36; Worry
Loyce
It was really true that some ghosts from the past somehow always found a way back to your life when you put it all behind you and found closure and honestly I was pissed about it at this point.
I really couldn't understand why Brandon felt the need to keep popping up in my life and also in the worst moments, just like right now when I was spending time with my boyfriend. The last time we saw each other, I thought that I had made myself clear enough that I didn't want to see him again. I thought that it was clear in general that he had no business being here and trying to talk to me but clearly he didn't understand that.
I wished that he could just stay out of my life for good and leave me alone, just like he left, when he broke up with me years ago. Was that seriously so hard? All these years he had left me in peace, I had been in Seattle several times over the years and he never bothered to bother me at all but now he suddenly felt the need? No, thank you, I pass.
"Out of all the days you could disturb me you decided that today is the day?" I asked Brandon, making sure that he heard in my voice that I was very annoyed if my face expression wasn't giving that away already.
"I'm only here because it's your birthday and I wanted to congratulate you since I heard you were in town." Brandon explained to me why he came over and I fought back the urge to roll my eyes hard. Who were these people who always told him that I was here? Yes, we had mutual friends but I didn't believe that they would run to him to tell him about me, especially with everything that went on in the past.
"You could have texted," I replied, not satisfied with his answer.
"As far as I know you don't want me to have your number." Brandon shot back and raised his eyebrow.
"True," I responded immediately. He got that right, I didn't want him to reach me so my statement didn't make sense but anyway, if he knew that I didn't want him to have my number what made him think that I wanted him to be here? "So basically I don't want to be in contact with you." I added and folded my arms in front of my body.
Brandon stared at me for a moment and then he sighed. "Okay then I'll just leave those here," he said, referring to the roses that he was holding in his hands. He laid them down on the steps and then he took a step back. "You look very nice today by the way." He continued and smirked as he checked me out from head to toe.
"Thanks," I said dryly and expected him to leave after that since there was nothing else that we needed to discuss anymore. Guess what he didn't do.
I heard the front door behind me open and the music became slightly louder. "Loyce, why are you out here? Everybody's-," My sister began saying before she cut herself off and when I turned around to look at her I saw the exact same facial expression that I had on my face when I saw my ex. "Oh hell fucking no. What the fuck are you doing here?" she spat at Brandon and came to stand next to me.
"Hello to you too Lyv," Brandon said back to her with a petty smile on his face. He knew damn well what he was doing by calling her that. Nobody called her that, it used to be a nickname between the two of them when I was still together with Brandon and my sister only let him call her that because she actually liked Vana better but because she liked him so much she let him use that name. When my relationship with him died, the nickname died too and she hated it when someone used it on her.
„Lyvana for you, idiot," she retorted bitterly and rolled her eyes at him which made Brandon chuckle.
For the ones who didn't notice by now, my sister hated Brandon with a passion for dropping me like I didn't mean something. She had been there when he fucked me up and she went through every single phase of me getting over him, which wasn't pretty at all in the beginning. She didn't like to see him, she didn't like to talk to him, she avoided him as much as she could even though they were living in the same city so she damn well wasn't pleased that he was standing in our front porch right now and since she had a loose mouth she would let him know about it and put him in his place if she had to.
"Can someone please explain to me what is going on here?" Justin asked and I almost forgot that he was standing there with everything going on to be honest. I closed my eyes and cursed in my head. I was so not in the mood for this mess and I didn't want my boyfriend to meet my ex boyfriend ever. How did I even get here? I really went from having the time of my life to being a involved in some stupid bullshit because a dumbass decided not to stay at home. I didn't even feel tispy anymore, by now I was completely sobered up.
"Justin this is Brandon, my ex." I let him know. By now he probably figured that already out. "Brandon, Justin, my boyfriend." I was not quite sure why I introduced my boyfriend to my ex. I think I just wanted to show him off and to show Brandon that I moved on and that I was over him and I didn't need him so that he would get the memo and leave me the fuck alone.
"So this is him huh?" Brandon asked me while he was looking at Justin from head to toe, examining every single inch and kind of giving him a disgusted and dirty look, which I didn't like at all. He had not the right to be judgemental, he lost that right a long time ago. As a matter of fact nothing that concerned me was any of his business so all of this was so unnecessary.
"Yes, is there a problem?" Justin responded to Brandon before I could say something since the question was directed to me and stepping up, he positioned himself on my left and put his arm around me, pulling me closer to him, probably to show Brandon that he was indeed mine.
Brandon just looked at us and didn't say anything anymore after that. I had no idea if it was intimidation because it was literally three versus one but usually he wasn't one to be intimidated very quickly, at least he used to be like that. Maybe he just got the message now.
