20:2 >> I Decided, Pt. 2
“God it’s nice to be back in LA,” Jac sighed, walking into the busyness of the outside of LAX. She missed all the sunshine and ego of her hometown.
“You just got kicked off of Project Runway and you’re happy?” Rie looked at her as if she was crazy.
“I don’t even care,” she giggled. “New York is nice to visit, but it’s like a one night stand for me. I have a deep loving, long lasting relationship with Los Angeles; I will never complain about coming home.”
Rie smiled weakly, knowing exactly what she meant, but not wanting to admit it. “Well… welcome home.”
“It’s your home too, you know.”
“I feel slightly out of place here,” Rie shrugged, piling her suitcase into the cab that had just pulled up. “I don’t have a home.”
“You know you can stay with me as long as you want, Rie. I don’t know why you’re so hardheaded.” Jac allowed the cab driver to handle her luggage as she slinked into the back of the vehicle. “Plus,” she added, once Rie was sitting next to her, “you have your mom’s big old place in San Bernardino…”
“I can’t live there,” she rolled her eyes.
“Well can I have it?” Jac chuckled.
She looked at her friend briefly before throwing her shades over her face and staring out to the roads beside them. As much as she felt out of place, it really was good to be back in Los Angeles. New York would always be somewhere she could go to get away, but there was truly no place like home.
And with her Sherman Oaks home sold, she had some much needed extra money in her pocket, allowing her to get a new beginning in a new area of her choice. It was a bit refreshing to know that she didn’t have to go back to that house that housed so many memories of her mom, and even the few she’d made with Justin in the past half a year. It still ached in places she didn’t know she had when she thought about the previous few months of her life. A new start was definitely what she needed.
“Hey, after we drop our bags off, you wanna go to Griddle?” Jac suggested.
“Oh god, yes,” Rie agreed eagerly. “I have missed the shit out of that place.”
“I know. A month away really reminded me how much I love them.”
“I don’t even care, I’m getting the peanut butter French toast and I’m eating ALL of it.”
“Ahh, you read my mind!” Jac shrieked. “It’s really sad how much this excites me.”
“We were so destined to be fat,” she giggled happily.
“At the hand of the Griddle, I will so take it.”
Rie grinned knowingly and rested her head against the window. “It really is good to be home,” she finally decided to say out loud.
“Told you.”
>>>>>>>>>>
A gloomy Monday had settled over Southern California, and Justin had just touched down in LA after a long and rather depressing stint in the city of New York. Having not seen Jessica in weeks, and after leaving on such bad terms, he decided to make a stop in Brentwood before heading home from the airport. His goodbye with Rie was still fresh, and he absolutely could not afford to lose his best friend as well.
When he arrived at her house, her car wasn’t there, but the gate was curiously open, so he went ahead in and rang the doorbell.
“It’s open!” she called from inside.
Hesitantly, he walked into her modest home as if he’d never been there before, and immediately noticed that all of her pictures had been taken down, and some of her furniture was conspicuously missing. “It’s me,” he announced into the quiet house.
“Ryan?” she answered, walking towards her foyer. It wasn’t until she came face to face with Justin that she realized it wasn’t her boyfriend. “Oh.”
“Hey.”
“I thought you were in New York.”
“I’m home,” he stated obviously. “Just got back.”
“Oh…”
“What’s going on?” He pointed out the evidence of her missing furniture and appended, “You redecorating or something?”
“Moving,” she nodded. “To a place in the Hills.”
“You’re gonna be closer to me?” he lit up.
“The other side of Mulholland.”
“Oh.” He hated the silence between them. “How have you been?”
“What are you doing here?” she ignored his question, feeling frozen and uncomfortable in front of him.
“I just… I thought we should square things away. I’ve missed you.”
“Me?” she scoffed. “Why?”
“I just… we weren’t exactly nice to each other the last time we saw each other, so I thought I should apologize.”
“Oh, are we still mad about that?” she impugned dryly.
