You taught me to run,
you taught to fly,
help me to free the me inside.
Help me hear the music of my heart
Help me hear the music of my heart
You opened my eyes
you opened the door
to something I’ve never known before
and your love, is the music
of my heart.
“Music of my Heart” by Nsync and Gloria Estefan
__________________________________________
The guys finished up the last chorus as JC and Gloria Estefan did their ending together. The five of them, Gloria Estefan, and many other technical and vocal professionals had been up since sunrise trying to achieve the perfect vocal arrangement for their upcoming duet.
All of the guys were excited and honored to even be doing a duet with Gloria Estefan for her upcoming big screen debut. But with an upcoming collaboration with the two, the guys were sure that the hype for their second album would be helped by this single.
“Well guys, I think you did beautifully for eleven o’ clock in the morning. Also considering that you had promotions all day yesterday and an after party that lasted into the early morning light.” Johnny Wright jokingly complimented the guys.
“Thanks for the recap Johnny, really, but can we have a break now?” Chris said sleepily as he rubbed his eyes to wake himself up.
“Well, since you did so well, what do you say Gloria?” Johnny said turning to the short, yet attractive Latin American singer.
“I think they did wonderful, so why not? I need a break myself Johnny.” Gloria replied.
Johnny looked between her and the five sleepy heads now slouching in their chairs. He smiled at Gloria before turning back to the guys once again, “alright. You guys can have a break. But only for ten minutes. Do what you have to do now because the next three hours will be grueling. We need to get this duet recorded soon.”
Chris slowly, yet surely got out of his seat and hugged Johnny playfully, “THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU!”
Chris quit his antics shortly thereafter and walked over to a smiling Gloria. She looked at him and loved how much life and good character was in him. “So does that ‘THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU!’ mean that you’re glad to be getting rid of me for a mere ten minutes?” Gloria poked fun at him.
Chris waved his hands to signal that he didn’t mean anything offensively, but he still joked back, “no. It was because I’m so glad to be getting away from Johnny!” Chris and Gloria giggled as they walked out with Johnny Wright clowning around behind them.
Joey and Lance had excused themselves to go get something to eat while JC stayed inside the recording studio conference room. Justin had gone out of the room and just out into the hallway so that he could go make a couple phone calls.
Justin walked down the long hallway until he got to a more secluded spot where he took out his cell phone from his coat pocket and dialed his mom’s home phone number.
After a couple rings, Justin’s mom, Lynn, answered the phone, “hello?”.
“Hi mom,” Justin began, “how are you?”
“Fine sweetheart, how are arrangements going?” Lynn asked.
“They’re going good. Gloria is really nice, great voice too!” Justin added.
“I’m sure! Hey hun, you got a call here this morning, from some girl name Hope. Do you know who that is?” Lynn asked curiously.
Justin wondered why Hope had called his home instead of his own cell phone. “Ya I know her, she’s a good friend of mine. I’d like you to meet her sometime,” he continued, “but anyway mom, do you know what she was calling about? Like if it was urgent?” Justin asked quite concerned.
Lynn became curious as to why Justin seemed so intent on finding out about this girl’s phone call. “Umm….no she didn’t say. She just asked to have you call her back when you got home.”
Justin quietly sighed in relief before he replied, “alright. I better go now. I don’t want the other guys biting my head off for being late.”
“Okay hun, talk to you later,” Lynn replied.
Justin said good-bye and hung up the line. It was true, he had lied to his mom, he still had a little time before they’re break was over. He just wanted to call back Hope and see what was up with her before he would get too busy to talk to her again.
Justin dialed her numbered and waited until Hope answered after a number of rings. “Hello,” Hope answered.
”You called miss?” Justin asked in a British accent.
Hope relaxed in her bedroom recliner and held the phone up closer to her ear before she replied, “yes I did, kind sir.”
Justin chuckled at her amusing tone before continuing on, “so, what’s up?”
“Oh nothing really, I was just bored. Wanted to see what you were up to,” Hope replied hesitantly as though she was ashamed of doing what she said she had done.
A grin began to form out of the corners of Justin’s mouth as Hope spoke. He chuckled softly so Hope wouldn’t hear him before he spoke again, “you been keeping tabs on me sweetheart?”
Hope’s eyes widened and she could feel her cheeks become warm after Justin made his surprising remark. She honestly didn’t know what to say or how to reply. Justin knew that she had probably been so stunned that she was speechless, so he took things into his hand and continued once again, “cat got your tongue sunshine?”
Hope couldn’t find the words to reply to his question or comment for that matter. Instead, she remembered that she had to get ready to leave for her doctor’s visit soon so she thought that she could use that as an excuse to not make a fool of herself. “Umm…no. But anyway, I’ve got a doctor’s appointment today so I should probably go get ready.”
Justin wasn’t stupid, he knew that Hope was just using her appointment for an excuse not to reply to him. But he understood that he had put her in a tight awkward situation, so he let it slide. “Alright, when do you think you’ll be back?”
“Probably around three or four. Why do you ask?” Hope asked.
“Oh just wondering…” Justin replied in a mysterious tone.
Hope became suspicious, but for some reason, Justin’s mysterious tone and question made her excited and happy to think that Justin might be planning something for her. But otherwise, she felt that she was maybe being eccentric and hoping for too much. But hey, who ever said hoping was a bad thing? “Oh I see, well I better get going, I’ll talk to you laters!”
“Okay, but hey…” Justin said trying to catch Hope before she hung up.
“Ya?”
“If you wanna know, I’ll be going to the restroom after I hang up the phone,” Justin joked.
“Haha, very funny!” Hope remarked.
“Oh I know, I crack myself up sometimes!” Justin replied as he laughed.
“I’m sure you do! Well, I gotta go…bye,” Hope said.
