About You ✸ Paul Mescal, discontinued

O18'

Paul Mescal could remember the exact moment he'd realised he was in love with Orla Finneran, her hair, in its natural form, as Orla described it 'a big curly mess' was tied into an bumpy bun, her glasses were half way down her nose as she read through a book, Paul and Orla were hardly on top billing of the play so they had been made to share a dressing room.

Paul had begun noticing every two to three days Orla would bring a new novel, she had been the one to make Paul read Sally Rooney's Normal People, lending her own copy to him, he had noticed her lips silently moving as she read, her finger tapping at the edge of the book. It wasn't anything she'd said or done , she just looked peaceful and beautiful.

After the play wrapped. They had gone on holidays together for a straight month and a half, changing  countries every four or so days she had already paid for her and a friend to go, said friend had dropped out so Paul had impulsively agreed to go with her.

They'd known eachother for no more than two months before-hand and had been 'hooking up' casually for three weeks when they left.

They'd never discussed virginity, they were both in their twenties Paul was nine months older which meant he would have been the year above her in school.

If Paul was indeed a virgin Orla couldn't tell, she wasn't, she had lost her virginity to her boy - best friend at a party when he was sixteen and she was fifteen, said best-friend died of a heroin overdose exactly fourteen weeks later, right down to the hour.

Orla was well accustomed to loss, she had a knack for dead loved-ones she'd once joked to Paul though he hadn't laughed, just awkwardly nodded.

It was no surprise that their almost nightly unprotected 'hook-ups' would result in a pregnancy, Orla hadn't even noticed she was pregnant until she'd gone to the doctors, complaining that her sleep medication wasn't working very effectively, and was causing her to puke her guts up after tossing and turning for the entire night before she would sleep for no more than four hours.

Orla and Paul had stayed friends. She'd noticed he would check her instagram stories within an hour of her posting them and as a return she'd begun doing the same with his.

She watched his instagram stories within moments of him posting them when she found out, she waited until he took a photo of himself back in the flat he stayed in when she'd gone over before. That was when she'd rung him, asking that he come over to hers.

Paul had arrived expecting her to propose they shag after a couple drinks. He was sorely mistaken.

Her hair was as it had been when he'd realised his love for her. Thrown into a bumpy bun, her glasses were on-top of a copy of My Year Of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh the spine on it visibly broken, Orla wasn't one to keep her books pristine, they were visibly well read or loved as Orla phrased it, her eyes were red, she'd visibly been crying, her face was slightly puffy and her chin had two reddening bumps covered with spot stickers placed on top of them.

He had asked her what was the matter which lead to her telling him as she was about to burst into tears, he was upset to put it mildly but he wasn't shocked by it.

Paul had done the maths, the baby was conceived in Greece, most likely in that one hotel room they hadn't left because of how beautiful it was, it had its own balcony pool which they'd spent most of their time there inside.

They had argued, the two of them were being particularly cruel to each-other, three days later, after several long phone-call conversations with his parents Paul turned up at her apartment door, hearing she was there by a loud chuckle that wasn't hers, instead Ella Hunt's.