38. Chapter 38
Chapter 38
Riley
I woke up to my phone ringing before my alarm went off, that first photo I took of Matt lighting up the screen. I smiled softly as I looked at the photo before the memories of last night rushed into me, carving a pit into my stomach. My chest tightened as I swiped to answer.
“Good morning, beautiful,” he said in his low morning voice. He sounded different this morning, the usual brightness in his voice was gone. That was my fault. All my fault.
“Good morning, handsome,” I answered. My response was robotic, the same way I greeted him each morning, but it was taking all my self-control to keep the emotion out of my voice.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
I nodded and then shook my head. “I don’t know. I, uh, think I still need time to process everything,” I finally answered him. I braced myself for his response.
“I know, sweetheart. I’m here when you’re ready, okay? Just tell me when. We’re going to figure this out.” He paused. “It was just a fight, that’s all. All couples fight, even my parents and they’re practically couple goals.” It was hard to tell if he was trying to convince me, or if he was trying to convince himself.
I tried to laugh but it came out mixed with tears. “You said we weren’t a couple.”
He sighed then muttered something under his breath that I couldn’t make out. “That was a stupid thing to say, and I’ve been regretting it all night. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have snapped like that. I know we haven’t put a label on this, but in my mind, we’ve been a couple this whole time.”
I threw an arm over my eyes. “It’s my fault we haven’t put a label on things.”
His side of the line went quiet for a while. I lay there listening to his breathing while he worked through his own thoughts. I could picture the creases in the corners of his mouth as he bit the inside of his bottom lip the way he always did when he was trying to focus. He probably had one hand tugging at his hair.
“I’ll come over after school today and we can talk,” he finally said.
“I have a therapist appointment today and then I promised my sister-in-law I would babysit while she does last minute Christmas shopping.” I paused and tried to push the picture of his face out of my mind. “I think we should both take some time today to just think about things.”
You should take some time to change your mind and get out while you can , I wanted to say to him.
“Okay, yeah, we can do that.”
We said our goodbyes. Hot tears flowed down my face as I went through my morning routine. I was going to really need that therapy appointment today.