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Pizza was eaten over light-hearted conversation and laughter. The deeper stuff was put on hold for a moment. Alex had always cherished these times with him. He made her laugh, laugh so hard her stomach would ache and she’d have to beg him to stop. His eyes would twinkle as he told joke after joke and the slice of pizza on his plate started to grow cold as it was forgotten in his elaborate story telling.
She missed his voice. She missed his smell. She missed the way he would use his hands for inflection. She missed his excitement and his infectious enthusiasm. She was curled up in the corner of the sofa, her eyes not leaving his face. He continued telling her about something that had happened on the set of one of his recently completed movies when his phone started to vibrate again. She watched as he glanced at it quickly, and then went back, his hands moving faster as he neared the climax to the adventure. Her eyes left his and glanced over at his phone. A picture of a woman flashed across the screen as the vibrating continued.
“You want to get that?” She pointed at the table where the phone was scooting across the wooden surface.
He shook his head, “I’m here with you right now and whatever this is,” He reached over and grabbed the phone, hitting the ignore button and then switching it over to silent, “Can wait until I’m done.”
“Are you finished?” She reached for his plate and took it from his outstretched hands. She stood from her comfortable position and walked back into the kitchen. “Do you want another beer?” She shouted out to him.
“Please,” He stated before going back to the tale of mishap. “The things I can get them to do but I have to say the dance off was probably my favorite moment.” He accepted the offered beer and Alex crawled back onto the couch next to him.
“So, besides story telling over dinner, I’ve been doing most of the talking tonight. Umm…don’t you think it might be a good idea if you told me your side?” Alex was nervous while asking him, but she knew that this entire night wouldn’t have been completely productive if she didn’t fully understand what she had put him through.
Matthew took a swig of his beer, his eyes not leaving hers. He pulled the bottle away from his lips, turning it slowly between his long fingers. “What exactly would you like to know?”
“Well…” Alex stopped, thinking about exactly how she wanted to phrase this question. “When I came back and I thought that everything would just go back to normal, you were still super distant and well, well, you didn’t stop hanging out with her. Why?”
Matthew closed his eyes, reaching over and setting the bottle down next to his phone. “I’ve thought about why a lot, especially after you left and honestly, I’m not sure. I think I really believed that things wouldn’t go back to normal. I had convinced myself that you weren’t the same person and that you weren’t in love with me anymore.”
Alex squinted at him, “See, where would you have gotten that idea?”
Matthew shrugged his shoulders, “You were the first girl I’d ever fallen in love with but all of the fighting, the fact that you were so far away, it just all changed. At least, at the time that’s what I thought and she, well she gave me all of the attention that I wasn’t able to get from you. When you came back and expected it all too just go back to normal, I panicked. What if I failed? What if I wasn’t the guy for you anymore? So many questions plagued me and I just turned to the one person who had been there the last few months. She became that emotional support for me. Oh shit!” He stopped talking and couldn’t look at her, his eyes scanning the wall behind her head again.
“What?” Alex crawled up on her knees, reaching over and grabbing his head.
“In a sense, I guess I did cheat on you.”
Alex released his face, blinking at his confession. “Oh….” She leaned back, away from his, studying the emotions manifesting on his face.
“Oh god Alex, I never realized. I just….oh there isn’t any excuse. I…” He stopped the rambling and just stared back at her.
“So honesty and communication just wasn’t our thing…was it?” Alex extended her foot, pressing it against his thigh.
He shook his head, “No, I guess it wasn’t. God, we could have saved ourselves so much trouble if we’d just talked. Huh.”
Alex let out a low chuckle, “We probably should have had this conversation several years ago. I’m not sure why we waited so long.” She did know, plain and simple, fear had kept them apart. Fear of being hurt. Fear of admitting their wrongs. Fear of letting go of the past and just moving forward.
“I just realized something.”
Matthew’s words broke Alex free from her thoughts and she turned to face him again, “What?”
“Because I’ve never truly allowed myself closure with us, it’s why I’ve never been able to fully commit to anyone else.”
“What are you talking about? You dated her for like two years.” Alex glared at him, a sudden realization hitting her squarely. “Oops!” She clamped her hand over her mouth.
“Alex, how do you know that?” Matthew reached forward and pulled her hand from her mouth. “Who were you talking to?”
Alex’s face started to flush and she averted his stare. She’d just let it slip that she’d kept tabs on him, at least for the first couple of years. “Umm, who says I talked to anyone? It’s called Google.”
He just shook his head, his eyes boring a hole into her.
“What? I might have, well I might have sort of, kept up with you a little bit.” Alex scrunched her nose and let her head fall onto her shoulder. “I realize, it was a pathetic move but I was desperate.”
Alex was stretched out on her couch, the TV muttered quietly in the background, her laptop perched on her thighs. She stared at the screen. His name had been typed into the search and she was internally fighting with herself to hit the enter button. It had been almost 10 months since she’d seen him at the Halloween party and 8 months since she’d made that fateful phone call. He’d seemed so angry and upset when she’d finally hung up but she couldn’t blame him. However, she couldn’t keep her mind from wandering to him. She’d typed his name into Google several times, but each time, she’d managed to shut it down and walk away. This time, however, she couldn’t walk away. She clicked the blue button and allowed her eyes to scroll down through all of the headlines. She adjusted her search and added ‘girlfriend’ to the end of his name. She sighed outwardly when pictures of him and her popped up. A single tear slid down her cheek and she sniffed it back and she once again adjusted her search. She added the name that still made her stomach clench. Sure enough, pictures of the two of them appeared before her. She sniffed, holding back the tears. She had no right to cry. She was in this position due to her own doing.
