Popular Nerd

Chapter Forty Seven// Come Back

"So you really don't want me here?" My voice has to fight through the silence as the tension clouds the space between us, Nathan perching on one sofa with me seated on an arm chair opposite. The physical distance separating us resembles how much the past week has come between us.

"It's not that I don't want you here," he pauses, his eyes far from mine. "I was just not expecting you, that's all."

With my eyes drawn to the way Nathan pulls his hair back with the tug of his fingers raking through his thick brown locks, I can't think straight. He controls me so much without even knowing he's doing it. He makes my heart beat a mile a minute, my focus far from concentration as he locates his eyes back on mine, a searching stare penetrating through me.

"Sorry for arriving uninvited," my lips mumble with a shy rejection of his attempt to make it seem like he does want me here after all. The truth is, he wishes I never showed up. He wishes I never got on that plane. His life is perfect here- perfect apartment, perfect collage and perfect girl, who, due to her absence, has rushed off as soon as Nathan had reluctantly allowed me to step inside.

Nathan stands to his feet, exhaling an extended breathe he had been holding, presumably because of my unwanted presence. "Don't apologise," his tone softens as he saunters around the room in a circle. I follow his every move, not being able to help but magnetise all my attention on him. "It wasn't your fault, it was a mistake."

"Oh, so this is all a mistake now?" An eruption of anger grits through my teeth, evident by the growl roaring in my voice. in any longer. By the way Nathan stops in his tracks, eyes enlarged with surprise, he is shocked to see my change in tone.

"Paige, you know that isn't what I meant-"

I rise to my feet with a frowned expression. "So what did you mean? The tickets weren't from you so me taking them to come and see you was a mistake I made? Ah? Me wanting to be here, with you, was a mistake? Maybe it was, because you clearly don't appreciate my affection towards you."

"Affection?" He scoffs bitterly, reflecting the harsh frown crinkling my forehead. "As if."

"Pardon?" I spit back.

"You are with Josh, may I remind you. You have no room in that shallow heart of yours to hold any genuine affection towards me." He paces a step closer, the emotional boundary disconnecting us still strong, comparable to a magnetic field- us on two opposite poles.

"For your information," a rage from the back of my throat explodes into my voice. "Me and Josh are no longer a couple. God, I hate him to death! I never wanted to get back with him in the first place!"

"Then why did you? To mess with me? To play a stupid game? Well I hope you won because I certainly didn't!" His words are not coherent to my brain, a daze of puzzlement clouding over me.

"What? A game? No, I would never..."

"So why did you date him? Why did you go out with someone you hate if it wasn't to annoy the shit out of me?" By now his face is half a metre away. Tense shoulders and flexed arms, he clenches his fists with a stern glare piercing from the depth of his pupils. "Why Paige? Answer me!"

"For you!" I shout. "I endured Josh's bullshit and fucking torture to spare your popularity, so you were not humiliated."

"Where have I heard that before?" He throws back his head with a sigh of sarcasm.

"It's true," I say, my heart strings tugging at how honest I am being. "Josh threatened to hurt you, I didn't want that to happen-"

"Yet he wanted to fight me anyway."