Chapter 7

The next day arrived, and my mind was filled with thoughts of how my conversation with Justin would look if I had visited his clinic room all alone. 

A wave of anxiety was poring all over me, I started to lose confidence in myself, if I could survive a long conversation with Justin, without ticking him off with my eccentric character.

Just as planned. I went straight to the supermarket and bought Justin the fruits he asked for, I even added strawberry fruits and some grapes to the list of fruits I bought for him. 

After a 30-minute drive by taxi, I arrived back at the college and went straight to Justin's clinic room. At about 12:30 pm when the sun was at the peak of its heat, I knocked at Justin's clinic room and he permitted me to enter.

As soon as I entered, Justin greeted me with a bright smile and thanked me profusely for honoring his request. 

After I finished listening to his thanks, I dragged a chair and sat down on his left side, where the white table was located. I dropped the bag of fruits on the table and then began to pull them out of the bag one by one. 

They had already been washed and cleaned, all that remained was for me to cut them into pieces so that Justin could have an easy time eating them.

While I was busy with my hands peeling the apples I brought and cutting them into smaller pieces, Justin started talking to me. 

"Be careful not to cut your fingers in the process," he advised, It seemed like he had realized the nervousness in my body as I was left alone in the room with him. 

"Janna, you do not have to feel anxious around me," he continued. 

"Even though you possess a beauty that could rival that of the sun and a pretty smile as bright as the midnight moon, I am not going to do anything bad to you."

My heart skipped a beat when I heard Justin's flattery, he caught me totally off guard with his sweet words. 

Instead of easing the tension within me, his compliments and efforts to make me more relaxed had the opposite effect, I had an explosion of thoughts about why a guy whom I had known for only three days, was bold enough to tell me how beautiful I am. 

At that time, I felt that Justin's compliments were unfair because they made my indecisive heart yearn for him even more, without guarantee of whether he was interested in me or he was just being nice.

With my face that was beginning to turn red, I looked back at Justin and smiled. 

"You are quite good at using words," I said, rolling my eyes to look directly into his face. 

"I appreciate your flattery but I don't think even I am pretty enough to outshine the sun," I argued.

 Justin laughed a bit when I said that, "Be more confident in yourself," he insisted. 

"Even if you don't consider yourself more beautiful than the sun, to me. The Janna I am looking at right now is more charming than the star shining light over our planet."

I couldn't help but laugh a bit out loud at Justin's compliment. The look on his face, with no sign of embarrassment or shyness as he boldly talked to me about a not-so-comfortable topic—was surprising in a good way.

 My anxiety was lifted after I had that light laughter with Justin. I became confident again that it was okay for me to talk freely with Justin, after all, he didn't hold back when he suddenly complimented me.

I finished cutting the red apples into pieces that time while I was still talking to Justin, I handed them over to him on a plate.

"I am curious about why you chose me to buy the fruits for you, you could have requested any of your friends for that, why me?" I asked.

While he was slowly eating the sliced apples I had cut for him, Justin looked at me to his left side with a soft smile on his face. He then said to me. 

"No need to think too much into it, after talking with you yesterday, I got interested in you. Without realizing it, I asked you for the favor. I must admit perhaps the main reason I asked for you to help me buy the fruits is so that I can see your face again."

I could not help but blush after I heard Justin's response to my question, at that time, my happiness level went up after I discovered that Justin had a good impression of me. 

To break my eye contact with him, I started peeling the oranges I brought with me. 

While doing so, I asked, "Do you feel lonely staying all alone inside the clinic room," I was starting to worry that my original thought about Justin having a lot of friends was just my imagination.

Justin responded to my question with a new tone of voice I had not heard from him before, in a low yet calming voice, Justin responded. 

"It gets a bit lonely in here, especially when all of my visitors have left, besides scrolling through my phone there is nothing else to keep me company." 

Justin said that while he was folding his hands that were lying above his thighs. The sight of him as he answered my question made me feel sad. 

Because he protected me that night, he was forced to stay all alone in the clinic bed, with no one to talk to or keep him company.

At that time, I acted without even putting enough thought into my actions.

"If you do not mind, I can come visit you more frequently, after all, I am the reason why you are stuck in the clinic bed." 

Justin nodded in agreement to my offer without questioning me about my intentions, he then smiled at me like usual.

"You are welcome to visit me any time of the day, I would appreciate your presence". he added.

My conversation with Justin lasted for over three hours that day. Just as I was about to leave, Justin asked me for my contact, without thinking too much about it, I gave him my phone number. 

He is the first guy in our college to ask for my number, and even though we are technically still strangers, I gave him my contact information without any objection.

For the next two weeks, while Justin was still admitted in the college clinic, I visited him every day, sometimes carrying edible stuff and other times I would just visit him to have a nice chat with him. 

Apart from Maya, my roommate, I told my two other friends Lucy & Rika, about what happened to me and how Justin got injured while saving my life. 

They both escorted me once to see Justin, to thank him for saving their best friend.