(Leve
DrØmet i Norge)
Tuesday
10:10 a.m., Oslo
“Yeah, but did you see the look on her face?” Chloe laughed, as her, Ben and Mark walked back to their rooms from breakfast, a meal Ben only just made it to before they kicked everyone out of the restaurant.
“So we’re all gonna go and have a wander around, then?” Mark asked as they stopped outside Chloe and Ben’s room.
“Yeah, think so.” Chloe said. “I’m just gonna go and check what Paul and Rose are doing today.”
Ben gestured to their room. “Alright, I’ll wait in here and-”
“Do my hair.” Mark mimicked, with a grin.
“Shut up.” Ben retorted, and Chloe left them to it, walking up the corridor to Paul’s room.
Finding the door partly open, she knocked lightly and went in, not even the slightest bit prepared for what was waiting for her. Paul had Rose pushed up against the wall and was kissing her fervently with both of his hands roaming over her partly clothed body. All Rose was wearing was a bra and a skirt, and Paul only had a pair of trousers on. They were very definitely in the middle of something.
“Oh my God.” Chloe said before she could stop herself, putting a hand over her mouth to stop any more words coming out.
At the sound of her voice, Paul stopped kissing Rose and turned round to see the horrified look on Chloe’s face. They were still in the clinch when there was another voice behind Chloe.
“Chloe, I’m just gonna-” Mark stopped dead as his eyes rested on Rose and Paul.
Chloe looked round. “Oh my God, Mark-”
But it was too late. Looking like he’d just been hit by a bulldozer, Mark turned round and walked swiftly off down the corridor.
“Mark!” Chloe shouted after him, but he didn’t stop, didn’t even look back. “Now look what you’ve done.” She said angrily, turning back to Rose and Paul.
“What we’ve done?” Rose said defiantly.
“Yes! Do you know how much he’s hurting over you?”
Rose looked amazed. “Oh he’s hurting, is he? Well let’s all treat him like he’s the good guy, shall we? Let’s pander to his every whim and forget everything that he did. I can’t believe you - do you know how much I’m hurting over what he did to me? Well no, I don’t suppose you do, because you’re too busy being on his side.”
“I’m not on anyone’s side!” Chloe exclaimed. “Mark is a friend, just like you are.”
“Oh that’s right – I mean so much to you that you drag me on holiday with my least favourite person in the world and then every time we have a run in because he won’t leave me alone, it’s him you’re there for.”
“Well forgive me for being so presumptuous, but it didn’t look like you were doing too badly. I said I was sorry, anyway. I thought you’d be over it by now.”
“It follows that you’d have absolutely no idea how I’m feeling. You just don’t have a clue, Chloe! You weren’t there for me when I really needed you before, so I don’t know why I expected you to be here for me now. It’s hardly surprising though that you stand up for Mark over me: he just can’t do anything wrong in your eyes, can he?”
“All he wants to do is talk to you! He knows that he was in the wrong, but he’s sorry!”
“Oh that’s alright then, as long as he’s sorry.” Rose said sarcastically.
“Fine, you hate him, I understand that, but do you really need to rub his nose in it by being all over Paul?” Chloe exclaimed, glaring angrily at Paul to prevent him from commenting at this stage. “It’s killing him seeing you two together!”
“We’re only having a bit of fun. It’s not against the law, is it?”
“Oh come on, Rose! You know you’re only using Paul to get back at Mark!”
“So what if I am?”
“It’s not necessary! You’re hurting Mark enough by not talking to him; this is just cruel!”
“Ohhh, I see what this is about.” Rose said with an ironic smile. “I should have known, really.”
“What?”
“This isn’t about Mark at all. You don’t care how he feels about me and Paul.”
“For God’s sake! There is no you and Paul!”
“You said it yourself, so why are you so bothered?”
Chloe was thrown. “What?” she asked again.
“If you know that I’m just using Paul to make Mark jealous, why do you care? Surely if you just told Mark that then it wouldn’t be hurting him any more and things would be fine.”
“No…” Chloe said uncertainly.
“No, things wouldn’t be fine, would they, Chloe? Because your main priority isn’t how it’s hurting Mark, but how it’s hurting you.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yes you do! At least have the guts to admit it! You’re so bothered about me and Paul because, even though you know that I’m just using him, you don’t know if he’s just using me.” Rose said, looking straight at Chloe.
“I don’t-”
“And you don’t like how that makes you feel, do you, Chloe? Because you don’t want him, but you still want him to want you, don’t you? You can’t bear the thought that he might be interested in someone else.”
“That’s not how it is at all!” Chloe protested.
“No, you’re right, it isn’t.” Rose said, letting out a laugh. “Here’s the punch line – you do still want him, don’t you? All this time you’ve managed to convince yourself that going back to Ben the Idiot was the right thing to do – what you really wanted - but oops, turns out that it wasn’t, was it?”
