“Hi,” I said over the whir of the window rolling down. He looked like he needed a friend. Unfortunately, he was getting me. “I don’t normally see you here. Do you have this hour off, too?”
“No.” His normally velvet timbre sounded fractured. “I decided coffee was more important than learning today.” There was a rueful set to his green eyes and his short brown hair was tucked under a wool cap.
I made a show of peering past him to see if there was coffee in his cup holder, but it was empty. “Well, I better let you get to it if you’re going to make it back for your next class.”
He didn’t reply but dipped his eyes away from me and back to his lap. There was something in his hands. A woven bracelet I recognized. It was a gift from Gideon. A small fissure cracked open in my heart. Pretty soon, these weak spots were going to cost me. But not today.
I dropped down to be eye level with Matthew. “You’re not ok, are you?”
He took a shuddering breath and shook his head. There was hurt and sadness in his expression. If the tables were turned and Matthew had broken up with Gideon, what would I say to him? I wasn’t sure, but it would be something.
“Stay right here. I’ll be back in just a minute.”
I popped up, not giving him a chance to say no, and jogged back to my car and Chase. He lifted his brows in question.
“So, I think I need to stay here. My friend might be in trouble.” This was a wholly accurate statement. Gideon was in trouble. “Do you think you can drive my car back to school? I’m sorry to do this to you. I wouldn’t unless it was important.”
He smiled at me and something—my feelings for Chase maybe—burrowed deeper into my heart. “No worries. You help your friend. I can tell it means something to you, so it’s the right thing to do.”
How wrong you are.
“Thanks. Let me give you my number and we can meet up after school.”
I slipped my journal out of my bag and tore a sheet out of the back. I quickly scrawled my number and handed it over.
“See you later.” He leaned down to give me a quick kiss on the cheek.
My skin prickled pleasantly at the contact and I lifted my hand to the spot still warm from his lips. “Bye,” I whispered.
After Chase left the parking lot, I turned to walk back to Matthew. I had to help Gideon, no matter the cost. To me or anyone else.
CHAPTER 28
UNINVITED, I CROSSED to the passenger side of Matthew’s car and let myself in. Once settled, I turned to him. “I’m concerned about you. You don’t seem ok.”
Matthew could not have looked more surprised if I’d confessed my undying love. Not my most subtle move ever. With the clock ticking, I didn’t have time for subtlety. If I had any chance of using my position to help my friend, I had to do it quickly.
“I’m fine.” His speech was stilted, forced.
“That’s the least convincing thing you have ever said.” My aim was to appear sympathetic, but even I could see I was falling short. My nerves were frayed like the hem of an old sweater, slowly coming undone, and I didn’t want him to see how shaken I was.
Matthew laughed, but it wasn’t the sound I remembered. It was angry and bitter and joyless. “I’m not fine, but why should you care? We aren’t friends.”
I shook my head. “That doesn’t matter. You’re still someone I know and someone who is clearly in a bad place. I want to help.”
“How could you possibly help me?” he all but sneered, his lip curling slightly.
“I can help anyone. I’m very capable, if you didn’t know.” This at least got a small laugh from him. “Sometimes just telling someone about the thing you’re holding on to can help. Maybe not always, but you’d be no worse off. You haven’t killed anyone, right?”
He looked up sharply, and for a panicked second, I thought he might know why I was there. Then the moment passed, and his face cleared. He may not have murdered anyone, but killing someone’s reputation was still pretty bad.
“You can start with how you’ve been. I haven’t run into you since you and Gideon broke up.” I could do this, have a conversation with someone I used to hang out with.
“I’ve been avoiding you.”
“Me? Why?”
“Seeing you usually means seeing...Gideon.”
Was Matthew’s request born from a broken heart? No matter how I looked at things, with what I knew of their history, I didn’t think so. It was like relationship algebra; I had to solve for X. There had to be a factor I was missing.
“I thought your breakup with Gideon was pretty amicable. Or as amicable as any breakup could be.” How would I know? I’d never even had a boyfriend.
Matthew shrugged. “It was, I guess. We kept in touch for a little while after. We’d text or message, but then I couldn’t see a point to it and stopped.”
“Is that why you’re so sad? Because you fell out of touch? That’s easy to fix.”
“No. Other things have been...hard.” His voice trailed off and he looked out the window.
I could take a cue from Matthew on how to be vague. My mind flipped through ideas to get Matthew to open up. Casting my eyes around his car for anything else we could talk about, they fell back on the bracelet he had clutched tightly in his fist.
“I remember the day Gideon got that bracelet for you.”
We had spent a day at the reservoir the summer before, the bright sun broiling the gravelly beach until it was coal hot. Despite the temperature, the water was still deliciously cool, and we spent hours lingering along the shore bemoaning the lack of a real beach with sugar-fine sand and an ocean breeze.
“Me, too.” Matthew was quiet. Perhaps he was joining me in the warm swathe of that memory.
A girl had walked by our trio, selling handmade friendship bracelets. I rolled my eyes dramatically at Gideon when he asked if we should get a set, but Matthew caught his eye and smiled hopefully. Gideon leapt up and produced a five to purchase a matching pair. At the time, I thought he was doing it to spite me, not realizing that the token had meant something to Matthew.
“Gideon still has his, too,” I said, remembering it sitting on his dresser the last time I was at his house. “Just because things end, doesn’t mean they weren’t important. Both then and now.”
A tear escaped down Matthew’s cheek. “It’s not that. I just... Things have not been the best at home. My dad left me and my mom.”
“Oh my... I’m so... That has to be hard.” Words were failing me, and I kicked myself for thinking this could be easy. That anything could be so straightforward that I could fix it with a simple conversation. Stupid, stupid, stupid, Ember.