Chapter 44
ELIZABETH
Everything feels different when I walk into the tech lab the next morning.
It’s still the same place, the same people, the same routine, but something subtle has changed. For me, at least.
People clatter away on their keyboards. Sonny swears under his breath. Joel argues with his screen. They glance at me before quickly looking away. They know something has shifted, but they don’t know what, and they know better than to ask.
My gaze drifts to Alex’s empty desk, and something inside me pains.
I’ve been thinking about him and what he did all night.
I understand it. It’s not so different from what Vlad and I used to do.
We used to fight and try to take down the establishment and the corporations.
What Alex did here was his way—as twisted as it was—to express his pain, anger and frustration.
I can relate to that, and I can relate to him.
I slowly sit down and stare at my screen, not even bothering to turn it on, not sure that I even want to be here anymore.
At least there will be no irregularities now.
No ghost activity lurking. No invisible hand trying to twist things and point the finger of blame at me.
I should feel relieved about that but I don’t, because the thing that has been niggling away at me ever since I left last night is Matteo’s reaction.
That, tied in with everything else that has gone wrong between us, makes me wish I wasn't here. I didn’t expect music, lightness and joy when I gave him the proof he so desperately craved, but I expected him to be relieved that it wasn’t me.
He wasn't.
He looked shellshocked, as if hearing that Alex was behind this was bigger than the relief that it wasn’t me.
“You could have come in later.”
Matteo's voice cuts through the noise in my head. I don’t look up straight away, because I don’t trust what will show on my face if I do. I fist my hands when he stands by my side.
“I didn’t need to,” I reply, after a lengthy pause. My tone is cold and unforgiving. He texted me early this morning and suggested I come in an hour later, given the mental exhaustion from yesterday but I don't need any favors or niceties from him.
I take out a half-eaten bag of nuts and a small bar of dark chocolate from my bag and set it on the desk, then pull out a red apple but it slips from my hand, falling onto the floor.
Clumsy.
Or nervous.
I bend down wearily to grab it.
“You okay?” He seems overly concerned, but I’m not buying it. And if he feels guilt? Good.
“Yes.” I sit back up, putting my apple on the desk, before turning my monitor on, acting calm, pretending to be okay, when it's obvious that I'm neither of those things.
The hurt and the disappointment still fester inside, simmering beneath the surface.
For his doubts and opinion of me. For how little he knew me. For how little I knew him.
I don't know how to be around him anymore.
I still haven't forced myself to look at him, and I wish he’d go away because I so badly need my space.
“Could I have a moment, in private?” he asks.
“What for?” I don’t want to talk to him. I don’t want a moment with him in private. I have nothing to say to him.
“Please. It’s important.”
“Did you find something else to pin on me?” I stare at him, hating myself for sounding so petulant just now. That's the problem. I don't know how to be around him, and I'll end up saying or doing something foolish.
“Please, Elizabeth.”
Obviously, I have no choice, so I follow him into his office, but I don’t sit down.
I’ve done enough sitting in that chair while he decides whether to believe me or not.
He closes the door behind me, then walks to his side of the desk.
A long, sulky silence stretches between us.
I glance at him again. He looks bad. He’s shaved and looks his usual gorgeous self on the outside, but I see the sadness in his eyes, on his face. Misery is written all over it.
“You were right,” he says, sitting down. “About Alex.”
“I was.”
He winces. “Won’t you sit down?”
“I’d rather not. Can we make this quick? I’ve got lots to do.”
“You can’t have much to do now that we know who was behind it all.”
“I still need to write up a report for your father.”
He looks away. “I’m sure that can wait. I still need to tell him what’s been going on.”
More silence follows. I wait, wishing he’d hurry up and get on with it. Something is obviously weighing on his mind.
“You were right about all of it. I was an asshole.”
The way he repeats it, like saying it again might magically change something, is laughable.
“Is this what you called me in here for? To state the obvious?”
He blinks a few times, like he's thinking about something. “I should have trusted you, but I didn’t.”
“You didn’t.”
I feel sad that things between us have broken down irrevocably. This is so painful, and stilted. Such a complete reversal of the conversations we used to have when we were getting to know one another.
