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“Listen, just come over to my house after school. We can talk properly there.”
“So you can think up another bullshit lie to feed me?”
“Aoife, come on. We’re supposed to working through this. How can we do that if you won’t talk to me.”
“Why don’t you drag me to your house? You’re getting pretty good at forcing things.”
Blowing out a frustrated breath when I refused to relent, Paul stalked over to his desk at the far side of the classroom.
Almost two months had passed since the Halloween disco at the Pavilion, and to say that Paul and I were back on track would be a drastic overstatement –if we ever had been on track to begin with.
I wanted to end it on Halloween night and Paul didn’t.
In the end, we had agreed upon taking a temporary break from each other, which had actually helped our cause for a grand total of three weeks until I caved and agreed to try again.
After that, everything went back to exactly how it had been.
Within a matter of days, we were back to basics, and I was pretty fucking fed up with the whole damn thing.
I knew that Paul was sorry for being rough with me that night and calling me names and had been trying to make it right. Problem was I couldn’t seem to muster up the energy required to join him in fixing our relationship.
Because I wasn’t sure if I still wanted to have one with him.
I missed Paul the boy.
I wanted to stick around for that boy.
I did not miss Paul the boyfriend.
I wanted to run for the hills from that handsy, possessive bastard.
The only time I seemed to meet the former version of Paul was when we were on the outs.
Only then did he show me affection, take interest in what I had to say, and most importantly of all, treat me with respect.
When he wasthatversion of himself, he was a pretty great guy.
The only problem was that great guy disappeared the minute he slapped a girlfriend label on my forehead.
The minute I had given him what he wanted, the controlling, self-absorbed asshole resurfaced.
Furious with myself for not holding firm but letting him sweettalk me back into a half-hearted relationship, I fought his shitty behavior at every hand’s turn. I knew deep down that I needed to woman up and end it for good, and to hell with the consequences. Because being stuck in this limbo, waiting around for things to change was making me miserable.
Paul’s latest display of assholeness, and the issue that I was currently fuming over, was the fact that there was one rule for me in our relationship and an entirely different one for him.
Flipping out at every hand’s turn if I so much as smiled too long at one of the lads in class, he had no problem doing the same with girls.
The double standards and hypocrisy set my teeth on edge.
He didn’t believe me when I told him that I wasn’t messing around behind his back, but I was supposed to turn right around and swallow every bullshit line he fed me when another rumor about him arose.
This morning, for example, Casey heard from Mack, who heard from Dricko and Sam, that Paul had been seen hooking up with some girl from Tommen College when we were on our break.
When I confronted him about the rumor, he swore it was lies, which led us to our current predicant.
I didn’t know what to believe anymore, but if it was true, I knew that I would respect him more if he would just behonest.
This latest rumor almost felt like the final nail in the coffin for our relationship. If Paul was sneaking around kissing other girls, and I was holding onto my heart for dear life, too afraid to part with it for fear of missing out on a never-was never-will-be relationship with Joey, then we were doomed.
