Equilibrium: 3: Bow Bridge.

OMFG. I was gonna post an hour and a half ago but my computer decided to be slow af so your long awaited chapter is finally here! Hopefully you like it!

I'll be posting every Sunday at 9:00pm CDT (Central Daylight Time). If you don't know what time that will be wherever you are you can go on google so that you know when to expect it! Or just comment and ask and I'll tell you in my next post(:

Also, 25 COMMENTS GUYS?! OMG I feel so happy inside I could diiiieeee but then I couldn't write do I won't die yet. If you guys did that again I swear I'd flip a tit. You guys have no idea how much it means when you comment!

Okay this is just a goal for now... 20 comments by the next chapter?

Okay first I'll answer some questions..

Q: Is (YN) going to do drugs or drink alcohol?

A: I'm gonna make this answer as simple as possible... Not intentionally.

Q: Can you post sooner than Sunday?

A: I'm so sorry that I can't post more often! I don't have very much time):

Q: Howl old is (YN)?

A: You are 17 silly!

Q: Can you upload the next chapter?

A: Here you go(:

3:

 

OUCH!

I tossed and turned in bed, with my eyes still closed. God, the ache that invaded my head was excruciating. I pulled the comforter over my head to block out the sun but it seemed to seep through. Ugh.

I got up anyways and went to the bathroom. I took a pee and looked at myself in the mirror. Damn, I was a hot mess. My makeup was smudged and my hair was a complete rat’s nest. Last night must’ve been crazier than I remembered.

I headed out to the kitchen and grabbed a glass of water. Nothing acidic would help my aching head at a time like this. I drank more than I thought last night. I definitely did NOT have a hangover; my head just hurt a lot for some reason. Maybe Bri would know why.

I glanced into the living room to see Bri passed out on the couch with a small thin blanket draped over her. Her hair and face looked like mine: messy. But she still had on her dress; I was in pajamas and a sports bra. I didn’t even remember coming home last night or even changing… I just laughed and shook my head.

“Are you laughing at me?” I heard a muffled voice.

I looked down at her and rolled my eyes. I sat on her feet and she groaned louder than she spoke before.

“I was indeed laughing at you. You’re a hot mess.” I smiled.

“Hey, at least I’m hot.”

And that’s why I loved Bri. She always looked at the good in things rather than the bad. She sat up next to me with her phone in her hands and her eyes wide.

“What?” I said.

“The guy I met at the bar last night… HE FUCKING TEXTED ME! God he was so hot... I don’t know his name but he’s hot as fuck.”

“Oh, I was worried for a second. I never got anybody’s number last night.” I sighed. It’s not like I was currently searching for a relationship but it would be nice to have a guy with me to protect and love me. What straight single girl doesn’t want that?

“What about that T- Twa- Twi-“

“Twist,” I corrected her, “his name was Twist, I think. And yeah he was pretty hot but I don’t think that he’s my type.” I lied.

Brianna stared at me dumbly. I didn’t know what she was thinking but I knew that it was something I might not like very much.

“What? What!? WHAT?! BRI!” I yelled because she wasn’t answering.

“I saw the look in your eyes last night when you saw him, I may have been wasted off my ass but I’m not blind sweetie.”

“Saw who?” I said. I really had no idea who she was talking about. I didn’t recall looking at any guy in any way last night. And I didn’t know how Brianna would remember, she was drunk and she was bad with names.

“I think his name was Jake. No Jesse... Just kidding I’m pretty sure that it was Jeremy. Yup, definitely Jeremy. Do you remember Jeremy?”

I groaned, keeping my eyes closed thinking that it would ease the pain hopefully in some type of way. Wait, I wasn’t in pain anymore. I flexed my fingersannnnddd yup there’s the pain. My finger was cut, but it felt bandaged. I groaned and moved my head from side to side feeling a light pat on my cheeks.

“(YN), please wake up, we need to go home.” Bri’s soft voice cooed through my ears.

…

I sat up on the desk and searched my mind for a reason that I could be in this room with Twist, some other guy, and Bri. I was so confused about all of this; this whole situation was fucked up.

Twist explained everything to me after I hopped down from the desk. Bri had tears streaming down her face. The other guy looked worried. And Twist looked relieved. I kept zoning in and out and I blocked out more than half of his words, lost in my own thoughts.

I stared down at my hand and turned it over and then back, “Who did this?”

“Justin did. Don’t blame me, I didn’t do it.”

I cocked my head to the side, “Justin?”

“Me.”

