Anything Goes - Part 13:
Been Here Before
Justin blinked a few times, adjusting his eyes to a bright light coming through the window. A part of him hoped that when he woke up this morning, the events of the previous night would be but a dream. But the fact that he was here in his own bed and not with Brian proved that it was real. That it really was over…again.
He swallowed hard, squeezing his eyes shut. He waited for the familiar pain to come surging through his body, but it didn’t. Instead, he felt numb…empty. And incredibly tired. All he wanted at the moment was to pull the comforter over his head and sleep all day, but that wasn’t an option. He had important things like his tuition to take care of.
Rising from his bed, he quickly got dressed before going into the bathroom.
“I figured you’d be at Brian’s all night,” Nick’s voice greeted him as soon as he came out of the bathroom.
He shot a glance at his roommate, quietly making his way to the kitchen and pouring himself the much-needed coffee.
“Hey, you alright?” Nick asked, concern evident on his face, as he joined Justin in the kitchen.
“Fine,” Justin said dryly avoiding his friend’s intense gaze. “I gotta go.”
He turned to leave, but was stopped by Nick’s hand on his arm. “Justin, what’s wrong?”
Taking a deep breath in, Justin turned around, finally allowing himself to look at his friend. Seeing the concern on Nick’s face, he sighed. He knew that not saying it out loud wouldn’t change a thing. He had learned it the first time around. “Brian and I broke up,” he uttered the familiar words quietly, surprising not only Nicholas by the news but also himself with the fact that he was still standing…whole…and not broken in pieces. He felt hollow and the words just echoed inside of him over and over again.
“I have to go,” he repeated, shrugging off Nick’s hand. Before his friend could say anything else, Justin was out the door.
~~~***~~~***~~~
Brian rolled on his side, hitting the snooze button once again. The alarm was always set to ring half an hour earlier to make room for mornings when Justin stayed over. He closed his eyes, running his hand over his face. That wouldn’t be needed anymore, now would it? Justin was not going to be staying over here. No more morning showers together. No more playing hooky from work. No more setting the alarm half an hour early.
The sharp pain he felt the night before was gone. He felt a different type of pain now. The numb, nagging pain. The one that seeps into your bones and becomes a part of you. A part of who you are. It’s with you all the time. And after a while you get used to it so much, you don’t remember what it was like to live without it.
He felt it before. All those months he lived without Justin…he felt it. And now it was back. And nothing…NOTHING gave him any hope that it would go away any time soon. He would just have learn to live with it once again. Learn to survive it. Just like he did before. And hope that maybe one day he wouldn’t feel it anymore.
But now…now he had to get up, get dressed, and go to work. Just like he had done for the past ten years. Before Justin ever came into his life and turned it upside down. The world was still turning, the sun was still shining, and life went on as usual. What he felt inside couldn’t…wouldn’t change any of it.
~~~***~~~***~~~
Justin walked through the white halls of the hospital toward the information desk. He smiled at the young nurse on the other side of the desk, waiting patiently for her to get off the phone.
“Can I help you?” she asked, hanging up.
“Could you tell me what floor Dr. Bradford’s office is on?” he asked.
“Sure,” she smiled back, typing something on the computer. Moments later she looked back at him. “Fourth. Room 4014.”
“Thank you,” he threw over his shoulder, heading for the elevators at the end of the hall.
As soon as he got out of the elevator, he saw him - the tall man in a white coat.
“Justin?” Paul smiled at him. “I was surprised to get your call.”
Justin squeezed out a smile for his mother’s boyfriend as Paul led him toward his office. Closing the door behind him, Paul motioned at one of the chairs in front of his desk, then walked around the desk and settled in the big stuffy chair by the window.
“So, what can I do for you?” he asked in a business-like voice, studying Justin’s face.
The teen squirmed in his seat, not sure about what would be the best way to start a conversation like this. He didn’t have much time and with limited options he knew he had to just go for it. “I’m sure you know that my father was loaning me money for tuition.”
“Yes, I believe Jennifer mentioned that,” Paul nodded.