“I had my reasons—”
“Please don’t explain. It's too late for that and I really don’t want to hear it.”
“Elizabeth, please.”
“Why? So you can feel better about yourself? You think your words will wipe away how you looked at me? That you believed this was my doing?” I'm not letting him get away with this so easily.
“I understand why you’re mad at me. You have every right to be.”
He exhales slowly, dragging a hand over his face like this is excruciatingly painful.
I see the raw misery etched out in every part of him, not just his face, but in the way he sits, shoulders hunched, looking smaller and a shadow of himself, and something inside me cracks.
He's trying so hard, and it's obvious he's been struggling with what he did, and how he treated me. Maybe I should let him have his say. But not until I’ve had mine.
“I don’t need an explanation, Matteo. I’ve experienced this for most of my life, seeing the looks on people’s faces when they don’t believe me. When they don’t see the best in me, but the worst ... I just never expected you to be one of them.”
My voice turns shaky, because this has been my life, what I've known, how people looked at me, at the little girl who wanted only to belong and be loved. I hate that I'm breaking down like this. I promised myself I wouldn't, but Matteo has hurt me deeply, and I don't know how to handle it.
He gets up and moves around the side of the desk.
“No.” I hold out my hand, warning him not to come closer. I'm scared he's going to try to comfort me. He remains standing, in limbo, like he'd do anything to wrap his arms around me, but he's lost that right.
“You don’t know enough about me, Matteo.
” I pause to take a few breaths because my voice turns shaky again, and I can't look weak, not now. I need him to know how much he’s hurt me.
“You don’t know my past. You don’t know what I’ve seen or the things I’ve lived through.
But instead of asking and trusting what you did know, you filled in the gaps with the worst possible scenario. ”
He sits back down, and I hear a loud exhale from him, as if he’s resigned himself to me keeping him at a distance.
“Elizabeth …” His voice is hoarse, raw with emotion, and he sounds worn down and defeated. “I fucked up. I fucked up badly, and I regret it so much but I was ... I was grappling with so many things. I ... I couldn't untangle the mess inside my head.”
He doesn’t look at me. He doesn’t look at anything, and his voice fills with such emotion, he closes his eyes every now and then, as if what he has to say pains him greatly.
“Hand on heart, I fucked up. I let you down, and I doubted you when I should have known better. I looked at everything in front of me, and even when you proved to me that it was Alex, I still struggled to believe you.”
His eyes finally meet mine, sending a jolt through my body. Even now, he has the power to affect me physically, just from the way he looks at me. I find it unsettling how he affects my body and my mood.
“You did let me down.” My voice is low, and I struggle for air, to fill my lungs, to steady myself. “And your reaction to Alex was almost like you were sad that it was him, and not me.”
“No, that's not—” He bolts upright, eyes defensive.
I cut him off. “That's something that’s going to take me a long time to get past. It … it would probably have been easier for you if it had been me.” I glare at him in resentment and take a moment before I deliver the final blow. “You're not so different from your father.”
His eyes widen, hurt and confusion swimming in them. I've said the worst possible thing to him. And it hit.
Moments pass before he answers, and when he finally does, “How?” His voice is a croak.
I finally sit down. “Always digging into my past, asking questions, making assumptions.”
“No. No,” he insists, “that's not why I asked.
I didn't make any assumptions. I was waiting for you to open up, and tell me.” He pauses and, seeing that he's got my attention, seems to choose every word carefully, like he doesn’t want to get anything wrong and mess up more than he already has.
“I thought we had something special,” he says, gripping the table.
“I thought you could tell me anything, that you felt comfortable enough to, because I never hid things from you.
I found it easy to tell you about my fucked-up childhood, and I don't usually do that.”
He pauses and looks at me. “I thought it was the same for you.”
I school my expression to give nothing away.
“A-and … and that's what I wanted more than anything—for you to trust me enough to open up to me,” he says, sounding weary now, like the fight has gone out of him.
“I wouldn't have judged you, Elizabeth. I would have listened, because I know that how we act and the things we do and say, they sometimes come from a pain so big, buried so deep inside us—because we want to forget it—but really, that pain makes us do things to protect us.”
He's gripping the table so hard his knuckles are white.