Chapter 14: Is It Me?

I lay on my back on my bed, head propped up on my pillows so I could see the television. I’d recently bought one of the latest streaming devices for each of the TVs in the house—we had one in the lounge and one in the kitchen and I also had one in my bedroom—and subscribed to some of the available services. Paige was lying by my side, her head and one hand resting on my chest and a leg draped over mine as we watched a cheesy romantic comedy from the nineties.

We were both naked.

And my cum was dribbling out of Paige’s abused arsehole. Again.

“Paul?” she said, shifting her head to look up at me.

I looked down into her eyes. “Yeah?”

“How do you feel about me?”

“Huh?”

“How do you feel about me?”

“Paige, I...” I didn’t know how to answer. Was she asking me if I was in love with her?

“Because, the thing is, Paul, I’ve been thinking about how I feel about you a lot over the past couple of weeks and the thing is I...” She sat up and bit her lip before continuing. “The thing is that ... Paul, I...” She shook her head and looked like she might start to cry. I reached out to rub her side and she smiled sadly.

“The thing is,” she continued, “I really don’t know how I feel about you. I mean ... I like you. I like you a lot. I enjoy our dates and I really enjoy our... after-date activities, but ... Paul, I don’t think I’m in love with you and I should be in love with you, or at least starting to fall in love with you, but I’m not.

She was speaking quite quickly now. The dam was broken and the torrent was flowing. “I’m not in love with you, Paul. I love spending time with you, but we only see each other once a week and I’m fine with that when I should want to see you more. I should want to see you every day. I should be missing you every day that I don’t see you and dying inside until I see you again, but I’m not. I look forward to seeing you, and to what we do when we see each other, but if we skipped a week, I don’t think it would bother me all that much and it should. It should bother me, but I don’t think it would. Do you see what I’m getting at, Paul?”

I waited a few seconds before shaking my head and saying, “I understand what you’re telling me, but I don’t understand why you’re telling me if I’m honest. Or why you started by asking how I felt.”

“Because!” She threw her arms up and then slapped them down on the bed. “Because if you feel the same way I feel, then it’s not me. Do you see? But if you are in love with me, or are falling in love with me, then it means it is me. It means there’s something wrong with me. Is there something wrong with me, Paul?”

“No, Paige. There’s nothing wrong with you.”

“So ... you’re not in love with me, either?”

I shook my head. “I don’t think so, no.”

“Oh, thank god! It’s not me.” She paused. “Which must mean ... It must mean it’s us. Mustn’t it?”

“What do you mean?”

“There’s something wrong with us. With our relationship. Does it mean we aren’t meant to be together?”

“So are you saying you want to split up? To stop seeing each other?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. Do you?”

I didn’t answer, staring at the television on the other side of the room instead.

“Paul?”

I looked at her.

She looked down and said, “Paul ... there’s ... there’s this other guy ... I mean, I haven’t been cheating on you or anything, but there’s this other guy ... He’s a trainee at work. Started the week after you left. And he’s been trying to flirt with me—although he’s not very good at it—and the truth is I think I sort of like him and would maybe like to...” She’d lifted her head to look at me. “Do you hate me?”

I shook my head. “No.”

She said nothing.

“So ... is this it?”

She bit her lip and nodded. “I think it probably is. Don’t you? I’m sorry, Paul, I really am but—”

I held up a hand to stop her.

“It’s fine, Paige. It’s ... It’s fine.” I paused. “Come on, get dressed. I’ll drive you home.”

I drove to the seafront after dropping Paige off at home. It was a little after ten and most people would still be in Central Pier or one of the many other bars or pubs, so there were only a handful of people walking along the promenade. I parked in one of the bays by Central Pier and went for a stroll in the crisp night air. There was a strong breeze blowing in from the sea and the air was thick with all those wonderful seaside aromas—the salt, the fish and various foods being cooked up in the restaurants and take-aways. I took several deep breaths as I walked to take it all in.

Many of the benches on the prom were taken—on some sat a loving couple enjoying each other’s company, on others were people who’d had maybe one or two drinks too many and were trying to recover some control before heading home. I sat on the first one I came to that was free and stared out over Westmouth Bay.

Not for the first time I told myself how lucky I was to live in this part of the world.

It was a clear night. The moon loomed large and bright overhead with its reflection rippling on the sea just below it. I pulled out my phone and snapped off a picture. I was surprisingly pleased with the result and I quickly applied a filter and posted it to my Instagram. Then I put the phone away, stared out over the bay again and began thinking.

I’d had four real girlfriends in my life. Real relationships. Yes, I’d had other girlfriends—half a dozen during secondary school and even a couple at primary school—but they’d all been childish games. We’d only ever seen each other at school and the most we’d ever done is hold hands at break-time or steal a kiss at lunchtime.

No, my first real girlfriend had been Kelly. We’d gotten together shortly after her Sweet Sixteen birthday party in February of Year Eleven. We’d danced a lot at that party and almost kissed during one of the slow dances, but it was about a week later than I asked her to officially be my girlfriend. After that, we’d spent as much time together as we could. We saw each other every night after school, just hanging out in the park or at one of our houses. We’d go on actual, real dates at the weekend—usually to the cinema but we did things like bowling or ice skating too. And we’d eventually taken each other’s virginity.

And I think that somewhere in the back of my head I’d always thought she was The One and that we’d be together forever and get married and have babies. All that shit.

But she’d ended it about a month before my seventeenth birthday.

It was totally unexpected—well, unexpected to me. Apparently, some of my friends had seen it coming.

I was devastated and threw myself into my schoolwork—just like I had after my parent’s died two years earlier—to keep the pain I felt in my heart at bay. Looking back, I was lucky to have had such good friends around me—they kept me sane and kept me going.