Bodyguard University: I Hate Loving You

Feelings

Porsche's Point of View

Did I make a mistake?

It wasn't like me to be so careless. In fact, I'd probably spent more time than I should calculating my life decisions. It was how I was raised. My father always wanted me to be one step ahead of myself. His logic reasoned that in planning things out, I'd make the least amount of mistakes.

I never liked that about him. His perfectionism. Life was supposed to be trial and error. The best way to learn was through error. But he never saw it that way. To my father, mistakes were signs of failure. Improvement meant understanding. Perfection was his only version of success.

For the longest time, and admittedly still, I feared making mistakes. I wasn't even just scared of fucking up in front of him. In daily life, I ran away from anything that could indicate slip ups. Whether it was answering honestly to a friend's question or choosing what to eat for lunch, I reevaluated every possible outcome in hopes that I'd avoid that terrifying word: mistake.

I couldn't confidently say that I'd never made mistakes. It's human nature to be imperfect. But I'd say that I went through life comfortably...too comfortably. It was the kind of comfort that kept someone stuck. I was living life in the mood of a person sitting in bed watching shows all day, every day.

Overtime, I learned to accept my mistakes. I recognized that they were bound to happen and did my best not to be so hard on myself whenever they were made. After all, I had a strong desire to grow and learn.

But this was one lesson I didn't want to learn.

I didn't want to live with the consequences of kissing Kinn. I didn't want to know if it was a mistake or not. I'd say I'd wholeheartedly believed it was a mistake, but I couldn't. A mistake meant what I did was wrong. Situationally, it sounded very wrong. I had kissed my Protectee, a guy that I'd despised since I'd met him, a person that drove a larger wedge between me and my father.

But it didn't feel wrong. That was what had fucked me up the most. I knew I was supposed to feel like I'd majorly screwed myself over, yet I hadn't felt that at all.

If anything, I was elated.

And that was the worst feeling in the world.

"Ah, fuck!" I groaned at the sharp pain stabbing my toe, which I'd stupidly slammed into a treadmill. Toe injuries were the fucking worst.

Hissing in pain, I sat on the edge of the treadmill, holding my foot at the prolonged tenderness. This was the last thing I'd expected when working out with Phupha.

Phupha, who'd been away to grab more water, walked up with a stern frown. He set a bottle next to me. "What's with you lately?" he asked.

"What do you mean?" I tugged my shoe off to assess the damage because the knives stabbing into my toe weren't going away.

Phupha twisted the cap off and took a swig of his water. After wiping the corner of his lips, he said, "You seem distracted."

I scoffed. I inspected my foot and raised my eyebrows at my grape-sized pinky toe. Not that I looked at my feet that often, but the last I'd remembered, my pinky toe was nowhere near grape sized. All red and swelled up, my toe looked as badly as it felt. And fuck did it hurt.

"You should get that checked out," Phupha said. He screwed the cap back on, bottle halfway drunken, and shoved it in the gym bag hanging over his shoulder.

"I'm fine," I insisted.

"That doesn't look fine."

I didn't know what I meant when I was trying to convince him that I was fine. Was I actually fine? I cared less about my toe and worried more about last night's event.