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

42

Redlake isn't home.

I've known it for a long time. Maybe my whole life, but it's only recently hit me across the face.

Home is supposed to feel safe and warm. It's supposed to be nurturing. It should feel like a warm blanket wrapped around cold shoulders or a cup of hot chocolate on Christmas Eve.

My house in Redlake feels cold, rigid, and empty despite the four bodies that live inside of it.

But in Linford, with Justin, in his small apartment upstairs from the gymnasium with soft yellow glow and the smell of amber and the ability to say whatever I'm feeling without being ridiculed— that's home.

Justin is home. He's the only home I've ever had, and the only one I've ever really known.

I don't tell him about Patrick. He's got a lot on his mind with his fight in just two days, and I know this would shake him so I keep it to myself although it's difficult to keep anything from him.

We'll talk about it another time.

I'm so rattled by my fight with my little brother that I spend the next day with Justin too. Being away from the potentially contagious ignorance takes a weight off my shoulders, and so does lying in bed with the warm body that cares for mine so deeply.

Speaking of, the beautiful body that spends all of Friday taking my mind off of the heaviness inside of it has to nearly drag me out from beneath the bedsheets so I'll accompany him to Whittaker's this evening. Michael, Jake, RJ and some other guys from the gym want to throw a small get together to celebrate Justin's second win against Dylan Rhodes that hasn't even happened yet. I ask him if it's a good idea, knowing he'll need to be focused for tomorrow, and he says he only wants to stay for one drink.

No matter how hard I push, he convinces me that going is a good idea. Or maybe I just don't have anymore fight in me.

I decide on the latter.

Two drinks later, I begin to grow antsy. I'm all for Justin letting loose and having fun, but something in my gut tells me tomorrow won't be as easy as the first time around.

Nervously, I sip down plain cherry Coke at the end of the bar.

My anxiety must be obvious, because Jake is suddenly beside me with a beer bottle between his fingers and asking, "What's on your mind?"

"What isn't on my mind?" I try to laugh, though nothing is funny about my current state.

"Don't know. That's why I'm asking."

I lightly hit his arm. Eyes find Justin not too far from me, beaming as his friends remind him how he has tomorrow in the bag and how he may even have Dylan down faster than he did the first time.

"Worried about tomorrow?"

It's one of the things on my mind. So I nod.

"I'd never tell him this, but I kind of am, too," he confesses. My head snaps to his. "I just have a bad feeling. Not to freak you out, or anything."

"No, I'm glad you said that. I feel the same way."

"I'm sure it'll be fine." He sounds like he's trying to convince the both of us that it will be, though both of us are admittedly stricken with fear that it won't. "Justin's good. He's done it before."

"Right."

I twirl the melting ice in my glass with the tiny black straw.

"Maybe it'll be like last time. Quick rounds. Barely any hits."

My stomach lurches forward like I'm going to throw up all over the sticky bar top. "Mhm."

"Yeah. It'll go fast."