Miss Incomplete | ✓

80 | He Loves Me Not

I would like to say everything is back to normal.

Except for the fact that once I entered the school building, Julian was leaning against my locker. Waiting.

I wasn't scared to face him, and once walking up behind him, I tap him on the shoulder. He turns around, scanning my features as I grace a smile on my lips. "How do you feel?" The first question I asked since he fainted. I knew Julian spent about three days in the hospital, slipping into consciousness for the third day. I also know that Julian spent the rest of the week at home for more rest.

New week, new beginnings.

"Hey," he didn't answer. "I'm doing okay."

The words left my lips before I could filter. "You lied to me."

His eyes soften, "about what?"

"You told me that you could sleep. You didn't hear the voices in your head anymore. I told you to stay with Tasha for that reason." I announce, finding guilt pooling against my heart. She's toxic.

He doesn't reply, adjusting the strap on his shoulders.

"I wasn't lying," he replies quietly, "I don't hear the voices anymore."

I wanted to call bullshit. If Julian didn't hear the voices anymore, how come he isn't getting any sleep? I thought the one thing getting back with Tasha would help was with his insomnia—his mental illness. I knew Tasha made him have withdraws but she's here now, shouldn't it be working? Why isn't this working?

"I hear Tasha, Francena," he said slowly, almost too quiet. I look up, finding his eyes staring at the rubber concrete on the floor. "I hear her every single day, every single goddamn minute. I don't hear the voices anymore, I hear her."

What the hell does this mean?

I open my mouth to ask what he means when the brown eyes of his finds mine; locked with determination as he lets off a deep breath. "I need to break up with her," he said in confident, that I almost choked. Is Julian Dean finally growing up to determine his own fate? Stop forcing it onto others to decide? "I need you to help me."

Spoke too soon.

"I can't do that," I ready myself to move away from the conversation, coming to the ending when Julian grabs a hold of my wrist. I follow his hand, back to his face. Formed with understanding.

"I know that," Julian declares softly, "you were never meant to choose for me and you never pushed to choose for me—I know that now. I'm not asking you to make a decision for me, to tell me to break up with her—I'm asking for your help. To do it myself."

Julian said it almost a rush, like the moment he takes a breather in between, I would slip and close my ears to listen. What he doesn't know is no matter what, I'm still here to listen to him.

"I can't do it alone, Francena. Facing Tasha alone, I've never done that before. I need help, and I need you to help me."

I took a moment, gathering my thoughts. "How?"

—

"Why are we hiding in the library?" Iris whispers into my ear and I push her off, finding her too close for me to be comfortable. My heart completely beating out of my chest as I tried to gather all my thoughts; my palms clammy as the moment stirs closer. The inevitable appearing.

From the times I've known Julian, he's not one for confrontation either. He is uncomfortable with it, and gathered with the information that he tends to shove his choices in other people's directions to make, I find that it's hard to believe that he came up with this entire ploy to break up with Tasha. By himself.