“Well, I’ve been calling and you never answered or anything, so I guess I thought…”
“Oh… no, I’ve just been busy,” she nodded meekly. “With Ryan.”
“Ah, you ditched me for a boy.” He chuckled because he was joking, but for reason unbeknownst to him, Jess took him seriously.
“Fuck you.”
“Well shit, I was kidding. But if we’re gonna get all offended, that pretty much is what you did, Jess.”
“I had a chance to be with the love of my life and I took it. Just like you did,” she rebutted. “I’m sorry that it hurt you, god knows I am, but I’m not sorry I took it.”
“It didn’t hurt me, Jess, it pissed me off. Why would you ditch me “ and that is what you did “ for some random guy?”
“I fell in love with him.”
“Oh, please.”
“No please. I did!”
“You latched onto him “ or his dick, at least “ just because you couldn’t have me. You were not in love; you just chose to abandon me when I needed you most, just because you didn’t get your way.”
“No,” she shook her head. “NO. I let you in, Justin. I so stupidly let you hold my heart for a minute and you crushed it, so I took it back. I took it and gave it to Ryan, and he handled with care.” She wiped the frown from her face at the thought of him, and calmed down only slightly. “You don’t get to judge me, Justin.” She spat his name as if it were some fatal disease. “I make no apologies for how I chose to repair what you broke,” she sniffled. “So fuck you. You do not have the right.”
“Jess…”
“I know I said I’d never leave you, Justin, but… I regret that now. Because I’m realizing… that… I dunno. I think I have to.”
“What?” he looked up.
She couldn’t believe she had just let those words escape her lips, and she had to figure out whether she even meant them or not, so she paused for a moment. “What?” she repeated for herself.
“Are you serious?”
Silence.
“Jess!”
Silence.
“Say something,” he pleaded.
So little to say but so much time
Despite my empty mouth, the words are in mind
“I’m sorry.”
“You are joking, aren’t you?”
“I’m really sorry,” she repeated, looking down at her checkered floors.
“What do you mean you’re sorry?”
“I can’t do this anymore, Jus.”
“Why are you saying this?”
“I am so, so sick of fighting you, Justin. I can’t do it anymore,” she began to cry. “Everyone told me that I needed to stop, step back, let you live your life, I couldn’t protect you. And they’re right. I have to stop trying to save you and just let you sink or swim.”
“I wasn’t asking you to save me. I just wanted you to come to New York with me,” he softly chuckled.
Please wear the face, the one where you smile
Because you lighten up my heart when I start to cry
“And you call me a bad friend if you say I can’t go. What the shit is that, Justin?”
“When did I say you were a bad friend?”
“You implied it. Twice. When you called me stupid for staying here for Ryan instead of skipping off to New York with you for something I absolutely didn’t care about.”
“You don’t have to give a shit about Rie, but you promised you would never leave me hanging, yet here you are doing it.”
“You don’t even wanna start talking about broken promises with me,” she shook her head, turning away from him.
Forgive me first love, but I’m tired
“Jess, I’m sorry. I just didn’t think that I was asking a lot.”
“You just don’t get it, do you?” she sneered. “This friendship, as is, is not a two-way street. If I’m not fighting with you, I’m fighting for you, and I’m tired, Justin. I’m so ridiculously tired of this one-sided bullshit,” she was yelling again. “I’ve been there since the day Talis walked out, even though it fucking killed me sometimes. I took your shit for so long, and now that I dare to have a life, you wanna keep me contained to yours. It’s not fair, Justin! You’ve just drained me so much. This whole… relationship is draining!”
I need to get away to feel again
Try to understand why
“I’m sorry,” he stated honestly.
“I’m over you.”
“What does that mean?” he quietly asked.
“It means… I dunno.” She shrugged and began to gather more of her things, placing them in piles throughout her living room. “I guess it means goodbye.”
“Jess.” He grabbed her arm in an attempt to stop her, but she kept moving towards her kitchen, taking dirty dishes to the sink, removing her laptop bag from the breakfast table and hanging it on a door, pulling a bag of dog food from the pantry, all with Justin following behind her. “Jessica,” he repeated harshly.
