Only Fools...

'Who the hell do you think you are?' - Chapter Thirty Four

Recap - 

                Matthew shushed me. 'Jess whatever he's done it isn't your fault, don't blame yourself.' He didn't understand. He didn't see me for who I really was, he had no idea of the atrocious act that I had committed.

He embraced me fast and hard. My head rested on his shoulder, my eyes still leaking unstoppably. I could feel his breath on my neck. It felt nice. It felt good for someone to believe in me, to not realise what I despicably selfish person I was. My breath slowed.

As we both drew away from the hug he looked me in the eyes. His eyes showed a multitude of emotions. But most of all he looked concerned, he looked fearful on my behalf, like he couldn't fathom what could have made me so upset.

As I looked into his chestnut-coloured eyes, my crying began to subside. It wasn't as erratic anymore, my lips slowly became still, my breathing smooth and unfluctuating. They had a calming effect on me, I kept staring. Matthew's eyes became my entire purview, if I focused on just them then I didn't have to think about my own issues. Just focus on his eyes, I kept telling myself. Focus on his eyes.

I was focussing on his eyes when he kissed me.

Chapter Thirty Four - 

I pulled away. Did Matthew just kiss me? Matthew?

'What the hell?' I moved my head away from him as I spoke, my furrowed brow and pursed lips probably revealing more about my stance on the kiss than he would have liked.

'Sorry I -' Matthew began. But he stopped. Clearly he wasn't sure what to say either. He looked worried; his teeth running along his lower lip. He looked confused, as if it had never occurred to him that I maybe wouldn't want to reciprocate a kiss from someone that wasn't my boyfriend.

'Why did you do that?' I asked.

'Sorry,' he repeated, 'I thought you wanted me to.'

'Wanted you to?' I couldn't believe what I was hearing. 'I have a boyfriend Matthew, you know that. I have a boyfriend that I love.' Did I just say that out loud? 'Why in hell would you think that I would want to kiss you?' I quickly realised that I was probably being overly harsh. I mean, if it wasn't for Danny I would obviously love to have kissed Matthew. He was super hot and nice and funny. But I've never shown any sort of real interest, have I? And he's definitely shown no interest in me. Why would he suddenly think that I wanted to kiss him? It didn't make any sense.

'I thought that you'd had a fight with Danny, that he'd hurt you. I just wanted to make you feel better.' Well I guess that was kind of sweet. But that didn't stop it from being horribly, horribly misguided.

'Danny didn't hurt me, Matthew. It was me. I hurt him.' I quickly realised that the crying that had momentarily subsided was up and running again. My face getting wetter as my tears continued to flow.

'Jess, this isn't your fault. Whatever happened, don't blame yourself. You're such a special person, you can't condemn yourself for whatever fight you and Danny have gotten into.'

'Stop it.' I snapped, my crying unrelenting. 'Just stop. You're not my boyfriend Matthew, you barely know me. You barely know Danny. Stop pretending to care about what's happening in our lives when you don't. All you care about is trying to somehow convince me that Danny's not a nice person. But he is. You don't understand anything that's happened. Danny is so much more of a better person than me. And you, for that matter.' My anger grew. 'Who the hell do you think you are kissing someone else's girlfriend like that? All that talk in the meeting about not wanting me and Danny to have sex, about him not being a good fit for me or a good person. And now you do this. You kiss me when I'm upset. You try to confuse me when I'm crying. For what? Do you think that if you kissed me whilst I was in some supposed fight with Danny that I'd break up with him? That I'd somehow realise that there are nicer guys out there, that I deserve something different. Is that it? You just wanted to confuse me?'