Chapter Thirty Four
The whole morning.
"Need you. Noah, please."
"If I fuck you right now I'll come."
"I want to be with you."
"Take me so well, pretty girl."
"I'm yours."
Oh, it's humiliating. It's worse than humiliating; it's putting-head-in-hands shameful.
Did Matt just lie in bed and listen? He didn't think to bang on the wall or cough or just leave a pair of shoes near the stairs to indicate his return? He didn't think to say hello, stop fucking my sister?
Did he even go to work? Or has he been sat here, silently seething the entire day?
The silence is smothering me. Any second now I'll have to start clawing at my throat, drawing blood just so the three of us will have something to talk about that isn't Noah and I going at it.
The whole bloody day. While I've been at work, smiling, happy, living my best life, Matt's been at home. Probably replaying the morning over and over in his mind, hearing us - flirting, moaning. Oh, God.
It's lucky Matt doesn't turn to us because my face must be a picture.
"Listen," Noah starts, the word said so carefully it almost doesn't sound like it comes from his mouth.
He's instantly cut off.
"You listen," Matt snarls.
End it. End it all. Walk out into the middle of the road and wait for some boy racer to speed through my bones in his little Ford Fiesta.
Having him turn and look at us is worse.
There's a rage in his eyes that I've never seen before.
He wasn't even this angry when I broke his first PlayStation controller, though we were ten years younger (and Matt did cry).
He didn't speak to me for a week and he told our mother that I'd done it on purpose because he made fun of my mispronunciation of the word 'prediction'.
If the controller was worth a week, sleeping with Noah is probably worth at least a month.
Should I really compare myself to a broken PlayStation controller?
Matt doesn't own me.
"Listen," he repeats, still spitting the word. My eyes snap to his mouth. "I don't even know what to say to the two of you. How fucking embarrassing."
He's embarrassed? He listens to me practically scream his best friend's name and he's going to blush about it?
"Matt-"
"I'm not done," he interrupts, voice raised.
He isn't shouting, at least not yet.
"I've been trying to think of how to even express-" Matt huffs. "How did you even-? When did it-? Do I even want to know?"
The two of us remain silent.
His emotions are changing so quickly that I can't keep up. He's angry. He's embarrassed. Now he seems disappointed, with a prominent downturn of the mouth I can't tear my gaze away from. And he's not even managed a full sentence with a straight face yet.
The clock in the living room ticks, tocks, ticks.
"You're fucking my sister?"
Noah splutters.
"Not-" he cringes.
Matt mocks him, faux stuttering and throwing out his arms.
"Not- not- not- not what? You're not fucking her?"
Noah's eyes go dark. My head darts between them as if watching an intense tennis match and I'm not sure I've yet closed my mouth since I discovered Matt knew.
"You're making it sound worse than it is," he replies, suddenly sounding just as annoyed as my brother.
It's probably not the best way to go about it. I can picture the two of them getting more and more heated, anger bubbling up until they're yelling at each other, throwing things, trying to make me choose sides.
"I'm making it sound worse than it is?" Matt repeats, leaning forward with knitted brows and fire in his eyes. "I'm sorry, Noah, have you been making love?"
His deadpan stare turns to me when Noah doesn't respond.
My mouth gapes, closes, opens again.
There are no words. No words that could make this any better, none that could make him any less angry. No matter what we say he'll chew it up and spit it back at us.
"It's not even that. It's worse than that. All of my friends knew - friends that have been mine a lot longer than they've been yours," he seethes, "and none of them even told me. Because it was obvious - like I'm a fucking idiot."
Mouth open. Mouth closed.
I start biting down on my thumbnail instead of trying to push out words that obviously won't make a difference.
"Defend yourselves then!"
The thumb drops from my mouth.
"What could we even say, Matt?" I ask gently. My brother just rolls his eyes.
Noah, with his arms crossed and a locked jaw, takes a step towards me that has Matt standing up straight, glaring at the two of us. I feel Noah's eye-roll beside me.
"You're throwing a complete hissy fit."
Those. Are not the correct words.
Matt is fragile - he's egotistical and arrogant and you have to follow his lead when he hasn't got his own way because he'll explode into thousands of tiny little pieces and cut open everything around him.
