The Polaroid (Justin Timberlake fanfic)

Chapter 4

"City Morgue. You stab em’. We slab em’." Kerri said as she answered her phone. She'd been sitting up in bed most of the night typing away on her laptop.

"You’re sick.” The voice on the other end chuckled. “What you doin'?"

"Replying to these emails and finishing up some work so I won't have to worry about it on my big weekend off. What are you doin'?"

"Sitting here about to fling myself off the roof. All day I've had to deal with flashing lights in my face and about a few hundred people yelling out my name or obscenities just to get me to look their way so they could snap a thousand pictures of me."

Kerri moved her shoulder up to steady the phone under her ear. "Ooooh...How bad that must be for you! People wanting to take your picture and hear what you have to say...What a terrible life Mr. Timberlake leads." she mocked as she continued to type.

"Funny."

"No, I'm sorry. I'm trying not to play devil's advocate here. Us commoners just don't know how tough it is to be you."

Justin sucked in his teeth at her. "Kerri."

"I'm kidding! Calm down." she lightly laughed.

Justin went on to explain his day to her. "...And then this fucker had the nerves to stand there and tell me he had pictures of me having sex with my own mother...How sick is that?"

Kerri immediately stopped typing. "Are you serious?"

"Yes. I was just walking down the street minding my damn business. It was crazy." he sighed as he turned over on the bed, looking up at the ceiling.

"Have you ever tried averting your attention to something else? Focusing on one thing entirely so that you can't hear or see anything else but that one thing?"

"What do you mean?" he questioned.

"You ever find yourself watching tv and someone will walk up and tap you on your shoulder and say 'Didn't you hear me talking to you?'"

"Yeah...I do that all the time when the games on."

"Well, that's what I'm talking about. You focus on something and tune everything else out of your head for the brief few minutes that you feel like you felt earlier today."

"I've tried everything. I doubt that'll work."

Kerri took a sip of water then replied, "Well, try it anyway. It can't hurt right?"

"True." he smiled slightly.

Ever since she agreed to meet him for lunch a couple weeks earlier, this was Justin and Kerri's normal routine. He would call and she would be there to talk him through whatever was on his mind. Most often times she wouldn't speak at all while he went on and on about anything and everything that was on his mind. It wasn't always that way. Justin found himself engulfed in what was going on in her life as well. He loved hearing about it. He'd sit there and close his eyes and just imagine what it was like to be an average Joe again.