Chapter Nineteen #2
The air, squeezing me like I was being vacuum-sealed in my own skin, was making it almost impossible to breathe. As my vision blurred around its edges, I grabbed Marin’s hand and managed a quick, “I’ll be right back,” before discreetly standing up and maneuvering around the space toward an exit.
I wasn’t sure where I was going, but I needed a minute to pull myself together, all the moments of the day dragging me out to sea like a riptide.
Then the soothing, rhythmic sound of the ocean crashing onto the shoreline called to me.
I made my way down the beach, where the sunset was peeking behind thick clouds low on the horizon, casting the most beautiful purple and navy hues across a darkening sky.
I hiked my dress up to my knees and waded a few feet into the water, fully aware that this was prime shark-feeding hour, but I reasoned that maybe that was a better alternative than returning to dinner.
“Hey, stranger,” Matty said, and somehow, just his voice made me feel like the sand was shifting under my feet.
I turned to him. Foamy white crests were lapping against his ankles, the cuffs of his pants rolled up to mid-calf. “You don’t even like the ocean, remember? Ever since your mom said we weren’t allowed to watch Jaws because it would scare us, but we did it anyway.”
“That’s right. How old were we?”
“Eight. I slept over at your apartment,” I answered.
“Pretty racy for eight.”
“Strictly PG. We stayed in our respective sleeping bags all night.”
“Not true. As I recall, you were actually the one who had the nightmare about the movie. Made me scoot over so you could sleep next to me,” he joked.
“I don’t remember that.”
“I do. I remember everything about us,” he said, so quietly I almost missed it.
“Really, Matty, why are you here? We haven’t seen each other or even talked in—”
“Five years, thirty-seven weeks, and twenty-two days,” he said without missing a beat. “Not that I’ve been counting or anything.”
I advanced on him, closing the space between us, and crossed my arms over my chest. “That’s the thing, why have you been counting? What do you want from me?”
“I miss you. I miss having you in my life. Which I know I have no right to say, but there it is. We’ve been friends since we were in diapers.
Thanksgivings. Christmases. Easters. Birthdays.
Mom still hasn’t forgiven me for ruining things so badly that our families can’t spend the holidays together anymore.
So when she mentioned she was going to Sonja’s wedding, I asked if I could tag along.
Maybe I knew it was the only chance I’d have of trying to fix things between us. ”
I shook my head. “So you come here and corner me? Force a conversation I’m not ready to have. May never be ready to have. What are you doing?”
He ran a hand through his hair and blew out a heavy breath.
“I know you don’t owe me anything. I understand that.
But we’re unfinished business, you and me.
I’d like to exist somewhere in your orbit again, even if I can’t be part of your universe anymore.
I’m not asking for much, just a chance. A chance for you to see me as something more than the villain in your story. ”
White-hot anger churned in my gut, thick and molten, rising faster than I could contain it.
It bubbled under my skin, roiling with every flash of our memories together, the good and the bad.
With my fists clenched and my jaw tight, my whole body practically vibrated with the effort of holding it all back.
“Not asking for much? You’re asking for everything! I gave you everything. Every damn piece of me. The parts I locked away from the rest of the world. You had those. And now you think you can waltz back in with a charming smile and that look and expect me to forget?”
He shifted his weight and rubbed at his jaw. “I’m . . . I’m not expecting us to go back to what we were, but one mistake made shouldn’t destroy everything we had and everything we can have.”
One mistake?! That mistake devastated me, reinforced everything I feared most about trust and relationships. My chest heaved, breath coming fast and shallow. “You didn’t just break my heart, Matty. You broke me!” I shouted at a volume so loud even I was taken aback.
He opened his mouth to speak, but I was already shaking my head, laughter sharp and cutting. “You’re the fucking storm, Matty! The category five hurricane! I survived you once, but I’m not stupid enough to stand in your path again.”
And, as if on cue, like we were in the climactic scene of a Hollywood movie, dark storm clouds suddenly rolled in and a light rain began to fall, getting heavier until we were soaked to the bone, but still, neither of us moved.
Wet clothes clung to our skin as we both stood there, stuck in a stalemate.
Him trying to absorb the weight of everything I’d just laid bare, and me feeling the relief at having vented it all, not to some faceless audience out on the airwaves, but to the one man I needed to hear me.
He was silent, the roll of the waves paired with the hard rain like static in the otherwise tense quiet between us. Rubbing his neck, his face taut and pale, he looked anguished, as if I’d knocked something loose in him.
And then a surge of lightning flashed across the sky.
He glanced up toward the clouds swirling overhead and then back at me. “We should get inside. It’s dangerous to be out here and exposed like this.”
There was no undoing it now. The words were out. The silence was broken. And Matty was back in my life, like it or not.
“Yeah,” I said, turning away. “It is.”