The Inevitable Fanfiction

Chapter 9
Paula arrives at the studio far earlier than she usually would, anticipating meeting Simon. His car is not there yet, which makes me hopeful she will get a chance to speak with her now wallowing co-judge. She goes in for make-up and hair first thing, making sure there would be plenty of time for an anticipated heart to heart. She isn’t even sure why she expects a ready, forgiving Simon, perfectly keen to pour his heart out, but she can’t help but hope that she’ll be lucky. Daniel who is busy working on her hair is the one who sees him, walking passed the open door, eyes straight ahead and face expressionless.
“Simon!” Paula calls, jumping out of her seat. He turns instinctively, only to look away a second later, clearly avoiding his colleague. “Simon, wait!” She chases after him until he is in his own room. “Can we talk, please?”
She is answered with the door in her face. “Ugh,” she grumbles, walking away.
“What’s up, P?” Randy asks, hand on her back as she sits beside him at the judges table.
“I owe Simon an apology,” she says softly.
“Do you, now?” Simon’s voice comes from beside her. He sits down, eyes intent upon her. “And here I thought that it would be beneath you, Paw-la. I’m impressed.”
“Oh please, Simon. Give up the act. I wanted to apologise for last week.”
“Took you long enough.” His eyes roll upwards. Paula wants to say more but the show begins and Simon goes back to ignoring her.
It is only after they are done does she get any opportunity for conversation. She does not let the Brit out of her sight, cutting her hugs short and following him suit.
“Damn it, Simon! Give me one minute to talk and I’ll leave you be!” Paula yells across the long corridor, where many people turn in their direction. Simon looks back from a few feet away.
“Fine. Get in.” He points to his dressing room. She obeys wordlessly and he shuts the door behind them.
“First of all I want to say that it was highly amateurish of me to let my personal feelings get in the way of our show and also, I’m sorry because I know went too far.”
“Fuller told you about my dad, didn’t he?” Simon asks quietly.
“Nigel told me, actually. And I realised that you were right about one thing... I don’t know you. If I did I would have never hurt you like that – ”
“You speak of me like I’m some fragile – ”
“But you don’t know me either, Simon,” she finishes. They both stay soundless, looking at each other.
“Do you feel better now?” He asks after a moment.
Paula looks perplexed. “What are you talking about?”
“Your guilty conscience is cleared. You can go on with your life now. Don’t you feel better?” Simon crosses his arms.
“It’s not like that, Simon.”
“Isn’t it?” One eyebrow raised, he watches as Paula closes the gap between them.
“No it isn’t. I apologised because I am sincerely sorry to have brought up any unpleasant memories – for hurting you in any way.” She jabs his chest with one finger.
“Right,” he says, obviously unbelieving.
Paula’s mouth structures into a thin line, as she seethes. Damn this man. “I really don’t know why I bother.”
“Me neither.”
“Ugh.” With a stamp of her foot, Paula storms out the door.
“This was fun! We should do it more often!” Simon calls derisively from behind.
The next few shows are no better; Simon being positively malevolent to Paula who takes it all with a brave face, daring not say anything back. She feels if she can hold out long enough, be strong, that he will eventually forgive her. On some levels, she is making it up to him, taking whatever he has to say and not react like she usually would. It’s exhausting really, trying to pretend none of his words mean anything when in fact they are insensitive and uncalled for. He insults her on every level, professionally and personally.
“Nice hat, Paula,” he’d said and for a moment she thought he was being sincere. “It almost makes you look taller.” Go figure.
Three weeks had passed. They had moved to a bigger stage, everything seemed grander and different, everything except for Simon’s nastiness to Paula. The poor thing had tried practically everything to patch things up, ignoring his remarks, and speaking to him politely as she could. Randy knew she was close to her breaking point now. After every show, she was close to tears if not already there. She had wept in Daniel’s comforting arms on more than one occasion silently in her dressing room. He and Ryan both try to console her and also attempt talking to Simon, but nothing seems to help. He finally had an excuse to be rotten to her, to watch her reaction every time he said something, and there was no stopping this perverse pleasure. Each time her mouth straightened itself into a thin line, and each time she blinked longer than necessary, Simon would smirk. If he was taking revenge for what she said about his father, he was even colder than he ever thought he could be. He would never speak of such an act to his mother.
However, he still convinces himself that is indeed why he is doing thing, because the alternative is so much worse. The alternative would be that he likes Paula too much for his own good and this is the perfect excuse to push her away, to get under her skin so she could not get under his. How long the charade would last, he doesn’t know.
When he passes her in the hall one day before show time, she cannot contain it any longer.
“Where’s your script writer today?” Simon sneers.
She doesn’t turn to him, doesn’t look at him. She is just short of walking into her own dressing room, while he stands in front of it. He has used that line too many times the past few weeks, along with too many others, and it is all getting rather difficult to bottle up. She cannot pretend it doesn’t hurt.
“I don’t know, Simon. I think I lost him,” she says softly. This surprises him because it is the first time she has answered anything he has said in weeks. Her eyes tear despite how much she tries to keep them dry, and he either takes advantage of her weakness, or simply doesn’t realise how badly she is hurting.
“Oh good, maybe now you can get one who actually knows how to write lines for you. You know, lines that actually make sense.” He speaks slowly, as if he were talking a child.
