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Something unreadable rippled over Leo’s face. “Hang on…have you not been getting his messages?”
A chill went down my spine. “No, the first thing I did was ditch my phone and laptop. I knew if I had access to anything I wouldn’t be able to resist checking up on him. That’d only lead to me going back to him and probably hurting him more. That wouldn’t be fair to either of us. I had to go cold turkey if I wanted any hope of surviving.”
Leo rolled his eyes. “You’re doing a bang-up job of that, by the way. While your logic is sound, that probably wasn’t the best tack. Although it makes a lot more sense now why you haven’t come kicking down our door already.”
I got to my feet. “You’re scaring me, Leo.”
“You should be scared.” He joined me, squeezing my shoulder. “I don’t think you’re going to like what you find. He’s hurting. I don’t know exactly what he said in his messages to you, but I don’t think he held back.”
I swallowed thickly. “I need a tablet or a laptop. Anything really, so long as it connects to the internet. I can jump on a neighbour’s wi-fi.”
Leo frowned. “What about the old SIM card?”
“I don’t need it,” I said impatiently. “I can access the messages without it.”
“Wait here.” Leo dashed over to a bag in the corner. I hadn’t noticed it before, too preoccupied with my unexpected visitors. He returned with a laptop in his hand. “Here, I took it on the jet to watch some movies.”
“They have entertainment systems on there, you know.” I grabbed the laptop from him, sitting on the bed and tapping away at the keyboard.
“I know that now,” he grumbled. “Sorry I’m not fancy enough to have flown on a private jet before. Matty’s going to lose it when you take him on one. He won’t admit it, but he loves being spoiled.”
Fuck, how I wanted to be the one to spoil him. I didn’t stop typing, even though I was internally freaking out. Leo was giving me hope where I hadn’t had any before. All the obstacles, all the reasons why I’d left Matty, they hadn’t gone away, but Toby and Leo were making it sound like they were surmountable. Like maybe, just maybe, being with me was better for Matty than being without me.
With a final flourish, my messages appeared on the screen. I opened the message thread, and all the obstacles disappeared like they didn’t exist.
Matty wasn’t hurting.
He was broken.
I read every single one. I tracked his pain. How his desperation turned to apathy, to bitterness, then to acceptance.
When I got to the final message, I could barely see the screen through my tears. That didn’t stop me from scrolling to the top and reading them all again.
Then again.
And again.
Fuck. I could almost feel Matty’s agony like it was part of me that was hurting.
My pain at being parted from him was nothing compared to this—knowing this was because of me.
I’d made him suffer.
I’d forgotten Leo was even in the room with me until his hand firmly closed the laptop screen. “I think you’ve read them enough.”
“How could I hurt him so deeply?” I whispered. “Oh god. What have I done?”
“The question isn’t what you’ve done, but what you’re going to do now.”
I blinked the tears away, focusing on Leo’s grim face. “I don’t understand.”
“I’m going to give you the same option as before. You swear to me you’ll protect him with your life. And most importantly, you vow to never break his heart again. You’ll spend your days making him happy and giving him whatever he needs.”
Could I do that? Could I be that person for Matty?
The laptop was burning in my hands. A reminder of how badly I’d already fucked this up. Of how much I’d hurt him.
How, in trying to protect him, I’d done the one thing I’d been so terrified of.
