A Part of My Life

Chapter Twenty-Two

Jacee:

Okay, I'll admit that it was fucked up and pathetic on my part to slam the door right in front of Justin's face when he was trying to explain, but can you blame me though? I'm tired. I'm so, so tired of everything.

I'm tired of having a relationship that gave me more troubles than the urge of wanting to have food in my stomach every one hour. Especially considering the fact that this, is the first relationship I've ever been in, in my entire seventeen years of life.

Running my hand roughly through my hair, I blow air out of my mouth and flopped down on the bed, shutting my eyes. If only life was as easy as singing the ABCs. Ha. I wish I could sleep away all my frustrations and troubles.

And I'll admit that I'm trying to push all of the guilt building up inside of me for doing that to Justin. No matter how much and how hard I try to distract myself, my thoughts would always lead up to Justin and that heartbreaking look of his. It pained me, really, to see him like that. Wait.

Am I caving in?

What the hell? Am I caving in?!

Oh, fuck. I am. G r e a t. My ass.

"Jacee?" Followed by a knock on the door. "It's Mom. Can I come in?"

"'Kay!" I said, just loud enough for her to hear.

The moment her small, petite figure made its way through my door frames with a sympathetic facial expression playing on her face, I knew at once, what she was going to talk to me about, and even what she was going to say and advice me about. Golly, I'm so excited because this has happened more than once!

"Hi," I said, pursing my lips into a straight line and staring at Mom all the way until she was right before me.

"Hi, sweetheart," she said with a small smile, slowly sitting down on the edge of my bed. "I heard about what happened between you and Justin. And I know I've been saying this many times now, but--"

"See, Mom, that's the key word! You've been saying it many times now and you know it so I don't understand why you always have to come in persuade me into forgiving him! I know we're both still your kids, I'm unbiological and we live in the same house, under the same roof, but Mom, everyone has a limit. Especially when it comes to relationships. Especially when this is the first relationship I've ever been into."

"Sweetheart... Justin's growing up, he's not as perfect as everyone sees he is. Nobody's perfect. He makes mistakes, sometimes over and over again but that's a part of growing up. He's been exposed to many things and experiences all his life ever since he was a kid, you know that, and he knows many people and how they are, and it's hard to be his ideal 'him' when these people surround him."

I pushed the loose strands of hair behind my ears and heaved a big sigh, "Okay, fine, you win. I don't know what to say, and the last time I'd seen him, I'd slammed my door right before his face and, do you know how insanely bad I feel about that, though?"

She chuckled, nodding. "Times when his father and I used to be together, things were worse than this. His father used to take drugs, and he had many women. I'd found out about it twice, and when we quarreled, it'd be abusive and loud and crazy. You're lucky Justin's the kind of boy who would fight to have your heart back, Jacee. Forgive his mistakes."

"I don't need a girl who doesn't forgive my mistakes."

"Yeah, right," I hissed, remembering that one specific statement of his. Call me bipolar, but whenever those words enter my mind, I'll never fail to get mad. "He doesn't need a girl who won't forgive his mistakes, so why the hell should I do that? Ha."

"What?" She asked, taken aback. "Where did that attitude come from?"

"Mom," I paused, looking her dead in the eyes, "he say, and I quote, 'I don't need a girl who doesn't forgive my mistakes.' Yeah, he said that. Can you imagine how perfect that moment was? Because for all I know, all along, I'd been the one to do all the forgiving bullshit."

"Wh--"

"And you told me about you and Jeremy?" I let out an incredulous laugh. "Look where it got the both of you. And your son doesn't do drugs? He did weed, didn't he? Mom, do you actually see where this is going?"

"We ended this way because I gave up on him and we mutually decided it would be best if we weren't together," she calmly answered back, staring back into my own brown eyes. "He may have done weed, but that's just one time and I thought we've already forgiven him?"

"Some things are meant to be forgiven, some things not."