×× Skylar ××
After having isolated herself for days on end-- lying to her mother about not having classes and not communicating with her only friend, Romeo-- Skylar thought it was about time she went to see what she'd missed out on in school so she could catch up and be properly prepared for the upcoming exams.
It didn't help that the weather was gloomy with thick grey clouds and a breeze. She walked from one of her classes to the library where she spent a good three hours doing nothing but over think things: how was Justin holding up? How did Jeremy manage to sleep at night after what he did? Why was the universe against something so beautiful? Would Romeo forgive her for her outburst, days ago? Should she just pack up and leave for London when the time came? She had her books out in front of her, her glasses on and music playing in her ears... then there were the tears that were just on the brink of falling. Why her? She should've just stayed single this whole time and just focused on her education but, no! Cute ol' Justin had to worm his way into her life.
Skylar packed up her books and decided that a nice cup of hot cocoa and the coffee shop cookies would cheer her up. For some reason, it felt as if everyone on campus knew what was going on and was watching her every move. But it was probably just paranoia because of Mr Fuck-Face's 'I have eyes and ears everywhere' statement. What a bum. How could such a dark man be the father of such a beautiful soul. Justin should request a paternity test, Skylar thought.
When she got to the coffee shop, it began to drizzle. Hugging herself, Skylar went to stand in line for her hot cocoa and cookies and just as she turned around to find a table, Justin walked in.
They made eye contact and it felt like it lasted forever.
Skylar cleared her throat and kept her head down as she tried to make her way towards the door. That was stupid, considering the fact that Justin was standing there with his hands in his pockets.
"Excuse me." She whispered.
"Seriously?" Justin smiled in amusement. "You haven't been taking my calls or replying to my messages and you've been hiding... now all you can say to me is 'excuse me'."
"I don't want to fight, Justin. Please."
"I don't want to fight either. I just want answers, that's all."
"I don't need to--"
"You owe me that much, Sky!" Justin raised his voice.
She looked around nervously, hoping that no one was watching.
"I owe you nothing." She whispered sharply.
"You broke up with me out of the blue."
"Shit happens."
"Is there someone else?" Justin crossed his arms.
"You are blocking the way, Bieber. People want to get in and out of here."
"Answer my question."
"Do I look like the type to juggle guys? Really?"
"I don't know you anymore. I don't know what to expect from you."
Skylar frowned.
"You think I broke up with you because there's another..." her voice trailed off. "Justin, there is no one else that I love-- there is no one else."
"What's going on, Skylar?" Justin frowned. "You love me then you hate me and then you love me again... you broke up with me-- I'm not buying that bullshit story you sold me last time."
"Justin, I just want peace."
"We're not at fucking peace! Can't you see that?"
"Would you stop yelling?"
"No, cause I don't think you hear me."
"I told you what I wanted you to hear, the last time, and I meant what I said. You can't be calling me and all of that. We're done."
"Well, if you think that I give up easily..."
"Your persistence won't do anything for you this time, Justin. Focus on you."
"Skylar--"
She pushed past him and hurried off in the rain to the bus stop.
×× Justin ××
He stormed out of the coffee shop and headed to his car where he dialed Za's number.
"Homie!" Xavier answered happily.
"Where's Romeo?"Justin got to the point.
"I'm good, JB. Thanks for asking. My day is going well. I just scored myself some free pizza--"
"Za, I don't have time for games. Where the fuck is Romeo?"
"You not gon' ask for my girl in that tone, bruh. The hell is your problem?"
"Xavier..." Justin exhaled. "My patience is on zero right now. Do you or don't you know where Romeo is?"
"Not until you tell me what the fuck you're all worked up for."
"Za!"
"If some angry nigga called you up looking for Skylar, would you sell her out? I don't know what is up with you-- what you want from her, what our heard, what you think you know-- but I'm not saying shiiii-et until you tell me why your blood pressure is as high as it is."
"Za, please. I need to talk to her."
"See, that's what they say in the hood when a nigga is bout to get popped. 'Oh, I just wanna talk', then the conversation ends with someone dying and--"
"Oh my goodness, how did you and I become friends?" Justin ran his fingers through his hair, frustrated.
"You whine about my attitude now. Wait till the cops come looking for your ass someday. You'll be glad I'm the way I am."
"Xavier, I'm gonna ask this one last time."
