BENEATH THE SMILE

Chapter 8 -Heartbroken

I fell on my bed and cried, so many things were going through my mind. Who is Pearl? Who is she to my boyfriend? Did he go to meet her?
What will happen when they meet? What do I mean to Paul?  I was going crazy.

Rose knocked on my door but I never let her in. "Jenny open up and talk to me. What's wrong?"

"Go away." I sobbed. I didn't want to talk to anyone. "I wanna be alone."

"Jenny, if you don't open I'm going to use the spare key and find my way in."

I ignored her.

Nevertheless, she found a way into my room. I felt her sit on my bed, next to me and a hand rested on my back. 

"It's okay. Talk to me," she said.

I didn't want to talk but I had to let it out,  or else I would explode.

I pulled up from under the pillow where I had been hiding my head. "He has another girl." I sniffed.

"What?" The shock was evident in her voice.

"Yes. Paul has someone else," I said. "Anyway I'm not sure but I saw a message on his phone. I saw it, she was texting him."

"Jen, are you sure you're not just over reacting about the message?"

"It couldn't have been just anyone. It was written with a lot of love." My blouse was now damp with tears.

Rose must have not know where to start from, but she tried to advise and console me as any big sister would.

"Jen please stop crying," she said,  patting my back. "Go take a warm bath and have some rest. I don't want you to catch a headache. I'll call Paul first thing in the morning, okay."

She was right, my head was starting to hurt.   I followed her advice and went to bed.
Rose closed my room and switched off to lights. It was hard for me, I failed to sleep. I stayed awake for about two hours. Luckily, I managed to catch some sleep in the last hours of the night/morning.

I woke up at mid-day the following day. I found eleven missed calls. They were all from Paul.

I don't want to talk to this liar.

As I held my phone in my hands and still lazy to get out of bed. I didn't know where to start.

How was I going to tell Carol that the guy I had just met had another girl?
Thoughts crowded my head.

Someone knocked on my door, pulling me out of thoughts.

"Who could that be!" I said through gritted teeth. I obviously was not in the mood to talk to anyone at that time.

I opened the door, and there he was. My gorgeous angel, my man, well at least that's what I thought, at first.

Tears started rolling down my face, I was unable to control them. Just one look at him was enough to remind me of all the words that had been in that text, I broke down.

"What do you want?" I asked.

"Jenny, give me a chance to explain. Please," he asked, his voice calmer than ever.

"Close the door behind you," I said and sat on my bed.

He closed the door, without  making a sound and sat his ass next to me.

"I hate to see you like this Jenny. I did something wrong and I want to make that right," Paul said.
To be honest, he looked sincere.

"There is something I did not tell you," he murmured. "Before I met you, I had someone in my life. That person is Pearl. I have been with her for eight months now, but we got a big fight and we stopped talking. I found her kissing my cousin. I was so heartbroken and I decided to let her go."

He paused, and continued.

"When we stopped talking, I thought that she was done with me too. After sometime, I saw your pictures on Instagram and my love for you was revived. I wanted to be happy once again. I always loved you back then in school but we did not have a chance to be together.  So that is how you came in the picture. I am really ashamed and guilty for keeping this from you. Pearl texted me a few days after we had started dating. She has been asking me to meet her so that we can talk. I had refused, but somehow she managed to convince me to meet her. I was supposed to meet her last night, but then you found out and I cancelled the meeting."

"Oh really," I snorted.

"I know that I should have made it clear to her that we are not together anymore before I started dating you. I ask for your forgiveness, I did not do things right.
Jenny please give me a chance to make this right."

"Why did you let me get here?" I asked. "I thought I would never cry again." The tears kept falling uncontrollably.

"Jenny, I am really sorry. Please forgive me," he said, holding my hands in his.

I was in love with him. I really wanted to be with him, so I gave him another chance.

I asked Paul to meet Pearl and tell her the truth. The truth that he was in love with someone else. That he was in love with me.

What I did not understand was that that truth was only mine, it did not apply to the man I thought I loved.