Days go by and I still haven't figured out what I'm going to do about my apartment. I now only have exactly one week until I have to make that payment of $2500 that I don't even have. I barely have $30. I felt a hand on my back and quickly raised my head to see who it was. It was Lily. "Hey." I said giving a forced smile to her. "Hey. I've been trying to reach you for a while now. You okay?" She asked taking a seat next to me. "Uh...yeah. Just a lot on my mind and I've just been needing time to figure out what I'm gonna do about it." I said rubbing my eyes and then sitting up. "Well do you want to talk about it?" She said taking out her lunch and putting it on the table. I really did want to talk to her about the situation but I didn't want to seem like I'm begging for her to give me money to pay for an apartment or somewhere to stay. We've only known each other for 2 weeks, it's not right. "No, not right now. Thanks for the thought though." She looked at me and furrowed her eyebrows a bit. "Okay Justin. Well if you want to talk about it, we can talk anytime." She said just before taking a bite of her subway sandwich. I nodded my head and then took my lunch out of my bag. "So are you going to that party tomorrow night? You never did let me know." She asked after taking a sip of her drink. "Yeah I think I am but only if you're going." I gave her a grin and winked. "Well yeah obviously I'm going. If you want a ride, I can pick you up." She offered. "Uh no I'll just meet you somewhere and we can go together." I quickly responded. She raised one eyebrow and her eyes widened. "Okaaay then." She doesn't know that I live in that shithole of an apartment. When she dropped me of the first day of school, I gave her directions to my mom's house where I left my car. I don't want her to know about that place, at least not yet.
"I don't know what I'm going to do about it mom. I don't have a job right now and I don't know anyone who would be willing to let me into their house until I can get another job." I said unlocking my house door. "Well Justin you know you are more than welcome to come back home." She said. "No mom. As long as that guy you call a 'boyfriend' is in the house, I'm not staying there." I aggressively swung my backpack onto my couch then went over to the kitchen to find something to eat. "I'm just letting you know Justin. I could change my mind and say don't ever come back into my house. I could change the locks on the house. I could do a lot of things but I don't because I still love my son to death and every day I just wish he would just come home for just one day." "Well like I said mom, as long as he's there, I'm not stepping foot in there." I rolled my eyes. I heard her sigh over the phone. " Okay. Well I'll see if I can squeeze out some money and give it to you. I'm not promising anything because I'm not 100% sure I have the money but like I said, I'll try. I have to go into work now so I'll talk with you later okay. I love you." She said. " I love you too mom. Have a good day at work." "Bye." "Bye." I hung up my phone. I flopped onto the couch and turned the tv on. *ding* my phone goes off. It was a text from my friend Connor: Hey man. I'm having a party tomorrow night, you gonna come through? There's gonna be a lot of bitches and shit here too. Just as I was about to reply with a yes right away, I got another text, this time it was from Lily: Hey so the party at Josh's tomorrow night is at like 9 but if you wanna go a bit later then that's cool with me. If you want we could meet up at like the little 99 cent shop on Main Street and then from there we could just walk over to his house. It's like a 5-10 minute walk! :) Let me know what works for you!! "Oh shit I forgot about that party. Ugh, I haven't seen my man since the beginning of the summer and I already told Lily I'd pretty much go. Damn. I replied to Connor's text: Hey man, I wish I could come through but I have plans tomorrow night. We'll link up soon though. Then replied to Lily's text: Yeah that sounds cool with me. I'll see you tomorrow night.
I put my phone back into my locker and then cleaned up my table I was eating my dinner on. "Can I please have another associate to the main floor fitting room please?" My walkie said breaking in an out. "Yeah I'll be right there. Also I'm done my 30." I talked back into it. "Okay thank you." It said back. I opened the heavy ass door from the backroom into the sales floor and made my way to the fitting room. "What's up?" I asked. "Can you help me take these back to the floor? It's gonna take my forever to do by myself." My co-worker Amanda asked. I laughed, "Yeah no problem." I grabbed a big pile of clothes and started making my way on the floor and putting clothes back to where they belong. Working at H&M was honestly the best thing ever. It's my favorite store, I get a 35% discount and my whole closet is from the store. I looked at one of the mens shirt's that I was going to put back but I thought it would look really nice on Justin. I put it on my other arm along with a couple other pieces of clothes that I liked for myself. "Excuse me miss." I heard a voice say to me. I turned around and was facing a man with bright blue eyes, black hair that was groomed perfectly and a beautiful tan smiling at me. "Yes how can I help you?" I said with a smile. "Do you know where I can find this shirt?" He pulled out his phone and showed me a picture of the shirt he wanted. "Yeah right this way." I walked over to the men's side and showed him the shirt along with a few other pieces of clothing that would look good with the shirt. "Thank you very much. And the fitting rooms are...?" I guided him to the change rooms as well. "Uhm do you think you could wait here and give me your honest opinions on these clothes on me?" He kindly asked. I looked over to Amanda and she was smiling and then she took the clothes off my hands and said "Yeah stay, I'll take these clothes for you no problem." I tucked my hair behind my ear nervously. "Uh yeah sure." He came out in the first outfit and I gave him a thumbs up. Then the next and the next and the next. "So which was your favorite?" He asked me. "I liked the second one the most to be honest." "Did you?" I nodded my head. "Well that's the one I'm buying then" He looked at me and winked. "My girlfriend and I are having our 6 month anniversary and I had no idea what to wear so I thought I would come here and find something." He added. "Well you definitely came to the right place." I said smiling and grabbing clothes. "Oh and by tell them Lily helped you." I said. He smiled and walked over to checkout.
At the end of my shift, I grabbed all the clothes that I had put aside and took them to checkout. "Who are you buying these shirts for? You got a man all of a sudden?" My manager Pauline asked. "Cause I know these are too big for you to be wearing." She laughed. " No Pauline, just a friend I met a few weeks ago." She stopped ringing my clothes and looked at me weird. "You met this guy a few weeks ago, you're not dating and you're buying him gifts? No honey, don't do that. At least wait until you guys make it official if you're going to give this to him okay?" I didn't really think about it that way but Pauline is right. "Yes ma'am." That's why I loved her, she was like an older sister I've never had next to my aunt. She always gave me the best advice and knew the right things to say. "Alright kid, you're total is $43.04." "Debit." I said pulling out my card. After my transaction went through, I said my goodbyes and left the mall.
Once I got home, I checked my phone and Blake, my ex-boyfriend, had called me numerous times. I rolled my eyes. "Oh brother." He even left me a voicemail:
Hey Lily, it's Blake. Uhm, listen I know I haven't really reached out to you for a while but I just wanted to see if it was okay if we could maybe go out to coffee or something this weekend. I just want to see you and talk to you again like old times. Let me know if you're down. I love you.
I sighed and tossed my phone to the other end of my bed, changed into my PJs and went to sleep.
- Sorry it's kinda long
- Also so there's no mixup, Justin's part is in Bold, Lily's part is in the normal font
:)
