Chapter Six Paul #2
"Boys," she teased with an eye roll before sliding out of the car. I watched her get safely inside our building before pulling away from the curb.
I didn't go to Haunts. I went to a hotel and fucked Elise.
Twice.
◆◆◆
I needed to forget—forget the way my parents were rallying around Sophie like a support group, throwing out stories of coworkers and friends who'd "been through chemo and came out stronger."
Mom had been talking to Sophie about this special shirt she could wear after the double mastectomy—one with easy access for her drains. It wouldn't pull on stitches and was made of a soft, comfortable, and breathable fabric.
Mastectomy. Drains.
The words made my skin crawl.
My mom and fiancée were deep in discussion about shirt colors—debating which ones were cuter—and then mom was already ordering three for Sophie in her favorite colors.
Sophie protested at first, but ultimately stood down in the face of Donna O'Connor's determined mothering.
Meanwhile, I felt like I was about to crawl out of my own skin, barely maintaining the facade of the supportive, loving fiancé.
Elise helped me forget, if only for a moment.
The speaker on the counter hums a low tune, some classic rock song from mom and dad's heyday. She places an ice-cold glass of water in front of me, and I drink greedily, needing to clear my dry throat.
Those narrowed green eyes only sharpen as she takes the chair across from me with her own plate in front of her.
I clear my throat and put my now-empty glass down, "Where's dad?"
"Dallas," her eyes won't leave mine, and I shift in my seat, guilty. "He'll be back tomorrow."
I pick up my fork and try to focus on eating.
She raises an eyebrow, "You look tired, Paul."
"Yeah," I choke down the noodles as they suddenly taste like ash. "Work and... everything. It's been a lot."
"How's our girl?" she asks softly with a small smile, not fishing for information, just pure motherly concern.
She's loved Sophie since the first moment she met her—that soft, sweet girl I brought home for Thanksgiving who said, "Please, Mrs. O'Connor," and, "Thank you, Mr. O'Connor," and, "Can I help with dinner, Mrs. O'Connor? "
"If you don't marry this girl, I'm just going to adopt her myself," Mom had told me with a fond smile before we left to go back to school.
I remember my chest puffing out with pride. Sophie was the first girl I'd brought home that my mom genuinely liked.
Mom had never been rude to my exes—and my exes had never been disrespectful—but Sophie's always had a way about her that attracts people to her.
My dad had clapped me on the back and said, "You did good, son," and I'd felt ten feet tall.
Now, I feel lower than low.
We eat our food, alternating between uncomfortable silences and my mom trying to fill the gaps with small talk—gently asking about Sophie's treatment plan, and me offering short but truthful answers.
When I’ve choked down just enough food to seem acceptable, I grab my plate and bring it to the sink, needing to do something—anything—with my shaky hands.
As I'm placing my plate back into the cabinet, my phone buzzes in my pocket and I pull it out without thinking.
The face ID flashes and unlocks immediately, opening straight to my last text thread.
With Elise.
Elise: so proud of you for putting yourself first, babe!
come over?
here's a little incentive…
Just as my mom passes behind me to put leftovers in the fridge, the picture comes through.
And it is very clearly not Sophie.
Long blonde hair. No bra. Black lace panties. Bitten lips. Reclining on black silk sheets.
"Shit!" I hiss, quickly locking the phone. It’s too late. I can practically feel the air thicken behind me, and I know—I know—I'm fucked.
"Paul Francis O'Connor..." Her voice is ice cold behind me. "What the hell is that?"
"I..." I brace myself and turn slowly to face my mother.
Her voice is cold, but her green eyes are burning into me right now.
"You better answer me. Right now."
I swallow hard, sliding my phone back into my pocket. I can barely whisper the name, shame tightening around my throat like a noose.
"Elise."
Her eyes narrow, "And who is Elise?"
"My coworker."
"Oh. Your coworker," she repeats, like the word itself has a bad taste. "Seems a bit more than that, Paul. Seems like you two are quite friendly."
"It's... it's not..."
"Paul... please tell me you didn't," her voice cracks.
I don’t answer her, just continue staring, silently pleading with her to understand.
Her face collapses in misery.
"Ma, I..."
I trail off when I don't even know what I'm trying to say.
The truth wedges itself in my throat and refuses to come out. I've already devastated one woman I love today, I can't find it in me to do it again.
"Oh my God. You cheated on Sophie," she whispers. Her eyes close, her hand goes to her chest like she's trying to hold herself together. "You cheated on Sophie. On our Sophie. Your fiancée!"
"Ex-fiancée," I mutter defensively—like a dumbass—because I'm free-falling and it's the only thing I can grab onto.
It’s the completely wrong answer to my mom, because her eyes snap open and she grabs the nearest object—a dishtowel, thankfully—and hurls it right at me as hard as she can.
It smacks me in the side of the head, and I catch it before it hits the floor. She's already storming over to me, fury radiating off her in waves, and despite her being a whole head shorter than me, I shrink back.
"I have—" she starts, her voice a furious snarl I haven't heard since I crashed her car at seventeen, forgetting that wet roads meant slippery. "I have never felt so ashamed of you, Paul Francis. What the hell is the matter with you?!"
"You don't know what it's been like!" I explode, the words tearing their way out of me. I'm at my boiling point, a cornered animal clawing and spitting and trying to fight my way out.