Taking a deep breath in, Justin continued, “My father and I…we had an agreement. And now…I…” he stumbled to find the right words, the events of the previous night running through his head. “I…”
“You need to borrow money,” Paul finished for him.
Justin’s eyes shot up, fixing on the older man. “No,” he said firmly. “I don’t want to borrow money. I…” he exhaled sharply. “Since the semester already started I can’t apply for the student loan. My only option is a bank loan, but since I don’t have a good credit history, or any credit history for that matter, I need someone to cosign my loan.”
He saw understanding on the other man’s face.
“You want me to be that someone,” Paul stated just to make sure he understood correctly.
“I promise that I’ll pay the bank back on time. There won’t be any problems…”
“Oh, I know, Justin, you don’t have to…” Paul assured him. “Why don’t you ask your mother? I mean, if that’s all you need, just a cosigner…”
Justin shook his head. “Because mom would insist on giving me the money. And I don’t want that. She needs that money to live. For Molly and her. I know she can’t afford it.”
“Wouldn’t she insist on that anyway?” Paul asked, confused with what Justin was getting at.
Justin held the man’s stare for a moment, before looking away.
“Oh,” was the only thing Paul was able to utter.
Justin took a deep breath in. “Look, I know I’m asking for too much here.”
“You’re asking me to…”
“Lie to my mother and jeopardize your relationship,” Justin finished for him. “I know I have no right to ask you that. You are free to say ‘no’ and I will completely understand.” Justin raked his hand through his hair when the doctor hadn’t said anything. “I will tell her. But AFTER I know that I have the money. That way she won’t be able to do anything about it.”
Paul stared at Justin, studying the teen’s face. “Ok. I’ll do it,” he said after a few seconds.
Justin’s eyes widened. He half-expected Paul to tell him to get the hell out of his office. “Really?”
“Yes. I’m hoping Jen won’t be too angry. Helping her son should get me a few points, right?” Paul smiled.
Justin sighed in relief. “I’ll put in a good word for you, promise.”
“Great. Now, tell me when you want to do it.”
“Uhm…I have a class now, but maybe around two?”
Paul nodded, rising from his chair. “Ok. It’s a date.”
Justin smiled again, getting up as well, relieved that at least one of his problems was taken care of.
~~~***~~~***~~~
Brian walked inside, quickly spotting his friends at their usual booth. Sliding in next to Emmett he motioned to Debbie for coffee.
“Where’s Justin?” Emmett asked.
Making sure his face remained emotionless, Brian opened the newspaper, pretending to read the article. “How should I know?” he replied in his best nonchalant voice.
“Didn’t you go out celebrating last night?”
Brian’s body tensed up, the image of Justin walking away from him running through his mind. Celebrate? Yes, they certainly did that. Celebrated Justin turning into one big fucking liar, that’s for certain. “So?”
“Well, you and Justin and celebrating could only mean one thing.”
He knew he should have been proud of himself for having fooled his friends into thinking they knew him so well. He had worked on that for so long…lying to them for years…pretending to be somebody he wasn’t. Justin certainly did have a good teacher. He shouldn’t have been surprised. After all, Justin learned how to suck cock and fuck a virgin from him. Lying was just a part of the curriculum. “Well, you were wrong,” he replied, mocking his friend.
“What happened?” Debbie’s voice was more of a command than a question, forcing him to look up.
He arched his eyebrow, faking ignorance. But of course she knew him too well. Putting the coffee pot down on the table, she studied his face carefully. Finally, giving out a loud sigh, she shook her head. “Not again.”
“Not again what?” Michael asked, confused, as he watched his mother and his best friend’s silent conversation.
“What happened now?” Debbie demanded.
Looking down, Brian returned to reading, or pretending to, the newspaper. “Leave it alone, Deb.”
“I will NOT leave it alone! I warned you, Brian. I told you.”
