Broken(13 Reasons Why)

11.5

~Althia~

"Do you have any place in mind that you want to go to specifically?" Justin asked me as he pulled out of a parking space
"Not really, you can choose since you asked me to do something" I answered him
"That's right, okay" He responded
It was the Thursday after our last exam and Justin had asked me yesterday after our mechanics exam if I wanted to do something with him. I agreed and he somehow managed to convince Montgomery to let him borrow his Jeep.
"How do you think you did on your last exam?" I asked him after a couple minutes of silence
"I think I did pretty well but yet again I had English and I didn't even finish reading any book that was on the exam" He shrugged
"Justin!" I laughed "How can you say you think you did good but then add that you haven't read any single book that you needed to read?" I asked him
"Hey, I never said that I didn't read them" He said "I said that I didn't finish any of them but I don't think I really needed to since there was no question about the end of any" He added
"I-" I went to start but stopped myself "Well that's good at least" I said instead
"No, what were you gonna say?" Justin looked at me as we stopped at a stop sign
"I was just gonna say that I don't get how people don't finish the books assigned in class" I told him
"It's pretty easy, you just pretend to read in class by using your book to cover yourself playing on your phone and if you need to read at home, you just don't do it" He shrugged in response
"Ugh that's not what I meant" I rolled my eyes
"Here, I'll put it this way... Not everyone reads for fun like you, actually I'm pretty sure you're the only one who even reads any of the assigned books and I'm 100% sure you're the only one who has read the assigned books outside of school for fun" He told me "You're the only one who I can think about that enjoys those lame ass books" He added
"They're not lame" I argued "Animal Farm is such an easy read and Macbeth is so easy too, you just gotta know that the prophecies the witches give Macbeth are all gonna become true and that he eventually loses his mind as his psycho wife pressured him into killing people before she eventually dies too" I told him
"I had to watch all of the Macbeth movies to understand the stupid play and Animal Farm is full of symbolism or however the fuck you call it and I don't get it" Justin contradicted
"Animal Farm is about the Solviet Unit and each pig represents someone, Jus" I said as I turned a bit in my seat to look at him fully
He had a smile plastered on his face as he shook his head
"How does that even work?" He asked
"Because the author, obviously, couldn't write a book and use the name Stalin in it or else he would have gotten killed, so he decided to use animals instead" I started "All of the actions that the animals do represents what really went down in Russia, from turning everyone against Snowball to making an alliance with the neighborhood farms. It all means something" I continued
"See that's the thing, why make up a bunch of characters using fucking animals if it all means something else? The idiot who wrote this book should have just took one for the team and wrote the story the way it was in real life, it's not like nobody knew what he was writing about during the time. This Stalin dude really has to be a fucking idiot to not realize that the book is about him supposedly" Justin told me "Also, you didn't mention Brave New World, what was that about? Because I don't think I even read the first chapter of that book, not after they talked about making people in laboratories" He questioned
I bit my lip to stop myself from laughing
"What?" He glanced over at me
"You see..." I trailed off
Justin looked at me again as we stopped at a red light
Suddenly, he gasped
"You didn't fucking read it!" He exclaimed "And here you are giving me shit because I didn't read the stupid books when you haven't even read all of them either" He added
"I tried" I defended myself
"You're so fake" Justin continued "Giving me a speech about how the books weren't bad and not hard to grasp when you didn't even bother reading one of them" He said
I laughed slightly at how heated he was getting
"It was such a weird fucking book and it was science fiction and I hate that so much, you don't even know" I told him "Plus, I may not have read the book but I looked at the Sparknotes so I still know what happened" I added
"Sparknotes?" Justin questioned
"Oh my god, you don't know what Sparknotes is?" I asked him "You should really just look at notes for the books you don't read because maybe then you'll actually know what's going on in the stories" I added
Justin started to laugh
"Holy shit, Ee-Ah, I'm not a complete idiot you know" He chuckled "I obviously scan the Sparknotes for each book, sometimes" He added
I opened my mouth to say something but Justin slowed down to pull over by the curb
I quickly looked around and realized that we were in the next town over
"How long have we been driving for?" I asked Justin as he turned the engine off
"A little over half an hour, maybe 45 minutes" He answered
"Oh wow" I responded since it didn't even feel like that long and we only talked about one thing
"Just know you're the only one I would talk to about books for that long" Justin said to me before opening his door
I did the same and joined him on the sidewalk where he led me towards a building
"What is this?" I asked him as we walked inside
I looked around and saw a couple of people sitting down as they drank and painted
"You'll see" Justin responded
The lady at the cash greeted us and I let Justin do the talking since I had no clue what was going on
Justin paid and he led me towards a booth in the back
Soon the same lady from the cash came and gave us art supplies as well as a canvas
"It's an art cafe" Justin told me as she left
"No way" I exclaimed as I grabbed my canvas "How did you find this?" I asked him
"A little research can go a long way" He answered, making me smile
We decided to split the oil pencils between us before getting started
I thought about what I wanted to draw and a coffee cup with a croissant came to mind
"Do you want something right now or later?" Justin questioned as I started stenciling my idea
I looked up from the canvas and he gestured to a small menu on the table
My eyes scanned it quickly and they landed on their iced coffees
"I'll take a vanilla iced coffee" I told him "What do you want?" I asked him as I got up
"No no no, you sit down" He shook his head "I'm gonna go get us our drinks and pay for them" He added
"Jus, you paid for us to paint. Let me pay for our drinks" I told him
"No, I asked you to come here so I'm the one that's gonna pay for everything" He argued
I opened my mouth to say something but he continued
"When you ask me to go somewhere with you then you get to pay but for now, it's me" He said
I stuck my tongue out at him and sat back down, knowing that I won't be able to get my way
"Thank you" Justin smiled "Now go back to tracing lines or whatever you're doing" He added
I shook my head and giggled slightly as I watched him walk up to the register.