath herself. She and Justin had been sitting on the couch, eating and talking, for about an hour. She’d taken some medicine, so she was actually feeling a lot better.
Justin nodded. “Yeah. I’m kinda freaked out about it cause I haven’t done much since the accident. I mean, we’ve been rehearsing, but you know…it isn’t the same as actually performing in front of people.”
“Word to the side,” Rachael replied with an understanding nod of her head.
Justin laughed. “Still using that phrase, huh?”
“Don’t hate me cause you ain’t me.”
“Don’t worry.”
She stuck her tongue out at him and returned to her previous position, lying on the couch with her feet in his lap. “So I’ve been meaning to talk to you about Wade,” she began.
Justin groaned. “Rach…”
“I think it’s stupid that you don’t talk! I mean honestly, you two were really close and one little thing happens and all of a sudden you hate each other? Even I’m still friends with him, and he’s my ex-boyfriend!”
“It wasn’t just a little thing.”
Rachael rolled her eyes. “Was too. I cheated on him remember? If anyone has the right to be mad it’s him. But he isn’t, he’s moved on and he’s really happy with Jen now. Besides, all that drama was months and months ago. Who cares any more?”
“He said some things about you that I just can’t forgive. Not right now anyway.”
His friend gave him a puzzled look. She’d never heard this before. “What did he say?”
“Nothing. Never mind. It’s nothing.” Justin inwardly cursed himself for bringing it up. He and Wade had gotten into a bit of an argument after Wade and Rachael had broken up. Wade had said some things about the two of them - saying that Justin treated her like a cheap whore, and that Rachael had been screwing him behind Wade’s back the whole time �“ and Justin had never mentioned it to Rachael. Apparently neither had Wade.
“It’s nothing, yet somehow it’s enough of something that you refuse to even talk to the guy? What did he say?”
“Nothing! Just drop it, okay?”
Rachael narrowed her eyes at him. “Okay, but only because I’m too tired to press the issue. When I’ve regained my strength, I’m going to annoy you to no end.”
“Oh, you already do,” Justin replied with a smile.
“Hardy har.” Rachael yawned and closed her eyes again. “I’m tired,” she muttered.”
Justin lifted her feet off of his lap and stood up, gathering their dishes to carry them into the kitchen. “I don’t blame you. Feeling like death will do that to a person.”
Rachael smiled, but didn’t open her eyes or say anything as Justin walked into the kitchen to take care of the dishes. He rinsed them out and put them in the dishwasher, and then headed back into the living room, where his friend was already on her way to falling asleep again.
“Speed sleeper,” he muttered softly as he wrapped her
blanket a little tighter around her body.
“Justin?” she said quietly, her eyes only opening about halfway.
“Yeah, babe?”
“Thanks for coming. I’ve really missed you.”
He smiled. “I’ve missed you too.” He placed a soft kiss on her cheek, and Rachael drifted off to sleep.
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