Yes, of course, they all automatically thought it was him. He was the one to blame. No matter what, no matter what happened, their Sunshine was too innocent and too perfect to do anything bad. So, naturally the blame was placed on Brian. He was the asshole in the relationship. Their friends typecast them in roles they were comfortable with and for the most part it worked for everybody involved…he got to retain his reputation and they got a scapegoat. Well, not now. Now, the roles were reversed. And he’d be damned if he took the blame for this one.
Putting the paper down, he looked up at the waitress again, ignoring the three pairs of eyes fixed on him for the moment. “You want to know what happened?” he asked in a quiet, calm voice, even though inside he was reeling. His heart was pounding in his ears and his throat was so tight, it was threatening to close in on him completely. But nobody…NOBODY would know it if he had anything to say about it.
“Yes,” she replied.
“He lied to me,” he simply said.
Before the woman or any of his friends could ask him another question, Brian gathered his newspaper and coat and, throwing a couple of bucks for coffee on the table, headed toward the exit.
~~~***~~~***~~~
“Justin? What are you doing here?” Jennifer asked, surprised to see her son walking through the door in the middle of the day.
“I had some time between classes,” he explained, giving her a small peck on the cheek.
She smiled, seemingly satisfied with his reason. “You hungry?”
Justin shook his head, sitting down at the kitchen table. “Mom, I need to talk to you about something.”
He saw the alarm on her face and in the next moment she was sitting next to him, waiting to hear what he had to say. A part of him wanted to get up and make a hasty exit. But he knew he had to talk to her, tell her what he came here to say. “You know the deal that I had with dad regarding my tuition?”
She nodded.
“Well, it sort of…fell through,” he said, failing to find a better way to describe what happened. His mother didn’t know the details of the deal. And he, as well as his father, preferred it that way.
“What do you mean, it fell through?”
He looked down at his hands. “He won’t loan me the money for tuition anymore.”
“What?! That bastard!” she stood up, moving to the phone hanging on the wall. “I’m going to give him a piece of my mind once and for all.”
“Mom, no!” Justin was up and pulling the phone out of her hands in a matter of seconds. “Don’t. Please.”
Seeing the pleading look on his face, Jennifer gave in.
“It’s ok. It’s better this way. Really,” he tried his best to convince her. “I should have never asked him in the first place.”
She nodded, letting go of the phone. “How much more do you need to cover this semester?” she asked, picking up her purse from the table and digging out the checkbook.
“Don’t worry about it. It’s been taken care of.”
Pausing, she looked at him. “Taken care of? By whom? Did Brian…”
“No,” he cut her off, shaking his head.
“Then how?”
“I got a loan from the bank,” he explained.
“A loan? But how?”
Walking back over to the table, Justin sat down in the same chair he occupied moments before. “Paul helped me.”
~~~***~~~***~~~
“What?” Brian answered the phone without even looking at the number. He knew exactly who it was.
“What happened?” he heard Michael’s voice on the other end of the line.
Pushing away from the desk, Brian reclined in his chair. “I told you what happened.”
“’He lied’? That’s not an explanation, Brian.”
Breathing in sharply, Brian reminded himself that Michael was doing what a best friend was supposed to do – put his nose where it didn’t belong. “It’s the only one you’re going to get.”
“Brian,” Michael whined.
“Michael,” Brian mocked him.
“Brian, come on.”
Brian sat up in his chair. “I’m busy now, Mikey. We’ll recreate high school days after work hours, ok?”
He was about to hang up when Michael’s voice came on again. “Are you ok?”
Raking his fingers through his hair, Brian shut his eyes, waiting for another tidal wave of pain to pass. He hadn’t stopped once all day to ask himself that question. And frankly, he had no idea how to answer it. Thankfully, he had more work than he could hope for and that kept his mind off the blonde artist and on things that didn’t require his heart breaking into a million little pieces. “I’m…not sure,” he whispered into the phone.
~~~***~~~***~~~
After convincing his mother that Paul did not deserve his dick cut off and considering limiting Jennifer’s time spent with Debbie, Justin headed home. He had one more class, but the idea of sitting in a crowded auditorium listening to his professor go on about emotions and colors and technique all evening just did not appeal to him at the moment. He felt worn out and the only thing that his mind could focus on at the moment was parking his head on a pillow in his bed.
