Patience | Justin Bieber

22

I'm about 1 metre away from my room and I can hear guitar strumming. Lord have mercy, my loins are on FIRE.

"Honey, I'm home!" I announce as I open my apartment door to find Justin by the window with a guitar in hand, "where on earth have you been storing that bad boy?"

"Oh Mikey keeps a hold of it for me so I can write and what not...." he says as he looks out the window. Something's up.

"You okay?" I ask as I place my back pack on the floor and walk over to the chair across from him.

"Mmm," he hums, unconvincingly.

"Holy shit"

"What, what's wrong?" He says, finally looking at me with a confused look.

"I swore I just saw your nose grow in length," he scoffs and turns back out the window.

"I'm fine"

"I'm Beyoncé," he continues to strum his guitar without responding for a few seconds until he groans and harshly moves the guitar to the floor.

"Okay fine, okay! I need 5 more songs and I've only got like 3 that are half done and I don't know what to do, I've got 3 weeks until I go back and they want my songs by then. It's just stressing me out and I'm suppose to be ok holiday right now but I'm just constantly stressing and I'm alway worried about this and whether or not I'll get it done on time. Like I haven't released and album in years! My fans need to know I still care, they need this album to be perfect and-"

"Justin, Justin, breath," I say, interrupting him. He's having a panic attack, that wasn't hard to see. He's breathing rapidly and sweating and his face is starting to go red. He looks as if he's about to cry. I get them quite frequently, that's why it's killing me seeing him like this. I pick up his guitar and he watches my every move intensely. I want to try something that almost always calms me down. I strum the string on the guitar once to adjust to the feel before I speak again, "I'm no singer okay. I'm as average as they come, so I don't want any judgment for the next minute or so of your life, okay?" He nods, still not breathing a word.

I start to play the guitar.

"Ended up on a crossroad,

Trying to figure out which way to go,

It's like you're stuck on a treadmill running in the same place," he listens intently as I stare down at my fingers moving on the frets.

"You've got your hazard lights on now,

Hoping that somebody would slow down,

Praying for a miracle,

Who'll show you, Grace?" (Yo see what I did there, I FUCKING personalised it BITCH)

"Had a couple dollars and a quarter tank of gas with a long journey ahead,

Seen a truck pull over,

God sent an angel to help you out,

He gave you direction,

Showed you how to make it last for the long journey ahead,

Said it ain't ever over,

Even in the mist of doubt," he gulps and I quickly lick my lips.

"Life is worth living,

Life is worth living so live another day,

The meaning of forgiveness,

People make mistakes,

Doesn't mean you have to give in,

Life is worth living again," I stop there, not wanting to go on before I begin to cry as I usually do. I stare at my fingers in silence for a moment.

"That was beautiful," Justin says, breaking the silence.

"It's usually accompanied with piano actually... My mum and I wrote it when I developed my anxiety," I say looking up to him with a weak smile. He's a lot calmer now. His eyes widen only enough for me to hardly notice, "she'd sing it to me when ever I had a panic attack and it almost always did the trick."

"She sounds lovely," my smile fades almost completely and I manage to barely hold onto it.

"She was," I say looking down at the guitar as I fiddle my fingers around it.

"Grace, I'm so sorry-"

"No, it's fine. I just don't want to talk about that right now," he nods, "there's more to the song though," I say looking back up to him and his eyebrows raise a little, "we managed to write the whole song actually."

We stay silent for a moment.

"I want you to have it"

"What? No, no of course not. That's your song, I'm not about to ruin it by flipping it completely upside down and engraving my name on it." I smile at him, realising how much he cares.

"You won't flip it upside down and you won't ruin it because I know you wouldn't do that. Change some of the lyrics at the end maybe because they are quite personal and keep it as just the piano instrumental. Honestly Justin, this song can help people, I know it can. I want you to have it, please?" We hold eye contact for what feels like a lifetime until he begins to nod.

"Okay, Okay fine," he says as he gets up from his seats and approaches me with a hug, we stay there silently for a while, "thank you," he mumbles into my shoulder and I smile.

My mother will be proud.

•••

A BIT OF A DOWNER THIS ONE IS I APOLOGISE. But not EVERY chapter can be all fine and dandy now can it?