Children Of The Damned

Eliana

I had been dreading this all day.

I had been hoping to avoid him by going a different route to my car after school. This only meant that he was leaning against my car waiting for me when I walked up, keys jingling in anticipation.

There was no escape from this.

“What’s going on between you and Damon?” he asked, not even bothering to say hello before he launched into his jealousy-fueled assault.

“It was just a few movies. I needed to hang out with a friend.”

“You could have hung out with me. You could have invited me over for a movie.” He was really upset about this, but I didn’t really care at the moment. Of course I couldn’t have just called him. He was my boyfriend, and as much as I liked being with him, I knew that hanging out with him would be different than hanging out with Damon. With Damon, it was strictly a friendship atmosphere. With Matt, there was always this anticipation of making out or deciding when we were going to go further. I knew there was no way I would have been able to just sit down and watch movies with him.

Not to mention there were things I could talk about with Damon that I just couldn’t feel comfortable telling Matt. He still didn’t even know how much running meant to me, or how I had almost lost it for good…if it hadn’t been for Damon’s encouragement.

“Is this really bugging you that much?”

“Yeah, Elly, it is. He’s bad news. I don’t want you hanging out with him.”

“You’re kidding me, right?” I said in disbelief. I couldn’t believe he was being so childish and demanding. We had only been dating for maybe two months, and he was acting as if it was even remotely okay.

“I’m looking out for you,” he said when he read the look in my eyes.

“No, you’re not. You’re trying to tell me who I can and cannot associate with. I don’t need you to act like my father. I have been living without one of those for quite some time now.”

“Why are you being so defensive?” he asked. If he was upset before, he was ridiculously and unjustifiably pissed right now.

“Why are you being so invasive? I’m not cheating on you with Damon. And the possibility that you would even consider that I could even think about doing something like that to you is just incredibly rude. He is my friend. I can tell him things I can’t tell anyone else. Look, I know you think he can’t be trusted, but I am telling you now that people are wrong about him. He’s not as bad as everyone thinks he is.”

“You tell him things you don’t tell me?” he asked in a wounded tone.

“You are completely missing the point here. Look, I can’t believe we are even having this conversation right now. I need to get home. I have three tests tomorrow I need to study for. And then, maybe when I’m done studying, I’ll hang out with Damon some more. And if you don’t like that then you can just dump me.”

I turned away from him, and was glad he just walked away so I could avoid looking at him when I was this upset. I didn’t want to say things that I was going to regret later.