“Isabella, shouldn’t you be outside?” Paul asked from down the corridor.
“What are you doing here?” I asked him with no efforts to mask the spite I was feeling towards him.
“I wanted to see you graduate. Am I too late?” he asked with curious eyes that were peering behind me into the open field, where the stage was still standing.
“I told you that I didn’t want you or your mom here,” I said with gritted teeth and narrowed eyes.
“I know what you said, but I also know that you’re a show-off and I couldn’t imagine you having a problem with one more person appreciating all the hard work you’ve put in here,” he said in a soft voice that I was sure was meant to be calming.
“Well, you shouldn’t make assumptions because they make you look stupid. Plus, I don’t even believe you. You know that my dad missed my whole speech just because you’d decided to share your news,” I told him, trying to hold my voice steady. I could feel the delayed sobs of anguish starting to push against my lungs and I didn’t want Paul to see me break.
“You can be so welcoming sometimes,” Paul said sarcastically. “Are you going back out there or not?”
“Or not,” I said quickly and then I stormed passed him and down the hallway. I meant it, too. I had no intentions of going back out there. I’d just get my diploma later, when the ceremony had finished and everybody had left.
“You’ll regret it if you don’t,” Paul called down the hallway, but I ignored him.
******
Chapter Three
I didn’t know where I was going. All I knew was that I wanted to get away from Paul. I’d told him that I didn’t want him at my graduation. I’d told my dad that I’d wanted it to be a special thing just between us, but somehow Paul had managed to slide his way into it and it was too late to do anything about it. My dad had already missed my speech, and now that Paul was there person, I knew that receiving my diploma wouldn’t be any different.
I sighed as I stopped outside of my old homeroom. We’d all been assigned the same room since our first year at the school, and it almost felt like my home away from home. I tried the door handle and felt a small rush of relief when I realized that it had been left open. I walked in quickly, before anybody could spot me, and took a deep breath.
The room still smelled the same. It had air heavy with the smell of paper and biro ink. The board still had writing on it from the day before, and I allowed myself to get distracted by it. I could hear the principal starting to call out the names of the students who had graduated alongside me and as each name was called, my heart beat a little quicker at my impending decision.
I knew that my name would be called soon, and when it was I would be expected to go up and receive my diploma, but I really didn’t want to. I’d spent my whole life working up to that moment, but Paul and my father had ruined it and I was convinced that going up on stage would only leave me feeling bitterly disappointed after the years of daydreaming about how proud my father would be.
The principal called out another name and I knew that mine was next. I could feel my legs itching to take me out of the school and as far away as possible, but I held my ground. I couldn’t let Paul ruin my day. He’d already ruined my home life; he wasn’t going to ruin my school life too. I let my legs jerk forward and forced them to retrace their steps back out into the football field. The principal had already started to call my name and I didn’t bother to look at my father or Paul as I made my way to the stage.
I quickly shook the principal’s hand and smiled when he congratulated me. I could feel the eyes of the crowd on me as I made my way to the stairs that would take me away from the weight of their stares. I let myself glance over at my father and my fears were confirmed. He wasn’t even looking at me. He wasn’t even looking up. He was too busy looking at a bright little screen that Paul had pushed under his nose.
I could feel my face screwing up in anger. My nose started to wrinkle at the top as my cheeks started to burn red. I wanted to shout and scream at them. I wanted to throw my diploma in my dad’s face, so that he actually saw it, but I didn’t do either of those things. I just walked away from the crowd with my head hanging low. I felt defeated. I felt as though I’d been wasting my time. I felt like an outcast in my own family and all I’d ever tried to do was shine brightly.
I walked back through the school and left via the main entrance. I always thought my last day at high school would be a happy one. I always thought I’d take my time and walk around the long hallways, remembering the years that I’d spent within them, but instead, I just walked out of the school without a second look behind me.
I didn’t stop until I reached a little diner on the corner of a street a few blocks away. The diner had always done well because of how close it was to the school, but on that day, there was nobody but me as I sat at one of their tables. I ordered a coffee and sat watching the windows. I knew that, at some point, my father would realize that I had left, but I was unsure about how long it would take. It wasn’t until I’d finished my coffee and ordered another that my phone started to ring, and even then, it wasn’t my father who was calling.
“What do you want?” I snapped down the phone.
“I was wondering where you are? I can’t find you on campus,” Paul said in a slightly worried voice.
“Well, that’s because I left half an hour ago,” I replied bitterly.
“You could have told us you were going,” Paul said as though his time had been wasted.
“Well, I never asked you to come in the first place, so I don’t see why it matters.”
“I wanted to see you graduate. I don’t know why you have to be so cold all the time, Isabella. I was happy for you. You worked hard for this; I wanted to see you get your reward. “
“Well, you didn’t, did you? Because you were too busy showing my father whatever it is that you have on that stupid little device of yours. Because of you, my father didn’t see me graduate.” I tried to hold back the swelling sobs that were starting to ripple through my chest. I didn’t want Paul to hear me cry. I didn’t want him to know that I’d let him affect me that much.
