Call Me A Liar [Book 1] (Justin Bieber Love Story / Fan Fiction)

33

While I've been able to avoid dinners with the Byrons like the plague for some time now, I can't say the same for dinners with my immediate family.

It's a Wednesday early in the evening. The sun is too hot to be outside, so the four of us quietly eat in the dining room. I focus on the almost silent whir of the air conditioner to get me through without being condescended or scorned for whatever my parents feel like that day. I do my very best to keep the conversations light and only speak when spoken to, as my mind has been too preoccupied to battle them.

I push a piece of chicken back and forth on my plate while I chew and swallow another. My appetite is nonexistent. So much so that my mother even calls it out.

"Janey, are you feeling okay?" she asks. "You've barely eaten anything the last few days."

It's true. Once the thought of falling in love with Justin crossed my mind, I've felt nothing but sick. I can't eat, I can't sleep, I can barely hold a conversation because all I can think about is him. His hands, his hair, his laugh, his heart. My mind is saturated with him and him only, and every other part of me suffers.

I swallow down the chicken in my mouth with all of the effort I can conjure up. "Yeah, just not very hungry. That's all."

Her cold hand finds my forehead, pressing gently on my skin a few times. "Well, you don't have a fever."

I know I don't. I know this is all related to my feelings that are ready to pour out of me unapologetically, but I force them inside for everyone else's sake. That's what's making me feel sick.

"Harvey has a stomach thing right now," my dad adds. "Must be going around."

"I'm okay. Really," I assure them.

But I'm not. I'm not okay because I've been avoiding Justin since we parted ways on Sunday evening as planned. We've texted throughout the days but I haven't seen him since, despite his pleading for me to come over. I make up some lie that my parents won't let me leave for whatever reason, and he sadly accepts it as true.

Even at boxing practice on Tuesday, he texted me to meet him upstairs for a little bit and I ignored it until too much time had passed. I tell him I'm sorry and I blame Birdie. Again, he sadly accepts it as true and tells me he misses me.

And to be completely transparent, I miss him. I miss him so badly that I can barely function as a normal human being, but that's what I'm afraid of. I've fallen for him so deeply that I can't do anything else but feel suffocated by the thought of him. And as absolutely incredible and scary and wonderful and heartbreaking this feels all at once, I can't even tell him about it.

That part hurts the most.

"How was work today, Kevin?" Mom asks Dad.

"Alright. We had to represent Chuck Hedley again this afternoon."

"Again? How many DWI's has that man had?" she gasps.

"Too many to count," he mutters.

I think about what Cole said on my birthday about all of the Redlake residents and their DWI's and the lack of charges against them. It's so bothersome to me that people like that can go home to their cushy lives as if they didn't put others' in danger with their selfish decision to drive drunk. There are no punishments when you have money.

"Did you end up getting that guy's statement, Dad?" Patrick chirps from beside me. "The guy that killed Olivia?"

My dad sinks back into his chair, sighing. "Yeah. We did."

"Do you think he did it?"

The table falls even more silent than before. No one dares to pick up their fork, knife, or even their glass to make a sound. We all watch him intently, wanting to know anything he's willing to tell.