Chloe didn’t say anything, just stared helplessly at Rose as she cut up her thoughts into little pieces and fed them to the lions.
“And you still have feelings for Paul, hundreds of feelings that you’ve been telling yourself you don’t have, and you can’t cope with them, because in Chloe’s perfect world, things like this don’t happen. Everyone makes the right choices always, and lives happily ever after. I’m not surprised you shut me out – I’m obviously such a screw-up.” Rose said, her words full of bitterness. “And look at this: not only are you still stuck with Ben, but Paul appears to be interested in me. But you can’t let that happen, can you? If you can’t have him, no-one else can. That’s just not how it works. God, you’re still the same pathetically deluded 15-year-old who I used to actually quite like before I realised how fickle you really are. Before you come in here and get all moralistic on me, I suggest you sort out your own issues first.” she said cuttingly, storming past Chloe out of the room, leaving her and Paul on their own.
There was an uneasy silence before Paul spoke.
“Is she right?” he asked hesitantly.
“What?” Chloe asked, looking at him, her eyes burning with hurt and anger.
“What Rose said about you still having feelings for me.”
“Oh that’s right! Ask me that right now! Kick me while I’m down, coz God knows Rose had a fairly good go. She didn’t quite finish me off, though, so why don’t you try? Go on, ask me another typically self-centred question!” Chloe shouted at Paul.
“I’m not being self-centred - I need to know!”
“Why do you need to know? Why is it any of your business what I feel? Even if I did have feelings for you, nothing could ever happen between us, so if it’s alright with you, I think I might just keep the few private feelings I have left to myself.”
Seeing Rose march past the open door of his room and hearing raised voices, Ben got up off the bed and ventured up the corridor towards Paul’s room. As he got closer he was able to make out the words that were being said, words that froze him to the spot just outside the door, out of view of Chloe and Paul.
“Why are you being like this?” Paul demanded.
“Oh I’m the crazy one now?”
“Chloe, stop it! Just calm down a minute.”
“Don’t tell me to calm down! You don’t have any right to tell me to do anything while it’s all your fault I’m like this in the first place!” Chloe exclaimed.
“Why is it my fault?” Paul asked.
“Because of what you told me on the plane!”
“I told you how I felt.”
“Yes! And you had no right to tell me you’re still in love with me! Where do you get off making my life complicated?!”
“I didn’t say it to cause problems; I told you that!”
“Then why the hell did you say it?! Couldn’t you have kept your feelings to yourself, just for once!?” Chloe shouted.
“You know, maybe Rose was right; maybe the reason you reacted so badly is that me telling you that brought back feelings you’d been trying to forget.” Paul said calmly. “If you could just stop being angry with yourself and forget about what you think you should feel, then you might actually be able to be happy!”
Ben regained the use of his legs and walked slowly back to the room he’d come from. He didn’t want to hear any more. He’d heard enough already.
“For God’s sake, will you stop trying to analyse my every word?!” Chloe shouted exasperatedly.
“Well maybe someone needs to! You’re so fucking confusing all the time! I don’t even think you know what you’re thinking half the time!” Paul exclaimed, rising to Chloe’s words. “I just want to know how you feel!”
“Okay, you want to know how I feel? How I’m really feeling at this moment in time? I’ll be totally honest with you, if that’s what you really want.” Chloe said, the anger still in her voice.
“Okay…” Paul said, not quite sure where this was going, or what the outcome was going to be.
“Rose was right; it did hurt seeing you with her, but not because I still have feelings for you, because it reminded me of how you ruined everything with me and Ben, and are still continuing to haunt me with the stupid mistakes I made in the past! You’re standing in the way of things ever getting even remotely civil between Rose and Mark, just like you did with me and Ben.”
“I was doing it for your own good! You know that!” Paul cried, clearly hurt.
“No, Paul. You were doing it for your own good, fooling yourself that it was what was best for me. Did it ever occur to you that things had been blown totally out of proportion and what I really needed was to sort things out with Ben? No, you had to play the fucking hero, protecting poor little Chloe from big bad Ben. You were never going to be what I wanted, Paul, no matter how much you tried to brainwash me into thinking that I was happier with you. And do you know what? You never will be.” Chloe said coldly, watching as Paul walked past her and out the door.
She stood there for a few minutes, rooted to the spot with shock at the words that had come from her, and anger at the words that had come from Rose and Paul, before taking a deep breath and heading back into her and Ben’s room.
“Hi.” Ben said, looking up when she walked in. “You okay?”
“Um, yeah!” Chloe said, forcing a smile even though all she wanted to do was cry. “Great!”
“Where’s Mark?”
“He’s, um, he decided not to come.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah, er, I think he’s gone somewhere with Rose and Paul.” Chloe said, before realising how unlikely and stupid that sounded.
“Really?” Ben asked, sounding surprised. “Are things okay with them now, then?”