I've always known this, of course. He's forever been so quick to react - getting suspended from school after pushing over the first boy who ever broke up with me, sleeping with Serenity's older engaged sister when she slept with one of his friends and broke his heart, telling our mother the very second I broke that fucking PlayStation controller.
"I-" Matt's eyes blow wide. "What?"
"Don't be a child about it," Noah says evenly. "We're all adults here, no?"
Matt's glare turns towards me, one pointed finger out at Noah as he speaks.
"That is why I don't want you dating him.
Those words. I knew you had a fucking crush on him Maddie, but Jesus Christ, I didn't think you'd actually have the nerve to act on it.
" Apparently Matt doesn't know me all that well then, since most of the seduction came about from my side. "He was raised by fucking gangsters."
"Excuse me?"
"You don't know half of what he's done," Matt continues.
"Matt," I say, my voice still just as soft. "You'd react like this if it was any of your friends; you said so yourself."
He shakes his head vehemently, faster and faster before taking one large threatening step towards Noah, exploding.
"I dragged you out of the gutter!" He suddenly yells, twice as loud as his voice had been before. Even Noah startles beside me. "I let you live here rent free, helped you cut off that bloodsucking gang in a clean sweep, and you're fucking my sister?!"
He's done a lot for me.
The timelines seem to add up. Noah left Damien behind when he was twenty one, and he and Matt met at a University bar at a similar time.
Matt must've taken him under his wing, helped cut Damien off for good, gave him a room in this house that Paul already pays for.
Christ, Noah didn't think to mention that?
It's not Noah's fault though. It's embarrassing, I imagine; being into something so deeply that you need a stranger to help you out of it, to put you back on your feet.
My voice is the smallest it's ever been, "I don't think that's very fair."
Matt stares at me. If two of us were in a cartoon there'd be blood red steam coming out of his nose with each breath and he'd be compared to some raging animal about to rip apart its prey.
"Fair would've been you telling me, either of you, the moment it happened."
"And how would that have gone?"
He fumes. Takes a few deep breaths facing away from the two of us like he really is about to overheat and explode. (It'd happen in the cartoon.)
"Better than this."
Noah mutters, "marginally."
"I don't think it was completely unreasonable of me to not want my best mate and my sister shagging in my house," Matt responds sharply. "Or any other house - or in the fucking world. She's practically still a child!"
I can't stop my hands throwing out in confusion.
"Matt, I'm twenty-one. There's a three year age gap - it isn't- you're just-"
"I'm just what?"
Grasping at straws.
Adding fuel to the fire will only make it bigger, though.
"You're being unreasonable," I offer.
"She's trying to say that you're being a child."
Matt glares at me, as if they're my words coming out of Noah's mouth.
"I'm not saying that," I sigh. (Even though I am saying that.)
But what am I trying to say? It's none of your business. It just happened. Just don't get involved and it'll be like we're not even there. Don't break us up.
Anything I try to argue will be misconstrued. He'll see it as us against him and start cutting us even deeper, saying things he'll only regret in a few days time. Saying things he'd deny if our mother was around to mediate.
"I just think that if you took a moment to think about it, it wouldn't be all that bad," I decide to go with. "Noah and I-"
"Noah and I," Matt mocks, cutting me off. "Fuck, Maddie."
"Stop being an asshole and listen," Noah demands.
"I'm the asshole?"
"The biggest one in this room right now, yeah."
"Once again, you're-"
"If you say that I'm fucking your sister one more time I'm going to pull your fucking throat out."
I dart between the two of them again, wide eyed.
"So you're not?" Matt spits, opening his mouth like he's about to say I know you are. I heard you.
"Oh no, I am," Noah nods. "I'd just like to stop hearing about it."
Pressure. Heat. Gasoline poured over the fucking wreckage.
Matt turns to the table and in one quick swoop pushes everything on it to the floor. I jump back at the sound of glass and wood and ceramic hitting the floor. The shatter of plates is the loudest, each shard of porcelain clattering against the tiles.
Thankfully in shoes, Matt stomps over the damage and goes into the kitchen, ripping open drawers and pulling out the contents, sweeping food boxes and tins out of cupboards.