"I really can't believe that you have the balls to come here man," Lyvana spoke up after a moment of silence and shook her head disapprovingly at Brandon who still had not decided that it would be best if he left.
"And bring her all this shit as if she doesn't have a fucking man. She got me to get her all these things now," Justin chipped in and he sounded low-key pissed which I totally understood because I wouldn't like it either if another girl brought presents for my man on his birthday, unless it was his friends of course.
"Exactly, so you are not needed and irrelevant, so bye," Lyvana went on and waved him goodbye when she was done talking.
"Guys stop being rude," I intervened before the two of them could continue to call him out. Maybe he deserved that, he really did but just for a little, tiny bit I felt kind of sorry for him because after all he came all this way to bring me flowers and all that and I rather just thank him for that and tell him to go instead of doing what Justin and Lyvana were doing right now. "Brandon, thanks for the flowers but you have to go."
"Sure, I'll leave," Brandon said right immediately. "But I just wanna say that you were better off with me," he shrugged and gave Justin one last dirty look before he turned around so that he could leave our property.
"What was that motherfucker?" Justin snapped and let me go before he took one step towards Brandon, who now stopped walking when he heard Justin's voice.
"I think you heard me right," Brandon answered, turning around and heading towards Justin. On his face he had a smug smirk and to me it seemed as if getting a reaction out of Justin was exactly what he wanted.
"I wouldn't get so fucking brave if I was you." Justin said angrily and pulled up the sleeves of his shirt as he walked nearer to Brandon. I called after him and tried to stop him by grabbing his arm, but he shrugged my hand off and ignored my calls for him.
"What are you going to do about it?" Brandon asked in a very provoking manner and being all in Justin's face definitely didn't help with the situation. The boys were standing so close to each other and I didn't want to know what could happen if I didn't interfere. As far as I knew Justin had never been into a fight but Brandon had been in many and he never lost his fights and Justin shouldn't really be in the position to lose. I wouldn't want that for him.
I looked at Lyvana who was watching the scene with amusement and I knew she wasn't going to help me break up the fight since she was very into these stupid things anyway.
I came back to my senses and walked over to the boys. I pulled on Justin's arm lightly bit so that he would move back a little and then I took the opportunity to step into the gap between them. "No," I said to Justin who was angrily staring at Brandon. "Baby don't, please," I begged him as I tried to make the gap bigger between the boys by pushing Justin further back. Justin did move though, making it easier for me to make space between them bigger and get him far away from Brandon.
"Fucking leave already Brandon," Lyvana snapped at him when he didn't move. He seemed very amused about the situation and he wasn't really bothered about what Justin or Lyvana said to him.
"Yeah, before I fuck up your face," Justin yelled over my shoulder and began walking to his direction again but I stopped him by grabbing on his arm and telling him harshly this time to stop behaving like that because he was just making things worse by having a big mouth right now. Being nice with him was not taking me anywhere at this point.
I turned my head to look behind me and I was very pissed off that Brandon was still standing there. "Go," I snapped at him, angry at the fact that he didn't understand that his stay was obviously overdue and that it was the best if he just went to wherever he came from.
Looking into my eyes for a moment, Brandon then nodded his head and said that he was going to leave. He wished me a happy birthday before he turned on his heal and walked away from our house.
"And don't you dare coming on our property ever again." Lyvana yelled after him as he walked away, making sure he heard every single word she said.
When he was out of sight, I turned to look at my sister and my boyfriend who were now grinning in accomplishment and looking like they fucking won a big price. "Did you really have to try to fight him?" I asked Justin, raising my eyebrows.
"Yes, that's your ex," Justin and Lyvana said in unison and when they realized that they spoke at the same time they looked at each other with wide eyes and gasped.
"I really like you Justin," Lyvana said to him and then pulled him for a hug.
"Feeling is mututal," Justin said to her, laughing as he hugged her back.
I rolled my eyes at them but deep down I was very happy to see them this way and that they were getting along. That was probably the most important thing to me.
"Come on let's go inside." I said to them and lead the way. I still had guests to entertain and I wasn't going to let this incident, that we all already forgot about pretty quickly, ruin my mood for this evening. Also, I needed to take a bunch of shots because I was back to being sober again. It was my birthday after all right?
***
The afternoon after my very eventful birthday we had to take our flight back to Atlanta because even though we were having a good time in Seattle with my family, college and a whole lot of exams were waiting for us back home.
The rest of my birthday passed super great until I didn't remember much of it anymore. All I knew was that we listened to way to loud music, danced our asses of to that and played too many drinking games which led to my current state.
