Jawbreaker

I didn’t love Justin. I never did, and chances were, I never could.

So why did I continue to date him?

Because, I didn’t know any better.

In the beginning, there were plenty of moments that I thought I was in love with him. I thought he was the most amazing person ever. I thought that what we had was real, more honest and pure than I could have imagined.

I was naïve to believe that.

I convinced myself that I was happiest with him. I convinced myself that he treated me like I was a queen. I convinced myself that being in a relationship with him was what I wanted. And at one point, I did want him. I wanted all of him.

I wanted him and his heart.

He was different at first.

He was kind and sweet. He treated me like no other girl he knew. During late nights I’d be sitting in my room and then I’d hear the engine of a car outside, only to pull back my shades and see that Justin was outside, parked on the street. Waiting for me.

He was romantic at first.

I never shared my Harry Potter obsession with him before. But the night before Valentine’s day, he handed me a paper bag. I didn’t understand what it was at first until I pulled out the box. I almost screamed the moment I saw the gold time turner laying there. It was the most beautiful piece of jewelry that I had ever seen. And all I could think of was, how had he known?

I thought I loved him then.

But the truth was, I never loved him.



“FOLDS!”

Noah turned around to look at me.

He clutched his water bottle to his chest and whispered, “My bad, Lucy…”

My front was drenched with water. During Noah’s gesticulations, he ended up throwing his entire water bottle on me.

I glared at him, and got up from the lunch table. Bridget grabbed my arm and said, “Let me help you with that, I probably have a spare top in my gym bag--”

I brushed her off. “Forget it. It’s just water.”

She let go of my sleeve, a little taken aback by my tone of voice.

I sent another glare in Noah’s direction before stalking off to the bathroom. He followed me, leaving his group of friends.

“Listen, Lucy, I’m reeaaal sorry. I didn’t even see you there! I didn’t think I would have been able to launch such a water rocket on you. I just got really excited, ya know? I was telling Billie Jean about this one time that my brother and I drove down to Athens and we got lost on the way and there was this gang of hoodlums that were pissed off because we were blasting Passion Pit and--”

I turned on him. He stopped abruptly.

“Noah,” I began, “I don’t give a fuck what you and your brother were doing one day, and I don’t care about Passion Pit. So please, just leave me alone!”

I stepped forward in his direction to get him to back off when I felt something fall.

“You dropped something,” announced Noah.

I looked down and watched as he swooped in and picked up the missing object before I even realized what it was.

It was a round golden piece with an hourglass in the middle.

I touched my neck and noticed that my time turner was missing the middle piece.

Time was precious.

I wanted to turn back the hourglass, hoping that we could go back in time.

We were running out of time.

I took the broken piece out of Noah’s hand.

My feelings ran it’s course.

And now it was over.