Teach Me To Behave

16. This Isn't Goodbye

Good morning,
I had to run out early and get a few things done. I'll explain later. I promise I'm going to fix this. I promise you'll be mine.
-J

I held the neatly written note in my fingertips. Only a moment after I finished reading it, the creaky bathroom door swung open.

Justin looked at me, still sitting under the blankets on the bed, then he looked at the note in my grasp. "Oh, you were uh, suppose to still be asleep when I left. I was just going." He was fully dressed. He was wearing black, fitted, skinny jeans with a thick grey hoodie and a grey snapback.

"Is this your thing?" I held up the note, thinking about the several that I'd gotten from him in the past months, "Writing notes?" I didn't mean for my voice to sound so unappeased, but it sounded that way.

Justin licked his lips, "Lack of communication is usually my thing, actually. But I like this, better than texts or calls. It's like you have a piece of me." He forcefully pulls a smile to his face. When he notices that I don't return the gesture, his expression goes cold again. "Anyway, well, since your up. I was really hoping you would move back home?" He calls his old childhood house home, our home. "I worry about you out here. You don't have to sleep anywhere near me, there's several guest rooms that are far from our-my room." He pauses, wondering if he's wording everything correctly. I can tell how hard he's trying.

I nod my head and place the note on my lap. "Will I be bunking with Cassandra? Or will it, once again, be you on top of her?" My response slips and I'm rather proud of my silky attitude. He deserved it. Or at least I thought he did.

Justin's eyes wonder, then they close. He takes a heated breath before reopening his firry eyes. "I'm trying, okay? First off, she's not staying at the house. It was just last night, I'll pay for her to stay in some hotel until we work this out. Secondly, I get why you're so upset with me. I deserve it. I deserve all of this attitude and rage I'm getting from you and your freakish best friend who's been sending me death threats all morning." Justin pulls his phone from his pocket and holds it up. Joey? Why would Joey be? Ugh, I needed to talk to that kid.

I shake my head and throw the blankets off my boiling body. "I did the math last night and none of this even make sense. If you got her pregnant around the time that you say you did, before us, she would already be showing. Yesterday night I could barely sleep a wink. So I stayed up scrolling through social media." I turned around to the damaged night stand and pulled my phone from it. I faced the screen toward Justin, "You remember your New Years party that we couldn't remember the glory details of? Pictures remember more than we do." The screen displayed a picture of Justin sitting on the couch, a bottle in his hand, and a Cassandra on his lap.

Justin grabs the phone and glares at it, "This doesn't prove anything? So a girl came and sat on my lap for a photo, that doesn't mean I fucked her after the flash?" He tosses my phone back into my palms. "I didn't cheat on you, Mila! I know I didn't!! I distinctly remember falling asleep on the counter top in the kitchen next to you that night of the party. I didn't sleep with her that night, or any night after. If that baby is mine, then it happened before I met you." He sounds firm with his response.

Frustration begins to over power me. It's the hardest thing in the world to look into the one you loves eyes and force yourself not to believe every word they say. I want to believe him. I really do.

"So for the sake of the situation, let's pretend you didn't cheat, okay. You still lied to me. You lied about the phone calls. You lied straight to my face and you'll do it again with no doubt, or you'll just play it off, brush my questions to the side like you never heard them. Just like when I ask you about your bruised face every month. You must think I'm really dumb to believe those are from your fight nights. Nobody ever gets a swing in on you, let alone beat the shit outta you." I cross my arms.