A Beautiful Forever - By Anderson, Lilliana Page 0,60

I say flatly, I can feel that I’m being awful right now, but I don’t want her around me. “Excuse me,” I say as I place the milk in the fridge and walk to my room, locking the door behind me.

Elliot

I’m not really sure what’s wrong with her. She just came inside and was all annoyed. She was really rude to Jolene and didn’t even say hi to anyone else. I glance at Jolene, who’s looking around the room awkwardly.

“I need to go and see what’s wrong with her,” I say.

“Oh!” she says, seeming a little confused before it clicks. “Are you two together?”

“We are,” I confirm as I head off down the hallway and tap on the door before trying to open it. It’s locked. “Paige,” I call through it. “Can you open the door please?”

She doesn’t answer so shaking my head in annoyance, I stalk back to the entryway to go and get my keys and open it myself. As I pass the lounge room all eyes are on me, but the look on my face must tell them I’m not in the mood for talking to them because they quickly look away and pretend to be talking about something else.

Paige

We had pushed the two beds together last night, so I’m lying across the middle of both of them, listening to Radiohead’s OK Computer, my headphones blasting the track Lucky into my ears to block out any sounds around me. I just over reacted big time. I’ve never done the jealous girlfriend thing before – although I’ve never cared so much about someone before. In the past, the men I was with were a means to an end, I chose them for reasons other than attraction.

When the door opens, I sit up on my elbows, watching as Elliot closes it gently behind him and climbs onto the bed next to me.

He lies on his side and looks at me. Concern etched into his facial features as he searches my face with his eyes. My heart skips as his fingers brush my face when he reaches over to me, pulling one of the buds from my ear and spilling Thom Yorke’s crooning voice into the quiet of the room.

“Are you going to tell me what’s up?”

I stop the music and slide myself up, so I am sitting on the bed against the wall. He watches me intently, waiting for my response.

“I just walked in and saw you flirting with the new girl, and I hated it.”

He raised his eyebrows and then cracked a smile, “You think I was flirting with her?”

“Uh, yeah – you were all smiling and laughing while she was touching you. Then you jumped up all guilty the second you saw me.”

He started chuckling; I'm having a jealous hissy fit, and he's chuckling at me!

“Have you even considered that I was jumping up because I was relieved that you were home? You were gone for over an hour to get milk – I was worried. Jolene was going on and on in my ear, and I was trying to be polite and listen but all I could think about was you. I jumped up because I was glad you were back and that nothing bad had happened, plus - I was glad you were back so Jolene would see I have a girlfriend and stop throwing herself at me.”

“So I’m your girlfriend now am I?” I ask, feeling ridiculous at how my heart just did cartwheels through my chest when he said it.

He climbs up the bed and kneels in front of me. “Paige – we live together; you are way more than just my girlfriend, alright? You should know by now that I hate girls being all over me. I find it incredibly uncomfortable.”

“Yeah right, you hate pretty girls flirting with you and touching you?”

“Paige - I was pretty overweight when I was a kid, right up until my late teens. Girls like Jolene out there - they didn’t give me the time of day. When I got into sports, lost a bunch of weight and started to bulk up with muscle, suddenly these girls were looking at me like I was this new guy they’d never met before, and they made their interest obvious – just like Jolene was. I admit - I went with it more than a few times, because I am a guy not a saint, but it was all hollow. Those girls, they didn’t like me, or we would have