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“You’re probably right,” Paul said. He stood up and helped me up after him.
I tried to brush the sand off of my clothes, but I realized pretty quickly that it was a pointless task. None of it actually seemed to be falling off, it was just spreading throughout the fabric and making my skin itch.
“I’m sorry for being such a dick to you this last couple of weeks. I mean, I really thought you’d just cut me off, and then when you got in touch about my mom, it felt like that was the only reason you’d gotten in touch and that you wouldn’t have if it hadn’t happened. I guess I was just hurt, but that really isn’t an excuse,” Paul said as he stopped walking and turned to face me with a deeply serious face.
“I understand completely,” I said, and I could feel my head shaking away his apology. “I mean, I was a bitch to you for years and you don’t see me apologizing,” I said as I smiled at him.
“You’re right, I suppose,” he said in a mocked sort of seriousness, and then he pulled me in and kissed me with such a hunger that it was impossible to believe what we had just done on the beach.
“I’m always right,” I said lightly as we started walking back towards the town.
“What do you think your dad will say when we tell him?” Paul asked me curiously. I could hear a faint trace of worry in his voice and I knew it was because he’d always thought of my dad as his own.
“I don’t know,” I replied honestly. “I think, though, he’ll be happy. I mean, I know it’s not quite in the way he wanted, but he always wanted us to be family,” I said with a small shrug.
“I think you should lead with that when you tell him,” Paul said, grinning as we walked through the tall buildings that lined the side streets on the way back into town.
“When I tell him?” I asked in surprise as I stopped and shook my head. “No, no, no, when we tell him, or you tell him. Those are the only two options,” I said as I started to walk away from him.
He caught up to me quickly. “Do you think that’s how this is going to work?” Paul asked me with a glisten of enjoyment in his eye. “Do you think that you’re the boss of me now?”
“I’ve always been the boss of you,” I corrected him with a laugh.
He looked thoughtful for a moment and I couldn’t help but wonder what was going on in his brain. I wanted to crawl in and see his thoughts, so that I could understand how he could possibly still love me after everything that I had put him through. It seemed, though, that my curiosity had fallen across my face because the next thing I knew, Paul had stopped. “What are you thinking about? You look like you’re miles away,” he said with a small smile pulling at the corners of his mouth.
“I was just wondering how you could still love me after all this time,” I answered him honestly.
“Who says that I still love you?” Paul asked with big surprised eyes that made my stomach drop and my heart skip a painful beat.
“Oh,” I said, because there was nothing else to say.
“I’m joking, Isabella, as if you could possibly have believed that. Of course, I love you. I always have, because I know that you are the most sensitive and caring girl I’ve ever met. I know that you’re fiercely loyal to the ones that you love, and I know that if you want something, nothing and nobody can stand in your way. You are one of a kind, and although you’re stubborn and sometimes you can be as cold as ice, I know that deep down your heart is the warmest place on this earth and I love that. I love everything about you, Isabella. I know that nobody is perfect, and you are certainly not,” he said and then I cut in.
“Thanks.”
“Let me finish,” he said with a smile. “But you are perfect for me and I think that when it all comes down to it, that’s what really matters.”
THE END