"You don't know what it's been like—watching her get sick, crying herself to sleep at night, telling me she's scared. Me just sitting there, holding her like that could fix it. Knowing I can't fix it! I can't take the cancer from her, I can't help her, I can't do anything! I—I panicked, Ma!"
"You panicked? You panicked?" she screams, and I flinch at the pitch of the sound. "Sophie has cancer! She's facing death right now, and you panicked by fucking someone else?!"
"Ma, you don't understand, okay? I felt like I couldn't do anything. I felt useless. I couldn't do anything for Sophie besides comfort her—"
"—oh, so you turned to Elise to comfort you!"
"Yes! I did! And she was there for me!" I roar, slamming both hands down on the counter with a crack.
My mom's eyes widen, and I barrel on like a bull, "She listened to me!
She heard me. When I was drowning, she was the one who heard me.
All you, or Dad, or Brian, or Chris ever told me was to 'hang in there,' to 'be there for Sophie.
' That 'everything would be okay.' But she's dying!
She could die, and I'm so fucking scared, but I couldn't even tell Sophie that.
I didn't want to make her more scared than she already was.
You know how she is, she'd worry about me more than herself, and I couldn't make her do that.
I was scared to move and scared to not, and I felt like I was drowning, and I just.. . I needed comfort."
My mom is staring at me just like Sophie did—like I'm a stranger. Like I'm not the boy she gave birth to, not her son of thirty-three years.
It hurts.
The woman who's supposed to love me unconditionally is looking at me with such potent disappointment.
"You didn't raise me to deal with this kind of thing, Ma," I say, my voice somewhere between accusation and confession.
She blinks and something shifts in her face—her anger folding inward, turning quieter, sharper. "You're blaming me?"
"No—yes—I..." I bite the words out, frustrated, stumbling over the truth like broken glass.
"I'm saying... maybe if you hadn't always shielded me from everything, I'd know how to handle this.
I've never had to deal with this before, with any of this.
You're healthy, dad is healthy, everyone in our family is healthy and cancer-free, and I just..
. I didn't know what to do, I didn't know how to act.
.. I don't know how to be the man Sophie needs right now. "
She stares at me for a long, frozen moment, her expression unreadable, then slowly shakes her head.
"I'm so sorry, Paul."
I frown in confusion, my brain scrambling to catch up. "What?"
"You're right. This is my fault," she nods.
Her tone is quiet and even. Scary calm. "I didn't realize that being blessed as a family—and not having to deal with one of our own getting cancer—would be so detrimental to you."
My stomach plummets straight to the floor. "Ma..."
"Of course you had to cheat on your fiancée," she continues, as if spelling it out will make me sound any more rational. "It makes perfect sense."
"That's not what I meant," I try to defend myself, the words keep getting scrambled, and I feel like I'm grasping at air. "I—"
She raises a hand to silence me.
"I'm so disappointed in you, Paul," she whispers. The words hit me like a sledgehammer right to my chest.
But she's not done.
"But you know something else?" she asks me, her voice tightening.
"I'm so, so disappointed in myself. I raised a man who betrays the love of his life in the cruelest way imaginable.
I raised a man who left the love of his life when she needed him the most—for what?
A man who trades true, deep love for momentary, fleeting comfort.
You shortsighted, immature little boy. You. .."
She trails off, her voice crumbling and two tears silently track down her cheeks.
"I can't look at you right now, Paul. Get out of my sight," she whispers, her voice low and frayed, not angry anymore—just defeated.
◆◆◆
Elise's apartment is sleek, in a newer building, and definitely more expensive than my apartment with Sophie. It smells like rose-scented candles and red wine, not the marshmallow, lemon cleaner scent I'm used to.
I drove aimlessly for an hour after leaving my parents' house, thankfully remembering to quickly grab my duffel bag before I left the house.
I don't know if my mom meant for me to get out for now or forever, but I couldn't stand to see the look on her face anymore.
So I left, wandered, and finally texted Elise.
"You look like hell," she comments with an amused grin, dressed in a red silk robe and walking backward to guide me to her bedroom. Not like I haven't been here before.
Her roommate, Rhea, must be out. That was one of the reasons we usually fucked at hotels—discretion.
Now that I've decimated my engagement, there's no need to sneak around anymore, no need to worry about rumors making their way back to Sophie or my parents.
I press Elise against the bedroom door and kiss her hard.
For a second, it feels... almost nice. The warmth. The absence of judgment. The freedom to do this, to fuck her against the door, feeling something besides this shame.
For the last two months, I would feel something in my body unclench after having sex with Elise. Not just a release of sexual frustration, this was something deeper. Honestly, that's what I chased more than the orgasm—that feeling. It doesn't come this time.
We lay tangled in Elise's bed after, the silk sheets are too cold, too wrong. She traces my chest with a finger, and I resist the urge to shove it away.
"Did it go that badly with your mom?"
The tightness in my throat won’t allow me to answer for a few long moments.
"She looked at me like I was a stranger," I whisper, my voice breaking on the last word.
"She'll get over it," Elise smiles, reaching up to kiss my jaw. Trying to be helpful, trying to distract me. Her hand traces down my stomach, lower and lower. "Once she sees how happy we are..."
I don't answer her and tell her that she's wrong. I can't say anything.
I just roll over and fuck Elise again, thinking maybe this time I'll feel the relief.
I don't.