Page 33 of Avalanche
The evening air hits like a slap when I open the door, but I shove Matty outside before he has a chance to think, then pull the door shut behind both of us. The darkness that envelops us is almost absolute, punctuated only by the flickering lamplight in the parking lot below. The concrete stairs glisten with ice, metal handrail white with frost. I draw in a breath, tasting snow on the air.
Matty is halfway down the ice-coated steps when he finally speaks.
“Where—where are we going?”
His voice is raspy, his breath making pale clouds around his face.
“Out,” I tell him decisively. Then, because he probably needs some direction: “We need to get some stuff from the dairy. The convenience store, I mean.” I tilt my chin to the lights glittering beyond the parking lot, to where streetlamps cast haloed light over the sidewalk and the last of the rush-hour traffic winds its way through grey slush. “We need to pick up a few things for dinner.”
It’s a lie, of course. I have no idea what we’re having for dinner, or whether we need anything to make it. I don’t even know who is cooking tonight, except that it isn’t me.
Matty nods, his bare hands trembling as he grips the ice coated railing, his booted feet threatening to slip out from under him on the steps. I follow behind him, watching with grim trepidation as I mull over what I’m going to say to him, whether I should say anything at all.
Is it even my place to call him out? Is it enough to just take him outside to cool down?
“You gonna explain what the fuck that was all about?”
The words tumble out while I’m still considering what to say, my mouth moving before my brain has a chance to censor anything.
Matty makes a choking sound, his feet skidding beneath him as he turns to look up at me from a few steps below. I blink down at him, at his broad face and that upturned nose and those blue eyes that make him look like a kicked puppy.
No. No, I’m not going to feel sorry for him. I’m not.
“You acted like a fucking asshole back there,” I tell him flatly, continuing down the steps until there is only a step between us, bringing us eye-to-eye. At this angle, the lamplight from the parking lot glows behind him, making his golden waves glow like a halo.
“I know,” he croaks. Even in the dim light, I can see the red splotches of emotion peppered under his eyes, along his cheeks, down his throat. He scrubs at his face. “God. I know.”
I start at his admission, at his bald acceptance. The wall of resolve I’ve built up starts to crumble, melting like ice beneath spring sun.
“I-I love her.” The words burst out of him, cracking and brittle as shattered glass. I flinch at the feel of them, at the rawness of it. “I love her, Eddie. Like, really, really love her.” His jaw wobbles, face twisting with the agony of a man trying to hold back his emotions as he pats the breast pocket of his coat with one shaking hand. “She’s—she’s it for me.”
His jaw clenches, lips pressing together around words so pitched with anguish I can barely understand them. He stares at me in desperate silence as he fumbles with his jacket pocket, a wounded sound escaping him when he pulls free what he’s been searching for.
It takes me a moment to realize what he’s holding.
“Fuck,” I whisper when my brain translates the meaning behind that little black box.
Thick fingers peel back the lid, carefully exposing the treasure within. It glints in the pale lamplight, a simple gold band with the tiniest of diamonds set along it.
“This belonged to my grandma,” he says, as if that somehow explains why he’s been carrying a fucking wedding ring around in his jacket. “My grandpa gave it to me after she passed away.”
I can’t look at his face. It seems wrong somehow, like looking at his pain in this moment is too private, too personal. I stare at the ring instead, at those diamonds glinting like hopeful starlight along the band. Five of them, all the same size.
I don’t know much about jewelry, but it seems like the sort of thing Lily would like.
“I’ve been waiting for the right time to ask her.”
He clears his throat, the lid of the box snapping shut as he tucks it back into his pocket then wipes his face on the sleeve of his jacket. My eyes follow the movement and I instantly regret it, forcing myself to look away. To stare into the dark, snow-crusted hillside that leads up to the apartment complex, to the lights of the road beyond. But it’s too late.
I’ve seen what he looks like cracked open, with tears streaming down his cheeks and glistening in haunted blue eyes. And I can’t unsee that.
“I know…” he begins, then drags in a shuddering breath.
I try not to hear it. Try to ignore the way the exhale that follows it sounds more like a sob than anything else. I glare into the darkness, blinking angrily at the sting threatening behind my own eyes. He’s not crying. He’s not crying. Just don’t look…
“I know it’s too early to ask her,” he continues, the words coming in a hurried rush, as if he doesn’t trust that he’ll be able to say them for much longer. “I know it hasn’t been that long. But my grandparents didn’t know each other that long before they got married, either. And I love her.”
He says this last bit like it explains everything, like those three words excuse the absolute madness of planning to propose to a girl who he’s only known a few months. Who he’s only dated a few weeks.
