Page 81 of All I Desire

I sit up with a gasp and push the gel eye mask to my forehead. Dammit. It’s probably Matthew wanting to talk. And I’m not sure I’m ready. Even so, I hope it’s Matthew and not Sadie, who I ushered out of my apartment an hour ago with the promise that I’d tell her everything once my headache went away.

Pressing my eye to the peephole, I whimper when I see who’s at the door.

“Natalia?” he calls out.

I swing the door open and step aside so he can walk in. “Matthew, you didn’t have to come over.”

I return to the sofa, pulling the weighted blanket over my legs. Since it’s made with buckwheat pellets, it makes a soft, crunching noise. Matthew doesn’t notice because he’s pacing the living room, pushing his dark hair back with his hand.

He stops and stares at me. “You okay?”

“Headache. Migraine.” I tug the eye mask off my forehead.

I study him. He looks unusually red in the face. “You okay?” I ask.

His hands ball into fists then relax. “I punched him.”

A jolt of adrenaline shoots through me, almost enough to quell my headache. “What?”

“I punched Chad. After you left.”

I crumple forward, my hands covering my face. “No,” I whisper. I lift my head. “This is exactly what I didn’t want to happen.”

Matthew comes to the couch and sits. He moves the edge of the blanket and scowls at it.

“Weighted blanket,” I explain, adding, “for anxiety.”

“I feel like shit for making you go through that.” He turns and reaches for me but doesn’t quite touch me. His hands hover near my shoulders, and then he pulls back, as if I’m going to break if he touches me.

“How could you have known? Stop apologizing.” I probably sound more cross than I should. “And don’t punch him again. Although, I can’t say that it hurts my feelings that you did pop him once. Did you break his nose?”

“I wish.”

“Did he try to fight back?”

Matthew snorts. “Hell no.”

We sit in silence for a few minutes, watching Sin bat a grey toy mouse across the floor.

“Chad started to talk about you. And. I. Couldn’t. Stand. It…” His voice trails off.

I press my lips together. The heavy blanket’s making me sweat so I push it off, drawing my legs up so that I’m sitting in a ball. Matthew’s on the other end of the sofa.

“Chad and I met in eighth grade. He’d just transferred into school here. He bullied me badly back then. Would trip me in the hall at school, leave shit in my locker. Called me ‘The Maid” because someone found out and told him that I worked with the housekeepers at the hotel in the summers. When I first told adults about the bullying, they said that he did it because he liked me.” My voice is calm and small. “He didn’t come back freshman year, and it was a relief. Everything was great until junior year, when he returned. And at first, it all seemed okay. It seemed like he did like me. For real.”

Matthew’s staring at his hands, which are threaded together.

“Do you want to hear all this? I assume that’s why you really came over, to find out what actually happened.”

He shrugs without looking at me.

Part of me is pissed that Matthew wants to know the details. But I also suspect that if I want to have a chance in hell at a relationship with him, I need to be honest about what happened with Chad. Not for Matthew’s sake, but for my own. So that my conscience is clear. So that I don’t feel like I’m hiding anything from a person I really care about.

“Nat.” His voice is soft. “I want you to know that I didn’t know Chad well back then. Those were the years I was mostly estranged from my mother and only saw her a couple of times. Chad was a virtual stranger back then. In fact, I haven’t seen him in a couple of years until recently. He came to the island for a visit when I first moved here. We had lunch on his way to Miami.”

“So, you’re friends with him. Or were.”

Matthew shakes his head. “Not really. He had meetings in Tampa and Miami, some real estate investment thing. So, it made sense for him to stop to eat with us. Chloe was with me that weekend, and because I’m always trying to keep the peace with her and my family, I thought it would be a good idea for us to spend time together. Honestly, it was awkward. We ate at that place on the waterfront with the stone crabs, then walked around a little. Oddly…” He stops speaking.

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