Don’t get so close to change my mind
“What?” she stopped, angrily wiping the tears from her face.
“This isn’t really what you want, is it?” He stared at her sadly, willing her to take back all of this foolishness.
Her guilty green eyes locked with his and she nearly lost her will.
Please wipe that look out of your eyes
It’s bribing me to doubt myself
Simply, it’s time
“I can’t be who I need to be with you around, Justin. I’m not who I wanna be either… Maybe we’ve just outgrown each other.”
“Why would you say that? I feel like we’re just getting started.”
“I don’t think so,” she sniffled. Her tears were falling like raindrops, heavily and steadily, and it was clear that this was absolutely killing her. But their relationship was hurting even more. “I think our best days have passed. And I would rather us just part ways now before we hate each other.”
“I don’t think so. I-I-I really feel like the best is yet to come,” he stammered. “That’s how it goes, Jess. I mean, we hit a bump in the road, but we don’t just give up because of an obstacle. We find a way to get over it!”
“There’s no point. I’ll always ache a little bit whenever you get a new girlfriend, you’ll always resent me a little bit whenever you think of Rie. It’s just… it’ll never be the same. Now that my secret’s out, I just don’t have much to offer you.”
This love has dried up and stayed behind
And if I stay I’ll be a lie
And choke on words I’d always hide
“So that’s just it,” he asked in defeat. “I erase you from my phone, erase you from my life and we never talk again…”
She covered her face with both of her hands, beginning to sob as his words hit home. “I’m so sorry,” she cried from behind her hands. “I love you, but yes. This is just… it.”
Excuse me first love, but we’re through
“If you’re so sure, then why are you crying, Jess?”
“Because it’s not something I ever thought I’d do,” she finally looked him in the eye again. “But I do know that I need to.”
I need to taste a kiss from someone new
He took her by the hand, pulling her into a hug. And she held him tightly, sobbing and sniffling into his chest because, if she could help it, this would be the last time they would ever touch.
Forgive me first love, but I’m too tired
I’m bored to say the least and I lack desire
“I love you so fucking much,” she sobbed.
“I love you too, Jess.” He had been fighting tears himself, but now they were falling freely, dropping to the top of her brown and blonde hair. “I’m gonna miss you.”
Forgive me, first love
“I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay,” he soothed her, softly rubbing her back. “Just know that… if I see you out and about, or we run into one another at some stupid award show, I will speak to you. When you get married, whether it’s to Ryan or whoever, I will be at your wedding, even if you don’t send me an invitation; and I’ll congratulate you when you have those three kids you’ve always wanted,” he sniffed. “If anything were to ever happen to you, god forbid, I’ll be there. If you need me for anything, Jess… I mean, I may not be a part of your day to day,” he sadly realized, “but I will always be your friend.”
Forgive me, first love
Jessica closed her eyes and reveled in the last moments of their hug. She inhaled his scent and his aura and basically, everything about him, before finally pulling away. “Thank you, Justin. And I really appreciate you understanding this.”
“It’s been a pleasure,” he smiled sadly, remembering those being the last words Rie uttered to him. God, all the pain he had caused. He softly wiped the remnants of tears from Jessica’s exquisite face and, after staring into her sullen green eyes, left her with a sweet, soft kiss to the forehead.
Forgive me…
Forgive me, first love
>>>>>>>>>>
Justin arrived back at his Hollywood Hills home in an eerie silence. Halfway through his ride, reality hit that his friendship with Jess had actually ended, and he couldn’t imagine what his life would be like without her “ she had become like family to him. He couldn’t figure out how he managed to lose so much in such a short amount of time. As if Talis hadn’t been enough, losing Rie and Jessica was too much to bear. He wondered if this was what his mom was referring to when she talked about true devastation.
