Ariana’s POV –
It’s been days.
I’ve isolated myself at home, in bed, doing absolutely nothing but eat tubs of ice cream and order in pizza. Justin has tried every single day to call me, once every hour. Some days, I turn my phone off, sick of seeing his contact flash up onto the screen.
I’ve cried so much, I feel dehydrated and poorly. The doorbell rings and I pull myself out of bed, wrapping my dressing gown around me tightly as I walk down the stairs. I pull open the front door and mumble a thanks to the pizza delivery guy before taking the box from him. The scent of carbs surround me and I instantly feel better.
“Honey, there’s dinner on the side for you.” Mum says, frowning at the pizza box in my hand. I hold it up, shrugging.
“Sorry Mum, pizza wins.”
“You’ve had pizza for the past five days Ariana…”
I look at her with a blank expression, motioning for her to continue with my spare hand. When she doesn’t give me a valid reason on why I shouldn’t have pizza every single night, I sigh.
“Is there a problem with that?”
“No, of course not honey. I just thought you might be sick of pizza by now.” Mum frowns, her eyebrows creased with concern. I shake my head, making my way back upstairs.
“Not yet Mum, thanks for caring though.”
“When are you next in work honey?” Mum asks, stopping me from halfway up the stairs. I close my eyes for a brief sec-ond —
“I’m not sure yet Mum. I took a few days off as an emergency holiday.” Cue the questions.
“Oh. . . that’s not like you.”
“Yeah, I know.” I murmur, scurrying up the remaining stairs. I don’t want to have this conversation with her, not now. She adores the ground Justin walks on.
“Is everything with Justin okay?”
Ah, there it is. The infamous Justin question.
I pretend like I don’t hear her and lock myself in my room, exhaling deeply.
“No, everything with Justin is so not okay.” I mutter under my breath, dropping myself back down in bed. The covers are still warm and I sigh deeply, turning the volume up on my TV. My phone rings again and I grit my teeth, burying it under all of my blankets to drown out the noise.
“Stupid Justin,” I mutter, slamming the photo frame down on its front that’s on my bedside table. It’s a picture of me and him at the zoo, we’re standing on either side of a giraffe, sporting cheesy smiles. The giraffe doesn’t look as happy as we do. Did.
“Dickhead Justin,” I continue to talk to myself whilst gorging on pizza and watching some crappy television game show. Right now, it’s all I want to be doing.
*****
Alex’s POV –
“Hermosa!” I yell after her, frowning as she runs down the road, disappearing from my sight. I exhale slowly and turn back towards Justin, the ex.
“You fucking idiot. Are you aware of what you’ve just thrown away?” I hiss at him. He’s cowering away from me, his hand clutching his bloody nose. He’s lucky I didn’t completely rearrange his face.
“That my girl! Stay away from her!” Justin attempts to yell at me however I can hear the fear in his voice. The way it trem-bles and shakes as he speaks. I shake my head, looking down at him with my eyes narrowed.
“She isn’t your girl anymore.”
“She’ll always be mine, mine.” Justin says pathetically.
“Estúpido, fucking estúpido.”
I can’t think of anything else to reply with. I shake my head at his idiotic mind and step over him, deciding that hermosa is right.
He isn’t worth it.
“Go home idiot!” I yell at him, climbing back into my car and slamming the door shut. I don’t have time to waste it on people like Justin. There’s bigger and badder fish in the sea that I’m up against. I rev the engine on my car and reverse out of the parking space, zooming up the street.
My phone starts beeping continuously and I inhale deeply, pressing the answer button on my car dashboard. Papa’s angry voice fills the car —
“Alejandro! Where the hell are you?”
I wince at his tone, knowing he’s pissed off.
“I’ll be home in ten minutes,” I reply bluntly, speeding up to run a red light. I manage to make it just in time but the cars behind me start beeping like crazy at my reckless driving. I’m already driving away, pushing them to the back of my mind.
“I don’t have ten minutes to wait for you! You know better than this Alex!” Papa yells, the sound of crashing come from behind him. I inhale deeply again, pinching the bridge of my nose with my free hand.
“Papa, get Juan to do it! I told you, I’ll be home in ten minutes.”
“It’s not good enough Alexandro,” Papa hisses. I can vision him clutching his phone tightly, his jaw clenched as he be-comes increasingly frustrated. His eyes turn into two dark pits of coal when he’s angry, just like mine.
“Papa! I cannot make this car go any faster than it already is!” I yell back at him, slamming my hands down onto the steer-ing wheel. I can feel the anger bubbling up inside me, threatening to explode. A line of cars ahead of me catch my atten-tion and I can feel the anger increasing, I’m going to be late. The line is barely moving, welcome to traffic during peak times.
“You need to get here now Alex. If you’re late for the fight tonight, I’ll never bet on you again and neither will anyone else!”
I scoff, rolling my eyes.
“Don’t threaten me Papa, I’ll always have sponsors. If you want to pull out, that’s your choice. Don’t come crying to me when you realise your own son could have earned you thousands.”
I hear his breathing deepen on the other end and if I was standing in front of him, he would have probably punched me. But I don’t care. I have a sharp tongue, just like he does.
“Like father, like son.” I mutter, pulling into our driveway. I press the intercom button and the gates open slowly.
“I’m home.” I say to him and I hear the line click and go dead.
He hung up on me.