~ Chapter 54: Walk The Distance  ~

[ Jackie’s POV: ]

My feet began moving on their own.

Tyler or Justin?

Justin or Tyler?

I was debating the thoughts quickly in my head and, before I even realized it, I was running towards the direction Tyler left to. I quickly glanced back to see Justin was still in the process of leaving the park and I let out a frustrated sigh.

“I told you not to follow me,” Tyler stopped and looked at me.

“I know, but… I don’t want you to be angry with me,” I said in a tiny voice.

“Who said I was angry with you?”

“I think it’s obvious within itself,” I bit my lip, shifting my weight from one foot to the other. “But anyways, I wanted to just make sure.. that you weren’t mad at me, even though I know you are.”

“Jackie, I’m not—”

“And I hope you understand my reasonings, but I also want to ask of you if you can come over sometime and I’ll explain everything, I promise,” I said persuasively.

“I don’t know yet,” he sighed.

“—And that’s okay,” I reassured him. “I’ll give you time to think about it but know that my offer still stands.”

And with that, I gave Tyler a goodbye kiss on the cheek before running the other way as if my life depended on it. I could still see Justin nearing the exit, but I wasn’t ready to let him just walk away from me like that.

What kind of belieber would I be?

“Justin!” I shouted, “Wait! Please!”

I watched as he stopped and turned around, confused as to what was happening. I don’t know if I was imagining things or not, but when he saw it was me, I thought I saw his eyes sparkle, just a little bit.

“What’s wrong?” he asked me. “Weren’t you with, uh.. Tyler?”

“That doesn’t matter right now,” I panted, trying to catch my breath from that marathon I just ran. “Justin, I need to talk to you.”

“That’s funny,” he chuckled, “‘Cause I need to talk to you too.”

I felt a smile forming in my face as I gazed into his eyes.

“Let’s go somewhere else, though,” he said. “I’m tired of hiding myself in this hoodie.”

I let out a small laugh and nodded. “Okay. Is my house good?”

He nodded and looked around, examining the park before looking back at me. “Did you come here in a car?”

“Yeah, Tyler’s,” I said.

“Is that so?” he hummed, seeming deep in thought about something. “Looks like we’re gonna have to walk there.”

My eyes widened. “You didn’t come here by car?”

He shook his head. “I intentionally take walks when I’m deep in thought about stuff. It helps clear my head.”

“Oh,” I breathed, looking up to see him reaching his hand out towards me. There was a cute smile planted on his face as he waited for me to grab it.

“Come on,” he said softly. “It’s a long way to go.”

I tried hard not to blush but, to be honest, I didn’t think it was working. I shyly took his hand and he squeezed it gently, pulling me forwards to get me to start walking. I tried to ignore how fast my heart was beating as I looked down at our hands intertwined with each others’.

“How about we begin this talk while we walk all the way back?” he suggested, pulling me closer so our shoulders would occasionally bump.

“Okay,” I blushed, “Umm… You start?”

“Sure,” his voice became softer. “I’ll start with what I was trying to tell you back there, but couldn’t finish.”

I nodded, knowing he was referring to when Tyler interrupted us.

“I was trying to say that…” he paused. “I wasn’t very open with you. And I treated you in ways I wouldn’t have treated you if I had my head screwed on right. I haven’t really shared much of this with anyone but I trust you, Jackie.” He kept his eyes looking forward as he spoke, his thumb gently stroking my hand. “There are dark times I fall into sometimes and it’s usually hard. I push away the people I most care about more than not, and I’d lash out at things that make me the least bit irritated. I'm just sorry you had to come into my life at a time like that. If it were any other time, I wouldn’t have lost control and snapped at you at times that weren’t appropriate. I also suspected you might’ve thought I didn’t care about you when I left on tour. But the truth is that you were constantly on my mind every day—sometimes without me even realizing it until I’ve accidentally spoken your name out loud.”

I looked down at the floor as we continued to walk together, silently taking in everything he was saying.

“I feel like myself around you. I feel like the old me, who didn’t have all this overwhelming stress in his shoulders. You make me feel like me again. I find myself smiling when I normally wouldn’t be. And I don’t have to fake being happy when I’m with you, ‘cause I know if there was something wrong, you’d listen to me and you’d try whatever you can to help me out,” he said, and I could feel the honesty in his voice. “There’s been times where I’d wonder why I can’t get you off my head. But I’ve spent so many hours of my life trying to falsely reason everything or ignoring what was right in front of me, yet I couldn’t help but notice… I’m in love with you, Jackie,” he admitted, my stomach swarming with butterflies. “And I have been for a while now, it just took me time to actually realize it.”