“Alrighty, buhbye!”
Hope hung up the phone and was ultimately blown away by her conversation with Justin. It was weird, they would sometimes act like brother and sister, but sometimes it was like they had a soul-deep connection to each other. It made Hope warm and tingly just thinking about it all. She had lost so many friends after she was diagnosed and she was never really the part of the popular when she was still in school. Having Justin around, as such a close friend unconsciously kept her fighting a battle she wasn’t sure she would win.
(At the hospital)
Hope sulked in her chair as she looked at the dull maroon colored walls of the Oncology office. The waiting room seemed to be the scariest place to someone like her. Hope knew that if the walls could talk, they would drown the room with undying cries, sympathetic words, and the slow downward loss of hope. Hope couldn’t stand the sadness that seem to envelope the room no matter what. Hope turned to her mother and opened her mouth to speak, but she quickly closed her mouth when she saw a young girl walk out of the doctor’s office acting nonchalant. The image that broke Hope’s heart was of the fragile little girl sucking her right thumb and holding tight onto her mother’s hand as her mother cried quietly. The young girl obviously didn’t understand what was going on. She was too innocent to be so unlucky in life.
Hope knew that if she stayed any longer that she would probably breakdown and cry so she finally asked her mother if she could just go out and wait in the hall until it was her turn to go into the doctor’s office. Hope pulled opened the heavy wooden door of the waiting room and breathed a sigh of relief once she came out into the hallway. What relieved her the most was that the wall across the line of doctor’s office was just a row of long, large windows. They looked out into the bustling streets of Orlando and the busy lives of those more fortunate than herself.
Hope walked up to the window directly across from her and looked out trying to focus on the hospital entrance. In the course of only five minutes she had witnessed fast cars rushing into the parking structure, an old lady slowly being wheeled out of the hospital, an ambulance rushing a patient into the emergency room and two children gazing through the gift shop window. The word seemed all to surreal to her at that moment. It felt like she wasn’t a part of the daily life that existed, more like she was just a person watching a movie.
Hope’s thoughts were abruptly interrupted when her mother opened the door of the office behind her and told her that the doctor was ready to see her. Hope turned around to look at the door she would once again hastily enter. She took a deep breath and turned the knob to walk into the office.
Once inside Hope took a seat in between her parents in the doctor’s office. Dr. Blau walked in with a blank expression that both scared and confused Hope. She didn’t know what to expect. Dr. Blau took the seat behind the wooden cherry oak desk and looked over a few papers and x-rays. Finally he turned to look Hope in the eye and asked, “so have you decided if you want to have the surgery and take the experimental medications?”
Hope closed her eyes shut and took a deep breath before speaking. Instinctively, Hope kept her eyes shut as she spoke in order to avoid any eye contact with either of her parents OR Dr. Blau. “I really don’t know what to do. I still need time to decide. Just a little time is all I ask.”
Leigh let out a sigh and turned to the doctor and made silent gestures to him to try to persuade her to go decide in her favor, but Hope’s father immediately picked up on what his wife was doing and quickly stopped her before Hope had opened her eyes. When she opened her tired eyes, Hope was looking at her sweaty palms lying in her lap. She slowly lifted her gaze to Dr. Blau and purposely avoided looking at her parents. She saw the comforting look he was trying to give her, but she knew it was just a façade.
“That’s fine. But Hope, please decide as soon as possible. I’m sure you know that time is vital.” Dr. Blau tried to carefully warn her.
Hope persistently shook her head in agreement and answered, “I know, I know.”
Hope excused herself from the room and stepped out into the office hallway and leaned against the wall behind her. The door to Dr. Blau’s office was still open, yet she wasn’t seen through the inside of the office. Leigh stood up and approached Dr. Blau as he sat quietly at his desk.
“How much longer does she have?” Leigh asked with a crack in her voice.
Dr. Blau looked up at her and met her gaze, he shifted a little in his seat and answered, “well according to tests, although some may be easily dismissed…”
“Damnit just tell us!” Leigh yelled as she threw her fist onto the table.
Robert tried to restrain her but the emotions built up inside her was just letting itself out and he couldn’t stop that. “Just please tell me,” Leigh said as tears streamed down her face.
Hope could feel tears form out of the corners of her eyes. She knew she couldn’t hold them back as she listened to her mother breakdown.
Dr. Blau slowly stood up and looked down on Leigh and gave her a sympathetic look, “not much time. A month, maybe two if she’s lucky. That is why she must decide soon. There is no guarantee that the surgery and new medications will put the cancer in remission, at best it will only pro-long her life. We need to know if she wants it or if she wants to just have us give her something to keep her comfortable if she doesn’t want to…”
“NO! She’s having the surgery!” Leigh ordered. Robert tried to keep her from making such a decision on her own, but arguing with her only seem to make the argument worse.
Hope stood up and walked halfway into the office and yelled, “will you all stop it!! I DON’T WANT THE STUPID SURGERY, IF I DIE I DIE. ACCEPT IT, I HAVE!”
Hope had tears rushing down the sides of her face as she turned around to run out of the office all together.
Hope, Leigh, and Robert had all ridden home together in complete and utter silence. It was a silence so deafening that it scared the hell out of them, but they didn’t know what to say to each other. All three of them were trying to put things in perspective but neither of them could do it. Once they arrived, Leigh rushed into the house and Robert went to park the car in the garage.
Hope had gotten out of the car and had mainly let her head hang low until she got to the top step of the front yard. An unfamiliar shadow hung over her own and she slowly lifted her gaze to rest on the person in front of her. Hope let out a sigh and rushed into the persons arms, holding onto them tightly. A tear escaped Hope’s eye as she clung on tightly and sighed, “Justin.”
[Chapter 12]
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