“I didn’t mean to steal away your attention. Your father asked to see the app I’ve been building, and I showed him. If you’re going to blame anyone, then maybe it should be him? I know you think that I’ve come into your family and stolen your father away from you, Isabella, but I can assure you that it was never my intention to do that,” Paul said in a calm voice.
I didn’t say anything for a moment. Who was he trying to kid? I knew what he and his mom had been doing. I’d felt the way that they were pushing me out of the family. My own mom would have never have stood for it. She would have slapped my father in his stupid face and made him see sense. My mom had been a good woman and my father should never have tried to replace her. He should never have forced two families together just because ours had been broken apart. My mom had passed away only two years before my father met my stepmom.
“What do you want me to say to that? ‘It’s okay, Paul’? ‘Don’t worry about ruining my graduation because you didn’t mean to’? I don’t care whether you’ve intentionally tried to steal my dad away or not, because the fact is that you have. He didn’t even see me get my diploma, and all because you were showing him your stupid, waste-of-time app?”
“Isabella, it isn’t just some stupid app, you know,” Paul said with a weary voice.
“What?” I snapped at him. “You think that your app was worth my father missing my graduation for?”
“That’s not what I’m saying. I mean, I was going to tell you this later, because I didn’t want you to think that I was trying to ruin your special day, but seeing as you think that anyway, I might as well tell you. My app went live two weeks ago, and I’ve made over a million dollars since then. It’s been rated one of the top apps of the year and I’m getting flown to New York to do a load of magazine and television interviews.”
I hung up. I di
dn’t even bother to say another word. I had no words to say. Not only had he ruined my graduation, but he’d totally overshadowed me too. How could my graduation compare to that? How could anything I ever do compare to that? I was furious. I could feel the prickling heat of my anger burning against my skin as I tried to calm myself down, but I knew that it would be a long while before I was calm enough to go back home.
I looked down at my cell phone as it started to ring again. I thought about ignoring it. I thought about turning it off, so that it couldn’t disturb my troubled thoughts, but when the call ended and began again only seconds later, I figured I’d better answer it.
“Isabella, where are you?” my father asked in a worried tone.
“Oh, so you’ve noticed I’m not there, then?” I asked my father in a snarky kind of voice.
“Well, obviously I’ve noticed that you’re not here,” my dad said in a kind of irritated tone.
“I don’t know why you’re talking to me like that,” I said indignantly. “I’ve been well over half an hour and you’ve only just noticed. You didn’t even bother to look up when I got my diploma.”
“Isabella, please don’t be like this. Paul had brought me some great news today and you’re ruining it.”
“I’m ruining it? Today was my day, Dad, not Paul’s.” I could barely keep my voice steady when I spoke. I was too angry. I was too upset. I could feel my emotions rushing around in circles, until they became dizzy and too overwhelmed to continue. I couldn’t understand why my father thought it was okay to say that I was ruining my own day. He had no right.
I stayed out until I was sure that my father would be in bed and then I headed home. Nobody had tried to call me since I’d spoken to my dad and I was glad of it, but I still hadn’t fully calmed down. I was glad to see that my father’s bedroom light was on when I walked up the driveway and onto the porch. The door had been left open and I pushed it lightly, so that I could creep in through the small crack without forcing out the long, agonized creaking sound it made when it hit the halfway point of being opened.
The icy wind from the afternoon had been unrelenting in its quest to freeze my inner core and, at first, I could feel no difference in temperature when I walked in. My hands were too numb and my body shook too violently to realize that it had started to warm up. I walked over to the kitchen and pushed the door open, expecting to find the room in darkness, but the light was on and Paul was sitting back at the kitchen table, where I had found him that morning.
“Oh, goody, you’re still up,” I said sarcastically as I walked over to the kettle and put it on to boil. My hands were still numb, but I could feel a faint prickling of pins and needles, which meant that they were coming back to life, however slowly it might be.
“Always a pleasure to run into you,” Paul said dryly without looking up.
“I’m surprised you’re still here if you’ve got all that money,” I said as I poured the boiling water into a mug.
“Why would I leave my family just because I have money?” Paul asked as he lifted his head and gave me a confused look.
“Well, I know I would.” I shrugged as I spoke and walked over the table and sat down. I didn’t really want to talk to Paul, but I wasn’t ready to go to bed yet and the kitchen was my favorite room in the house. There was something about the refurbished wood units and large oak table that made it feel so much cozier than the other rooms in the house. I think, though, that perhaps it might be because the kitchen is the last room in the house untouched by my stepmom. When she moved in, she had insisted on white-washing the whole house, so that it had a neutral flow to it, but I’d kicked up such a fuss about the kitchen that my father had forced her to leave it alone.
“Well, that’s because you hate most of your family,” Paul said with a smirk.
“I don’t hate my family. I hate the imposters in my family,” I corrected him.
