Don't Get Too Close (Justin Bieber Love Story / Fan Fiction)

Twenty-One: Breathe

A/N: A lot of you have been asking two things: how old Justin is and if he is famous or not. First, I like to picture Justin in his "skater phase" so like late 2011, early 2012. Next, he is not famous in the story. Just a regular kid with a good voice. :)
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Twenty-One: Breathe
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Song of the chapter:
Fall For You by Secondhand Serenade
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I barely moved the entire car ride. My stare was just as hard as it was when I was face to face with Chelsea, only in that moment with just Justin, it was on the road. Moments from the previous event flashed through my head so fast yet so clear. I couldn't stop it.

Worried immensely about my reopened wounds, my fingers tightly wrapped around my arm to help cease the bleeding that had definitely already come through the sweatshirt. All I needed was to get home and go in my bathroom to clear the evidence. It would be a challenge to shake off Justin, but something had to be done.

Justin or myself hadn't said a single word since he had told me to stay put. There was nothing really to say. I made it clear that I didn't want to go anywhere near Chelsea and all of her friends but he insisted, and that was where the trouble came in. It could all have been avoided easily and I wouldn't be in such big trouble.

God, why couldn't he have just listened to me? I wondered anxiously, watching as the blue sign appeared through the darkness that said "Stratford. Population: 32,000." I had seen it at least four hundred times from coming and going. The sign made me kind of sad knowing that I would be going back to a place where I had a set-in-stone reputation that I hated and was far from true, but I remembered that it was me who created the image. Everyone else just enforced it.

Shifting slightly in my seat, I looked at Justin out of the corner of my eye, seeing him with a strong, firm composure that I had previously been worried about whenever I saw it. As of that moment though, I didn't care. He did wrong. Not me.

I didn't do anything wrong, I thought to myself.

Keep telling yourself that.

I bit down on my bottom lip and gently closed my eyes to fight back any tears from the pain my arm was producing. As the material of my sweatshirt rubbed up against it, it felt irritated-- like it was burning. My eyes began watering at the thought, but I swallowed to oppose it once again.

As the minutes progressed, we finally made it to our street and Justin pulled into his driveway. I was still so, so heated. I couldn't even think straight. The old Natalie was preparing to make an appearance once again and there was no way I could stop her.

Once the car came to a stop, I manually unlocked my door on my own and pushed the door open, letting my feet hit the ground. Before I slammed the door shut, I looked the boy directly in the eye, feeling sick to my stomach. He watched me too, looking almost ready to hear me yell. But I wasn't going to. I was calm as ever.

"Just— just leave me alone for a little while, okay?" I sighed, hating the words that came from me. My hand was still clamped over my arm to hopefully put an end to the bleeding, but I didn't dare look just yet. I didn't want to take any chances until I was by myself.

The car door closed and I started across the street, a clouded mind and a heavy weight on my chest. The only thing I could think of was how I needed to get home. I needed to get home immediately.

Justin's car door closed from behind me and I hoped and prayed that he would just leave me alone and go home too like I had asked, but there was that little piece of me in the back of my mind that wanted him. I wanted him to be there to help me and fix me, but I couldn't always depend on that. If there was anything I learned in the past few years, it was not to count on anybody because you will always get screwed over in the end. That's life.