I watch in astonished silence.
The kitchen floor is already covered in debris. All of the counters have remnants of bowls and glasses and food on them- the only free surface being the island, having been swiped of all contents at the start of his outburst.
For a brief second I register Noah's hand on my back, soothing and tender, before it disappears again.
After three cupboards Matt stills, breathing heavily, looking down into the sink.
"Are you finished?"
"You're pissing me off, Noah," he responds, still trying to catch his breath. "Just admit you're not perfect for once, yeah? Just admit you've done something wrong and apologise."
Nobody speaks.
Matt stands up straight and pierces the two of us, mouth in a flat straight line. He's still holding a wine glass in his hand.
After careful consideration, Noah says, "I'm sorry you found out like this."
"But not sorry it happened?"
He shakes his head, voice gentler. "No."
Matt turns to me.
"And you?"
Deep breaths. Eyes back to their normal state instead of popping out of the sockets. Fingers not digging into the skin of my palms.
"We wanted to tell you-"
He huffs, throwing his hands in the air. His head is down as he storms towards us.
I think this is it, they're going to break out into a fist fight and I'm going to have to tear them apart, I'm going to have to choose, but then Matt just pushes between the two of our shoulders and speed-walks towards the living room.
He's through the entryway so quickly I could've blinked and missed him.
Then all I have left of him is the sound of his feet hitting each stair as he goes up to his bedroom, the door slamming behind him.
I release a breath.
"Well. That went well." My voice is a whisper, worried my ears have deceived me and Matt is stood just outside the living room door, waiting to barge in and start wrecking the place again.
Noah just hums.
I look up to the very silent ceiling and then to the open living room door.
"I'll follow him then, shall I?"
He just shrugs, heading shaking like he's got no idea what the two of us should do now. He's still looking around at the mess Matt managed to make in less than forty seconds as I leave the room and begin padding upstairs.
Matt's bedroom door is closed, no sound coming from within.
I knock gently and hear nothing, neither from his room or downstairs. Opening the door as gently as I possibly can, I take my time stepping into the room. Matt is sat on his bed sideways, leaning against the wall. He rolls his eyes as soon as I look at him.
The door closes with a gentle click.
"I'm not in the mood, Madelaine."
His voice is more dejected than I'd expected it to be. He sounds the opposite of whoever was downstairs, no longer smashing plates and putting on a mocking lilt.
The downturn of his mouth makes me upset in turn. Guilty.
"It's not-" I sigh. Matt doesn't even look up. I walk slowly over to his bed and take a seat at the foot of it, fiddling with my shirt before finding the confidence of my voice once more. "It's not as vulgar as you keep saying it is."
Head rolling towards me, he scoffs.
"I'm fully aware Laurier is in love with you, Maddie.
I got here early, remember? I caught the full show.
" A pause that I'm not sure how to fill.
Matt continues, half muttering. "Not to mention how prickish he was acting to try and keep my attention on him.
I'm surprised he let you up here, actually. "
My mind races; so difficult to try and focus after those words. In love with you.
But I need to keep Matt calm, keep him talking, keep him in this spirit until he realises that Noah and I dating is not the end of the world.
In love with you.
Shit, focus.
"Why didn't you just - shout at us this morning?"
He rubs his hands over his face and pushes his hair from his forehead.
I look around the room just to keep my mind busy, to keep from staring at him and shaking his shoulders until he tells me everything going on in that very small, puny, little, tiny brain of his.
Messy, of course. Takeout boxes on the floor, discarded underwear, jeans scrunched up in front of the wardrobe, big TV, a stack of video games, a superhero poster he's had since he was eleven hung above a half empty desk. A stack of paperwork under a desk lamp.
A picture of me, him and mum, taped to his wall next to the lamp.
"A lot of reasons, Maddie," he sighs. "I didn't want to see you-" he gestures to my clothed body. "I couldn't believe it was actually true. I thought you were both fucking with me, I thought I'd fucking kill Noah- thought I should calm down first. Evidently, calming down didn't go very well."
Could've banged on the wall or something. It would've done the trick.
(Take me so well, pretty girl.)
Fuck, how Matt didn't start smashing up the house this morning is beyond me.