It took a lot for him to even get out of the car, but he managed to make it safely, albeit glumly, and inside his house. He trudged through the kitchen and up his staircase, where boxes were lined up at the most inconvenient places. He shrugged it off, figuring that Rachael was doing her usual survey of his clothing, picking out the things that they could send over to Goodwill. It wasn’t until he reached his hallway, where he saw more than half his wardrobe being tossed out, that he became completely irritated.
“Rachael, are you crazy?” he deigned, meandering into his bedroom. There, he found half of his dresser drawers had been emptied as well, and Buckley was lazily laying on top of them. “Hey you,” he greeted him in a depressed tone.
He heard noises of cabinets opening and closing in the bathroom, so he slowly moved towards it, wondering what the hell his cousin was up to.
“Rachael, are you spring cleaning or what?” He was shocked as shit when he walked in and found Talis staring back at him.
“Shit,” she whispered. “Hi.”
“The hell are you doing here?”
“I… thought you were in New York.”
“I thought you were in New York,” he frowned. “What are you doing here?”
“I… umm…” she trailed off, staring at him like a deer caught in headlights. Her eyes darted around the bathroom nervously while she searched for an answer. “Well…”
“Seriously, Talis, why are you in my house?”
“It was supposed to be a surprise.”
“What was?”
She battled with herself over whether to blow the surprise or think up a lie that he wouldn’t believe. “All right,” she sighed. “We were just… getting rid of some stuff we thought you didn’t need anymore.”
“Who the fuck is we?” he shook his head in confusion. He leaned against the bathroom counter, feeling drained from everything he’d dealt with already. This just wasn’t helping. “Just because I forgave you didn’t give you permission to just waltz back into my life, Talis.”
“No, I know. I only came because I thought you were in New York, and I thought I could help.”
“Well, I’d like to be alone now…”
She wanted to say something extra, but knowing that when Justin didn’t want to be near anyone, he meant it, and she had already pushed past her boundaries by even being there, she just turned to leave.
He followed behind her, taking to his bed with Buckley, and glancing around his enormous bedroom. “I don’t mean to be mean,” he announced softly. “It’s just been a bad, bad day.”
She nodded, offering a small smile. “You look like shit, so… I figured.”
“Well damn.”
She shrugged and her smile widened. “I’m just being honest.”
“Not appreciated,” he chuckled.
“I’ll see you around, Justin.”
He put his hand up in an uninspired wave and watched her walk out of the door, just as a couple of other voices and footsteps seemed to make their way up the steps. “Who is that?” he whispered to his dog, frustrated with the fact that his house was apparently full of so many strangers.
He exited his bedroom to, once again, find out what the hell was going on. A mixture of relief and agony washed over him when he saw that it was Rie. Jac was with her, and they were toting boxes.
“Shit,” Rie whispered.
“W…hat’s going on?” he questioned with raised eyebrows.
Jac and Talis looked over to Rie, who was staring at Justin like she’d just seen a ghost. “I thought you were in New York.”
“Well clearly, I’m not. Now someone needs to tell me something,” he demanded.
Jac, seeing that Rie had no idea what to say, spoke up. “Justin, we--.”
“Not you,” he cut her off. He didn’t care if it was rude, he just didn’t like the girl. “Rie?”
“You were supposed to be in New York,” she repeated.
“As far as I knew, so were you,” he gestured to the three of them. “Why are you here?”
She finally dropped her boxful of clothes and exhaled nervously. “Girls, could you leave us alone for a minute?”
“Yeah. We’ll… umm… go,” Talis nodded. “Just call if you need anything?”
Rie nodded and watched her friends disappear down the stairs, trying to gather the courage she needed to face him. She then gazed back to Justin, who was bearing the most despondent look possible. “This is weird, isn’t it?”
“Considerably.”
“Okay. Well. I wrote you something,” she apprehensively proclaimed, scratching her head. “And I think I should read it first before I explain what the crap is going on.”
He wasn’t sure he had anything left to listen, but he nodded her to continue anyway.