"She's at her place. Moping about Skylar being a bitch or some shit like that. She won't even let me hit it--"
"Text me her address."
"Magic word, nigga." Justin could sense that Xavier was smiling.
He rolled his eyes.
"Please text me Romeo's address, Za?" He said, rolling his eyes.
"Cool. But if you as much as touch a hair on her body, Bieber... your ass is mine."
Justin hung up and waited for the text to come through and when it did, he sped off to pay Romeo a visit.
"Who are you?" A tall bald man in a white shirt and dark jeans looked at Justin after he'd knocked on the front door of Romeo's house.
"Justin. Justin Bieber. Sir." Justin said.
"What do you want?"
"I'd like to see Romeo, please? It's urgent."
"You want to see my daughter."
"Yes, sir."
"You her boyfriend?"
"No. No, sir."
"You sure?"
"Positive. I'm... I'm just a friend... of her friend. We're friends, Romeo and I."
The man looked Justin up and down a couple of times before he called out for Romeo.
"You better remain a friend of a friend to my daughter." The man said while Romeo walked down the stairs.
Mental note: warn Za about Romeo's dad.
"Justin." Romeo looked at him, crossing her arms.
"Hey. Can we talk?" He rubbed his hands together.
Romeo looked at her dad.
"I'll be in the kitchen. Polishing my gun." He emphasised before walking off.
Romeo stepped aside to let Justin in then they walked to the living room.
"Uhm..." Justin began.
"Are you gonna talk or nah? Cause I have books to read."
"I'm... I need to talk to you about Sky."
"Right."
"I'll start off by saying that I'm sorry for being rude to you these last few days. I'm just... A mess. I'm confused and I think that only you could help me figure something out."
"I know nothing about Skylar. Haven't spoken to her in days, she lashed out at me and I've been keeping my distance since." Romeo raised her hands.
"You've gotta know something."
"I know nothing."
"She broke up with me, Romeo. Out of the blue. I was meant to pick her up for our date and she told me she doesn't want to see me anymore. If there's another guy o-or her mother put her up to this, you've gotta help me out. Please."
"Justin... I'm sorry but I honestly know nothing. All I know is that Skylar would never play you. She loves you."
"Then why would she dump me?"
"I didn't even... that explains why y'all are depressed."
Justin ran his hands over his face.
"Why would she do that to you if she's going to be just as upset as you?" Romeo asked.
"That's why I'm here. I need to know."
"I wish I could help you, dude. I'm in the dark. She hasn't spoken to me in days."
Justin frowned and put his hands in his pockets.
"If I knew anything, I would've said so, Justin. I know that something ain't right but that's just about it."
"Please, try to talk to her?"
Romeo frowned, the crack in Justin's voice was just heart piercing.
"Justin... it's tense between us..."
"Romeo..."
"I'm waiting for the dust to settle. She'll talk when she's ready. In the meantime, try to cool off too, read a book, take up a new hobby... she'll come around."
"She's already decided."
"No, she hasn't. She's hurting. I saw it when I last spoke to her. She will come around."
"I'm not waiting that long." Justin said. "I'm going to get to the bottom of this."
"Justin, the last thing you wanna do--"
"If Za calls, tell him I didn't hurt you."
"What?"
"Bye." With that, Justin left.
"The hell type of Romeo and Juliet story is this?" Romeo's dad was standing not too far away with his gun and a cloth in his hands.
"Dad." Romeo smiled.
"What? I had to make sure he wasn't lying to me."
Romeo chuckled and made her way upstairs to her room.
× × × ×
×× Skylar ××
After managing to study and take a shower, Skylar decided to take a break by watching some movies online.
She smiled a little when she remembered that it was her favourite thing to do with Justin: snuggling up to him, laughing at stupid scenes... She wanted to call him and tell him everything but jail was no option either. It would be bad for her to have a criminal record. No one would want to hire her and no one would care to know that Simone deserved that ass whooping.
She picked up her phone to check for messages or emails. Nothing. Romeo was usually the one to blow up Skylar's phone with random texts or Snaps and she missed it. Romeo was the only person who Skylar trusted and she really needed to get this weight off her shoulders and tell someone about how evil Jeremy Bieber is.
Holding her phone up for a selfie, Skylar pulled a puppy face and captioned it, 'I miss you' then she sent the image to Romeo.
Nothing came through for as while but, when Romeo did reply, it was with an image of her looking uninterested.
