Isabella Taylor is a girl who knows her own mind. She knows carbs shouldn't be eaten after six pm. She knows that she could never get away with wearing a football shirt. She knows she could live happily without a boyfriend.
But then a summer spent...
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After the museum and the bridge, Nari decided that we should probably head somewhere for lunch, preferably pizza. I scrunched my nose up at his choice, explaining that I wasn't a huge fan of pizzas.
"How are you half Italian and you don't like pizzas?" Nari practically shouted, earning us some strange looks from other tourists and natives. "I'm not even part Italian and I love pizza."
After some more bickering about where we were going to go for lunch, we finally settled on a restaurant that was in one of the many piazzas of Verona which served pizza for Nari and a million different pasta dishes for me. The woman who served us wasn't much older than us and she spoke fluent English, putting her language skills to use by flirting with Nari, who reciprocated, even showing off his Italian. I sat back and watched, wondering if Nari ever acted like this with his ex-girlfriend and deciding that, if he did behave like this with her, I can totally see how she's his ex. I wouldn't stand for my boyfriend flirting with another girl.
"You're such a player," I comment to Nari the second the waitress turns her back and heads inside with our order. When Nari doesn't try to argue the fact, I roll my eyes, scoff and pull my sunglasses over my eyes as I turn my attention to people watching. However, me being me, I couldn't bite my tongue any longer. Sunglasses up, I stare at Nari. "How can you sit there and just let me call you player and not say anything?"
He shrugs his shoulders. "Well, I could try to tell you that I'm not like that but you've made up your mind and I highly doubt there's anything I can do to change your opinion of me, so why bother?"
"You should still care enough to tell me that you're not that type of guy," I explain, pointedly staring him down.
"Fine. You have me absolutely wrong and I resent the fact that you think that lowly of me," Nari forcefully says, his eyes darkening with each word. Sitting back, I watch as he continues, practically spitting his words. "You're sitting there, thinking that I'm a player who, just because I flirt with girls, I must want to cheat with them. Well, I don't and I hate that I can't talk to other girls just because you'll get unnecessarily jealous. But while we're sharing and wanting the other person to take ownership of their flaws, here's yours: you are closed off and you're scared to want to be in a relationship, to tell Max how you feel for him, because you have some major daddy issues."
After having his say, Nari sits back and bites down on his lower lip, knowing that he instantly regrets his words to me, not that I cared all that much. Why be hurt by the truth? There wasn't anything Nari had said that I could argue with because at the end of the day, I am closed off and I am too scared to want to reveal my feelings to Max. And yes, I am pretty sure that it does have something to do with what Nari called 'daddy issues.'
If you were to ask my sisters and me why we're all so scared about opening ourselves up to other romantic possibilities, I'm sure we could drill it down to the fact that we can't trust men because the one man who has influenced us the most, is an absolute shit when it comes to being loyal to the person they love. We've all seen our mothers be beaten down and betrayed by love, so surely, it'll happen to us too. That's why we have these barriers up. Jeez, a psychologist would have a field day in analysing it all.
"Isabella-"
"It's fine, Nari," I say, smiling over at him in order to reassure him. A few moments later, our lunch arrives and unlike earlier when Nari flirted with the waitress, this time, he gave her a polite smile, said thank you, and tucked into his pizza while looking at me to further explain my thoughts. "You were right. I am closed off. I am scared. I do have daddy issues. It's the relationship disaster trifecta, really."
Nodding thoughtfully, Nari chewed on his pizza before leaning across the table and dunking the dough into the sauce of my arrabbiata. Frowning, I swatted his hand away and stabbed the back of his hand with my fork. "Ew, that's disgusting," Nari grunted while chewing on his pizza. "I have your germs all over my hand now."
"Well, your germs are all over my food," I grumbled back at him.
"It could be worse. I could kiss you and my germs will be all over your mouth," Nari smirked.
Rolling my eyes, I gagged. "If I eat the rest of my food, your germs will be in my mouth." Hearing my words, I shoot Nari a death glare before he can say anything suggestive, not that the look on his face said that he was going to make a comment. If anything, he looked as if he was about to be sick. I was thankful that we were both on the same wavelength about swapping germs like that. Pushing my plate away, I sigh and look across the piazza. "How would you react if a friend you've known for years turned around and told you that they were in love with you when you already have a girlfriend? I mean, I imagine that it would mess with your head, right? So how do you cope with that?"
"I don't know," Nari unhelpfully answers. Squinting in the sun, he runs his hand over his hair as he tries to buy more time. "It's hard because, to me, that's a hypothetical situation but if I had to guess, yeah, of course, that would mess with my head. But I'd have to ask myself, am I happy? But more importantly, could I be happier?"
