Come Back
With a flick of his thumb, Justin turned off his cell, letting his neck go limp as he laid his head back on his pillow.
It had been twelve hours since JC left.
Twelve hours of misery for Justin. Twelve hours of wondering where he was, and if he was all right.
He picked up his cell again, dialing JC’s number.
“This is JC. Leave a message.”
“Please, JC,” was all Justin whispered before hanging up the phone and closing his eyes, finally falling asleep.
***
JC lay awake, staring at the spider making its way across the dirty ceiling. He’d checked into some dingy motel room in…what city was he in anyway? He really didn’t even know, or care for that matter.
He’d finally turned his cell phone off after Justin’s eighteenth call. It was getting too hard to fight the urge to answer, so he’d shut it off and shoved it deep into his bag, trying his best to forget about it.
The spider stopped right above him, and he scrunched his nose, rolling off of the bed and trudging to the bathroom.
He looked in the mirror, at his red, puffy eyes, his disheveled hair, the scruff on his chin. His heart ached, his eyes burned, and his head pounded. He was a mess.
Inside and out.
“Please,” he whispered to the empty room. “Please, someone make it go away.”
He tripped on his bag on the way back to bed, and he cursed at himself under his breath as he reached in and fished out his phone.
It beeped loudly when he turned it on.
“You have 14 new messages.”
He blinked once, then twice.
He was willing to bet a large sum of money that every message was from Justin.
Instead of retrieving his messages, he tossed the phone aside and continued to stare a the ceiling. The spider had moved on, to a far corner of the wall, and he found himself focusing on it until his eyelids became heavy.
As his eyes drifted shut, a flash of Justin’s face appeared in his mind.
He shook his head lightly, fighting the image.
Blue eyes.
Dirty blond curls.
Full pink lips.
Bright white teeth.
“Justin,” he breathed. “Please, Justin.”
The ringing of the phone jarred him from his light state of slumber, and he stared at the face as it blinked Justin over and over.
He didn’t answer, but reached for the phone and dialed his voice mail, not even bothering to listen to the messages.
He deleted them one by one, getting irritated by the time he reached thirteen.
But this one made him stop. His stomach jumped and his heart twisted when he heard the urgency in Justin’s voice.
“JC, it’s me. God, Jayce, please call me back.”
Delete.
“Please, JC.”
Delete.
“I love you. Please, JC. Please come back to me.”