27. Evie #3
Taking a deep breath, I stare at the mountains cocooning the highway, allowing the sight of them to ground me as I think back to what it was like being with him.
“Tiring. Exhausting, actually. By the end of it I was constantly fighting, trying to defend myself. There was one time, our biggest fight, I was driving my car with him in the passenger seat and he said something. I verbatim repeated it back to him and he looked me dead in the eye and said, ‘I didn’t say that.’”
I can’t help but laugh but the sound doesn’t hold an ounce of humor.
“I remember thinking to myself, this is it. This is gaslighting. Because it was so blatantly obvious, he then went on to accuse me of saying something that never came out of my mouth, but he was so good at manipulating me and believing his own bullshit that my mind got so scrambled I can’t even remember what it was.
All I recall is the feeling that I was being gaslit. ”
Matteo’s grip on the steering wheel turns his knuckles white, and his jaw is clenched so tightly I swear I hear the snap of a tooth.
“I despise him.”
The venom in his voice doesn’t surprise me.
“Me too,” I murmur sadly. Looking at Matteo, watching the anger coursing through him, I blurt out for some reason, “Why have you never had a girlfriend?”
His anger dissipates with the question, quickly replaced with shock. He sends a smirk in my direction. “You been holding on to that question for a while, Dove?”
Yes.
“No,” I snort.
The look he gives me screams that he doesn’t believe me, but he doesn’t call me out on it. He simply shrugs and says, “I haven’t met anyone that I could see myself with long term.”
My brows skyrocket. “Ever?”
The emotion that flashes through his gaze has my heart stuttering. I can’t decipher it, can’t put my finger on it, but it steals my breath and hits my body all the same, as if deep within my soul, it knows.
Matteo’s voice drops an octave. “No one that I could have.” His tongue darts out to lick his lips before he forces his eyes from mine and back to the road. “Honestly, though, if love is anything like what my parents had, I don’t want it.”
“Your parents are heartless bastards.”
“True,” he grunts.
Turning to face him, I attempt to gauge his reaction. “You know that what they had was…beneficial to them, and not what love is, right?” Cocking my head, I wait for any sign that my words have penetrated the shield around him. “I honestly don’t think they even have a heart to share love from.”
A muscle feathers in his jaw.
“Too far?” I probe.
Shaking his head, he lays his hand on my knee, squeezing. The touch shoots a spark of heat down my leg. “Not far enough, Dove. Not far enough.”
He doesn’t remove his hand from my leg.
My heart is pounding.
It’s just a hand, I remind myself. Just a hand.
But it’s not just a hand, is it? It’s Matteo. My Matteo.
I lick my suddenly dry lips. “Well, if that’s the case, I hope the bastards burn in hell for what they did to you.”
“They didn’t do anything.”
“Precisely.”
A thought occurs, one that I desperately want to share, but it takes a while for the courage to build within me. Matteo must sense it because he squeezes my knee. “Just spit it out.”
“You read me too well.”
“Not enough.”
“Trust me, you read me plenty,” I tease. Huffing out a sigh, I decide to just go for it. “How did you let go of them? How did you just…stop talking to them and stop trying to have a relationship?”
“It’s easy to let go of something you never had.”
My heart cracks, splitting into two before disintegrating into nothing but dust at his startling confession.
“If this is about your mom…it’s going to be hard, I imagine, really hard, because you had what I dreamed of. You had a mom that loved you, that spent time with you and cared for you. I had to beg my mom not to forget to feed me.”
The back of my eyes begin to burn.
“If you want to let go, it’s going to be hard, V. I won’t sugarcoat it for you. Even I find it hard when I have the urge to call my mom or dad, but that’s all it is—an urge, a natural instinct to be close to the people that birthed you. But sometimes, the people that birthed you are monsters.”
Taking a steadying breath, I slide my hand on top of his and squeeze, not caring if I’m crossing lines by threading my fingers through his.
“You deserved so much more,” I confess on a wobbly exhale.
Matteo shrugs as if it’s no big deal, as if having parents that made it obvious that they never wanted you is nothing. “I had your family. They’re pretty great.”
“They can be.”
His green eyes flick between mine and the highway. “Are you ready to tell me what’s been going on yet?”
“No.”
“Will you ever?”
Laying my head back on the headrest, I watch him, my eyes trailing along his strong features. His defined jawline, the slight curve on his nose from when he broke it, the wild curly hair from the water.
Could I ever tell him? I ask myself.
“Maybe,” I whisper honestly. “Although with my track record, anyone I tell doesn’t believe me or disappears from my life.”
I wish I could, and a part of me wants to, but the other part, the majority of my heart, is terrified.
Fearing history will repeat itself.
“Maybe one day,” is what I settle on.
He nods, still holding my hand. “I’ll be here, waiting for the day.” He pauses. “And Dove?”
“Yes?”
“I’ll always believe you.”
That’s what scares me.