Chapter Eight- His Story

“Why, Dougie?”

Silence descended upon us. He stared into his mug nervously, and I stared at him. What else could I do? I didn’t understand what he was saying. It didn’t make sense for a start. “Why?” he repeated softly.

“Yes. Why, Doug? There has to be a reason. You don’t just wake up one morning and decide: ‘I’m going to change my personality today!’ What? Did you suffer an identity crisis? Was it a neurological problem?”

He sighed- the sound a mixture of frustration and depression. “No. But that’s partly why I did it.”

I frowned, “Part of the reason you did it was because of a neurological proble-?”

“No!” he claimed. “You! How you think, how you speak.”

The brain that usually thought so well for me was giving me nothing right now. “I don’t-”

“Your intelligence, Tom,” he stressed, the slow and condescending tone of his voice acting as a complete oxymoron to the words he spoke. “You’re so smart without even trying to be. And you speak like you should be so much older. I was nervous!”

I put a hand to my head weakly. Dougie? Nervous? Was that possible? “I can’t take this in. Go from the start.”

He nodded, and took a sip of his hot chocolate before doing as I’d asked: “As soon as I first saw you, I knew I wanted you. You walked into me in the corridor when you were going to meet Harry. Great face, seemingly friendly, fantastic arse. So I watched you walk over to him and made it my mission to find out who you were.”

I grinned at him, “I already knew who you were.”

His lips quirked, “Not surprising. I’ve made quite a name for myself. But I’d never seen you before. So I asked around. I found out you were pretty respected, but you were also one of the strongest minds in our year. Me, I was failing. And I saw your stalker and figured something was going to happen there, so I backed off.

“Then, just when I’d convinced myself you were a geek who I wanted nothing to do with, you ended up in my French class in third year. You sat at the table in front of me and- as soon as you smiled at me when you walked in- I knew I was doomed.”

He offered me a sheepish smile, “I heard you and Harry talking. Of course you weren’t a geek. No, that would be too easy… No. I had to fall for you even further. You were always so nice- even when you were talking about people who didn’t deserve any niceties. Then, one day when Harry was off, you turned to talk to me.”

I thought back, “Did I? You were always next to that guy who glared at me like he wanted me dead. I was a little scared to.”

“He was on holiday,” Dougie said dismissively. “Well, I say ‘holiday’. His parents sent him to an anger management clinic. But, anyway, we were talking, just random things, and then your little stalker walked past.”

It shocked me how dangerously and suddenly his eyes narrowed as he said that. What was his problem with Matt, anyway? Dougie was dating someone else now. “I saw how you smiled at him, how he looked at you. I watched you admire his arse as he walked off, and I knew I had to get you first. Because now, I knew you were gay.”

“But I asked you out,” I stated flatly.

“That was my plan,” he insisted.

“Don’t you think it might have been easier just to ask me out?”

He gave me a flirtatious grin, “Oh, but Tom… You know that’s not how I operate… I like making people want me. By the time I was done, you wanted me…”

“I didn’t get you.”

He cringed, “I know. And I’m sorry. That first date was incredible. It was so much fun. Or… It should have been. But all I could focus on was how stupid I was in comparison to you. And then you kissed me, and I knew I wasn’t going to let you go.”

“What happened to that Dougie?” I asked him. “The one who giggled all the time? The one with the crude sense of humour? The one I asked out?” I met his gaze seriously, “The one sitting in front of me?”

“I wanted to be smarter.”

“You’re not stupid!”

“I know! But next to you I felt like a caveman!” He let me take his mug out of his hands and set it aside, before he leaned into the embrace I offered. “It was stupid. I know it was. But I wanted to match up to you. So I worked so hard, and boosted myself up. I tried to make myself into someone you would like.”

He felt my whole body stiffen in horror, and he shook his head, “It’s not your fault. You never once said anything about my intelligence. I just needed to do this.

“Of course, it was only once I’d forced myself to change that I realised how much you had in common with the real me. But I was scared to come back in case you thought I was some sort of weird schizo.”

“I would’ve put it down to one of your mood swings, I thi-” I caught his narrowed look up at me, “I mean, I never would have accepted it. You were right to keep up the act.”

He giggled, “I’m a better actor than you are.” I nudged him playfully, making him giggle even more. “So, anyway, I thought this new me would impress you, but you started to drift away. I gained hope every time you kissed me, whenever you tried to take it further.”

“Why did you stop me? I thought you were disgusted.”

He moved back to look me in the eye, “No. I could never be. I just figured that the new Dougie would be responsible and careful. It broke me every time I had to stop you. You were so nice at first, told me to tell you when I was ready. But I could see your feelings were starting to get hurt as I continued to push you away, so I tried to win you back.”

He reached up to touch a hand to my cheek, my lips, gently, “And, in doing so, I lost you.”

“But you got yourself back. And you have Harry, who makes you happy and want to be yourself.”