11. Matt
ELEVEN
matt
M y hand curled around the glass as I paced the living room.
“So what’s the excuse this time?” My mother’s voice trekked through the speakers of my phone. The urge to break something, to break someone , grew more powerful by the day.
“She’s—” lying was second nature to me. I was a fucking lawyer, for Christ’s sake. “She’s just not feeling well.”
The lie burned like the amber liquid that sloshed in my cup. Not because I deceived my mother.
Who gave a shit about that?
But because I knew where Livie really was. Off gallivanting God knows where with that fucking backwoods, piece of shit cop when she should’ve been here with me. With my family. Bouncing on my dick.
Whore.
“So first, you both miss Thanksgiving,” her tone laced with malignity as she berated me for the second time in two months. “And now you’re missing Christmas and New Year’s too?” She didn’t even try to hide her scoff .
“I’m sorry,” I shoved the words out. They felt like lava off my tongue.
I couldn’t tell her. I couldn’t tell anyone that Livie had left me. That she left me for good this time and wasn’t just fucking around with her stupid friend.
She was spreading her legs for him .
And fuck, did I want to make her fucking pay.
“I don’t know why I’m surprised anymore,” she feigned dissatisfaction. “You were raised better than this and still turned out to be an utter failure.” She spat the icy words easily. The same way she always did. “It’s a shock to us all that you managed to even keep a woman around with how wholly disappointed you’ve always made us.”
Her words did nothing but fuel the wildfire that smoldered within me. Livie embarrassed me so much in the last fucking year, and this was the icing on the cake.
God, if my mother and father found out that she actually left me?
I shook the thought away, refusing to accept that as a possible reality.
Livie would come back to me, and that was fucking final.
“Mom.” My teeth grated on one another. She never was motherly to me. The term itself, for her, was a bigger lie than anything.
“Livie is just sick. And the travel would be too much for her. She’s been struggling with her health both physically and mentally.” Lying again. “We thought it best to stay here.”
“Well,” she snorted, “that doesn’t surprise me. She’s stuck with you all day and night.” I could hear my father interrogating her in the background.
“What is he saying?” His voice sounded muffled and far away. “Are they missing another family event?”
My heart threatened to rage right out of my chest. I could ignore them most days and take out my frustration on Livie with either my cock or my fists. But I no longer had any such outlet.
“Please, don’t put him on the phone,” my voice sounded pained even to me. But the words escaped my lips too slowly.
“Here,” my mother said, her voice sounding muffled in the haste of passing the phone to my father. Completely ignoring my desires as usual.
“What the hell is going on?” His voice, so much like my own, crackled through my ears. “You already shamed us by screwing up Thanksgiving, and now you’re fucking up Christmas too?”
The Duquesne's really valued their holidays. My parents threw lavish parties and expected me, their only child, to be there with my picturesque girlfriend. They loved Livie; sometimes, I wondered if they loved her more than me, and every holiday or event that we were a no-show at? Well, they surely never let me hear the end of it.
“Livie is sick,” I said curtly. I pressed the glass of whiskey to my lips and threw my head back. The burning liquid soothed me all the way to my core.
But nothing cured the emptiness that Livie left.
“Sick of you?” he spat. “Or sick in general?”
“In general.” I was losing the energy to deal with this. I’d been dreading making this phone call all week. What a fucking choice to make it on Christmas Eve, the day we were supposed to arrive there.
“Pathetic,” he chuckled. “You cancel on us last minute and embarrass us in front of all our colleagues? I mean, what will people say, Matthew? Do you not even think? Do you consider anyone but your own self?”
What would they say if they knew my should be fiancé left me for the cop who made the fucking news last year for assaulting me?
“I did!” My tone held an edge to it compared to how I spoke with my mother.
“Don’t fucking talk to me like that,” his voice dropped an octave. “Or I’ll come there and do worse than what that fucking pig did to you last year.”
And, of course, that always gets brought up.
It wouldn’t be a family gathering without throwing my shortcomings in my goddamn face.
“He assaulted me.” I ground out.
“He beat the shit out of you because you’re weak,” he stated matter of factly. “You’re weak in the courtroom, you’re a weak son, and you barely deserve the Duquesne name. You’ve always performed ludicrously. I just hoped it wouldn’t carry over into your personal life.”
Nausea bubbled through my stomach. The liquor hitting and the lack of food over the last few days affected me in the worst way. I was used to their usual criticisms and critiques. This time, it hit harder without Livie here.
The void she left seemed to grow ever deeper the longer she was gone. It had been months without her. Months without seeing her, touching her, holding her. Months alone. Nothing but the sound of my own loafers, clacking on the vinyl flooring of the apartment we once shared. Emptiness thickened in every room the longer she was gone.
Dishes piled in the sink, and the bank account was stagnant. My black card remained untouched, unscathed by the senseless shopping sprees and extravagant dinners that once grated my nerves. The heated blanket that she had to sleep with, the one that used to make it hard for me to rest, so I’d spend the nights in the office, now sat on her side of the bed, unused.
She loved the sunset so much that she’d open the drapes, letting light flood across the floor as the sky illuminated pink and purple. And I’d complain the entire time. Telling her to turn the blanket off, close the drapes, and stop spending on frivolous things.
I should’ve…
My father’s soliloquy about how useless I was ripped the thought from the forefront of my mind. And the image of her faded further and further away.
Her tan skin and curly hair that fell just past her shoulders were nothing but a phantom in my memories. I was even starting to forget what she looked like. Had I known that Luke would rip every trace of her away from me, I would’ve etched every detail of her into my memory.
Every scrap of her had been taken from me.
He stole everything.
“Well?” Father’s voice cut through.
My eyes stung with emotion I’d been holding in for months. I leaned my head up to the ceiling and inhaled thickly through my nostrils, willing the pathetic tears to die away before I really embarrassed myself on the phone with the people who shamed me the most.
“I don’t know what you want me to say anymore.” Defeat held my voice hostage. The words came out cracked and hoarse. “We will be there for the Fourth of July,” I promised, unsure if that was another lie or not.
“You’d better be.” Was all he said before passing the phone back to my mom.
“I guess we’ve all said our piece,” she said nonchalantly as if we were talking about the weather and not all of my immediate failures as a son.
I could picture her unblinking, cold stare in my mind, admiring her fresh manicure as she spoke to me .
My mother always liked the finer things in life. She valued coldness and business, over tenderness and love. A trait she and my father both shared and passed on to me. No matter how impossible, I was required to meet their expectations at all costs.
I stole a glance out the floor-to-ceiling windows. Snow fell in silent anguish to the ground; the sparkling flakes, once a thoughtless weather element, now reflected the sadness that permeated my very core.
Cold.
Relentless.
Unforgiving to those who dared cross it. The snow froze and encapsulated Seattle like the moon held the stars. Like how Livie had a hold on me.
I sighed, squeezing the bridge of my nose between two fingers until spots danced across my closed eyes. “I’ll call you guys tomorrow for the holiday.”
“Don’t bother.” Her curt response cut like a knife.
“Alright.” My chest heaved. “I love you, mom.”
I could hear the rush of blood through my ears as I waited for her to say something, anything.
“I wish you’d do better.” Was her response before the three beeps rang through my ears.
She’d hung up. Unsurprising.
“Merry Christmas,” I said out loud. To no one.
I was alone.