Timeless // T.H

2// Convenience

"You slept with my sister?" Betty yelled across the room to her boyfriend who was sat on the sofa with his face in his hands.

"I know, it was a stupid thing to do, but it meant nothing to me, I swear, she meant nothing to me." He begged dropping his hands and watching her pace the floor in front of him.

"Oh, wow, now I feel better," she scoffed bitterly. "I know that is supposed to make me feel better, in some sick, twisted way... but you just told me that not only did you cheat on me with my own sister, but that you used her for an easy fuck."

"That's not what I said." Matt argued; she stared at him for a moment. She should be heart broken right now but she wasn't, she was hurt and she was angry but she wasn't heart broken.

"Okay then why?" she asked, sitting down stiffly on the other side of the sofa, a huge gap between creating all sorts of irony in her mind. "Were you drunk?"

"I think she was a bit..." he sighed, shrugging with ambiguity,

"Oh great, so not only did you cheat on me with my sister, you took advantage of her whilst doing it too." Matt cringed at how it sounded when she spat it back at him with venomous sarcasm.

"It wasn't like that," he tried to defend himself, "We used to be casual, you know, before this, and it was, like, reflex."

"Oh my god do you hear how fucked up that is?" she exclaimed in frustration- both on their feet now, glaring at each other from either side of the coffee table.

"You know, if you didn't insist on hiding our relationship, this wouldn't have happened!" He snapped, confirming what she already had known- he may have been older than her, but he wasn't mature enough to be in a serious relationship.

"First of all, it shouldn't have happened in the first place, because you fucking knew you were in a relationship. This isn't on Nova- this is on you. Secondly, the only difference people knowing about us would have made, is instead of my sister you would have fucked some stranger instead."

"Oh piss off, how can you possibly think that?"

"You slept with my sister, last night. You don't exactly have any moral standing or respect for me, and you've not apologised once. You've made excuse after excuse but you haven't once said you were sorry for what happened." This time he didn't reply, in fact he didn't say another word to her whilst she kicked him out. "You need to leave now Matt." In silence, she showed him to the door, cutting him off when he opened his mouth to say something as he found his way out. "Don't worry; you've nothing to hide anymore, because we're done." She dead-panned, shutting the door in his face.

Matt was not a fighter; that was the sad truth. He didn't fight to make their relationship public, even though it was the security he felt he needed. He didn't fight for their relationship not to end, even though it was all he desperately wanted. And he didn't fight to be in Ruben's life, even though it was what he'd been hoping for since Ruben was born three years ago. For as long as Betty had known Matt, he had been content to accept what was handed to him- his needs were simple and his existence reliable. He'd been blessed with good looks, meaning girls had come easy to him his whole life. He'd been handed a job in engineering, so an income had steadily entered his bank each month since he was sixteen. His easy-going attitude had seemed the perfect anchor for Betty to cling to after the whirl wind of the past few years of her life. What had seemed a smart decision before was now one of her largest follies.

After ringing her sister, and having an uncomfortable conversation with Nova, explaining that she'd had sex with Betty's boyfriend, Betty then got in her car and collected Roo from his friend's house. From there she took Roo and their dog, Nana, to the park- needing to be anywhere but in her flat right now. When she needed time to be alone with her thoughts, taking the kid and the dog to the park was the best option. The two of them were more than happy to run and run and run for as long as Betty needed.

Nana had gotten his name from his immediate affection and compassion towards the little boy. When he arrived with the family Roo had been but a few months old and Nana was just a puppy. Nana became Roo's personal guardian: they took naps together, they played together, they even insisted on being in the room when the other took a bath. Now a full grown Australian shepherd, their relationship remained. If anything the dog's need to be with his companion only grew with age. The name came from Betty watching Peter Pan with her sister and the puppy, the day Nana came home. It thundered all through the day and all night, but not once did the puppy leave the scared baby's side... almost like his own personal Nanny- it just stuck.

Finally able to focus her train of thoughts, Betty allowed herself to dwell on the newest mess in her life. She could admit that keeping her relationship a secret from her sister had been her living in denial over being happy without Kieran. It was a huge step that she hadn't been ready for, but this new drama was a reality check for her. Holding on to the past got her nowhere. Kieran was in the past, he could not affect her anymore, all the worst of his life had been done; Roo showed her that too. She had known from the first time she'd held Ruben that what she'd felt for Kieran was not love. It had been infatuation; it had been mostly unrequited and it was long gone. She was still here but Kieran had been dead longer than Ruben had been alive. So maybe it was the guilt of knowing Roo would never know Kieran that had kept her pretending to still be the mourning girlfriend all this time.

She'd done her mourning though. She'd hurt all through those last four months before Roo was born, but he was her new path and her new love and she could finally live with it. Yes she had been living in denial, but that didn't excuse what Matt had done. Equally, nothing could excuse what she had been doing either. She'd been using (well unintentionally using) Matt as cathartic practice in the world of love and relationships. So neither of them were saints.