Fair enough. Skylar had been rude to her the last time and made Romeo doubt their friendship. She deserved that response.
She took a picture of her snacks that she had on her bed, ready to be eaten while she watched her movies. She captioned the image, 'I have food. Come over so we can talk?' Then sent it.
Nothing for a moment.
Romeo sent an image of her grinning just a little bit, captioned, 'are those Doritos is see?'
Skylar smiled and sent a picture of the opened website on her laptop where she was going to watch her movies. 'We can waste time afterwards'.
Romeo didn't reply.
So much for a bit of hope, Skylar thought.
She put her phone down and got to watching her first movie.
Almost an hour later, there was a knock on the front door.
"Who is it?" Skylar asked as she walked towards it, quite annoyed too.
"Your mom." Romeo said.
Hope was restored and Skylar smiled. She opened the door to let Romeo in.
"I want movies and food and that conversation you owe me." She said, handing Skylar an envelope. "Came from your mail box. The post man gave it to me just now."
Skylar looked at it, trying to figure out what it was. Hopefully it wasn't a letter from London saying they made a mistake.
"You gonna talk to me, Sky?"
She looked Romeo in the eyes.
"I'm..." She whispered.
Romeo waited.
"You need to swear not to tell anyone, Romeo."
"What's going on?"
"Promise me."
"I won't tell--"
"Promise me."
"I promise." Romeo raised her hands.
Skylar swallowed a lump in her throat.
"Okay..." She exhaled before leading the way to her room. "It's ugly." She faced Romeo. "Very, very ugly. And there's nothing I can do about it."
Skylar then went into detail about everything Jeremy had told her.
"Skylar, you have to tell him." Romeo said after a moment of taking everything in.
"Did you not hear what I just said?"
"But..."
"Romeo, I don't want to go to jail! A criminal record means no London for me."
"How will Jeremy know if you tell Justin? And don't tell me about his eyes and ears that he has everywhere."
"Justin will freak out!"
"But you'll get to be together again."
"No, Romeo."
"What are you gonna do then?"
"Take that flight to London and start over."
"You can't do that. Not while things are like this, Sky."
"What choice do I have?"
"Just tell him."
"No. And you can't tell anyone either."
"Damn it."
Skylar sighed.
"We can't not do anything though." Romeo said.
"We can. And we won't."
"I'm so sorry, Skylar." Romeo frowned.
"It's fine." She put on a brave smile.
"It's not. If I ever catch that bitch, Simone..."
"It's not worth it. Let it go."
"Actually, we should go slash Justin's dad's car tyres. All 100 of em'."
"He'll find a way to pin it onto me, even if you did it."
"He's a douche bag. A filthy rich, filthy... douche bag."
Skylar frowned and got a big hug from Romeo.
"We'll work something out." Romeo said.
Skylar nodded.
"Hey, let's go out for some air. Movies and a meal, on me." Romeo smiled.
"Uh..."
"I'm not taking no for an answer. Go get dressed and stop looking miserable."
"Romeo--"
"You go shower, I'll pick out your outfit. Come on. If you're really going to leave for London, we might as well have fun while we still can cause after you leave, all I'll have is Za and Nicole and they aren't always as fun as you are."
× × × ×
Later in the day when Skylar was back home and alone, she got the envelope that Romeo had given her when she'd come to visit earlier on, the one from the post man.
She sat on her bed with her legs crossed, fiddling with a bit of hair that she'd twisted, and she looked at the white package.
At this point, Skylar trusted nothing. She'd gotten to a point where even someone sneezing in public made her jumpy. Jeremy had ruined her; he had taken over her life. Feeling the envelope, Skylar felt a small bump in it and that erased, from her mind, the possibility that it was from the college in London. There was no address written on the envelope but hers. What if Jeremy sent something? What if...
Slowly, she opened it and she peeked inside. She took out the memory stick that was in there and a folded piece of paper.
'One Life', it said at the top.
Skylar knew exactly who this was from.
She frowned and ran her hand over her hair.
Why wouldn't he just leave things to be how they'd turned out? Why did Justin have to go and make this separation a hard for the both of them?
'Plug me in' was written on the memory stick with white ink and Skylar got her laptop to do just that.
There was one item in the stick, a song. She double clicked on it and music started to play, that song he'd once sang to her when she was upset; her favourite one that she'd fallen asleep to.
She closed her laptop and tried not to cry.
How dare he!