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Noelle: Finished my paper. Miss you.
Noelle: Matthew? Is everything okay?
Noelle: Babe. Please just answer me.
I clicked out of the chat and started a new one to Elizabeth.
Noelle: Hi Elizabeth. It’s Noelle. I’ve been trying to get ahold of Matthew since Thursday, and he hasn’t responded to any of my texts or calls. Do you know if he’s okay? I’m worried about him… He’s not usually like this.
Instead of responding to my text, Elizabeth called me. “Hello?”
“Noelle?” Came Elizabeth’s voice on the other line. I quickly moved off of the couch and into the other room where I could talk to her alone.
“Yes. Hi.”
Elizabeth seemed to let out a big sigh. “I figured this would be better over the phone than text. Listen, it’s not really my place to share, but I was there for it, in college, and he’s never really talked about it since. Not with us. I’m not sure with anyone.”
“What are you talking about?”
“His parents. Tomorrow is… it’s always been a hard day for him.”
“His parents?” I repeated, still confused. “He… All he told me was they died in a car accident.”
“Noelle, I’m going to tell you something and I hope it doesn’t freak you out. But I think you’ve been good for him. You’ve gotten him to open up again—to all of us, at least little by little. He seems so much happier whenever you’re around, and I think if anyone is going to get through this wall of ice he’s put up, blocking us all out of his trauma, sealing off his heart so he couldn’t get hurt again… I think it’s you.”
“Me?” I said in a broken whisper.
“Yeah.”
“But I just… I don’t understand. Why is tomorrow so hard for him?”
“Noelle.” Elizabeth took a deep breath. “It’s the anniversary of the day they died.”
Oh. I didn’t remember hanging up the phone. Didn’t remember it slipping out of my hands. Didn’t remember sliding to my knees on the carpet, but when I looked up, Hazel was in front of me, kneeling on the carpet, cupping my cheeks in her hands.
“Do you want me to drive?” She whispered, and I think I nodded.
I didn’t remember much of the drive to his place, or even navigating Hazel to the house that had begun to feel like home for me. All I knew was that I didn’t want my beautiful golden-haired man to go through this alone, to isolate himself from the world and deal with his grief alone.
We pulled in, and Hazel gave me a reassuring squeeze on my knee. I nodded to her in thanks, then I got out and walked up to the door.
Matthew’s truck was parked in the driveway, so I figured he was home, but I didn’t see any lights on from the front of the house. It was almost weird, coming over like this. Knowing he wasn’t at the door, waiting for my arrival. Sometimes I liked to wait like this, watching the windows, seeing him pace in front of the door and run his fingers through his hair in anticipation of my getting there. Today, however, there was no movement in the windows. No blonde man sitting on the couch, no white fluffy dog curled up next to him in a giant ball.
I took a deep breath before knocking on the door. I feared the worst, really—I just didn’t want him to shut me out any further, to leave me standing outside in the dark. Metaphorically or literally.
I could hear Snowball running across the hardwood floor, and her bark—just twice, in familiarity—alerting Matthew that someone was there. But the sound of his footsteps didn’t come.
“Matthew?” I called out as I knocked again, still hearing no response.
Frowning, I slipped the key he had given me for emergencies into the lock. I hadn’t ever really needed to use it—most of the times I had come over, he had driven me, or he was waiting for me, and this feeling was strange. Like I was entering a stranger’s home, with no permission to be there. Like I was intruding on some secret moment of his life.
But if I was his girlfriend, and we were together, then I wanted him to share every part of his life with me. And this—this grief he was holding back from me, from everyone, I wanted to be there for him. Because we couldn’t heal each other, couldn’t make the pain go away, but I could show him that we could get through it, together. We would get through it together because that was what we did. We were a team.
“Matthew?” I said, moving from the empty living room towards his office, which was also empty. I finally landed on the closed bedroom door. I could almost hear his breathing even as I stood outside, biting my lip in thought.
I didn’t know if this was crossing a line—even as I recognized the fact that he had given me a key, and I was worried about him, so it was only natural that I check on him, right? And even if he got mad at me for this, well… I’d accept that trade-off as long as he was okay.
Opening the door, I quickly realized that he was passed out on the bed, his nightstand littered with bottles of alcohol and empty glasses. And there was my Matthew—my caring, loving man, seemingly tucked into a ball, surrounded by piles of blankets. I had never seen him drink more than a beer or glass of wine, and certainly not more than one or two a night, and maybe that was why the bottles of hard alcohol concerned me so much.
