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“Stop staring at my girl, Norman. You’re going to make her run for the hills.” He presses a soft kiss into my cheek as Norman laughs heartily and moves back to his seat.
“Your girl.” He muses aloud as he shakes his head and a devilish smile tugs at his features. “I remember one night, about eight years ago - so just before I retired - having to drive around town for three whole hours with this one.” He gestures to Ben with his thumb as Ben pulls my chair out for me. “He was going out of his mind. Kept telling me the girl he was desperately in love with was leaving town with the wrong guy. You know where I picked him up from before that drive, Miss Wilcox?”
My chest aches.
“Please, call me Mik.” I shake my head in a lie. Of course I know where Ben had been that day. I remember everything about that day and the nightmare that followed.
“Well, Mik.” Norman smiles softly as Ben groans. “I picked him up from your apartment.”
“Norman.” Ben’s tone is light and playful, but there’s a warning there; a way of telling him not to say anything else. And I suspect it isn’t to save him from further embarrassment.
I glance towards him, and although my eyes meet Ben’s for just a second, I can see it there. He knows that this particular memory ties too closely to memories of Matthew.
“I’m saying nothing, and I’m saying it well.” Norman sips from his glass as the waiter approaches and I try to smile softly as I pick up my menu.
Ben places his hand on my thigh below the table, a small token of comfort, and squeezes gently.
I breathe.
Eight Years Ago
“Yeahright.”Matthewpracticallyspits his anger over me. “I didn’t fucking walk in on nothing, Mikaela. Tell me, if I hadn’t walked in would you have fucked him right there, or do you think you would have at least pretended to give a shit that I was in the same fucking house and fucked off somewhere to screw him?”
My eyes are stinging with his venom and I try to hold back the pain his words bring. “Matty, I promise you, nothing happened. Nothing was going to happen. Ben was just helping me with Mom’s pills.”
Matthew scoffs as he storms out of the living room, past the boxes piled high and belongings all sorted for tomorrow’s drive.
“Please don’t do that,” I plead with him as I crash through our stuff, chasing after him. “Please don’t walk away when I’m talking to you. I need you to listen to me.”
I know I should stop talking. I know I should let him walk away.Why am I always doing the wrong thing?
“You need me to listen?” His eyes are dark and dangerous and I feel my throat tighten. “I need you to keep your fucking legs shut and stop acting like a ten dollar whore.”
His words snatch the breath from me.
“What?” My voice is barely a whisper, barely a sound.
“You heard me.” He steps forwards and I flinch.
He freezes.
“Matty,” I plead. “I promise you, Ben and I have never - we would never -”
His breath is hot on my face as his fingers wrap around my arms and he pulls me closer. “I don’t believe you.”
He pushes me away, into the boxes behind me, and I stumble as I try to correct my footing. Piles of pots and plates come crashing down over me as I throw my hands out to stop my fall and I feel it; the pop and grind of something deep in my wrist.
As I cry out, my eyes blurring with instant pain, I hear the door slam behind him and I lay breaking under the crashing chaos of our lives.
Iholdmywristagainst my chest, my whole being protesting each time I move, as I place the last pot back in a box and bend down to pick up the crumpled cardboard from this evening. My eyes sting and my fingers tingle with a fuzzy numbness as the door creaks open.
It’s hours after midnight. The van is getting here at six and then we’re leaving. Leaving all ofthisbehind us. We’ll leave the anger and the jealousy, we’ll leave the misunderstandings and the history we can’t seem to escape. All of it will be behind us once we were out of this place. I’m sure of it.
Matthew slinks through the space with dull eyes and a tight frown. In his hands is a bunch of tulips, the same flowers he bought me on our first date, and my heart splinters a little.How did he get them this late?
“I’m sorry, Mik.”
He can’t look at me.