“Think so.” Chloe said airily.
“Oh.” Ben said. “So, what do you think about Rose and Paul?”
“What do you mean?” Chloe asked cautiously, instantly on guard.
“Well, you know, just wondered what you thought about it, because of, y’know, your sorta… history, with Paul.”
Oh God, Chloe thought.
This was the last thing she needed to be interrogated about right now. Did Ben pick these moments on purpose?!
“I’m not bothered about it.” Chloe said.
“So it’s not weird for you, or anything?”
Chloe sighed. “Ben, stop it.”
“What?”
“The twenty questions about Paul.”
“I’m not!”
“Fine.” Chloe said, not wanting another argument. “Just don’t.”
There was a silence while Chloe turned her back on Ben so he couldn’t see her expression and pretended to fiddle with her bag while she tried to think.
“So what did you two talk about on the plane yesterday?” Ben asked, trying to be casual.
“Not much.” Chloe said, trying to be calm.
“It wasn’t awkward, or anything, y’know, seeing him again?”
“Nope.”
“So you didn’t talk about what happened, then?” Ben persisted.
Chloe took a deep breath, bit her tongue and turned round.
“Can we not talk about this, please?” she asked.
“Why not?”
“Because it’s irrelevant to just about everything.”
“Is it?”
“What? Of course it is!”
“Oh. It’s just you look like you’re quite close to him, still.”
“Well of course I am – he’s a friend!”
“Just a friend?”
Ohhhh, that was so it. He was going to regret saying that.
“What are you implying?” Chloe asked.
“Nothing.”
“If you’ve got something to say, just say it.”
“I was just thinking that you and Paul sometimes look like more than friends, that’s all.”
“So you think I’m cheating on you, do you? With Paul?”
Ben started to look uncomfortable.
“Well come on then! You might as well say it all now!” Chloe said, raising her voice as she lost her temper.
“Don’t shout at me.” Ben said.
“Don’t accuse me of cheating on you, then!”
“Well what am I supposed to think, huh, Chloe? What am I supposed to think when you seem just a little bit more than friendly with the guy you ran off with before?”
“Ran off with?! What is this – let’s change the story to fit my ridiculous issues?! I think that, if just for one moment you can try to make everything not solely about you, you’ll find that I did not just “run off”; I had a bloody good reason for going, and you know it. Don’t you dare try and turn this around. Time doesn’t change what you did.” Chloe warned.
“I’m not trying to turn anything around! You can’t blame me for being a little bit suspicious when I see you flirting with him right under my nose!”
“And once again, everything is my fault. Ben, this is you overreacting about every single little thing again: none of this actually happened! It’s just you being jealous and possessive and doing exactly what you did last time! In fact, I’m not sure I feel comfortable being in the same room as you at the moment: I don’t know what you might do.” Chloe goaded.
Ben stood up, making Chloe take a step back. “You know that was an accident! And you know how bad I feel!”
“Well it’s funny, coz the other thing I “know” is that you trust me, but from what you’ve said, clearly that was just an elaborate lie.”
“I do trust you!”
“Really?! So why are we having this discussion?”
“Because I need to know how you feel about Paul!”
Oh, that rang bells. Fun fun bells.
“Why do you need to know that if you trust me?” Chloe demanded.
“Fine! I don’t trust you! I don’t trust you one little bit and sometimes I feel like if I let you out of my sight for one second, I might lose you again, because I don’t think you know how to be in a proper relationship!” Ben shouted.
Chloe was taken aback. “If you feel like that, why do you bother?” she asked quietly. “Why not just let me wander off like the little lap-dog you clearly think I am?”
“Because I love you.” Ben said agonizingly.
“So why don’t you trust me?” Chloe asked, feeling herself close to tears.
“I do.” Ben said. “Just not…”
“Around Paul.” Chloe said, nodding. “I get it. So it doesn’t matter how many times I tell you I feel nothing for him, you’re not going to believe me. You’re still going to have to ‘keep an eye on me’.”
“I just don’t want to lose you again.”
“But can’t you see that this isn’t the way to do that?! You need to let go of the past; stop hanging onto things you can’t change! Why can’t you just forget?!”
“Because I know you’re still in love with him!” Ben exclaimed. “I can see it every time you look at him!”
Whereas before, Chloe had thought they might be close to reconciliation before things got out of hand, enough was enough,
“I wasn’t in love with him!” she shouted. “I slept with him because I hated you! I wanted to hurt you like you’d hurt me! And the way I’m feeling right now, I might just go and do it again! But maybe I’ll have a go at Mark this time, or maybe Christian, you know, just for variation. Any preferences on who you’d rather keep me on my lead around?!”
“No, Chloe-”
“Do you know what hurts the most?” she asked, walking towards the door. “You’ve spent the last year and a half not believing a word I’ve said to you. What a waste of time.”
And with that she walked out of the room, leaving Ben on his own.