9. Emma #2
I look at him, his stare lost in the distance, and I try to keep my face neutral because this is… more than I expected. He never talks about his family. Not even when we’ve been in private with Julia and Harrison. All I know is they still live in New Jersey.
“Do you ever miss it?” I ask, unable to put myself in his shoes. My parents live a short drive away and Olivia doesn’t plan on moving far either. “Being close to her?”
“Sometimes,” he answers. “But in a way, I also feel by being here I’m proving to myself my dad being gone didn’t ruin me.”
“I’m sorry. It must have been hard.” A life without my dad is not something I want to imagine. “I can’t really relate, so I’m not going to act like I’ve gone through that.”
He turns to me and offers me a shy smile.
“Oh, I know. I’ve met your parents, remember? Your mom loves me,” he teases. “Your dad on the other hand… let’s say I got an earful after our speeches at the wedding.”
I try to hold the laughter in, but I can’t. No one’s said anything to me about it, yet I know he’s not lying. It’s painfully on brand for my dad.
“I believe you.”
“That’s a first,” he says. I give him a look, surprised he’s calling me out. “Your turn. Spill a secret. What’s your origin story? What made you so guarded?”
I could tell him I’m hyper aware people lie, especially men. That it’s not personal. But somehow that doesn’t seem fair after he’s confided in me about his.
“When I was in my last year of high school, some shit went down with my aunt and cousin. My mom hasn’t spoken to her sister since then, and it sort of rewired my brain on the whole ‘truth above anything’ idea.”
“Not vague at all,” he teases.
I groan. I’ve not spoken about this in years, and I’m already regretting bringing this up.
“My cousin, in university at the time, started dating this older man. She brought him to our annual family lunch. He gave me strange vibes right away. Too charming, borderline inappropriate. But I kept my thoughts to myself,” I say, sticking to the facts.
“Later in the day, when everyone was doing their own thing, he came up to me and… crossed a line. I told my cousin. She said I was looking for attention. That I was too much. My mom took my side; her mom took hers.”
“You’d think that would scare you away from speaking your mind,” Matt comments.
He’s not wrong, I guess. Anyone else would’ve taken that as a hint to never speak the truth again. Except he doesn’t know how the story ends, the part that actually stuck.
“Well, it didn’t.”
I shrug. Reliving that day was not on my to-do list. I know it hurts my mom to not talk to her sister, and I’ve reassured her many times she doesn’t have to worry about me, but she’s more stubborn than I am.
“What happened after?”
“Nothing good.”
“What about the epilogue?
A smirk crosses my face.
“I’ll tell you…” I say, “next time we’re up here.”
He chuckles and shakes his head.
“Not fair. There’s no way this is happening again.”
I shrug. Not my problem.
“Secrets are terrible for the soul. They’ll eat you alive until there’s nothing left,” he scolds.
“Matthew, you’re literally a living secret yourself.”
“Not with you.”
I turn on the bench and sit cross-legged facing him. He stretches his arm on the back of it, right behind me. I’m staring at him, a frown on my face.
“You’re telling me there’s not a single thing you’re keeping to yourself?” I ask, calling bullshit. “Try that again and look me in the eyes.”
He exhales, a too-content smirk on his face.
“Only one.”
“What is it?”
“I’ll tell you…” he says, just like I did a second ago, “next time we’re up here.”
I badger him for the first half of the way down with absolutely no shame nor journalistic integrity. This is personal. He can’t tell me he’s got one big secret no one knows about and expect me to not lose my mind over finding out what it is.
He knows this about me. He did it on purpose.
And he won’t even give me a clue.
Which is why I find myself giving him the silent treatment as I stomp my way down.
“You have now survived going a full ten minutes without complaining,” he teases, as if that was his goal all along.
“I wasn’t about to give you the satisfaction, especially when you’ve decided to go back to being annoying.”
He rolls his eyes at me and shakes his head.
“If I could tell you, I would,” Matt says. “Eventually you’ll find out. Not right now.”
“Is it confidential?” I squint at him.
“Yes.”
This is exactly why I don’t get invested. It fuels curiosity and that only ever gets me burned.
“Cheer up,” he says. “We’re almost there.”
“I’ll get over it,” I mumble. “You tempted me knowing this was going to happen.”
“I didn’t tempt you. You asked,” he corrects. “And let me point out the only reason I told you was because I know you’d prefer that to me lying.”
I hate that he’s right.
He bumps his shoulder against mine and even though he’s not rough, it’s enough to send me off balance. Instinctively, I grab onto his arm. He holds me, dipped down, floating midair.
For a second, neither of us moves. Tension between us rises way too fast, way too easily. I let go of him as if it’s going to fix whatever is shifting between us.
“You’re really bad at pretending you don’t like me.”
“Emma,” he whispers. “I never said I didn’t.”