Unless I'm Yours

CHAPTER 28 | TEXTS FROM EXes

H

ailey's POV

I was dying for a perfect Sunday and maybe it was the end of my waiting. Tomorrow's Christmas and there'd be no other fine reason to rest for a whole day.

Justin was on his exit way from dining hall after lunch when I called him from behind,"Justin, how about calling your siblings so that we could decorate the tree all together?"

"That'd be great, I'll call Mom..."

"No trouble, I'll call her."

Sometimes I wonder if it feels weird to him to have a lot of siblings and specially step siblings who are much younger than him. Because I always had a big sister to give her the place of a best friend, a gurdian angel and a secret keeper. I'd love having kids roaming around our house, someday.

They came around afternoon. It was really cold outside. Justin and I played and designed the tree with them.

Once we were done with the tree Jazmyn suggested that we should make cookies. We did as the kids demanded. I couldn't help but admit that I had fun.

"Nanna Rose would you please help me clean up Bay?",I asked their nanny for help.
I cleaned up the kitchen counter after putting the cookies inside oven. I loved spend time with them.

When Justin went to the washroom his phone buzzed. I tried to ignore it but it was useless when the calls weren't stop coming. I couldn't help but took a sneak on the phone to see a text notification from Lexi.

Wait, what!

"Are we done here?"
I jumped out of my place when Justin entered the kitchen.

"Yeah, I put the tray on the oven, kids are at the living room and you missed a call from Lexi."

"Ok",he started walking towards the phone to get it and suddenly stopped after realizing what I said,"Ow, did I?", he said raising his eyebrows.

"I didn't know you were in touch with her."

"Oh, it's just that, we've each other contacts but we never really talked for years."

But why did she call him now? Now that we're in good terms.

"Text me her number."

"I thought you hated her."

"It's not like I hated her, you could call her the Regina George of my life",I said making both of us laugh.

That was true. One of the reasons she dated Justin was that I liked him.

We opened all of the gifts, thanked Jesus, prayed and said our goodbyes to them. I returned straight to my room. A part of me grudged impatiently to know why had Lexi call Justin after all these years.

I was furiously scrolling on my phone without watching the screen. Justin entered my room without any noise so I wasn't aware until he called me by my name.

"Hailey, will you please come out for a while?"

"Yeah, sure", I stood up keeping my phone down.

I walked behind him but it was not too long when I discovered that the more we walked the more we approached near to the room that I never get to go inside, where I only saw Justin coming out from whenever he's in uncomfortable situations.

He pulled out a key from his pocket to open the entrance and signed me to go in. As I passed the doors the room was enlightened. It was nothing special, but a swoon fact that it was completely clean and untouched. Considering my experience and calculating the surroundings it appeared like it was settled for a midage woman.

"This is my mom's room, my birthmom. At least it was supposed to be her's. But she never came to stay."

"Does she still live in Canada?"

"Yep", he said popping the p.

I ambled around the room to examine.

"She's a Canadian author, if I'm not mistaken?"

"She's one", he didn't wait for reply, instead he said,"Lexi didn't know I got married."

"She's gonna jump into flames if she gets to know about me",I said flushing a smile, laughing inside my head.

He smiled too and moved from his space to come near me.

Our breathes were echoing in the room. He waited till he held my hands,"I saw the insecurities within the thin air. I saw it today and years ago. You know you can always tell me if it's bothering you."

Flashback (Hailey's POV)

I was drifting in front of my locker to take out my literature books before class. I was in a hurry, so I ran to my classroom after closing my locker.

"Shoo bitches", Lexi, the psychic of my all surrounders shouted while walking in the corridor to meet his boyfriend aka my crush who was coming from the opposite direction.

"Watch out your way, Lexi", I roared back with equal energy.

Looking at me she said,"Look who has come to school!", though it wasn't meant for me. Then her eyes travelled to Justin who was standing just in front of her. It didn't took her a second to kiss him all over his mouth. Gross.

End of flashback

"It did bother. But not now, not anymore", I said without looking away from his eyes.

"I know she's gonna jump into flames, that's why I thought you'd want to see her face. You should call and tell her."

"And don't worry about my insecurities, I had no accusations against you from the second I said i do."

He smiled and dragged me to the closet of that room,"I have something, things that belongs to you."

He showed me some things that bragged up all the memories. Of course I didn't gave him those objects intentionally and specially not for him to make a collection or museum out of them.

"Lately I've been trying to figure out why you had the paper I threw to your direction that said jerk."

"I couldn't care about you but I had you belongings to watch over."

"Hey, do you know I have your report card from 10th grades final that you never showed up to get?"

"Yes, I do know."

Funny how we both knew about each other but weren't aware enough.