She smiled submissively and pulled her phone from her pocket, locating the mail function, where she’d stored her composed message. She licked her lips and wiped her purple and black bangs from her eyes before beginning. “Justin,” she announced proudly, using the trackball of her BlackBerry to scroll down the long message. “For months now, you’ve wanted to hear my real feelings. Well all right, fine… I think you’re an idiot,” she stated bluntly. “You want so badly for everyone to like you that you do ridiculous things, like blurting out that you love me in the middle of an argument, just to make me stop talking. You let your best friend convince you that she needs to be swept off her feet, and that you’re the only one who could ever possibly do the sweeping. You idiot. You stop for your fans to take pictures when we’re late for a movie, just so they won’t call you an asshole as you walk off,” she read enthusiastically, glancing at him when she could to see his reactions. “Well, you are an asshole.”
“Rie, I really don’t wanna hear this right now,” he sighed in a melancholy monotone. “You picked the worst possible day to kick me while I’m down.”
“How about you just listen?”
“I really--.”
“And you know what else,” she went on.
“Well okay then.”
“You are FUCKED UP,” she read. “And you’re fucked up in the most annoying way possible, because you’re fucked up in that vulnerable way that makes everyone want to coddle you and hug you and make everything better,” she looked up at him innocently. “Especially me.”
Justin stopped feeling sorry for himself long enough to take a look at her as well. He took a cross-legged seat on the hardwood floor, resting his arm on a pile of clothing and his head against his wall.
“They say that people with strong exteriors usually have weak interiors. As much as I hate to admit it, though, you manage to be the exception. In spite of all your flaws “ the ones you try so hard to hide, but are so irritatingly visible and endearing “ you, Justin, are a beautiful human being. I almost wish I hadn’t met you,” she sighed, “because then I could believe that it was all a façade. Then I could think that my idea of you was just that “ an idea. A preconceived notion that I’d dreamed up, but in real life, you were a total douchebag. I never wanted to know that everything I thought was actually true “ that you really are an amazing dude.
With as much talent as you have, I’d expect you’d have some eccentric ego in real life, but from what I’ve seen, you have the exact amount necessary to be who you are, and more humility than anyone as fabulous as you should ever need. Which actually makes you more talented, by some crazy cosmic arithmetic. Your mind is like a stadium with the dome open, and I adore that you have zero judgment when it comes to things that move you.” Rie was moved as well, beginning to become emotional at the thought of all her words materializing into sounds as she read out this gushfest to him.
“When most people get the feeling they might like an idea or a shirt, they run it through a series of filters. ‘What should I think, given my personal attributes? How does this read? What would Stephen Colbert do?’ But you, Justin, have a brave sense of self and a completely authentic relationship with your tastes and opinions. You’re the only person I know that can rock the shit out of a fedora and orange belt on a golf course, and feel completely comfortable in that,” she giggled reminiscently.
“And to top it off, you are easily one of the smartest men I’ve ever met. Living in Los Angeles, I suppose that doesn’t say a whole lot, but believe me when I say that you are enigmatic, cerebral, intuitive, articulate “ all the things that a man who left school at the age of fourteen shouldn’t be. All the things I hope you can one day teach me to be,” she smiled.
“Rie--.”
She put her finger up as if to say she wasn’t done yet. “I will never be the woman with the perfect hair or svelte frame. I hate to cook and I love to shop. I can’t string together more than a few sentences without pausing to say, ‘Umm.’ I’ll never be able to wear white without spilling some shit on it, or walk without tripping. But that’s fine with me. I’m a mess and you’re a disaster, and that’s precisely why I like you. You broke all my rules,” Rie nodded. “And I probably had too many in the first place, but you came along and suddenly, they all went away.
Point is, I think the world of you, Jus. And I wish you all the happiness your crazy, fucked up little world will accept. Remarkably, your fame has taught me many lessons, but most importantly, I think I’ve learned that we’re all a little weird and fucked up. And life… is a little weird and fucked up. In addition, when we find someone whose weirdness and fucked-upness is compatible with our own, we join up with them and fall into mutually satisfying weirdness and fucked-upness, and… we call it love. True love,” she grinned. “Well. I’m dizzy, and I’ve fallen, and I can’t get up.” Finishing her unsent email, she looked back up at him, stuffing her phone into the pocket of her jeans. “That’s it.”
