in the moment | eminem |

end of august 2003

natalia diana miller
twenty - four
radio music city hall, ny
———

"are you sure you wanna do this tonight?" justin asked nat as she got her hair curled. "we don't have to go 100% public if you're not ready." he added.

"it's-."

"it's fine justin, natalia is just nervous." dawn said for her as nat frowned.

to be honest, this was one of the last things nat planned on doing during her pregnancy and what made it worse was that, marshall was going to be in the crowd.

dawn and justin came up with the idea that it would be great for her to accompany him tonight as his date- not even his date, but his girlfriend after winning his best male video award.

she was just hoping not to see marshall, eye to eye because she knows he'd lose his shit.

he'd been calling and texting her all day and she'd just been leaving him with vague excuses as to why she'd been dodging him and tonight, if he'd seen her, it'd probably crush him.

"yea nervous." she repeated looking over to justin with her lip out.

to her, justin was just an innocent bystander, she knew he was beginning to develop real feelings for her- past all the shit their manager made them do for the public and for him to have these feelings just fucked up her head.

she was falling in love with marshall, and pretending with him wasn't right.

justin gave her a sad smile before kissing her on her forehead. "okay in the case..." justin said holding her hand in his. "we got this." he said making her smile. "you look gorgeous and only can look more gorgeous before the end of the night." he complimented her. "i'm going to go find out my stage directions before meeting you out there." he said as she nodded.

he looked over to dawn who was busy on her phone before giving nat another kiss on her forehead before heading out.

once the door closed dawn looked over to nat and rolled her eyes before motioning for the hairdresser to leave.

"you know, if you weren't such a slut, you and justin could have a real relationship." dawn criticized making nat slightly uncomfortable.

since nat got pregnant, dawn attitude and abuse got worse.

the comment of-

"you single mother bitch-."

"you'll never be shit."

"that's why he's going to leave you."

"i hopes he beat the baby out of you."

and nat would just cry, tell her friends about it, and go to work the next day like nothing happened.

dawn was lucky she didn't have the guts to tell marshall because even though, he wasn't the hugest fan of her being pregnant, one, he couldn't stand dawn, then secondly, you were talking about his child's mother.

"i have your abortion scheduled for monday, 6 am."

———

nat sat in her thoughts as curtis performed one of his hit songs 'p.i.m.p.', she was happy that his album was going as well as it was doing, marshall always spoke highly of him to her and any encounters that she'd had with curtis was fairly nice but rare.

mostly in the studios with marshall, but since she was marshall's lady, it was more of a respect thing. nothing personal.

"i'm about to go up." justin said to her as she nodded, letting her know that it was almost time for their big kiss.

as soon as she got there she pointed out where marshall and his crew were sitting, and it was far enough from them but since they had projected screens there was no way he wasn't going to see it.

"if you don't want to do it let me know because you were sitting quiet this whole time. not even laughing at the jokes." he said to her as she shrugged.

"you know how dawn is-."

"exactly, she'd want you to sit here in a smile in front of the camera, not look like you're forced to be here." he told her making her shake her head before focusing on the presenters, serena williams and venus.

"introducing your winner for the best male video!" serena said, looking over to venus.

"the one and only, personally one of my favorites, justin timberlake!" venus yelled as the crowd went crazy.

justin stood up, pulling me up with him as my heartbeat increased.

he hugged his manager on the left of him before turning over to me and pulling me in for a passionate kiss, selling to the world, that we were indeed together.

pretending as if i was in a movie, i pulled away fast before placing my hand over my lips and sitting down watching justin smile before walking towards the stage.

justin manager gave me a thumbs up before looking towards the stage.

never in my life had i felt so dirty and ashamed, i looked at the screen and saw the camera on justin before rolling my eyes.

"i really didn't prepare a speech on anything, so i'll just go off the top of my head. first, i want to start by thanking god. he's the one who brought us here today, but thanking him, not just for this award but a beautiful lady that he gifted to me over the past few months." justin said as cameras went to me making me look down. "everyone knows, my last relationship wasn't the best, no where near." he chuckled as the camera went back to him. "but this women right here as gave me the courage and confidence to keep pushing and be the man i am today. and i'm just happy to have you as mine." he said looking at me. "nat baby, i love you and this is for you." he said, raising his award in the air before walking off stage as the crowd clapped.