I was not feeling too defeated at the moment since I was able to get up and pack my things and stuff but I had honestly been a mess when I had woken up. My head was hurting, my body was aching and I honestly wondered what the hell I did to be feeling like that. Thankfully that was nothing a lot of water and some pain killers could fix. I was ready to sleep during the whole flight because I needed to snap back and get rest to finish writing an essay that I didn't get to finish before our trip and it was due tomorrow.
No idea how I was going to do that but I didn't really have a choice...
I was still very grateful and happy and not entirely over the fact that my friends had found the time to fly over to Seattle, surprise me and contribute to one of the best days of my life even if I didn't remember the ending of it. It was seriously the nicest thing they could have done and for that I would forever be thankful for them. Whenever they had something coming up in the future I would definitely put in as much effort as they did for me and be a good friend like they are to me.
As happy as I was about that, I was also very sad at the same time that I had to leave my home town and my siblings because that meant that I wasn't going to see them for a while. Of course I was going to come back here as soon as possible especially because I had not seen my parents for a while but with all the finals coming up that was going to take some time.
Unless they came visiting me of course, that would be nice...
Later that day, after we said goodbye to my brothers and sister, the girls, the boys and I were at the airport waiting for our airplane. Unfortunately our flight was delayed for an hour which was definitely annoying to us all but seeing that we couldn't do anything about it, we just had to kill time which most of us simply did with sleeping, me included.
Justin woke me up when it was our time to get into the plane when we got in and I found our seats on the flight, I settled in and even if the seats were rather uncomfortable I didn't waste any time to sleep some more....
The flight to Atlanta was five hours long and with the change of the times zones it was around 6 PM when our plane landed at the international airport in Atlanta. For the first time this day I felt well rested and not like I partied the whole night, which was good because I needed the energy to unpack and get things done for college tomorrow.
At the airport, we said our goodbyes to Aliyah, Melyssa and Amir and then we went our separate ways and took the cab to get to our homes.
Arriving at our apartment 20 minutes later, Justin decided not to stay with Juliana, Aaron and I at our place. He wanted to go back to his grandma, which he had left in the hands of a family friend to look after her while he was gone, so when the taxi driver dropped us off, Justin continued with him to get home.
In our apartment, I was so tempted to just lay down in my bed and do nothing at all but I didn't want to be to lazy and regret it later on so I productively did all the things that I wanted to do, starting with unpacking my suitcase, which I knew I needed to do right away because if I didn't I wasn't going to do it during the week. It was a very bad habit of mine.
After that I began writing the essay that I had started before we left for Seattle. It was so stupid of me to not finish it before because it was kind of predictable in which state I would be after celebrating my birthday but me being me, I just ignored that and now I had to live with the consequences. Even though I had zero motivation to be typing on my laptop, I sat on my desk for two hours and finished the whole thing but after that I was done and all I wanted to do was to go to bed and call it a day.
I didn't really do much today but it felt like a very long day so I finished packing up the last few things for college and then I laid down on my bed and fell asleep right immediately.
***
The next morning I stood in front of our university, waiting for Justin to arrive so that we could walk to our classes together, like we did every morning. Classes were about to start in around 15 minutes. I was a bit earlier than usual today so I just waited for my boyfriend to get here and played some games on my phone while doing so.
I had no idea where exactly Justin was or if he was even on his way because since he had texted me that not to be late this morning yesterday, he didn't reply to any of my texts. Last night I thought that he might have been tired and went straight to bed so he would most likely reply in the morning but when I didn't receive anything from him once I woke up until I made my way to uni, I started to wonder where he could have been.
When he was still not on campus 10 minutes later and when he didn't react to all my calls or texts, I was seriously worried about him and I started to think about places where he could be.
For a split second I thought that maybe he was with other girls again, just like he used to be in the past when he ditched me all the time but then again I was so sure that he wouldn't do that to me again and hurt my feelings like that. He just wouldn't. So I let that thought go as quickly as it came.
When the bell rang to let us know that first period was starting, I sighed and walked inside to the building, heading to my class quickly so that I wouldn't be late. It was very unusual for Justin not to let me know where he was, he always texted or called to let me know that he was going to be late so this was really odd.
Something was wrong. I could feel it.
The first two periods went by quickly but I couldn't really concentrate because my thoughts were everywhere but here. I was checking my phone literally every 5 minutes and it came to the point where I thought I was seriously crazy for bothering so much about where Justin was.
Maybe after all the reason why he wasn't here wasn't anything bad. Maybe he was just so tired that he fell asleep early and overslept this morning and his phone was on silent, that's why he didn't hear me calling him.
