You Light Up the Sky Like Lightning

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Eleven

It took Justin forty-three minutes to come back. 

No, I wasn't counting. 

Yes, I just lied.  

When he first came back, I actually didn't even notice he was there. I had my headphones in, and I was looking out of the window. My left elbow was up on the armrest, and it was holding up my head. To announce his presence, Justin took the ear bud out of my right ear- because he was on my right- and put it in his right ear. It made the cord short so that our faces were closer together than normal because the cord was on the outside ears, if that makes sense. But just the way he did it, I don't know if he planned it or not. 

'Beautiful Monster' by Ne-Yo was playing. He gave me a look that I couldn't figure out, and then he took my iPhone out of my hands.

It took him a few minutes, but he scrolled through all of my music. 

When he finished looking through it, he turned back to me, suddenly looking extremely sad. 

"What?" I asked, my eyebrows scrunching together. 

"You don't have any of my songs," he said quietly. “Do you really hate me that much?”

My eyebrows furrowed as he handed my phone back to me. Was he actually upset about that? And what did that have anything to do with me hating him?

He looked away from me and crossed his arms, his face showing no emotion. 

"Justin," I said softly. 

He didn't reply. He didn’t even look at me.

"Are you actually upset about me not having your music?" I asked. 

He still didn't respond. He just looked out the window across the isle. He took a small breath and sighed, though. 

"Justin," I repeated. 

Still nothing. 

"Justin," I said again. "Please talk to me."

He finally turned back to face me, and he just looked at me with those beautiful brown eyes. 

“Why do you hate me?” he asked.

“I never said-”

“Yes you have,” he argued. “And even if you haven’t, then you have made it very clear. That’s one of the things I wanted to talk about.”

“That you think I hate you?”

“I know you hate me.”

“I don’t-”

“Yes you do. But I don’t understand why.”

I sighed. Why did I hate him? 

“I don’t hate you,” I admitted. “I may act like it, but that’s just because I’m going through a lot in my life right now, so it’s just hard.”

“What’s hard?”

“You’re not going to pull that out of me yet,” I said with a halfhearted smile.

“Why not?”

I shrugged. “It’s personal.”

Justin seemed hesitant to ask his next question, but he did it anyways. “Is it with your parents?”

I scowled. “How’d you know that?”

“Scooter told me some of your story because I asked why you were coming here.”

“They told you?!” I hissed, suddenly pissed. 

“Whoa, they didn’t tell me everything,” he defended. “Only that your parents were getting divorced.”

I started fuming. This was none of his business! Scooter should have kept his fucking mouth shut!

“It’s nothing,” I snapped, crossing my arms and glaring out the window. 

“Landry, you don’t have to so touchy about it,” Justin said softly. “I know what it’s like.”

Slowly turning back to him, I frowned. “You know what?” I snapped.

“My parents split when I was a baby,” he said. “They haven’t been together since. I’ve always travelled back and forth between them.”

I frowned. When he mentioned traveling back and forth between his parents, it really hit me how hard this would be on everyone now. Not only me, but my older brother as well. I had never thought about how difficult it would be and how much it would upset me. 

Turning away from him again, I whispered, “I really don’t want to talk about it.”

“Look at me,” Justin demanded.

For some reason, I listened to him. I met his eyes, and the two pairs locked together. 

“It’s okay to be mad,” he said. “It’s okay to be upset. But you also have to know that you can also just not let it effect you. You can let it go and not worry about it.”

“I can’t let it go. Not yet,” I whispered.

“It’s hard, though. Isn’t it?”

Nodding, I felt my eyes start to tear up. Not wanting to cry in front of Justin, I started blinking multiple times, hoping he wouldn’t notice. Sadly, he did, but when I thought he would just say something comforting again, he didn’t. Instead, he did something that I never thought he would do. 

He kissed me. 

Shock ricocheted throughout my body, and my eyes widened in surprise. But after a second, my shock passed, and my eyes shut automatically. For the next ten seconds that our lips were touching, I felt like I was floating- and not because we were in an airplane. Shivers shot down my spine, and fireworks erupted in my stomach. Small little goosebumps had crawled up on my arms. The hair on the back of my neck was standing on end. My head was spinning. 

And I didn't want it to end. 

When he pulled away, he had the biggest smile on his face. That made me smile back. Neither of us said anything, but I knew he felt exactly what I felt just then. We just looked at each other for a full thirty seconds. 

But then, his smile faded, and he sighed. He looked at me one last time- almost apologetically- before he took the headphone from his ear, got up from the seat, and walked away from me quickly.

Without another word to me. 

I blinked, and sat there, dumbfounded.

What the fuck just happened? 

I mean, we had our ups and downs back in Atlanta, and I was fine with that. Sometimes we fought, and sometimes we could act like best friends. But now, I was just . . . extremely confused. When he kissed me, it was amazing. As cliche as it sounds, it was unlike anything I've ever felt before. I was actually really happy- until he left. The fact that he didn't say anything to me just made it worse. I had no idea what to say or think. 

Wait, why did he kiss me in the first place? That's what I wanted to know! And I want to know why he just left! Who does that?

I sighed, and turned my attention back to my music. Suddenly, I had a headache that I just couldn’t shake. 

Damn kid made my head spin in more ways than one.