High School Scandal (A BoyxBoy Romantic Comedy)

~Scandal~25

~Paul's POV~

She looked so pale.

     I studied Shelly's worn out profile from the kitchen doorway, eyes taking in her hunched shoulder, the way her legs were shaking as she glanced around my home from her seat on the couch in the family room. She looked like a frightened rabbit, ready to take off with any slight movement.

     No one knew this but I've known Shelly Shane since Kindergarten. Knew her before her mother died, before she became this helpless creature before me now. What happened to her? She had been such a bright girl, fun, warm, filled with laughter...but then the light died when her mother died. Her and her father moved away for a long time then came back.

     But the Shelly I knew was long gone.

    "Shelly?" I approached her slowly, knowing that she was skittish.

    Shelly looked and me and blinked. "What's that?"

    I handed her the coffee mug in my hand. "It's hot chocolate."

    She hesitated before taking it. "Thanks." Her smile trembled.

    I knelt down before her. "Shelly, Derek and Evan are on their way here."

    Her delicate hands tightened on the mug. She stared at it before looking at me. "I know."

    "And you know what we want?"

    Shelly nodded. "Answers."

    "Will you tell us?"

    She looked away and changed the subject. "You have a nice home."

    I sighed. "Thanks."

    "You're lucky you know," she said, "you have both your parents plus you're rich."

    "I'm not rich, my parents are."

    She gave out a humorless laugh. "Right, whatever you say Paul."

    She still wasn't looking at me but that didn't stop me from gazing up at her. She looked tired, worn out and beaten. I had went out with her for a while to find answers but she never let me in. There were times that I caught glimpses of the old Shelly but then it would disappear as fast as it had come.

    "You can't keep running away, Shel."

    She finally looked at me. "It's not like I want to. Do you think I want to keep living like this? You don't think that I wake up every day wishing that I could start over? That someone would push the god damn rewind button?"

    "Then let us help you."

    "You want to know who the father of my child is."

    "Yes."

    "And if I say that it's you?"

    I didn't even flinch. "Then I'd take responsibility...but we both know it's not me."

    Shelly laughed bitterly. "Yeah, that's right, I broke up with you cause you wouldn't sleep with me."

    I shook my head. "It's not that I didn't want to...but if I had I'd feel like I was taking advantage of you."

    "What a gentleman," she snorted. "And here I thought that guys like you and Evan had become extinct."

    "Shelly, who is the father of that baby?"

    "Well we both know that it's not you so you have nothing to worry about." She slammed the mug down on the coffee table beside the couch. "So you can just go about your merry way and be rich, live in this house, then go off to college, fool around but always know that you have a safe, loving home to go to."