Chapter 19
We all stand outside the restaurant after dinner, making our next plans.
“We’re going bar hopping,” Jana says. “The Duval crawl, as they call it in Key West.”
I’m still reeling over the thoughtfulness of Matt’s birthday present—the one he didn’t give me because I’m incapable of having functional relationships. For a split second, I almost told him that I loved him. I almost said, ‘This is why I love you, Matt. You’re so thoughtful.’ Luckily, there’s some functioning part of my brain that shut me up. But now, I’m not in the mood for bar hopping.
“I think I’m done for the night,” I say to the group.
“Nooo!” Jana cries.
I hug her. “You guys have fun, and I’ll see you in the morning.”
“How are you going to get back to the hotel?” Reece asks. “We came in one car.”
“I’ll find a taxi or an Uber or something.”
“I’ll go with you,” Matt offers. “I’m all partied out for tonight.”
Everyone in the group looks at me, waiting, watching. Will I accept or turn him down?
“Sure.” The answer came out before the functioning part of my brain could stop me.
“Okay. See you in the morning.” Jana smiles her matchmaking smile, and I roll my eyes back at her.
We wave to everyone and begin heading in the opposite direction. The cool night makes me shiver, and before I know what’s happening, Matt is taking off his sports coat and wrapping it around my shoulders.
“Thanks.” I push my arms through the sleeves.
We walk in silence for a moment until I finally decide to speak. “Did Tessa tell you to ignore me today?”
The corner of Matt’s lips lifts. “How did you know?”
“Because I know you, and I know you’ve probably been texting your sisters about me. And…”—my eyes drop—“you’re too sweet to come up with something like that on your own.”
He turns to me. “Did it work?”
I bite back my smile. “It didn’t not work.”
“I’ll be sure to let Tessa know. She’ll be thrilled.” He drops his hands into his pockets. “How have you been? How’s your studio doing?”
Is this weird? We haven’t talked like this at all today. It’s been all angst and awkward tension. But there’s a very big part of me that wants to talk to Matt.
“Good. I’ve gotten ten new clients in the past few months, and I opened up another hot yoga class.”
“Did the broken heater get fixed? I sent a guy to your studio.”
I tilt my head, eyeing him. “You did that?”
He shrugs.
The week after we broke up, a repairman showed up at my studio to fix one of the infrared heaters. I thought I was going crazy, that I had made the appointment and forgotten about it. I should’ve known it was Matt. Why does that knowledge make my heart hurt?
“Thanks for doing that,” I say. “It runs great now.”
“Good.”
Someone call Oprah. There’s a touching reunion of estranged lovers happening on the sidewalks of Key West.
We walk a few more paces in silence. I hesitate to ask about him because I’m not sure I want to know what he’s been up to. I ask anyway. “What about you? How have you been?”
He laughs.
I’ve always liked that about Matt, how he can laugh even when things are hard. I think he gets it from his dad.
“The last two months have been rough. I know I didn’t live close to my mom, but I miss talking to her on the phone, having her send me emails to see how I’m doing. I feel this pressure now to call my dad every day and check in on him. Like it’s my responsibility to make sure he’s not lonely now that my mom’s gone.”
“I’m sure he appreciates that.”
“I hope so.”
“How’s he doing?”
“He’s making the best of the situation. The glass is always half full with him.”
“I love your dad,” I say.
“He loves you too.” Matt takes a deep breath and looks forward, like he can’t muster looking at me for this next part. “I’ve missed you.”
I keep my focus forward. I can’t muster looking at him either. “I’ve missed you too.”
“That’s good,” he says, and I can hear the smile in his voice.
I turn my head to him. “Did you think that I wouldn’t miss you?”
“I don’t know.” His gaze finally shifts to mine. “I don’t know what happened between us. I assumed you didn’t have feelings for me anymore.”
It’s not fair the way I left things with Matt. He deserves an explanation, but it’s hard for me. How do I come out and say, I’m not good enough for you, and eventually, you would have realized it too and left me? It’s been the theme of my whole life. I wasn’t good enough for my dad—he took off even before I was born. I wasn’t good enough for my mom. I’m certainly not good enough for Matt and his perfect life plan.
But maybe now I can find some of the words.
“Of course I still have feelings for you. I just realized, when we went to Tampa for your mom’s funeral, that we’re not as compatible as I thought.”
He laughs again. “You don’t think we’re compatible?”
That was his same response when I told him I wasn’t attracted to him. I know why he’s laughing. Matt and I are more compatible than tongue-and-groove flooring. We fit together seamlessly with little effort. He opens my heart up, and I open his life up.
“Okay, maybe compatible isn’t the right word.” I sigh. “I think our vision of the future isn’t the same.”
His brows raise. “You don’t want to stay in Houston, get married, have children, and live happily ever after for the rest of your life?”
“What does happily ever after even mean? People just throw that phrase out there as if it’s an actual thing, but it’s not.”
“Sure it is.”
“It’s a real thing in your life,” I say. “Not everyone has had the luxury of experiencing it.”
Matt came home from school to freshly baked cinnamon rolls with his mom eager to ask how his day was. His parents went out on weekly date nights. They had family vacations and holiday traditions. He has four scrapbooks of his childhood from age zero to eighteen. FOUR. I have four pictures total of my childhood. I wouldn’t even know where to begin to create that kind of life. I can’t be the wife and mother he’s used to…that he wants.
It’s not fair of me to ask Matt to change his dreams just because I have issues. I love him. I want him to get the perfect future he hopes for to go along with his perfect childhood. So, I’m saving us both years of frustration and disappointment. I’m saving him from having to break my heart later on when he finally realizes it too. And I’m saving myself from the heartache of him leaving me. Because eventually, he would.
And it wouldn’t have been the first time he left a woman because she didn’t fit into his future the way he’d hoped.