She slowly scrolled through the articles, looking for any piece of information she could. Paget had called her yesterday, breaking the unsavory news. She’d cried then, once she’d hung up the phone and it had taken her until this afternoon to finally gain the courage to look for herself. Article after article was searched and read through. Picture after picture was scanned and tucked away into her memory. Her heart continued to break just a little more with each glimpse of his smile. She pushed her lower lip out, pouting for no one but her broken soul. God, she’d really messed up and he was gone from her for good.
After several more articles and a dozen pictures, she slammed her laptop closed and let the tears fall. Whether or not they had actually slept together prior to the rumors she had started and the break up, no longer matter for they were definitely sleeping together now. Alex wasn’t entirely sure what she was going to do with this newfound information, but she did know that it was time for her to move on. She ran a hand up and over her face, combing her fingers through her hair. She pushed the laptop off and swung her legs off the couch.
She fumbled through her purse, pulling out her cellphone. Scrolling through the contacts, she found the number she wanted and hit the call button. The best way she knew how to move one from his heartache was to just jump back in with both feet. The phone rang several times and the longer it rang, the more nervous she got. What if all the flirting had just been for fun? What if he wasn’t actually interested in going out? What if she’d been reading his signals wrong all this time? The ringing stopped and a sleepy voice croaked out a hello.
“Hey, it’s me. I was just wondering if you wanted to go and grab a drink tonight.”
“Not that pathetic,” Matthew said quietly. “I might have done the same thing, or at least I had someone keep tabs on you for me.”
“Paget?” Alex questioned, already knowing the answer.
Matthew nodded his head. “I knew that she was talking to you, I just asked her pointed questions. She knew I was hurting but she also knew that I wanted to know. She tried keeping the information from me at first but I figured her out quickly and after I called her out a couple times, she started just being up front with me. When she told me that you were dating someone, it hit me harder than I thought it would.”
“I know the feeling. When I found you were dating….her,” Alex hissed more vehemently than she meant to, “I lost it.”
Matthew ignored the jealously in her voice, “You know, I didn’t date her right away, and she’s the last girlfriend that I’ve had.”
“What? That can’t be?” Disbelieving, Alex cocked her head to the side.
“It’s true. I had a few short-term relationships before her but after she broke my heart, I didn’t see a reason to date again for a time. Then I just got busy and dating didn’t seem that important.”
“Paget didn’t tell you everything.” Alex just simply stated.
Matthew looked at her.
Alex continued, “I never dated him. We went out a few times but we both quickly discovered that staying friends was our best option. I didn’t need a boyfriend at that time, I needed a friend, an ally and he chose to be that for me instead.”
“Then why didn’t she tell me that?” Matthew questioned.
“Probably because she knew you needed to just let me go.” Alex struggled getting those words out, knowing Paget had done it for his own good but it hurt all the same.
“Oh,” Matthew closed his eyes, his hands coming up to rub his temples.
“She knew you were hurting, just as much as I was hurting and after she broke the news of your newly formed relationship, she figured she’d just give you the same information. She had the pictures for me and him to sell her story and that was all you needed. She told me several months later what she had done.”
“I guess in a way it had worked, but it didn’t stick.” Matthew leaned forward and grabbed his phone. Swiping it unlocked, Alex could help but notice that he had several missed phone calls. He pulled up his photos, scanning them quickly before pressing on the one he wanted. He turned the screen so it faced her. Staring back was a picture of her last appearance on the red carpet. She was dressed in a floor length blue gown and on her arm was her friend, the man Matthew thought she had been dating.
“I don’t understand,” Alex looked from the picture up into his face.
“When I saw this picture, I knew that I wasn’t over you. That I had never actually really gotten over you.” Matthew looked at the picture again before shutting the screen off. “I know it was taken several months ago, but it wasn’t until recently that I saw it. Paget just happened to be showing Kristin and I overheard their conversation. I made her show me the picture. I asked about you. I practically had the dig the information from her but she did give up that you were back in LA and that you still had the same phone number. Long story short, I called you and here we are.”
“Oh Matthew,” Once again the tears were starting to build and Alex swiped at her eyes in frustration. Good god, could she not talk to him without crying.
His phone once again lit up. He swiped at the screen and hit the ignore button.
“Hey, I think that someone is trying really hard to get a hold of you. Maybe you should take that call.” Alex nudged his arm and he looked over at her. “I don’t know about you, but I’m a bit emotionally drained.”
Matthew leaned over and lightly kissed her lips. He stood up and walked towards the door. Alex pushed up off the couch and followed him.
“I’ve got a few things to sort out,” His hand reached for the knob, turning it and pulling open the door. He turned to look at her, “I will call you in a few days. Please don’t go anywhere.”
“I won’t,” Alex closed the door gently behind him, her back rested against the wood and she slowly slid down to the ground. She pulled her knees up to her chest and let the tears roll down her cheeks freely.