“Yeah, maybe.” Paula takes off to her room to recompose herself, leaving Simon staring at her door, using her thumb to keep the tears from streaming down. Damn it, now she’ll have to redo her make-up.
He hears her sniff as the door closes behind her and in a split second, he feels like the worst person. That look on her face was cringe worthy; did his words hurt her that badly? Was it just her time of the month? He can’t be sure, but that soft sniffle has him fighting the urge to apologise. He fights it though, his ego getting the better of him and leads him away from her door.
After the show; when tense conversations and half-hearted critiques are over with, Simon can no longer hold back. Immediately he follows Paula who has been trying her upmost best to keep a straight face, though she looked like she was about to cry at every second moment.
“Wait, Paula.” He takes her wrist in his hand. She stares at him dead in the eyes with just as much defiance as vulnerability. It confuses him – he doesn’t know how to deal with her. Simon doesn’t want to feel guilty, nor does he want to sympathise with her. No, because she had hurt him. Yet he cannot help himself, he cannot possibly be angry with her and infuriates him all the more.
“Let go, Simon.” She struggles to pull her wrist free.
“Would you let me apologise at least?” He asks and it’s harsher than how an apology should start off. He manages to pull her into his dressing room, standing in front of the closed door, Paula’s wrist still in his grip.
“Apologise? Why would you want to do that?” Paula laughs sarcastically, much too loudly. “It’s not like you have a guilty conscience.”
“Just shut up for one second would you?” Simon snaps. She sets her jaw, letting her wrist rest limp in his hand now. “I wanted to say that I’m sorry, damn it. Why do you make everything so difficult? I realise that I have been cruel… more cruel to a woman than I have ever thought I could be and yes, you didn’t know about my father, and yes you apologised. I was still angry – I am still angry…” He swallows. “But I was wrong to hurt you, Paula. I didn’t even realise how bad I – ”
“Fine.”
“What?” He looks at her like she had grown two heads.
“Fine, Simon. Apology accepted.” She tugs her wrist from him and gets it back. Quickly she crosses her arms on her chest. They simply stare at each other for a few moments. “Was this really all because of that one comment?” Paula asks, finding it difficult to believe it could be.
“What else could it be?”
What else, they both know, they can both see in the other’s eyes but dare not speak it. That comment of Paula’s had given him the perfect reason to be nasty to her, to push her away when she was coming far too close for comfort. He would have liked to said that it was his defence mechanism, but something like this had never happened before. He had never met someone who could affect him as strongly and it made him mad.
“I guess you’re right. It couldn’t be anything else,” Paula says.
Simon gives a half-shrug and nods, allowing this falsehood to become the truth of them.
“So now what?” He asks, his voice low and defenceless now, not at all like it had been moments before when he had been angry with her, angry with himself.
“Now you can go back to whatever it is you do, and I can go on pretending you don’t exist.”
Simon can see the loathing in her eyes and wishes he could alter it. Perhaps pushing her away had not been one of his brighter ideas. “I’m sorry that you think of me so lowly and I’m sorry I gave you the opportunity to think so.”
“Why do you care what I think of you?”
Again they stand without a sound, facing each other. The question goes unanswered. Simon refrains from letting her leave, though he really doesn’t know why he is keeping her here. Then, from thin air does an idea place itself in his head, haunting him. He wants to kiss her. So badly. He wants to devour her, and while he has felt this way before, watching her videos, sitting beside her at the judging table and even when arguing with her, he has never felt it so strongly. He wants her.
He can imagine himself leaning in and cupping her face with one hand. He would drop a kiss to the corner of her mouth and wait for her to capture his mouth with hers. She’d wrap her fingers in his hair, and clutch him by the shirt to come closer.
In a split second they would go from two livid people back to the pair who had met only just a few months ago and had much to learn about the other and much attraction to play with. In a split second all Simon’s fantasies of her would flood back into his mind, clouding all other thoughts. It would be messy and downright ridiculous how they could still feel drawn to each other even now, but their lips shall meet anyway, regardless of the illogicalness behind it all, and Simon would not have it any other way. She wouldn’t even try to resist, letting down all her walls and showing him all the amazing things her tongue can do. Simon would let her waist go and places his left hand on the door besides her head, while his right tangles in her hair, bringing her head as close to his as humanly possible.
“I hate you,” Paula would moan, breathily.
“I know,” Simon would acknowledge, and it would only add more fuel to their fire.
“Good, because I really hate you,” She’d say, before letting his lips embrace hers once more.
Paula’s fingers would crawls under the edge of his shirt and as her fingernails scrape lightly across his firm abs; he’d moan into her mouth and push his hips against hers to add more friction to their already heated kiss. Simon would quickly places his other hand on her back to keep her in place, up against him, glued together at the hips as he roughly sucks her tongue into his mouth and he feels her knees buckle.
“Simon,” Paula whispers, and it takes him a second to realise it is not the Paula from his fantasy that calls him.
He had taken a hold of her face unconsciously, much like he had planned to if he was to kiss her, but no, he hadn’t. He was still holding her wrist, and one hand now occupied her waist. Their faces are close together and Simon is sure she must have leaned in too. He doesn’t know what to do or what to feel – should he kiss her now and let his fantasies come true? Would she kiss him back? He looks down at her trembling lips and realises that yes, she would. However, they pull away. The last thing she needs is someone like him messing up her plans for the perfect family. The last thing he needs is to fall for a commitment type of girl.