Chapter Forty-Two

[Selena's POV]

The ray of sunlight shining in through the window blinds me and I turn in the bed as a soft groan escapes my lips so I am facing the other way without the sun being in my eyes. I blindly reach my arm out to Justin's side of the bed to pull him close to me, but my hand hits the mattress.

My eyes flutter open and I see Justin's side of the bed empty. I automatically start to panic a little. Not only is he not supposed to moving or else hell hurt himself more, but the last time I woke up with Justin gone it was when Ryan and Louis kidnapped me.

"Justin?" I call out for him.

No answer.

I climb out of bed and start to walk out of the bedroom when I hear footsteps walking down the hallway. A few seconds later, Justin appears and I let out a breath I didn't even know I was holding.

"Hi," Justin says, shutting the bedroom door.

"Hi." I say back.

Justin closes the gap between us and I notice he's not limping as bad as he was. Four days have passed now and his side is healing, but he's still not supposed to be moving around a lot. He's really not supposed to move at all until he's completely healed. But clearly he doesn't listen.

I get brought out of my thoughts when Justin takes my chin in between his index and thumb. My eyes meet with his as he pulls my chin up. I close my eyes when I feel his lips press against mine.

"Morning." Justin says against my lips.

"Morning," I reply softly then peck his lips. "You know you're not supposed to be moving, right? You're supposed to be resting."

"I've been resting for four days, Selena." he says annoyed.

"I know," I say as my hands rub up and down his arms. "But I still think you should rest for a couple days before you try moving around. Just to make sure your side is healed."

"My side doesn't even hurt anymore, it's just a little sore." he says, putting his hands on my hips and pulls me closer to his body. "I'm alright."

"You're so stubborn." I shake my head and smile.

"So are you, missy." he chuckles and pokes my nose.

"No I'm not." I say, crossing my arms over my chest and glare at him. "What are you doing up anyways?"

"I went downstairs to get some breakfast, but I ended up getting yelled at by Alfredo and my mom for getting up. So, I came back up here and now I'm getting yelled at by my girlfriend for getting up as well." he teases.

I punch him playfully in the chest. "I didn't yell at you. I was just telling you that you shouldn't be moving so much so you don't-"

I get cut off by Justin's lips smashing against mine. It takes me off guard for a moment, but I end up smiling into the kiss as I kiss him back. I put my hands on his chest as the kiss deepens. Justin's hands slide back behind me and I gasp into his mouth when I feel him grab my butt. He only chuckles and continues kissing me.

"I'm going to take a quick shower," Justin says against my lips. "Wanna join me?"

I shake my head quickly. "No."

"Why not?" he asks.

"I'm going to go downstairs and get some breakfast." I lie.

"Okay," Justin kisses my forehead and turns on his heels to head for the bathroom. "Look who being stubborn now." he teases and disappears into the bathroom.

I hear Justin turn on the water and I start to walk out of the bedroom, but I stop. I rub my arm as I look back towards the bathroom door.

"Fuck it," I say.

I walk inside the bathroom and Justin is already in the shower. I close the bathroom door quietly then strip out of my clothes. I look at myself in the mirror and I frown. I shake my head and take a deep breath. I count to three in my head before I walk over and push the shower curtain over before stepping inside the shower.

Justin has his back turned to me, but when he heard me move the shower curtain he turned around to face me. I keep my arms crossed and stand awkwardly to try and cover up my body. I know he's seen me naked before, but that's not why I'm keeping my body hidden from him.

"You scared me." Justin says, then he raises and eyebrow at me when he notices how I'm keeping my body covered. "Baby, I've seen you naked before. It's okay." He reaches his hand out and grabs my wrist. He tries to uncross my arms, but I pull my arm away from him. "Sel, what's wrong?"

He has to see what they did to me.

I bite my lip as I slowly uncross my arms. I watch as Justin's eyes widen then I quickly break eye contact with him and look down at the shower floor.

All over my body are bruises. There's a few small ones going up both my arms, but all over my legs are huge ones. Some have been there since the first day that I was stuck in the warehouse and others are just now surfacing from the damage that Ryan and Liam have done to me. On my stomach are even bigger bruises from where they had kicked and punched me. Then on the back of my shoulders and on my back are smaller ones. 

My whole body is basically just one huge bruise.

The slightest touch to my skin hurts. When I move, my whole body hurts. I didn't want to tell Justin, but every time he'd hold me tighter at night as we slept he was hurting me. I couldn't tell him or else he'd never touch me again, and I couldn't hurt him like that.

"I didn't want to show you, but I knew you had to see what they did to me." I say, keeping my eyes down away from him.

"Selena," Justin says and I slowly pick my head up to make eye contact with him. "Why didn't you at least tell me about all of this?"

I shrug. "I-I don't know." I answer truthfully.

Justin reaches his hand over to my arm and his fingertips gently brush over the bruised skin. I bite my lips as even his gentle touch hurts. His eyes scan up and down my bruised and he shakes his head in disgust. His hand moves down and his fingers run over one of the bigger bruises that I have on my side. I try to hold in a wince, but I fail. Justin's eyes immediately look up at me.

"Does it hurt?" he asks and I nod my head. "Have I been hurting you?" I wanted to say no, but I couldn't lie to him. I slowly nod my head again and he takes a step back from me.

"Justin," I say and reach out for him, but he takes another step back.

"Why didn't you tell me I was hurting you?!" he raises his voice which makes me jump.

"If I had told you, you would never want to touch me again!" I say.

"God damnit Selena!" Justin shouts at me before he sends an unexpected punch to the shower wall behind me which makes me yelp out of fear. "I was hurting you even more and you didn't say a fucking thing! Why didn't you tell me?!"