There was most likely a good explanation and I was just being me and acting crazy for no reason so for the remainder of the class I decided to try my best to focus on what the teacher was saying because I couldn't really afford to fail this class.
After the two periods were over, I walked into the cafeteria and went right to the spot where me and my friends always sat during our breaks. All of them were already there, except Justin. I immediately frowned because after all I had hoped to see him here. Maybe the others knew more than I did. "Hey, have you guys seen Justin?" I asked the group when I took the seat next to Juliana.
"Nope," Juliana replied to me and the rest just shook their heads to also let me know that they had no idea where he was. "Why? Is something wrong?"
"He is not answering his texts or calls and he was supposed to meet me this morning," I explained and at the same time I picked up my phone to check if there was anything from him but my phone was dry just like it had been the entire morning.
"I don't know where he is. I didn't hear from him since yesterday and he was also not in our class today," Amir then spoke up and him saying that he didn't see Justin just made me worried all over again. These two were always together when Justin wasn't with me. If I never knew where Justin was, Amir definitely knew so if he was oblivious as well, something was definitely not right.
"Should I be worried?" I asked all of them afterwards.
Don't get me wrong, I was usually not this worried and I understood that of course there could always be something that could have happened but it was really just odd to me because we were in contact 24/7 and always let each other know about everything.
Also he was the one reminding me not to be late this morning when we last texted shortly after he got home so obviously I had expected him to be here today.
I just hoped that my gut feeling was fooling me and that everything was okay before I started making up the worst scenarios of what could have possibly happened to him. I was a professional at that, trust me.
"You don't think that he is..." Aliyah started to say but she was immediately cut off before she finished that sentence. I knew what she was going to say. She was going to imply that Justin was with the blonde bitch again but that was a thought that I completely excluded. I knew my Justin, he wasn't like that anymore. Besides that I saw Eva in the cafeteria already when I came in here so he could obviously not be with her.
"No, he is not." Melyssa spoke up, interrupting Aliyah and giving her an angry look, before she turned to look at me. "He probably has a good explanation for why he is not answering." she said to me with a faint smile and laid her hand on top of mine to comfort me.
"I know..." I sighed and pouted my lip.
"Stop thinking too much, it's probably nothing bad." Amir then said to me and without saying anything else, I just nodded my head and decided to do just that, to stop thinking.
***
After classes were over, I decided not to go home with Juliana but instead I made my way over to Justin to check up on him. Until now I still had not heard from him and I know I said that I wasn't goint to be worried but something inside of me was telling me that something he was not right and just to make sure he was okay, I went over to his house.
When I arrived at his house, I saw his car parked in his parking lot as usual and it was very relieving to see that because it meant that he was home.
I walked up the pathway that led from the porch to the door and I rang the bell next to the front door, patiently waiting for Justin to open the door for me.
To my surprise it was not Justin that opened the door for me, it was his mother, Pattie, that stood in front of me now. It surprised me to see her because she had just flown back to Canada after she had been here a while with her mother so I definitely didn't expect to see her again so soon. "Hey, it's so nice to see you," I greeted her and moved forward a little so that I could initiate a hug.
Pattie hugged me back heartily, "Hi Loyce, come inside," she said and stepped to the side after we broke from the hug so that I could walk inside the house before she closed the doors.
"I came over to see Justin. I haven't heard from him all day. Is he here?" I asked her and at the same time I took off my shoes, like I always did when I came into this house.
"He's here but honey..." Pattie trailed off and look at the ground before she sighed out deeply. The face expression of a very happy and smily woman just completely changed to being all said and I wondered what had happened for her to be feeling like this all of the sudden.
"Is everything alright?" I asked her, looking at her very concerned because of the change of her mood.
Looking up, Pattie's eyes met mine and she took a deep breath before she spoke up. "You have to be strong for him," she said to me, laying her hand on my shoulder and letting out a sad sigh. "He lost his grandmother," she let me know with tears in her eyes and immediately my heart broke.
***
[A/N:]
HELLO, HELLO, HELLO.
I am back with another update as promised. can you believe I updated twice a week??? It used to be a normal thing but at the moment with my updating schedule this is a miracle.
Anywayyyyy.
How do you like this chapter? What do you think about...
a) ...my dear friend Brandon??
b) ...Justin disappearing?
c) ...Justin's grandmother's death? How do you think Justin will react to that?
Also there are like four chapters left of this book and then I'm finally done after years can you believe that??? It's been a long journey but a great one and I'm not entirely ready to finish it but I gotta let go.
It's TIME.
Soooo anyway, you know what you gotta do.... Please vote / comment / share the story if you like it. I'd really appreciate it.
See you soon. Lots of love xx.