I peered through the darkness of the shadows to see a shirtless guy standing in the corner of the room, backed up against the wall. He stepped out to reveal himself and although I couldn’t completely identify who he was, I knew that he was the most beautiful boy I’d ever seen in my life. His skin was the perfect shade of tan and his muscles were perfectly defined on every single inch of his body. His eyes were piercing even though I only took a few seconds to examine them. He didn’t look so hot; he looked like he was struggling to keep himself together. To keep himself from breaking into pieces, delicate, complex, pieces.

“Th-Thanks.” I stuttered.

Dumb. Dumb. Dumb. I hung my head and my hair fell over my face to hide myself from embarrassment. I already looked dumb in front of this amazing, amazing boy who I didn’t even know. I barely even saw him and I felt something tingling inside of my chest that screamed out a cry from him.

Memories. Memories. Memories. They all kept flooding into my head. Different parts of the night came in at different points and it all came together. His name was definitely not Jeremy, but Bri triggered something.
“Justin.” I whispered to myself.

“What’d you say?”

“Nothing. I didn’t say anything.” I shook myself out of my little trance and smiled slightly towards Bri. I had only one thought on my mind and that thought happened to be Justin.

Everything about him (at least the things I saw) wasengraved into my mind. I’d never felt this way about a guy I knew little about. Okay I didn’t even know a little about him, I knew his name, and that was it. And as for now, that was going to be the only thing I ever knew about him. Honestly, I’d never felt this way about seeing a guy. I mean I- it was incredible. I didn’t want to feel like that ever again. I promise myself, (YN) (YLN), to never EVER see or mention Justin again. I had a feeling that this boy was going to be my poison.

“I need to eat something; do you wanna go to Starbucks?” I asked to get my mind off of things.

“How about we stay here. My hangover isn’t for the whole ‘Starbucks’ thing.”

I laughed and stood up and went to the kitchen to make myself some coffee instead. I had a little obsession…

I sat down with my cup of coffee and we watched the news- cartoons-

“Bri stop changing the channel!”

“Chill! Actually,” She said shooting up from her seat, “Let’s watch movies! It’ll be like a relaxing and calming day before school starts! My junior year in college and your junior year in high school, ah I can see it now.”

“I’m already a senior-“

“Oh yeah I forgot. You’re smart!” Bri teased me. “Anyways the glamorous lifestyles we will be living in 2013 will be uuncomparable to what happened this year. We are gonna have a blast! I can’t wait!”

“I won’t be partying so much with school and stuff-“

“Oh (YN), did you forget? We are doing ONLINE school. Online school means freedom, and I can already taste it.”

Bri went on fantasizing about our little ‘adventures’ we would have in 2013. She was more excited than I was, that was for sure. Tomorrow was my first day doing online school and I had no idea what to expect. Bri made it out to be the best choice I’d ever make but I wasn’t so sure…

“I’ll make some popcorn and get us some ice cream, do you wanna get some movies ready?” Bri said.

“Sure.” I agreed.

I crawled up to my huge cabinet of movies and named them off for Bri to choose. I’d seen them all so I left it up to her to choose.

“21 Jump Street, Bridesmaids, Crazy Stupid Love, any Disney Movie-“

“Wait!” Bri interrupted me for the thousandth time, “Do you have In Time with Justin Timberlake?”

“I think so.” I said, the name Justin echoing throughmy mind like crazy. Just when I thought I’d gotten him off my damn mind…

“Hook it up girl!”

I shook my head and rolled my eyes. I had no idea how she had more energy than me and Shadow combined. I found the DVD and put it in the Blu-Ray player. I hadn’t watched this movie in such a long time; I forgot that I even had it. But it was honestly one of my favorite.

I grabbed my duvet off of my bed and dragged it to the couch where Bri was waiting with a huge bowl of popcorn in her lap, two tubs of ice cream (literally), and two unopened mountain dews awaiting my arrival. I sat down and she placed the bowl between us and I clicked play on the movie. Of course we had to sit through previews of movies we’d already seen, so Bri typed away to her boy toy on her phone. I still had no idea what had happened to my phone; it was probably in my room somewhere. But I literally had no use for it right now so there was no point to grab it anyways.

After Bri sent a text, we sat around talking about last night and discussing next weekend already.

“So next weekend I was thinking that we could go to a different club… somewhere like-“

“No,” I interrupted her rudely, “I’m not going clubbing ever, ever again. Never EVER.”

I laid my head on the table and closed my eyes thinking. Last night was my first time clubbing with Bri and everything that could go wrong did exactly just that. I was not about to go to a different club to have the same thing happen again. Resting for a minute, or a day, or maybe even a month, was all I needed right now. I just needed to think about things without Brianna talking again-

“Um (YN).”

