30. Matt
THIRTY
Matt
Late nights don’t bother me. I’m used to having a crazy schedule. By the time I hit the sack, I’m out cold and don’t even so much as twitch.
A few times sleeping beside Emma is all it took to wreck my whole routine. I’m disoriented in my own bed, reaching for the other side at random hours of the night, waking up when I find it empty.
I’ve been such an idiot. I wasted two days, letting my insecurities take control of my decision, like a teenager without a filter. She could’ve been here. Instead, everything feels wrong. The house’s too tidy. Too quiet.
Emma’s probably been up for hours. After all, I’m running behind. It’s almost ten.
My first instinct is to call her. I reach for my phone and tap on her contact.
The line goes straight to voicemail. I check my service. Four bars.
I try again.
Voicemail.
Okay, I tell myself.
No need to panic. She deserves to process this in her own terms too. Her last text didn’t seem off to me, but maybe she’s realized how immature I’ve been. Maybe I pushed her too far away and she’s decided she’s done chasing me.
I sit up fully, phone dangling from my hand. I don’t remember the last time I was this anxious about reaching someone.
Julia probably knows where she is. Would it be insane if I called the Harrisons?
I stare at Emma’s contact photo—her sitting on the hood of my car in those adorable overalls after our taco date, ice cream covering her radiant smile.
The text icon screams at me.
I have to make a move. The longer I stay silent, the more room I leave for things to break.
Morning. Hope you’re doing ok—
Yeah, no.
Backspace. Way too casual. Of course she’s not doing okay. Neither am I. I can’t tiptoe around our situation.
Can we talk today?
I stare at it for a full ten seconds before hitting send.
A couple of minutes go by. The message never changes to delivered. Either she’s blocked me and wants nothing to do with me, or something is seriously wrong.
My phone rings an hour later.
I launch myself across the living room toward my nightstand like it’s the last few feet before the finish line after a two-day race.
But the screen doesn’t read Emma.
It’s Jennifer, surely armed with another lecture. My fingers hover over the reject button. It would buy me, at best, no more than five minutes to prepare before she calls again. She’s got the persistence of a scam caller and none of the guilt.
“Good morning, Jen,” I mumble, turning on the speaker and tossing the phone onto the bed. “Reloaded and ready to tell me off some more?”
“Matthew!” she practically shrieks.
Definitely not angry. Her anger is the calm before the storm. This feels… caffeinated.
“Please tell me you’re not wallowing in your room. Have you read it?” Jen asks.
I frown, confused.
“Read what?”
Jennifer sucks in a sharp breath.
“Oh my God. You haven’t.”
My frustration spikes. I have a strict no-googling, no social media policy, but moments like these remind me how much self-imposed solitary confinement sucks.
“I’m not in the mood for riddles,” I grumble. “Please explain.”
“The article is everywhere and people are obsessed with it,” she says, sounding one step away from buzzing. “You’ve never had a hit this big. They love it. Listen to this comment: The most honest piece written about celebrity culture in years. Matt Hunt seems to be more than action to me.”
What the hell is she talking about? I blink. Once. Twice.
“Jennifer,” I say slowly, “what article?”
“Emma’s.”
Everything inside me stops functioning.
Now I’m very confused.
“She published?” I ask. “People love it and you’re not mad?”
“I actually owe you an apology,” Jennifer says. “You were right about trusting Emma. Holding off on giving a statement was the right move because she came through for you. I thought you were just smitten, but clearly there’s something more going on between you two.”
“She’s the most genuine, honest person I’ve ever met,” I say automatically.
Jennifer goes quiet for a second.
“Matt…” she says softly. “Go read it. It’s on her blog.”
She laughs.
“Though, knowing you, it’s already bookmarked.”
I don’t deny it. Because it is.
“Have to go,” I say quickly.
I hang up before she can respond. My hands are unsteady as I open my browser where Emma’s blog is already loaded up. The page refreshes, and a new entry pops up.
The title alone makes me brace myself.
If It Bleeds, It Leads: Matt Hunt, The Man Behind the Mask by Emma Miller
Then I see the numbers underneath. Currently, twenty thousand people reading.
Holy shit.
No wonder Jennifer sounded like she’d just won the lottery. For a manager, this is basically the same thing.
But… how did she do this? There’s no way Golden would’ve let her use the assignment she’s been working on for weeks on her personal site.
