Total pages in book: 75
Estimated words: 90410 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 452(@200wpm)___ 362(@250wpm)___ 301(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 90410 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 452(@200wpm)___ 362(@250wpm)___ 301(@300wpm)
When the minute was up, Justin wiped his lips with the back of his hand and came back over to me. I wouldn’t even look at him. I knew I shouldn’t have been mad, but my feelings were out of my control.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
I continued to look down at my shoes. “Let’s just go.”
He followed me. “Patch…it’s just a game.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
We started the quiet and awkward walk home. I stopped suddenly in the middle of the sidewalk and turned to him. “Why didn’t you just answer the question?”
He just looked at me for the longest time before admitting, “I didn’t know what to say.”
“What do you mean?”
“If I said no, your feelings would have been hurt. If I said yes…then things would be weird between us. And I don’t want that. Ever.”
“Was she your first kiss?”
He hesitated, looking up at the dark sky, then whispered, “No.”
I shook my head and started to walk ahead of him. It felt like I didn’t know him anymore.
“Patch, come on. Don’t do this.”
Tears started falling. I was crying, and I couldn’t even pinpoint exactly why. That was the first time I realized that I’d fallen in love with him. I loved Justin. More than a friend, more than anything. I was so mad at myself.
My biggest fear was losing him. It hit me that it was going to happen someday.
Maybe it was already happening.
CHAPTER 5
A week later, and Justin had practically become a local star in Newport overnight. The crowd at Sandy’s was nearly double what it had been before he became the nightly entertainment. Of course, the newest patrons were primarily young women who had heard about the hot new headlining guitarist.
One late afternoon, Jade and I were just headed out the door to work when her cell phone rang. “Shit. Hold up. It’s my agent,” she said.
I waited in the doorway for her to take the call.
After a few seconds, her hands started trembling. “You’re kidding. You’re kidding!” Jumping up and down, she covered her mouth. “Oh my God. Oh my God! Yes, of course, I can.” Finally, she just let out a yelp of excitement. “Thank you, Andy. Thank you for letting me know! Oh my God. So, what’s next? Okay. Okay. I’ll call you tonight,” she said before hanging up.
“What’s going on?”
Jade let out a scream of joy and pulled me into a hug, her boney frame pressing against my ample chest.
“I got the part of understudy for a pretty big role in The Phenomenals…on Broadway! It was one of the two auditions I had last week. I had thought it was a longshot. My agent wasn’t even going to send me initially!” When she let out another loud squeal, Justin came downstairs.
“What the hell is going on down here?”
She ran toward him and threw herself into his arms. “Baby! I got understudy for the role of Veronica in The Phenomenals!”
“Are you kidding? Holy shit. That’s fucking awesome!” He lifted her up in the air and spun her around.
Feeling awkward and like a third wheel, I cleared my throat and said, “Congratulations, Jade. I’m so happy for you!”
Justin finally put her down. “When does this all go down?”
“They want me in New York in a couple of days.”
He looked frazzled. “Aw, shit. Alright…um…I wish I hadn’t committed to that gig at Sandy’s. I would have just gone back with you.”
“It’s okay. It’s only a couple more weeks that you promised him, right? It’ll go by fast.”
“Yeah.”
Jade smiled. “Be nice to Amelia.”
***
From the moment Jade left, Justin made even more of an effort to stay in his room during the day and also ignored me at the restaurant. He never performed She Likes To Watch again.
Aside from my intentionally joining him in the kitchen when I knew he was having his coffee, there was no other interaction. It seemed that Jade’s departure was causing even more distance between us. It went on like that for a few days until the one afternoon that everything changed.
I’d just gotten home from an afternoon shift at Sandy’s when what sounded like wretched hurling coming from upstairs caught my attention. Without thinking it through, I ran up the steps to find Justin keeled over with his face inside the toilet.
“Oh my God, are you throwing up?”
“Nah. I’m giving cunnilingus to the toilet. What the fuck do you think?”
“Did you eat something bad?”
He shook his head before another volcano of puke erupted within him. Looking away, I shut my eyes until he was finished.
“Can I get you any—”
“Just go, Amelia.” He flushed the toilet.
There was something about a person being sick and helpless that made you see the child in them. Despite Justin’s trying to act tough, he seemed virtually helpless in that moment.
“Are you sure I can’t get you—”
“Leave!” My body shook as he screamed.
As another round of vomiting commenced, I reluctantly went back downstairs.
After several minutes, I could hear him returning to his bedroom. I stayed downstairs for about an hour. Things were unusually quiet. On a normal day, he’d be moving around in his room, so I knew he’d either fallen asleep or was lying down. Being the paranoid person that I was, I started to imagine that maybe he’d passed out from dehydration. He hadn’t come down to get a drink of water. Given all that he’d thrown up, that was dangerous.
I sucked it up and marched up the stairs. Lightly knocking on his door, I didn’t bother to wait for him to respond before entering. “Justin?”
He was lying on his side, his head against the pillow, and his eyes were open. He just stared at me blankly, but his eyes seemed glassy.
“Are you okay?”
“No.”
Without seeking permission, I approached and placed my hand on his forehead. It felt hot to the touch. “You’re burning up. We need to take your temperature.”
I ran to the bathroom and fished through the medicine cabinet for a thermometer before returning to Justin.
“Put this in your mouth.”
He chuckled. “That’s normally my line.”