Page 35 of My Fake Date With My Childhood Friend
“I called you a while ago, and you didn’t call me back,” he blurted out.
That was it? That was what he tracked me down to say.
“Yeah, I didn’t have anything to say to you, so I don’t know why you were expecting me to call you back.”
He had the audacity to look surprised. “Wow. You’ve really changed, Penny.”
“Yep,” I said. “Guess you could say I saw the light, realized my worth, and dropped all the trash from my life.”
“Come on, I’ve already apologized so many times,” he said sulkily.
“Telling me you’re sorry that you made out with my friend while continuing to date said friend doesn’t count as apologizing, Joseph.”
“So… what you’re saying is that if I break up with her, you’d forgive me?”
“No!” I snapped. Was he genuinely this stupid, or was he just trying to rile me up?
“But you just said--”
“My point was that none of your apologies until now have been genuine,” I said. “Maybe, just maybe, if you broke it off with Nikki, then I could believe your apology was genuine. But it doesn’t guarantee that I would forgive you.”
“Don’t you think you’ve held onto this grudge long enough?”
“It’s been less than two weeks,” I said flatly. I checked my watch. “And your two minutes are up. Goodbye, Joseph.”
Once again, I tried to push past myself. He walked backwards, so he stayed in line with me.
“Hey, hey, wait!” He said. “We’re not done talking about this!”
“I am.”
“Well, I’m not!” He put his arm out to stop me again. I huffed in annoyance, but did stop. I wasn’t getting anywhere with him following me like this, and I didn’t want to risk him trying to come into a debate with me. With my luck, the topic of the debate would end up being Cheaters: To Forgive or Not to Forgive?
“Come on, Penny, you returned all my stuff, and you even stopped wearing the necklace I gave you,” he said. He glanced at my neck, which was notably bare. Back on our first date, he’d given me a small green pendant because he knew it was my favourite colour. I’d worn it every day while we were dating. “All these little trinkets we had together, all the memories we had together, you keep throwing them away. Don’t tell me that doesn’t hurt you.”
“Joseph, we are not together anymore,” I said, clearly enunciating every word. I needed him to hear and understand this. “You have no say in anything I do with my life, and you need to leave me alone. I know this might come as a shock to you, but I don’t want any reminders of the boy who cheated on me.”
Joseph put his hands on my shoulders and stared me dead in the eyes. I squirmed, trying to get him to let go, but that only made him dig his fingers in deeper.
“Penny,” he said seriously. “I made a mistake. I’ve said this a million times already, but I’ll keep saying it until you believe me. I still love you, and I want you back. I miss you. I need you. I’m sorry about everything. I want us to start over and forget about everything.”
I knew Joseph was an expert manipulator, and I wasn’t going to fall for it. Those puppy dog eyes might have worked before, but now all I could see when I looked at him was the day I’d found him kissing Nikki. I couldn’t believe he genuinely thought I would ever get back together with him as if I didn’t still have my self-respect and sanity. It was especially absurd considering that he still had a girlfriend, and I had a boyfriend as far as he knew.
I snorted and shoved his arms as hard as I could, forcing him to let go of me.
“Why would I want you back, Joseph?” I asked. “It’s obvious that you only want what you can’t have. You don’t love or respect me, and you never have. My advice to you would be to forget about me completely while I’m still being nice.”
Joseph looked surprised for a second, but it quickly turned into obvious anger.
“I won’t stop! I think about you every day, and I will keep trying to get you back. Just wait and see.”
“I have a boyfriend!” I was surprised at how convincing I sounded when I said it. Almost as if it was actually the truth.
“And he’s not good enough for you! Can’t you see it?”
“No,” I said coldly. I can’t. “The only person who wasn’t good enough for me was you.”
“You need to listen to me!”
