Page 55 of Reclaiming Love

She’d walked through the kitchen, her eyes trained on the front door up ahead. But someone was already in there. The greeting stopped Melissa in her tracks and she knew Matt, behind her, had stopped too.

“Hey. I uh—” Matt stood beside her. Melissa stopped and turned.

And saw Noah staring at them both as if they were apparitions. His face a picture of scarlet disbelief

Her morning breakfast churned inside her stomach, like spider ants on the rampage, eating their way out. Noah’s mouth hung open and he looked from Melissa to Matt. She recognized the fleeting movement behind his eyes, the way his head lifted up slowly, and then he swallowed, and composed himself quickly.

He’d already placed his verdict.

“This is Melissa.” Matt turned to her, as though he’d claimed a victory, oblivious to her distress. “And this is Noah, the new guy who’s just moved in.”

Her body turned to pulp, and she felt as though her insides would cave any moment. The look of hurt in Noah’s eyes cut her to the core. She stared back, beaten, guilty as sin, seeing her shame reflected in the expression he wore.

Matt, topless, and barefoot, wearing only jeans was advertisement enough of what had gone on. But she couldn’t say anything.

“Hi,” was the only word she could utter. She looked at him, but he barely glanced at her, dismissing her as casually as lint on a carpet with a cursory nod of his head.

“Nice to meet you,” Noah said, his eyes cold. In the next second, he looked away from her; it was as if he’d pulled a switch, and shut off any feelings he might have had for her.

She had no words, no voice, no movement, no will. It was only the way Matt looked at her that made her snap back into the present. “She wanted to pay me a morning visit, seeing that we didn’t get to see each other last night.” His bragging words would have humiliated her further, but she was beyond the point of caring.

Panic settled into her bloodstream, seeped into her cells.

She had lost everything.

“Happy New Year, guys.” Noah’s greeting was aimed at Matt. “I didn’t know you were busy, sorry, dude.” The way he said “busy” made her insides squirm.

Frozen in time and space in the kitchen, Matt appeared to be the only one of them who felt no awkwardness at this meeting. At last Noah moved. He placed his cup in the sink and slowly walked away, not looking at her again.

At that moment, the kettle he’d switched on, finished boiling. Melissa watched the steam rise out of the snout and the sound of a door slam hard.

She ran out of the apartment, heartbroken.

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