“Bri,” I said sinking back into the couch, “Don’t try to convince me to go to the fucking club. I’m sorry but it’s not going to work this time.”

She looked at me with her arms folded across her chest. “First of all you will be clubbing with me again. Maybe not next weekend but you will so shut up. And second, why do you keep calling me?”

I gave her a funny look. I didn’t even have my phone on me- OH MY GOD. Someone broke into my house and must’ve taken it or something while I was sleeping or… or I left it at the club! This was not good and this day just kept on getting worse. I started panicking and ran to my room and started tearing it apart looking for my phone. Not under the bed… not on the dresser…where the hell did it go?! I stood up and ran my fingers through my hair in frustration. I walked back to the living room to see Bri holding the phone up to her ear.

“H-Hello… Yeah this is Brianna, how do you know my name?…” She stood there nodding her head in return to the person on the phone. I was really worried by this point. This meant that someone else out there in NEW YORK CITY had my damn phone.

“Oh um one second,” she pulled the phone away from her face to talk to me, “This guy’s name is Justin. Do you know a Justin?”

Sudden flashes of gold and brown ran through my mind. Those eyes. My face froze and I swallowed hard.Bri handed me the phone and I held it in my hands andput it up to my ear. I could hear a steady breathing on the other line while mine was out of control. I swallowed hard and closed my eyes. Why are you so nervous? I asked myself. Stop. He’s just some random guy. Stop having feelings for him. And what if it wasn’t that Justin?

“Hello? Is this (YN) from last night?” a cool, calm, and collected voice came from the other line. It definitely was that Justin. I almost died right there just from the sound of his voice. It was so… so angelic and smooth like melted chocolate.

“Yes, yes it is.” I said as formally as possible. I don’t even know why.

“I don’t know if you remember me…”

“Of course I do.” I said loudly with confidence while blushing. Damn it! I needed to stop that immediately.

I heard him chuckle deeply and I blushed even harder. “I have your phone, as you already know. You left it here along with your clutch. I figured I’d call this number seeing that you were with her last night and I was lucky enough to get ahold of you.”

“Oh, well thank you for not stealing my phone and money.”

“It’s no problem. Shall I bring it to you or would you like to come and get it?” Something about his voice told me that he was a very narcissistic person. It was almost as if he was making it sound like he was superior. I prayed that he wasn’t because it would be horrible if he had a beautiful body and face but a messed up personality.

“I’m at home right now but we could meet up somewhere if that’s fine with you.”

“Sure.” He replied.

Bri held up an address that she had written on a napkin. I squinted and read it off to Justin.
“We could meet you at the Bow Bridge in Central Park in… an hour?” Brianna nodded in response and gave me a thumbs up.

“That sounds perfect except we should meet around 8 or 9. Do you mind?”

“No, I wouldn’t mind at all.”

“I’ll see you soon, (YN).” He hung up the phone without even allowing me to say my goodbyes and I was left with a blank line. He didn’t even give me achance to possibly say something other than goodbye.

I set her phone down on the side table but I couldn’t take my eyes off of it. I looked up to see Bri with a smirk plastered across her face with her arms folded across her chest.

“You like him more than I thought. Justin was his name, right?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I said innocently as I avoided her and plopped on the couch.

I didn’t like him. At least I didn’t want to like him. It wasn’t okay for me to like him. He was just some random guy. Never in a million years would I like him. I don’t fall for guys; I don’t want to get hurt anymore.

“You’re cute when you’re in denial. Come on,” She said as she sat down next to me, “we girls are always falling for guys at first sight. Just once is all it takes. Just once, he can say just a few words and you’re set that this guy will be yours; at least you want him to be. Girls are weird, but it’s not a lie that once we have our sights set on someone, we go for it.”

“We have two hours,” I said avoiding her question, “now can we finish our movie before we leave?”

Bri sighed and clicked play and we continued to watch the rest of the movie in silence. I was having the hardest time focusing knowing that I was going to see him in just two hours. I kept feeling this weird thing in my stomach. No, it wasn’t butterflies, that’s cheesy. Some of it was fluttery happiness but something else was sending pains throughout my stomach. I knew that I was going to get hurt, I could already tell.

The movie finished and Bri rushed me into my bedroom immediately after. Shadow trailed along after us with no idea what was going on, just like me. She explained to me that when you are meeting a guy that you have strong feelings for you have to look good. She said that she was going to make me look hot, but also I needed to look like I didn’t try and that I just woke up naturally hot. And then we’d leave for our destination. I didn’t object because hey, I wanted to look good.

