Brooklyn
I beat my own record, making it to Justin's street in under 20 minutes. Maybe I'd surpassed the speed limit a couple of times, and missed a few red lights, but I was so anxious and eager to see him that a traffic fine seemed like the least of my worries right now.
I took a deep breath before stopping my Audi, which I had managed to successfully park between a maroon van and a NYPD car. Admittedly, I had worried when I'd seen the police car, but relaxed when I'd spotted the two cops that owned it walking towards a diner. I guess I had been preoccupied that Justin had gotten into trouble. Again.
As always, the door of the apartment building was open (I don't think it had a lock anymore), so I let myself inside the old lobby—if you could call it that. The paint on the walls was scrapped and dampness stained circles on the surface. There wasn't even a caretaker. As a matter of fact, there was nothing but themailboxes of the neighbors, lined up and across on one of the walls, although some of them were either missing their little doors or open. The thing was that the rest of the building, even the façade didn't look half as run down. I had only seen Justin's family apartment, and it was nice and cozy.
I made my way up the stairs slowly, thinking about what exactly I was gonna say to him when he opened the door. Hey, I know I just hung up on you, ignored you for days, and called you a monster, but I'm sorry. Seemed like the definition of pathetic. I know I shouldn't have even bothered trying to rehearse a speech because I always ended up forgetting all about it.
As I heaved a breath—I would never get used to the incredible physical effort it took me to climb six floors of stairs—I thought about how proud Kelsey would be of me if she were there. During the whole week I had felt like she was more on Justin's side than mine, and she was supposed to be my best friend. She'd claimed what he'd done wasn't that big of a deal, but she hadn't even known Michael personally—she didn't have a brother that had seen his best buddy die. On top of that, at least Tyson had told her before she could find out any other way. Of course she had been upset at the whole thing but, in her own words, "the past is the past and now is now". I guess she was right about that. Justin had changed, and the thing that had actually bothered me the most was that he had been hiding something so big from me. It made me wonder what else I was oblivious to.
By the time I reached Justin's front door, I was panting both from the exercise and the nerves gnawing away at my insides. What if he told me to get lost? What if he didn't want to be in a relationship with such an emotional-wreck-type-of-girl anymore? I pushed the pointless questions to the back of my mind, locking them in the 'Things I should stop worrying about' section.
My hands were sweaty when I reached up to knock on the door—or should I ring the doorbell? I chided myself for being so stupid. After wiping my palms on my jacket, I pressed a shaky finger to the white button besides the door frame. An annoying ringing sound lingered in the air longer than it should have, mixing with someone's hurried footsteps.
Was it Justin? Had he been waiting for me?
"You," a voice said in a tone between accusatory and excited as soon as the door cracked open. Of course, it was Jazmyn. She stood there eyeing me like I had a secret reason to be there that she wanted to find about. "You took your sweet time to show up here."
I frowned at her comment, but before I could ask what she meant—did she know about Justin and I's problems? This was Jazzy we were talking about, she knew everything—she spoke again.
"Bieber's in his room, probably crying or thinking about ways to end his life," she said as if that was what anyone would be doing in their room in a normal day.
