The Roads To Paris

33

“Uhm.” Jesse says and clears his throat.

“Uhm Paris.” He begins.

“I don't want to hear it Jesse. I don't want to hear anything. You're just gonna say something else to confuse me and make me think things I don't want to be thinking anymore.”

“I don't understand.” He says

“Why did you make everyone think you love me?” I ask

“‘Why did I make everyone think I love you?’ Because I do.” Jesse said matter of factly

“I'm not playing. You said you love me. Why?”

“I can't love my friend?” He asks

“You can. But that's not the context you said it. You made it sound like you loved me, but not in a ‘friendly’ way.”

“Well.....?” I ask when he does not say anything.

“Well.....”He says

“Say something.” I urge

It's really annoying how Jesse can be so nonchalant about all this. He doesn't even see the avalanche of problems his statement has caused me.

I know Heaven, and I know she rarely gets upset over anything, but she's very particular about her best friend; about her friends in general. Damien and Jesse arguing about me must've really set off something in her.

I'm not even upset that she said all those things to me. I don't think I even have the right to be upset. She was very spiteful about the way she said it, but what she said was a bit true.

On top of that, there's this whole other thing with Damien. I feel like a really horrible person for standing here with Jesse after everything Damien said.

It just feels like I am proving him right. Whenever it comes to Jesse, I put my feelings over logic.

Everything is a mess right now and I can't help feeling that everyone hates me for what just happened, so it's really irritating that Jesse can stand here and  afford to be so unserious about all this.

“I should say something like what?” Jesse asks breaking me out of my thoughts.

I don't know exactly what I want him to say, but I do know that I don't appreciate that he's acting unaffected by all this.

“Hello,” Jesse says in a singsong voice, waving his palm in front of my face.

“Paris? Is she still awake?” He continues in the same tone.

I grab his arm mid air.

“Can you stop that.” I say a bit harshly.

“Then answer my question.” He says

“I don't know, start from the top, like why you picked a fight with Damien in the first place.”

He makes a show of pondering over it before replying.

“I didn't pick a fight with him ok. I've known Damien forever. In all that time I've known him, he hasn't been as real as he was a few minutes back. And when I mean Damien is fake, I don't mean it in an offensive way. That guy can be going through the worst periods in his life with a smile on his face. I have been trying to get him to start opening up to people, but it hasn't been easy. He'd start talking about stuff that's happening to him and end midway because he has difficulty expressing himself. The times when Damien started going to a new school before he transferred back to Ridgewood to be with a I and the gang, a lot of messed up shit was going on in his life. He was mixed up with these guys and he started taking some really nasty shit and when the school got involved and he had to transfer, he did his therapy like a good boy and pretended like none of the things that happened ever happened. And all that stuff he said about me being controlling and me being a really shitty friend, that was how he truly felt. And he's probably felt that way for weeks too.”