B.R.O.N.X. (Justin Bieber Fanfiction)

"I think I will take you up on the car races, if the offer is still up."

"Are you coming?" I asked, chasing the pancakes with a good swig of coffee. I'd been needing it more than I'd like to admit lately, since sleep hadn't come as easy as it used to.

"Of course. I'll leave work early. Your dad is picking me up." She managed a smile as she packed a brown paper bag with Tommy's lunch. He would be going to a friend's house right after school.

"Oh, right," I mumbled. Dad was going to be there anyway. Something about him working for the government. He usually had to attend official funerals—basically the ones that involved deaths of people that worked for the country's defense such as police officers, ministers, and army soldiers too. I reckon he would have come anyway, just for me. I appreciated it, to be honest, especially when I knew he still was unsure about Justin.

"I wanna go, too," Blake chipped in, entering the kitchen fully dressed and with his backpack slung over his shoulder.

I blinked over the rim of my mug. Blake had been avoiding conversation with me for almost two weeks. Now that I think of it, pretty much everyone had been doing that recently.

"What? I like Justin, and his sister is nice," Blake said as if sensing my surprise. "Kinda crazy, but nice," he added in a lower voice to himself.

"Okay. I can give you a ride after school," I offered, a smile tugging at my lips at the possibility of time to bond with my brother.

"Actually, I already asked someone to drive me," Blake replied, in my opinion, looking relieved that he'd had an excuse to avoid me again.

I bobbed my head up and down suspiciously. I bet that someone would be Mysterious Guy. Before I could even question him about it, Blake grabbed a pancake with his hand and scurried out of the house, throwing a "See you later," over his shoulder, while he munched on it. Now I was doubly suspicious. If Justin's situation wasn't enough to keep my worried-out-of-my-mind levels to the max, I also had a fifteen-year-old brother sneaking with someone I didn't know behind my back. How convenient.

Sighing, I quickly downed the remains of my coffee, and grabbed my jacket and purse.

"I'll see you later, mom." Kissing her cheek goodbye, I made my way out of the pad, wishing today didn't have to happen or that it could be over already.

Justin

Funerals fucking suck.

For starters, having to dress in black only makes the whole already dreadful experience even more depressing. This was the last time I ever  wore this suit—the suit my mom had fixed from my dad for me to wear—because I wanted to strip off it in the middle of the graveyard. On the one hand, it was some kind of tribute to my dad, but on the other hand, the weight of it was too much for my shoulders.

You stand in front of a grave, watching someone that constituted a pillar in your life be buried six feet underground forever. The moment you see the coffin with whatever remains of the person that was once your father be lowered into the earth, to be eaten by worms, your whole world cracks.

I stood stoic in front of dozens of people I didn't even know, who had come because they supposedly had some connection to my father. That's another irksome thing about funerals. People feel the need to come and mourn the person that's died as a means to pay for not giving a shit about them during their life. I knew for a fact half of the people who'd shown up were old family friends or my mom's workmates who hadn't known Jeremy Jack Bieber at all.

Brooklyn held my hand during the whole service, squeezing it painfully while a bunch of men in uniforms folded an American flag over my dad's casket. The whole funeral seemed like a parade to me. Too many people, too much noise, too many pointless words. I had wanted it to be over before it began.