"My God, Madelaine," he groans. "Why the fuck have you done this?"
"Done what?"
"You told me there was nothing there," he says. "You said to my face that you wouldn't do anything with him. Was it already happening then?"
"It- no."
He stares at me for a beat too long.
"This isn't the end of the world," I offer gently. "I just-" couldn't help myself. "He's just-" the most perfect human being I have ever met. "It's not like we didn't try not to, alright?"
Violent nodding in response and a sudden tensing of the jaw to match. I can't help the sigh that comes out of my mouth because Christ, I can't say anything that won't spur him into a frenzy. Our mother must've had the patience of a saint.
"I'm so grateful," he spits, voice still tame compared to the earlier yelling. "Thank you both for trying, Madelaine- no really, thank you. Oh wow, what a favour the two of you did me, trying not to sleep together."
"Matt-"
"It's humiliating."
My entire face scrunches in reaction.
"How is it humiliating?"
"Skye told me."
Thump. Thump. Thump.
My own heartbeat in my ears, pushing blood into my skull, behind my eyes, into my mouth. Blood everywhere, coming out of every hole in my body and knocking me unconscious.
Surely not.
No. No, she wouldn't do that. She wouldn't invite him round to sleep with him and then tell him Noah and I are doing the same. No. She just wouldn't. Couldn't.
In the biggest voice I can muster, which is still so incredibly small, I force out one word.
"What?"
In the haze of my confusion, I can't tell if Matt smiles or grimaces.
"Yeah, this morning. I woke up at four, tried to sneak out of her house.
She met me at the front door and asked me to stay- don't look at me like that, like I'm the scum, when you were here fucking my best friend.
" My eyes cast down. "She can convince me to stay sometimes, she likes the cat and mouse of it.
But she can't this morning, because I'm tired and already pissed off at her from Christmas.
I've ordered a cab anyway, right? So she tells me I shouldn't go home, because I won't like what I find if I do.
Well, what the fuck does that mean? She told me eventually, and I left anyway. I didn't believe her."
She told him. To make him sleep the night in her bed.
I'm having this conversation right now because she wanted him to sleep with her. Noah is downstairs picking up glass because she wanted four extra hours with him, four hours of unconsciousness in the same space.
My lip quivers. Not with tears; tears would probably work well in Matt's favour, actually. He's never been able to look a crying woman in the face, doesn't like to deal with any girl he deems overly emotional.
He can probably read the anger on my face.
"She's not your friend, Madelaine," he states, borderline condescending. "She's not even my friend - and yet she's known about you and Noah for weeks. Oh, it was so obvious for her. For Sara and Dan as well."
"We didn't tell anyone."
"You didn't have to. You just made me look like a fucking idiot."
I open my mouth but am cut off by his ringtone.
Please don't pick it up. Please listen, understand.
The phone vibrates on the bed next to his hand. He glances to me and then picks up the call, grunting at whoever is at the other end.
Looks at his watch.
"Give it half an hour," he states.
The person on the other end tries to speak but he hangs up the call.
"Well," he faux grins. "It's Tuesday and I've got plans. So get out of my face, and get out of my fucking hair, yeah, Maddie? I don't want to see either of you tonight. Go fuck - go make love - do whatever the fuck it is the two of you do, but leave me alone."
An internal deep breath is definitely needed in order to respond to that one.
Sometimes, my brother is the biggest dickhead on the planet. Out of his hair, like I wanted him to have this reaction, to find out like this from Skye instead of from the two of us, when we were ready.
He's seriously still going to have game night right now? Instead of work through this with the two of us?
He'd rather invite Skye and all his other friends around to see the destruction he's caused, apparently.
"Fine," I force through gritted teeth.
I stand up and walk towards the door.
When it's only an inch open he calls out again.
"And Mads?"
Facing him once more, I raise an eyebrow.
His face is twisted this time, so it's obvious the hurt is about to come.
There's always some fallout from the explosion, someone who needs to be prickled with the debris.
"Have Noah decide tonight whether he wants a girlfriend or a best friend, alright? Because this morning doesn't happen again. Either he's moving out or you are."
My teeth grind.
I slam the door on my way out this time.