Ugly Girls and Pretty Boys

Chapter 31

Maybe he was waiting for me to actually say something to his question but it mostly seemed rhetorical. I poked his arm after a good moment of silence. I was still waiting on an answer. Press play! I thought as I poked him again. He swayed lightly at my touch; he smiled and took a deep breath before turning to look at me. There it was again, those forest green eyes, suddenly. I was just trapped in them.

“You deserve to be happy.” He breathed as he stared at me. “You’ve been struggling and trying to stand on your own for so long…” It made me frown, why was it melting me? “You could…be happy…” He breathed, his fingers crept up to mine, slowly I let his fingers entwine with mine and suddenly I froze, realising where it was going. My heart didn’t race…it slowed. All I did…was focus on what Vince was saying to me. “You…deserve so much…more than you have Kay…I tried letting you go once…and I don’t want to see you get hurt again. I don’t want to let you get hurt. I’m not letting you go away from me again. I thought it would make you happy. I thought…you could be happy without me. But somehow, my heart…it’s telling me that I could maybe make you happy. Is that selfish?” His eyes seem to melt into my heart. I couldn’t look away. It was a surge of warmth that pulled me in towards him. “Tell me…” He breathed as our bodies seemed to inch closer together. “Is that selfish?” The pain is his voice was silenced as my lips gently pushed against his. As my body fell into his and our hands twined around each other’s body holding each other close. We stayed like that for what felt like a long time. “All…I want for you, is to be happy.” I felt safe and calm in his arms. It…it felt like a clean slate – but that almost seemed to feel like a knife dragging itself through my chest. Is it alright to have a clean slate if it meant forgetting about Jase? I couldn’t find an answer in my head.

When I was allowed to go home, both my mum and father came to greet me. A pang of confusion hit me as I stared at them together. They didn’t seem to hate each other; hand in hand they embraced me. A family hug. It felt strange but welcoming; I smiled as I hugged them both back as tightly. But the smile became a frown out of my own control and the tears and words “ I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.” Came to follow without my conscious desire to.

“Perhaps, we should have started – rather, tried this from the beginning.” Both of my parents had sat me down to talk. The strange tingles of confusion made me feel knots in my stomach. My father cleared his throat and glanced at my mum.

“We were afraid…of what would happen to you…if you knew.” My mum looked down ashamed as they continued.

“You have a mental disorder. It’s an inability to…filter what goes through your mind. It’s almost like you will give into the contradicting thoughts in your mind and it can find ways to take over the way you think.” The words sunk in…and they sunk and sunk.

I’m more real than you think.

“Kay?” My snapped back to reality. “We…decided to try taking you away from the environment…to see if you would be calmer with Jason. He thought he could fix it.” She breathed, avoiding the obvious point that he didn’t fix it. “But…we think it’s time you should make your own decisions about what you should do.” The information came flooding in. The perfect timing of Ben 'cheating' on me and having a supposed fiancee, the timing of mum finding a new job…and a house becoming available back here…my parents ‘splitting’ up…all of that-

What had Jase…done? What did he try to do to fix this?

I shook my head; I needed time to process this. All of this. Everything. It made my head spin. It made me question every little thing I had done. Did I want to do that? Was it an impulse? Who- no, what made me queen? Was that I? …Was that something else? Did I fall in love…is it just a filter? I felt so sick to my stomach…“Excuse me.” I mumbled standing up and retreating to my room. My parents only nodded my head; I assumed they came to the conclusion that I had enough information for one day. I opened my room door and closed it softly behind me, flopping onto my bed. If I had known about this from the beginning could I have avoided all of these mistakes? My mind raced and flashed back to so many memories…what could I have done differently?