As soon as I start reading, my stomach drops. Emma’s not even talking about me. She’s calling out the industry, our deranged instinct to feed on someone else’s problems.
There’s no way she’s getting out of this unscathed.
If you’re going to believe someone, let it be me.
She wasn’t even allowed to tell her family about The Scoop, and now anyone with common sense can connect the dots. Clear breach of contract.
Fuck.
No wonder she’s not picking up. She didn’t protect herself, or her job. She protected me.
My legs twitch with the urge to run to my car and go find her, but I force myself to keep reading.
I studied every detail. Took notes. Waited for the mask to slip.
A small laugh escapes me. That’s Emma, alright. Glaring at me from behind her notebook, tapping her pen against her lips, looking suspicious every time I blurted out some random detail I’d memorized.
But the longer I spent with him, the harder it became to separate my previous thoughts from what was actually in front of me.
If I close my eyes, I can still see it happening in real time. The bookstore. Surfing. Hiking. Even a high-end event like the gala. Little by little, she stopped looking at me like I was a puzzle she needed to piece together and started looking at me like… me.
Emma’s smart. I always hoped she’d catch on quickly.
But I never accounted for the doubt that would creep in. Whether she was actually seeing the real me or collecting material for her assignment.
It’s clear now.
We consume simple narratives… Matt figured this out really early in life… Theater kid turned jock…
I stop breathing for a second.
No one knows that. No one’s been in my childhood bedroom before.
It doesn’t bother me. I don’t mind people knowing who I am. Not when it proves she remembered. Almost word for word. Without the need for a single note to get it right.
Emma was listening. Understanding. That night, she kissed Matt, the nerdy kid from New Jersey, not Matt, the Hollywood bachelor.
…just a man who loves what he does.
My phone slips from my hand, and I have to take a moment.
For years, I’ve been treated like an image, a brand, a product easily replaceable. I might not like it, but you get so used to it you stop expecting anything else. I can’t recall the last time I was ‘just a man.’
My heart clenches, picturing Emma sitting cross-legged on her living room floor, typing this.
I pick my phone back up and keep reading. Every memory, every kind word… all point to the same thing. She cares more than I gave her credit for—to put her life on the line, tell the truth about me, defend me. Even when I didn’t ask her to.
Goddamn.
I love her so much it hurts.
Then, to make matters worse, I read the sentence that confirms my suspicions: Emma didn’t write that headline.
I tried to fight for it. I lost. Got cornered into writing something I hadn’t experienced.
They forced her hand.
She delivered an honest piece and Golden pushed back. That’s what she was fighting with her boss about. Not whether it needed more drama, but rather that there wasn’t any to begin with.
Of course she picked a fight with an entire media company. Emma Miller would never compromise on something that serious.
I wish she should’ve told me. Jennifer would’ve figured it out without her needing to blow up her own life in the process.
All this time, she was trying to tell the truth. To me, to the world. Protecting the version of me she’d gotten to know.
And I left.
Didn’t even give her a chance to explain.
I reach the end. My eyes move over each word again, slower this time, and everything else disappears.
…couldn’t stand the guy, and I still ended up caring about him more than I’ll ever admit to his face.
My heart starts pounding.
Emma really stared them down and took the bull by the horns. Nothing was left out. She put herself on the page. The most vulnerable she’s ever been.
She didn’t have to include that. In fact, she probably shouldn’t have—paparazzi are going to be all over her now. But she still did it. For millions of people to read.
Meanwhile, I’ve been sitting on my feelings for two years like a coward.
I think about her driving to set and being turned away at the door. Then confronting her boss, only to be shut down again.
The ache in my chest turns unbearable. I miss her.
I miss her smell on my bedsheets.
Her notebook and the way she scribbles so fast no one could ever decipher what she’s writing.
I miss the way she bickers like it’s an Olympic sport.
I miss hearing her call me ‘Matthew’ when she’s judging me, or when she’s being shy.
My life is not the same without her. I hope hers isn’t the same without me.
Because Emma has seen me. The real Matt Hunt. She’s been out there fighting for us, while I left her to deal with everything on her own.
No.
“Nope,” I say to the empty house, already getting changed.
Absolutely not.
There isn’t a universe in which I’m letting another minute pass without seeing Emma.