Paul laughed for a moment. “Are you meaning to say that I’m an imposter?”
“I think we both know that’s what I’m saying.”
“You know, I feel really sorry for you, Isabella,” Paul said with a sigh. There was a deep, unsettling truth to his voice that caught the hairs at the back of my neck and made them stand on end.
“I can assure you that you’ve got no reason to pity me,” I said sourly and with a scowl.
“Oh, but there is. You’re so closed-off and isolated that you push away the people who care about you. You call me an imposter, when I was the only person to watch you get your diploma. You know, I didn’t actually tell your dad about my news; he found out from one of his friends who’d read about it in the newspaper. I came down to your graduation today so that I could ask him to not mention anything to you until tomorrow. I wanted this to be your day. I wanted you to be happy, and yet, you think of me as an imposter.”
I didn’t know what to say. I wanted to find fault in his words. I wanted to find the lies behind the truths, but there were none. I could tell from the way that his ocean spray eyes held onto mine as he spoke that he meant every word. “So, what am I supposed to say? Thanks?” I said bitterly because he’d caught be off guard and I didn’t know what else to do.
“I don’t expect you to say anything, but if you fancied dropping the attitude for one god damn minute, Isabella, that would be great,” Paul said and then he stood up and walked out of the room before I had a chance to reply.
*******
Chapter Four
I had a rough night’s sleep on the night of my graduation. The things that Paul had said to me were playing over in my mind as I drifted off and I think that they tampered with my dreams. It wasn’t that I had a nightmare. It wasn’t that my dreams were particularly bad in the sense of what I could see. It was the way that I felt when I was having them. It was like this overwhelming, heavy guilt had taken over my body and I was drowning against its power.
I woke up with a start and in a pool of sweat. My hair seemed glued to my back with dampness and I felt cold with the frosty air that was brushing against my wet skin. I pulled the covers off me and pushed myself out of bed. I knew that I wasn’t going to get back to sleep, and although it was still early and the sun had barely made its appearance in the sky, I decided to make a start on my day and take a shower.
The shower felt good as it washed away the poor dreams of the night before and the disappointment from my graduation. I kept my eyes shut for a long period, so that I could focus on the way the large droplets of water bounced off of my back and released the tension that had been making me feel stiff. I’m not sure how long I spent in the shower, but by the time I got out, the sun had risen a distance into the sky and I could hear the sound of footsteps moving throughout the house.
I had no plans for my day, but I knew that I didn’t want to stay in. The sun outside of the window looked as though it was promising a fairer day than the one that had come before it, so I pulled on a black vest top and a pair of denim shorts before I headed downstairs to the kitchen. As soon as I hit the stairs, I could hear the shrill voice of my stepmother as she gossiped on the phone. I tried to block out her high-toned voice, but it was impossible.
I was glad to find that she was in the sitting room, though, and the wall between that room and the kitchen was quite thick. I pushed open the door to the kitchen and walked in without taking note of whether anybody else was in the room or not. I hadn’t realized it at the time, but I felt sluggish from the poor quality of sleep I’d had. I walked over to the coffee maker and pulled out the jug to fill up a mug.
“You look rough,” Paul said, nearly making me jump out of my skin.
“Didn’t anybody ever tell you that it’s rude to sneak up on people?” I asked him with dead-set eyes.
“Well, I think if anybody were to know what it meant to be rude, it would be you,” Paul said with jest in his eyes that was only met with seriousness from mine.
“Do you aim to annoy me with every word that comes out of your mouth, or is it just a natural tale
nt?” I asked him sharply as I sat down at the kitchen table.
“I’d like to think both,” Paul said with a grin that infuriated me.
“You’re such an ass,” I replied quickly and then took a sip of my coffee before realizing that it was far too hot. I grimaced in pain as I took the mug away from my face and put it down on the table.
“I think that was karma,” Paul said smugly.
“I think you should shut your face,” I replied without looking at him.
“I see nothing I said to you last night has changed anything, then?”
“What did you think it would change?” I asked him curiously as I let my eyes glance up.
I’d known Paul since he was seven years old, but he’d changed a lot in the years that had passed since then. When he first came into my life, he was a sandy-haired boy with freckles and a gangly frame that seemed to catch him unawares more than it worked for him. That wasn’t the guy sitting in front of me, though. The guy sitting in front of me had grown into his frame well. His shoulders were broad, his stomach toned, and his legs long enough to ensure his height over any girl he might choose to be with.
He had these bright blue, ocean spray eyes too. If they were on any other person, I might have thought of them as attractive. They sparkled with this luminous aquatic feel to them that was broken by tiny flecks of white, as though the very waves of the ocean itself were caught within them. He was a good-looking guy, even I couldn’t deny that, but you really had to look to see it. He did no justice to his natural features with the baggy sweatshirts and jeans that he chose to wear all the time.
Please Me Again: A Taboo Second Chance Romance (Sexy As Hell Book 3) Page 2