Justin Bieber and The Mermaid

12. He's in love with me?

Lily's POV

"Justin!" a voice shouted. "Justin! There you are!!"

"Oh, no!" Justin exclaimed, as if he were seeing a ghost. "I can't believe it!"

He seemed frustrated and angry. There was this beautiful, brown haired girl walking directly toward us with a scowl on her face. As she came closer she looked me up and down before speaking directly to Justin.

"Is this girl...a friend of yours?" the girl asked, puzzled.

"Sel, you shouldn't have come here." Justin exclaimed angrily, "Did you follow me?"

"Let's go!" she demanded, taking his hand.

I stared into her furious eyes, but then turned back to look at the fireworks.

"Justin, did you not hear," She shouted as she turned around and realized he wasn't going with her, pulling his hand out of her hold.

"No," He whispered. "We're done Selena. I don't want you anymore." He seemed a bit surprised by his affirmation but stepped closer to me with each word.

"Justin, what's going on?" I demanded.

"You mean she doesn't know?" Selena realized, shocked.

"Know what?"

"That I am the only woman you will ever love. "

Justin jumped up and covered Selena's mouth with his hand, but she pushed him away.

Suddenly I felt a sharp pain in my side. "I need to go."

"You're going to leave me?" Justin asked, exasperated. "You can't."

I gazed at the electric colors reaching through the sky like the legs of an octopus. "But I don't want to go - "

Just then Selena grabbed my arm and began dragging me toward the water.

I looked back at a confused Justin, who was standing there looking on in shock. I didn't resist her desperate grip but hoped to reason with her.

"Justin is mine," she repeated. "He will always be."

"I feel something for him that I've never felt before, something that was missing in my life." I tried to explain but she wasn't listening.

"I don't care! He's mine," Selena screamed. "He doesn't want trash like you, trash he just met like what, two minutes ago."

Her words stung me like a stingray. I thought my decision to come back for Justin, meant that he was the one for me. What if he wasn't?

Justin came running up to us at that moment and pulled her hand from the tight hold it had on my arm as I felt another sharp pain and doubled over. Purple particles rose over the pier and flickered throughout the sky. I turned around and found Justin standing behind me. His eyes looked lost.

"I have to go," I said reluctantly.

"But you just got here. Here, I'll take you home." He said as him intertwined his hand with mine. I caressed his hand as my eyes welled with tears. But Selena's grasp was stronger as she pulled me away, leading me underneath the pier, away from the crowd toward the end of the rocks.

The next moment seemed to last a lifetime, and yet there wasn't even time to say good-bye. I wanted to hold Justin, to kiss him, to see the fireworks forever reflected in his eyes. I wanted to explain everything, to give him the answers he deserved, to tell him that I loved him. But Selena's words echoed in my mind. How long had I known him? Even though my heart answered "forever," my head answered "only two days." I'd breathed water all my life but only air for such a short time. It was like a dream. Hadn't I always acted immaturely, selfishly, spontaneously? It was irrational to think I could leave my world for his.

The shooting pain in my side wasn't as sharp as the pain exploding in my heart. Then I felt a hard push as a crashed into the water on the edge of the pier that Selena had pushed me into.

Justin's POV

"Lily!" I shouted. "Lily! Where are you?" I cried against the blasting music but it was futile.

I stared out to sea with a sinking feeling. "Lily!" I called again. "Lily!"

"What the fuck did you do Selena! " I shouted angrily. "You could have killed her. Where is she, Get out of here, I never want to see you again!"

"But Justin...." Selena cried. "I love you."

"No, you don't" I shouted. "We're toxic and I am tired of it. Just get out of my life."

Tears filled her eyes as she turned to leave but I couldn't feel guilty about the way I treated her. She could have drowned the girl I love.

In an instant I saw Lliy treading water below me, next to the jutting rock beneath my feet. She swam so - Lily. From head to toe, or should I say fin?

The reality hit me harder than my surfboard had the other day. She was beautiful, yes, even more beautiful in the water, but instead of legs she had the tail of a sparkling green fish. What I thought had been a hallucination the first time I saw her turned out to be fact.

This couldn't be. I was in love with a . . . mermaid?

Suddenly the images flashed - one after another. A beautiful girl appearing from nowhere under the ocean, not out of breath, swimming like a fish, a strange aquamarine Spandex covering her all the way to her nouveau riche flipper gear. A kiss of life, of love. Mysteriously showing up on the pier. Noticing the two-finned mermaid at Starbucks. Commenting on the Ferris wheel, "I've never been higher than the rocks."

A mermaid? But it had to be a joke. Yet somehow it all made sense, unreal as it seemed.

"Fredo!" I yelled. "Come quick!"

"No, don't, Justin," she begged, grabbing my foot.

"But this is unreal - You are unreal! Man, I think I'm going crazy!"

I wanted to show Lily to the world and hide her at the same time. I needed proof that what I was seeing wasn't a dream, and yet I didn't want anyone to harpoon her and stick her in a freak show. My mind was racing. I was disappointed, yet intrigued. Skeptical, yet excited. My brain was in overdrive.

"I can't be seen!" Lily pleaded.

I saw the horror on her face. "Stay here! Please!" I begged, squatting down to grab her hand.

She could bolt off, and then I'd really lose her forever.

I turned around. "It's nothing!" I shouted to my friends, trying to ward them off. "I overreacted."

I turned around and Lily was gone. A moment later she appeared yards away from me.

"Damn, she's fast," Fredo said, shocked. "Was that a trick?"

"You won't believe me if I told you - trust me!" I said. "She's a - "