I felt like crawling into a hole right about now. Not only did I feel bad about telling Justin about the bruises and him hurting me, but he was scaring me. I've seen him mad before, but this was different. Instead of him being mad at someone else, he was mad at himself.

I look into Justin's eyes and I could see the anger rising inside of him. But then his eyes suddenly soften. He moves away from me before he suddenly turns off the water and steps out of the shower. I watch as he grabs a towel and walks out of the bathroom.

I lean my head back against the shower wall. I knew what Justin was going to do to himself now, and it's the exact reason why I never wanted him to know about this in the first place. He was going to hate on himself and become distant from me. But I wasn't about to let him do this.

Stepping out of the shower, I quickly grab a towel and wrap it around me before I walk out into the bedroom. Justin is standing in front of his dresser searching through the drawers to find something to wear. I walk over to his side and hesitantly put my hand on his shoulder.

"Justin, look at me." I say.

Justin slams the drawer closed and looks at me. "Leave me alone." he snaps.

He starts to walk away from me, but I grab his wrist and stop him. He glares at me and tries to free his wrist from my hold which only results in me tightening my grip. I make still be a little weak, but I'm not bound to let him walk away from me.

"I'm not going to let you beat yourself up or let you distance yourself from me all because of this, Justin." I say. "It's not going to happen, no matter how hard you try. I won't let you."

"I was hurting you, Selena!" he shouts.

"You weren't doing it on purpose!" I shout back. Justin opens his mouth to say something but ends up siding against it and stays silent. He looks away from me and I sigh. I let go of his wrist and close the gap between us and he keeps his eyes away from mine as I look at him. I wrap my arms around him and hug him, but he doesn't move. He doesn't wrap his arms around me and just stands there. I pull away from him. "So you're never going to touch me again?"

"I-I can't," Justin says, shaking his head. "Not while you're hurt like this. I won't let myself hurt you even more."

I chew on the inside of my chew then an idea comes to mind. I take my hand and cup Justin's cheek before my lips start leaving small kisses down along his jawline. Justin leans his head back a little, but he quickly snaps out of it and backs away from me.

"Justin-" I start to say, but he cuts me off.

"Don't, Selena." he says sternly.

I ignore him and close the gap between us again. I peck his lips in a kiss and run my hands up and down his arms. I look into Justin's eyes before I start kissing along his collarbones. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see him chewing on his bottom lip and he looks away from me. I kiss his cheek which makes him look at me again. I keep my eyes locked with his as I slowly kiss down the middle of his chest and down his stomach until I reach the top of his towel then leave kisses back up his body until I'm eye level with him again.

"It's okay," I say and rest my forehead against his. "You won't hurt me, I promise."

"But-" Justin goes to say something, but I cut him off.

"Sh," I say. "You won't."

I hesitantly reach my hands down and untie the towel from around Justin's waist. I let it fall to the floor and I look into Justin's eyes. He looks at me unsure, so I cup his face in my hands and press my lips against his. I kiss him softly, and I feel Justin slowly place his hands on my hips. He kisses me a littler rougher and I feel butterflies start to rise in my stomach.

But in a blink of an eye, everything changed.

"No, stop." Justin says, pushing me gently back off of him. "I can't do this."

Justin bends down and grabs his towel and wraps it back around his waist. I hold my towel tighter around my exposed body as he brushes past me and opens the drawer to the dresser. He pulls out some random clothes and I watch as he quickly dresses himself. 

Feeling suddenly unwanted, I make my way into the bathroom and shut the door behind me. I stand in front of the mirror and remove the towel from around my body. I look at my body and see just how bad I really look. I feel my eyes water and I cover my mouth with my hand as a soft sob escapes my mouth. I know Justin doesn't want to touch me because he's afraid he'll hurt me, but now I also think it's because of how bad I look.

I close my eyes and a few tears slip down my face. My eyes snap back open though when I feel a pair of arms wrap around my waist. I look in the mirror and see Justin standing behind me.

"I didn't mean to make you upset," Justin says softly.

"I'm hideous." I cry.

Justin furrows his eyebrows together. "What are you talking about?" he asks.

"Look at me!" I raise my voice through a sob as I turn around in his arms and another tear slips down my face. "I have bruises all over me. I'm ugly, Justin. And that's why you won't touch me now."

"Selena," Justin pushes a lock of my hair behind my ear. "You're still beautiful no matter what. I don't care if yo have bruises all over your body, or if you have a black eye, or anything. You're still the most beautiful woman I have ever laid eyes on." He kisses my forehead and his lips linger for a few moments. "I'm just cautious about touching you now because I don't want to hurt you. Not because I think you're 'ugly', cause I don't. You're beautiful, Selena. And I'll tell you that a thousand times over and over again until you believe it if I have to."

I feel the corners of my mouth tug up into a smile. I take the back of my hand and wipe away my tears. Justin kisses my cheek multiple times and pulls me close to his body.

"Thank you," I say softly.

"I'm just telling you the truth, Selena." Justin says. "You're beautiful, and I won't let anyone tell you different or let you think differently."

"I love you." I say, wrapping my arms around his neck.

"I love you more." he replies.

Justin gently presses his lips against mine and I kiss back softly. He pulls away after a minute and he takes my hands in his. Our fingers intertwine and he rests his forehead against mine. I don't know how long it was, but we stood in the bathroom with Justin softly whispering how much he loved me and repeating over and over again how beautiful I am until we finally headed back into the bedroom.

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~ Author's Notes ~

This chapter really sucked, sorry... :/

Next chapter though, I have a feeling you guys aren't going to be so happy with someone because of what they do.

But what do you guys think will happen? Do you think Louis or Alfredo will do something, or maybe even Justin?

(P.S. - please make sure you vote for the chapter and leave your thoughts/opinions/comments for me! love you guys xo <3)