Page 23 of I've Walked Where You've Been
And sure, knowing Ethan didn’t feel the same hope and exhilaration as Matty in the aftermath of their kiss really fucking hurt, but Ethan pushing him away was a hit Matty didn’t even know how to deal with.
Matty withstood the bullshit that Ethan was throwing at him for exactly ten days until he snapped, parking himself on Ethan’s bed and waiting until past midnight for him to come back.
Matty had left the lights on low, only one of the bedside lamps on, and took a perverse sort of pleasure in seeing Ethan jump half out of his skin as he spotted Matty just sitting there in the gloom.
“Holy fuck, you scared me,” Ethan said, clutching his chest. He winced as Matty didn’t reply, just staring stonily. “Okay, um…”
He left his book bag on his desk, shedding his coat and shoes slowly. Matty watched him silently, the shadows shifting over Ethan, casting his form on the wall, stretched out and distorted.
When Ethan finally turned towards Matty, he looked cowed and pale, chewing on his bottom lip like he did when he was especially nervous. There was a long, heavy moment of silence before Ethan sighed.
“Look…I’m—I’m sorry.”
“For what?” Matty asked, voice flat.
Ethan looked at him, expression a little pleading. Honestly, Matty wasn’t especially moved. He was angry and, beneath that, stronger than the frustration and resentment, was the bruised, curled-up feeling of hurt.
The silence stretched on long enough that it became obvious Ethan wasn’t going to reply. Matty scoffed, shaking his head. “You know…if you don’t want to kiss me, you don’t fucking have to kiss me, Ethan. I know it’s fucking awkward to tell me that but, like. I thought…fuck. Am I alone in wanting this to work? In wanting us to be…to figure out why we’re bondmates? Because that’s not going anywhere. Do you just notcare? Do you just not—”
“No! No, Matty, you know I—that’s not it. That’s not it.”
“What do you even mean, that’s not it? Fuck, this isn’t something that’s just going to slot into place like it’s a movie. We’re going to have to work at this! You can’t just…you say you care, but then you ignore me for a week just because I…I’m sorry that I made you uncomfortable with that kiss. But you have totalkto me.”
Ethan shook his head, mouth opening on a choked, overwhelmed-sounding noise, before seeming to force out, “It’s not that I don’t want to kiss you.”
Matty frowned. “Okay…?”
“I just…fuck. I’m just scared.”
“Scared of what?” Matty asked, half exasperated and half concerned.
“Ofyou.”
Matty would swear to anybody who listened that his whole body stopped functioning for a second. He could feel the dead lump of his heart in his throat, choking him.
“No, shit, not like that,” Ethan said hurriedly, finally coming over and sitting on the bed with Matty. “Not like that. I’m not scared of you as in, like, scared that you’re gonna do something. I’m just scared…what if I’m not good enough? What if the bond is wrong somehow and you’re stuck with me but…but what if, what if—”
“Whoa, hey.” Matty scooted over, tentatively pressing his fingers against the back of Ethan’s hand. Ethan turned his palm up, and Matty tangled their fingers together, holding on tight. The flare of every scared, fucked up emotion Ethan was feeling ate up Matty’s anger at once.
Ethan took a deep breath, face blotchy, both pale and red at the same time. “Sorry. Fuck, sorry. I just. I feel like I’m lying to you or something. Like I’m an imposter that’s somehow conned his way into this bond and that you’re going to realise I’m a shitty person and that if it weren’t for the bond you’d never spend any time with me, and—”
“Okay, stop. Holy fuck, Ethan. Is that seriously what you’ve been thinking?”
Ethan shrugged, his breath choppy.
Matty pulled him a little closer until their legs were tangled together, hands clasped together. “Okay. Let’s just…break that down, or something, ’cause that was a lot.”
Ethan’s head dipped even lower, and Matty squeezed his hand.
“No, look. The thing is that out of everybody in the world, we’re the last ones that need to worry about whether we’re only together ’cause of the bond. Dude, the bond made ushateeach other. We were forced together when we werenine. And nobody thought to help us through it.”
“Yeah, but. We kind of decided to start being nice because of the bond, too.”
“Okay, I feel like that is a crazy oversimplification of what actually happened. Like, we didn’t justdecideto be nice. We talked—or fought, whatever—about it, and kind of worked our asses off not to be dicks to each other anymore. We put in the work to get to know each other. I mean, do you only like me now because of the bond? Are you just…going along with it ’cause you have to?”
“No,” Ethan said vehemently, finally looking up at Matty.
“Well, me neither! Ethan. If I could get out of this bond right now—if someone told me I had another bondmate out there, and I could get out of this bond and find someone else, there’s no chance in hell I would take that. I…really fucking like you. And yeah, we worked at it because we had to, but, like, that doesn’t make the results of that work any less real.”
