Boys Named Justin
by Annie

Even when he was younger, Wade had always liked the name Justin. It was a simple name, but the very sound of it was like a sweet melody to his ears. The syllables flowed over his tongue with ease. The word felt comfortable in his mouth.

Had it been his name that had first attracted him to Justin Timberlake those few years – years that felt like lifetimes now – ago? No, Wade didn’t think so. There had been so much more to Justin than his name.

Justin had a golden smile. He had eyes like the ocean. Eyes that were deep, expansive, and endless. Justin had strong hands and sturdy fingers but a touch that was incredibly soft and tender. A touch filled with love and promise.

Justin had a beautiful voice and a passion in his spirit that seemed to make him glow like an ethereal being. Wade had always felt like Justin was untouchable, in a way. That he had discovered an important secret the rest of the world had yet to find out, and he was better for it. Justin knew.

Justin had wild hair and an infectious laugh. Justin had a kind spirit and enough love in his heart for the entire world. Justin, Wade recalled, had had enough love in his heart for him.

No. It hadn’t been his name that Wade had fallen in love with.

Time flew by in seconds and lasted for eternities when they were together. Justin had taken his breath away. Justin had made him feel invincible. They had soared like birds through the clouds, reaching for the stars and surpassing them.

Justin had loved him. He showed it in every action, every breath, and every second they spent together. He had only said it once, but those three words had more meaning than anything else ever had in Wade’s life up to that point. Justin had stolen his heart and he had treated it like gold.

Wade never imagined that he would steal Justin's heart in return and tarnish it.

It was a drunken mistake but Justin was unforgiving and that had been the end.

The name Justin had become a bittersweet affair and Wade thought that he should have had the foresight to realize that he and Justin were star-crossed from the start.

When Justin Guarini walked into his studio, Wade knew. His smile wasn’t as bright and his laugh didn’t make his heart skip a beat, but Wade knew.

His name was Justin. And he was enough. Never enough to make up for the past, but he was enough to make it through the next day, the next week, the next month.

This Justin didn’t take him beyond the stars. This Justin was earnest and filled with good intentions, but he wasn’t passionate and all-consuming. He never made Wade forget that the rest of the world existed. There was always another inevitable tomorrow to face when they were together.

Justin didn’t touch him softly or laugh with him. Justin’s blue eyes didn’t sparkle up at him in the moonlight because this Justin didn’t have blue eyes, but brown. Brown and surfaced, and Wade longed for the deep blue cerulean he’d known before.

Wade longed for so many things. So many things he’d lost that were only memories now, fading like a distant ship on the horizon, soon to disappear into the great unknown beyond the deep recesses of his heart where he tried so desperately in vein to keep them.

On the surface, his Justins were very much the same. But they were really not the same at all. He realized that maybe he had secretly been hoping there would be more of the old – the only – Justin inside the new one.

Did he love this Justin for his name?

Did he love this Justin?

Maybe the name – all six letters and two syllables of it – was the only thing that tied him to something he was desperately trying to hold on to, something that he’d already lost. Maybe if this Justin had been called something different, it wouldn’t be so hard to let go, to pretend. Pretend that a name made two people the same. Pretend that things were good and that they would never change, because he could still whisper, “Justin.” softly into the darkness. He could still feel the resonance of the sound in his mouth. He could still taste every moment of it.

And Shakespeare had it right all along, because a name really is just a name. It doesn’t have the power to change anything. Justin will never be Justin. No other Justin could ever, ever be the one he wanted.

The one that he lost.

And the differences between the two men named Justin who had entered Wade’s life were many, but Wade knew of one, maybe the only really important difference between them.

Justin Guarini looked at him, but never with love.

Justin Timberlake had.