He couldn’t stop staring at her. He couldn’t fathom someone saying so many things in such a ridiculously flattering manner, and genuinely meaning them. By nature, Justin was a completely self-deprecating man, so to sit there and listen to all of that was a mixture of horrifying and astounding. “That was…”
“I know,” she shook her head.
“…long.”
“I know.”
“Jesus, Rie…”
“I know.”
“You’re insane.”
“I know,” she chuckled. “But I just started writing and that’s what came out.”
“And you came all the way to LA just to read it?”
“I came to LA because it’s home. And I have a deep loving, long lasting relationship with it. And I dunno, I’d… kinda like to have one with you too.”
“What about “ I mean, I thought you had issues with… stuff.”
“I do,” she admitted. “And I very well may never trust you again, but I’m willing to spend my time trying.” She sat down across from him, recreating much of the scene the last time they were together at her apartment in New York. “I love you.”
“I love you too.”
“So… I wanna try. For real,” she took his hand into hers, interlocking their fingers. “And I promise not to run at the first sign of trouble, as long as you promise not to cause any.”
He smiled that famous smile “ the one that made her keep talking when they met at that Obama fundraiser. “Are you sure about this?”
“I’m never too sure about anything,” she chuckled. “But… you’re the only person that can make my heart beat faster and slower at the same time.”
He laughed. “Is that another oxymoron?”
She nodded. “And these boxes?” she pointed to the ones that she and Jac had dropped. “I thought I could… I dunno, leave some of my stuff here. I got a couple of lamps and towels and shit in the car. That’d pretty much guarantee I won’t run away.”
“You wanna move in?” he asked hopefully.
“Well… you offered,” she grinned. “I mean, I have to be in New York part of the week for SNL, but that’s only a few months a year.”
“And when you’re not in New York, you’ll be here.”
“If you still want me,” she bit her lip. “I mean, you better still want me after all this moving shit we did.”
He chuckled heartily, looking around his halls “ their halls “ at the mess she’d made. “Wait, where are all my clothes going?”
“We’ll figure it out,” she promised. “We’ll figure it all out.”
“Yeah, I guess.” he agreed.
This was a bittersweet moment for him, because he was ecstatic about the fact that Rie was taking this giant leap with him, but he couldn’t help the fact that there was a void in his life with Jess being out of it. Yeah, definitely bittersweet.
But he tried to look at it this way: Some love stories aren’t epic novels. Some are series, some are incomplete, and some are short stories. That didn’t make them any less filled with love. He would miss Jess, for sure, but it was the end of their story. This one, the Rie and Justin series, had just begun, and he was excited, and hopeful, and absolutely terrified. So much was still unwritten. He couldn’t wait to begin.
“I think that sharing space would be good for us,” he eventually intimated. “Being closer. Being together…”
Rie crawled over to his side of the hall, sitting as close to him as she could. She held his hand tightly and rested her head on his shoulder like it was made specifically for her. They fit together so well, she knew that he was made specifically for her. This was home. “Yeah.”
Fin
Lyrics: "First Love" - Adele (19)
Author's Chapter Notes:
Okay, so this it! And I just can't thank you guys enough for sticking with me through this one. This is definitely the most emotional thing I've ever written, so thank you for hanging out through all the tears and all the squees and the hiatuses as well. 2008 was a rough year for me, so this has been a means of catharsis, and it's helped a LOT. I've had SO much fun with you guys, and I hope to see everyone again for the next adventure. But in the mean time, I really hope you like the ending... even if you wanna kill me for it! lol Love y'all. - Ash
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Ashley is the author of 8 other stories.
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Story Tags: interracial unrequited boyfriendj love fiancej vulnerablej
