Even After All

Part Forty Nine

And finally after what felt like hours, he’d spotted her enter the courtyard of the hotel. Jumping to his feet, he rushed to see her, desperate to blurt out how sorry he was, how much he wanted to apologise, explain. Instead he almost exploded to see her arm in arm with some beach bum. As he got to the hotel door, she was hugging him, reaching up to kiss him on the cheek. The rational part of him told him if he was more than an acquaintance, she’d have give him more than a peck on the cheek, and in his heart he knew that she wasn’t the type to dive so quickly into something with another man. After all, she’d not wanted or tried to date a man in the five years that they were apart, let alone the last two weeks. But that didn’t stop the veil of green envy wash over him so dramatically.

He was jealous, that stunned him for a moment, he was jealous that another man could see Matilda laugh, that another man had made her smile.

                “What the HELL are you doing here?”

Like a pin to a balloon, his bubble of realisation burst with a loud bang. He stepped back, literally as she hissed the words at him. “I came to see you, of course. Look there’s a lot to talk about.” He ran his hand over his eyes, exhausted.

                “So YOU want to talk now? He who avoided everything for so long. When did you pull your head out of your arse?” There was venom in her voice and he couldn’t blame her for that.

Dylan groaned, “you’ve every reason to be angry...”

She shook her head, “NO. You have no idea what is going on in my head Dylan Wallace, do NOT presume to know what I am thinking, you hear?”

He watched her take a deep breath and march past him, determined to disappear.

Mattie sighed, a few more steps and it would have been ok, she’d have got to her room, locked herself in, regrouped, rebuilt her defences and been prepared for any other confrontation. But he reached out and grabbed her arm. And the contact, his skin on hers, it was like an electric shock, her whole consciousness zoomed in to that piece of her body, those fingers touching her, wrapping around her wrist.

                “Matilda...don’t go. Please.”

Before she looked up she blinked furiously trying to clear the tears that threatened to fall, she couldn’t cry in front of him, she wouldn’t, but he brought out so many feelings in her, and her inadequacies, her faults mixed with all that she felt about him, and the fact that he was there, that she’d wanted him, but never really believed he would come, “it’s too late Dylan, I can’t do this.”

He shook his head, “no, it’s not. Ok, I was wrong, SO wrong, can’t you let me explain?”

Staring at his eyes, she felt her heart start to pound, from across the courtyard he’d looked like Dylan, smooth, calm, unruffled, but up close he looked tired, his eyes were red, they lacked their usual sparkle, and his face looked pale. Seeing him so off kilter made her pleased, he was suffering. And that made her pleased.

                “You look terrible.”

She blurted the words out without thinking.

He sighed, a slow expulsion of air, “I’ve been travelling for twenty four hours or more, not sure where I am in time! I have felt better.”

She didn’t want to feel pity for him, but suddenly all her confidence was ebbing away, she was too emotionally fraught to battle things out now, but she knew she wanted to hear what he had to say, she owed herself that. But as fraught as she was, he looked exhausted too, they managed to screw up conversations when they were aware, at their best, talking now was a recipe for disaster. “You need sleep. You got a room?” He nodded. “Meet me tomorrow, breakfast?” She pointed to a doorway in the distance, “that’s the restaurant. We both need rest or we’ll ruin any chance of being civil. See you at nine.”