“Bri,” I stopped her, “Just don’t make me look fake.” I said.

“You won’t look fake, you’ll look H-O-T HOT!”

I actually really did care about what I looked like. I was so worried about what he would think about me. Did I look good enough? Was my makeup okay? Was my outfit okay? What about my butt? And my boobs?My body in general?!

“Please tell me you aren’t wearing that.” She said looking me up and down with a disgusted face as she finished my makeup. I gave her a smile and bit my lip. “No! At least change your outfit for me?”

“Fine!” I reluctantly agreed. “But I’m wearing something comfortable whether you like it or not.”

She rolled her eyes and we went to my closet to search for an outfit.

The hour went very quick it seemed like. Now we were in Bri’s car, headed to the Bow Bridge. I wasn’t sure exactly where we were meeting but I knew that it’d be somewhere around there. I had been there a thousand times but now it felt so unfamiliar. I had picked out an outfit that Bri was not in favor of but it made me a bit happier that she was pissed about it. Hey, I had no one to impress. And if Justin couldn’t accept me at me worst then he didn’t deserve me at my best. Okay maybe I was trying to impress Justin a little bit…

We arrived at the bridge and it was completely empty like a scary movie scene. We were walking towards the bridge while Bri chatted on and on and on.

“I think he’s just using your phone to get you. He obviously cares or some shit like that. What if he likes you too? He’s probably like this super sexy superhero who-“

“Stop, Bri, stop. I get it. I just hope he didn’t go through my stuff.”

We waited and waited and waited and waited. Exactly an hour had passed when a black truck pulled into the parking lot. 9:00pm exactly. That has to be him. I bit my lip and tried to act as calm as possible. Why was I like this? Just seeing him again has got me all jittery.

Bri’s phone buzzed and nearly gave me a heart attack. It was the guy she had met at the club. Damn, I can’t believe she was still talking to him. I thought that it was Justin and I kinda got excited.

“Hey I’m gonna walk over here to see if I can get a better signal. Why don’t you go wait on the bridge?” Bri suggested.

“Alright.” I sighed.

“I’ll watch out for you.”

I walked onto the bridge with my hands folded across my chest. I stood near the middle and looked down at the lake. It glistened in the night sky, it was a beautiful sight.

“It’s breathtaking, isn’t it?”

My heart stopped as the voice traveled through my ears. I felt chills crawl down my spine and I wasn’t sure if I should or shouldn’t turn to look at him. I breathed out slowly and tried my best to stay calm. This situation didn’t seem right.

I peeked over out of the corner of my eye anyway because I was curious.

He had a black hoodie on with the hood pulled over his head, and a snapback tucked under with a pair of blackpants, and a pair of aviators on; it was as if he was trying to hide himself from me. I knew who he was though; there was no way he could hide from me even wearing that.

“(YN).” He said as he looked over at me with a smile on his face. “It’s nice to see you again.”

The smell of his cologne filled the air around me. It was suffocating me, but somehow I came to like that feeling with the smell and the vibes it was giving.

I smiled slightly and gulped, now looking into his glasses. “Yeah, how nice. D-Do you have my phone?”

“Don’t be nervous.” He said coolly. “Here.” He handed me my phone and clutch separately. “I promise that it’s just as you left it, I didn’t take anything.”

“How do I know that you aren’t lying?”

“Trust me. There are two things I’ll never break; my word and my balls.”

I held back a laugh. I’d never heard that before, and coming from him it made it more hilarious. I was really worried that he’d seen my driver’s license and found out that I wasn’t twenty-one like I said, but he seemed to be telling the truth so far. I stared at him with suspicion present in my actions. There was something off about this whole situation. I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to leave, but I really didn’t want to.

“So you won’t lie to me?” I asked again to reassure myself.

“I thought I clarified that.”

“Then tell me why you’re hiding from me.”

He grinned and his white teeth were presented to me. He shook his head and looked away to the river for only a few seconds before turning back to me.

“You’re a very clever girl. Look, how about this, I’ll tell you why only if you let me bring you home. Tell Brianna that she can head out and I’ll take you home later.”

I had to think for a minute but it really wasn’t that hard. When a guy this beautiful asks you to stay, you stay. That’s just girl code period. I called Bri and told her to leave. She was uneasy about leaving me with a stranger at first but after about ten minutes of fighting she decided to give up and leave. Now I had my chance to figure out why Justin was making me feel this way.