When I looked over at him, I saw he was staring straight into my eyes. We had stopped walking and were now standing on the pavement, gazing at each other. For a minute there, I thought he was going to kiss me. I could read it in his eyes that he wanted to, but he didn’t.

“You don’t have to reply to that,” he whispered, “I just want to let you know how I feel.” He tugged on my hand and we were back to walking forwards again.

“But Justin…” I murmured softly. “I’ve.. always been in love with you.”

I felt his body slightly getting tense, as if he couldn’t believe that I actually feel the same way.

“I just didn’t know if I could call it real,” I admitted. “Because, honestly, I’m pretty sure most of your beliebers feel like they’re truly in love with you. That they love everything about you, and would do anything to make you happy, but… Then they realize they’re just a fan behind a computer screen. That you don’t know they even exist. Some of them start wondering if you’re even real because they think wow he’s so perfect, how can someone like this actually exist. Some of us are honest with ourselves. We pursue our feelings and realize we’ve fallen in love with this person whom we don’t know if we’ll ever meet. So how can we truly be in love if we’ve never even met him?” I stopped speaking for a second, glancing at Justin before asking, “Do you get what I’m saying?”

Justin squeezed my hand again, slightly nodding.

“But then I actually met you,” I continued, “And you were as perfect as I imagined you to be. Even through what you called your ‘dark times’ I thought you were amazing. In my eyes, your flaws only made me love you more than I ever thought was possible. I fell in love all over again, except this time I could actually have a conversation with you. One where I didn’t have to tweet you a million times without you noticing. One where you acknowledged my presence and that I was actually there and standing right in front of you. I noticed that, no matter what the circumstances, I’ll always fall in love with you. Whether we somehow get reborn and meet in the future, or even somehow reincarnate and come back as frogs. I’d still somehow find you and I’ll always fall in love with you. That’s one thing I’m certain of.”

Though it was for a second, I caught Justin blushing, his cute cheeks turning a light red. It was silent for a split second before Justin’s laugh filled the air, and I felt my heart being lifted.

“What’s so funny?” I playfully bumped into his shoulder.

“You’re so cute,” he whispered.

My eyes widened and I felt my skin getting hot. Yup, I was definitely blushing.

“W-What?”

“Nothing,” he bit his lip as an attempt to hide his smile. “So does this mean you forgive me?”

I furrowed my eyebrows. “For what?”

“You know exactly what.”

“Um, the whole pushing-me-away thing?” I asked.

“Mhm.”

“If you promise you won’t do it again.”

Justin’s smile faded. It was silent again, the sound of our footsteps filling in the lack of conversation.

“I can’t promise you that,” he sighed sadly. “You said it yourself, I told you that I was gonna push you away a lot but that I wanted you never to give up on me. I guess you kept your promise, but I don’t want to give you a promise I don’t think I can keep. I don’t know when I’m gonna fall into those times where I feel like no one’s there and I put up a nasty attitude. You’ll just end up hating me if I promise you I won’t do it again.”

“I see..” I whispered, staring at the ground again.

“That doesn’t mean I want to do it. I don’t mean to intentionally push people away. It’s something I want to improve on,” he admitted.

“I can help you,” I quickly suggested. Justin looked at me in confusion, so I decided to elaborate. “You said you get like this when you feel hopeless, right? Well then it’s simple; all I have to do is make sure you never feel that way.”

“If anyone can do it, it’s you, Jackie,” he spoke softly. “You already mean the world to me in such a short amount of time.”

“Is that so?” I blushed. “Because that’s the same way I feel about you.”

Justin chuckled and bumped shoulders with me the way I had previously done to him. I let out a loud laugh and bumped him back, and we continued to playfully bump down the streets, laughing and talking without once breaking apart from the grasp our hands had on each other.

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Oooooh Justin and Jackie sitting on a tree…. ;)

How’d you guys like the chapter? It was fun writing it, I’ll tell you that. And happy (late) 4th of July to all my American readers :)

Love you all! <3

- Nina xx