But when he finally got home, he found that he couldn’t sleep. The thoughts that he was able to avoid all day while worrying about his tuition money and classes now had free rein of his mind. He went through the day feeling completely numb, almost detached from what was happening around him.
A light tapping on the door brought him out of his thoughts. “Come in,” he called, looking up.
“Hey,” Nick’s head popped in. “You want some company?”
Half smile on his face, Justin nodded. In the next moment, Nick was sprawled on the bed next to him, two shot glasses and a bottle of scotch in his hands. Handing one glass to Justin, Nick filled them both up.
After downing a couple of shots, Nick put the bottle down, moving his attention to Justin. “So, you wanna tell me what happened? Or should I just guess?”
Justin knew it was coming. Raising his eyes to meet Nick’s, he sighed. Propping himself against the wall, he looked down at the glass in his hands. “I lied to him.”
“About what?”
“My dad. What my deal with my dad was. He asked me point blank what the catch was and I lied.”
Nicholas watched Justin, waiting for more. When nothing came, he decided to ask. “What was the catch?”
Justin swallowed hard, pulling his lower lip in between his teeth. He pondered on it, thinking back on how he could have easily avoided all of this. If he had told Brian the truth or not had gone to his father in the first place, none of it would have happened. But it was too late to play the ‘if’ game now. There was no point in that and if he had to do it over again, he probably would have done the exact same thing. “I promised him that Brian was out of my life for good. That I’d never come near him again.”
“So, you lied to both of them.”
Justin nodded. “I’m a liar.” He snickered. Ironically, it was the one thing that both Brian and his father happened to agree on. “I’m a goddamn liar.”
He felt his friend’s hand on his. Raising his eyes, he met Nick’s blue ones. “No, you’re not. You just made the wrong decision.”
A sad smile spread across Justin’s lips. “It’s ok. You don’t have to do this. You can be the ‘always tell the truth even if it hurts’ friend.”
Nick sighed, moving closer to Justin. “You fucked up,” he concluded. “You were finally making it work and you ruined it all over a few bucks.”
Justin felt his chest tighten, constricting the flow of air into his lungs. What Nick said didn’t come as a surprise. It wasn’t some breaking news. He knew it. From the instant his eyes settled on his father standing there in the entrance to the restaurant, his arm around some blonde bimbo, he knew he had fucked up. But hearing somebody else say it outloud made it so much more real for him.
“I mean, Brian’s not big on trust as it is. Then you go and cheat on him. But he still takes you back. And now you lie to him like that? I don’t know, Justin, I…”
“Ok, ok,” Justin held up his hands in the air. He’d had enough honesty for one day. “You can go back to being the supportive friend now.”
Nicholas smiled, putting his arm around Justin’s shoulder. “It’s gonna be ok. You’ll see.”
“No.” Gazing out the window, Justin shook his head. “You didn’t see him last night. He was…”
“Hurt? Angry? That’s to be expected. He just needs some time.”
Justin shook his head again. “No. It’s really over…” his voice got small as the realization of exactly what he had done washed over him like a tsunami. “…this time.” And the numbness was gone…a sharp pain coursing through his body in its place…suffocating him…the tears choking him. Squeezing his eyes shut, he willed the pain away. He wasn’t going to cry. He was NOT going to cry. He didn’t cry the last time he lost Brian. And he wasn’t now. He made his bed. Now he just had to lie in it. Alone.
Feeling his friend’s arms around him, Justin allowed himself to relax into Nick’s embrace, focusing instead on the feel of the other man’s hands running up and down his back. He closed his eyes as Nick’s fingers ran through his hair, calming him down…making him forget the pain just for a fleeting moment. His eyes fluttered open when he felt Nick’s fingers caressing his cheek. He pulled away slightly, meeting another pair of blue eyes staring back at him. And then he felt Nick’s lips on his.
Go to Part 14