YOU GUYS. I cannot believe this story is finished. I cannot believe the friends I have made on here, whom I seriously treasure like little fucking diamonds and pearls. Please enjoy this, I am ridiculously emotional right now. I have included a preview of my next story, which is a sequel-of-sorts to this story. xoxoxo
{Harper's POV}
After about two minutes of Matty not answering the door, I knew something was wrong. I was panicking, banging on the door as hard as I could, all with no avail.
Now, in this waiting room, I still had no answer; merely a throbbing pain in my wrist, and the ache of the punch to the gut that hit me when George finally kicked the door in, and we saw Matty lying there.
It looked almost like he was sleeping at first, his hair wild and flowing onto the couch, pretty mouth parted, face peaceful. It was when I shook him and he didn't wake that George started screaming Matty's name, shaking his little limp body, big hands trembling as he tried to check for a pulse.
I had dialed the paramedics, and George had found a weak little thump at Matty's jugular.
I suppose I was terrified for a while, and then, when that ate everything away, I was numb. There weren't really words for how I felt. And if there were, I didn't know them.
There was no use crying.
No use screaming.
Claire had already done enough of that for everyone here.
After they wheeled Matty into the emergency room, Claire had lost her fucking mind, if she ever had one to begin with. I didn't know who to feel worse for: Claire, who was screaming and crying and flailing her limbs everywhere, her words incoherent through her sobs but I think she was saying "LetmegoGeorgeLetmegoGeorge"; or George, who was somber and quiet and had her body all wrapped up in his, his voice low, repeating "Stop, kid" with each of her screams. He looked like he was hurting just as much as she was.
George was a smart person. He knew everything about computers and equipment and could recite musical trivia for hours. Claire was apparently intelligent too, probably from her days at all all-girls boarding school for the virgin children of wealthy WASPs she had went to or some stupid shit. I'm exagerrating (maybe) but I digress.
Both of them thought they knew Matty so well. They had no idea how bad he was, how bad he had always been. The truth is, Matty becomes addicted to everything that he discovers. He falls in love with everything, all at once, and can't distinguish between what is good for him, and what is bad for him. More importantly, Matty also doesn't understand that he is bad for other people.
I sat on the beige, barely padded chair of the waiting room, my hair and clothes still soaked with rain but beginning to dry a little, watching George and Claire. George was knelt in front of her, one of his hands taking one of hers, his other hand smoothing her usually perfect hair behind her ear.
No one would ever love me the way that George loves Claire.
That was fine, though. I wouldn't know what to do with that kind of love anyways.
I suppose I never realized how pretty Claire's face was until now, when she was sad, broken. Her eyes were this hurricane of green and brown, her eyebrows perfect, her bone structure something out of old Hollywood, her lips always soft and pouty. Her body was big and small in all the right places, breasts that heaved against the fabric of her dress, little bubble butt, wide hips, tiny little waist.
Claire was perfect, and Matty had absolutely ruined her, whether or not he intended to. He was so irresponsbile and selfish. Why couldn't he have let George have her? George would have taken good care of her, worshipped her, never hurt her fucking feelings.
But Matty and Claire saw something in each other that they both yearned for. Matty was a bad boy, tattooed and troubled and smoked too much. Miss Teen California ate that shit right up, rebelling against the world she knew the moment she spread her legs for him. And Matty loved it too; he was the champion of this sick, twisted game, "Defile The Virgin" or whatever he had called it. Surely she wasn't actually a virgin, but Matty probably made her feel like one.
I loved Matty, with everything that was in me, ever since we were teenagers smoking weed for the first time and cutting class to bump uglies. Matty loved me too, I knew, and in a mutual way that was not stereotypical love. I was not scared of him, not infatuated with him, not mesmerized but the way he flipped his hair or the big words he used. Matty could not break my heart, because I knew how to mend it by myself every time.
I was doing some internal mending at this moment, making crude little stitches against the holes and gapes oozing with blood in my chest. I could fix myself, I could. But the nearly-dead Matty in the other room wasn't making it easy.
"Kid," George said, cupping Claire's hand in his chin. "I'm going to call Matty's parents."
Claire's gaze didn't flinch, she simply stared blankly onto the linoleum floor, illuminated by the migraine-inducing hospital lights.
"Will you be okay?" George asked her, moving her face to where she would have to look into his eyes.
"Mmm-hmm," she whispered, the noise barely audible.
George glanced at me.
"I'll watch her," I offered, though I knew it was probably unwanted.
George nodded his handsome little head and kissed Claire on the forehead before roaming down the hallway, making the dreaded call. I always liked Matty's Dad. His mother hated me.
Claire and I waited in silence for a while, along in this giant waiting room, the rain starting to die down a little as the sounds of her sniffles and the clock ticking filling the loneliness of the room. Claire was staring at the door to the emergency department, her big eyes unmoving, blinking quickly as if she would miss them open for a doctor to come out and give us an answer, any answer.
"This is a good hospital," I struggled to find words to ease her. "They'll do everything they can."
She didn't even glance my way.
"This is your fault," she said. Her voice was quiet, but it hurt.
A tear was beginning to form at the corner of my eye, but I fought against it. I would only allow myself one, at most, in front of other people. It wasn't entirely the truth. I only did recreational drugs recreationally, not daily like Matty did.
Sure, I had stirred the shit pot, so to speak. I had just rushed things a little, sped up the clarifications of her relationships with Matty and George. It wasn't fair to any of them, they were both in love with her, she was in love with both of them. It had to end, and if I was the hand that pulled the trigger, so be it.
Claire was so entitled, with her perfect hair and her perfect fucking teeth, her pristine little soul serving as the muse for Matty's creative spirit and George's boyhood fantasies. She and I were worlds apart. Also, where was she when I was over at Matty's nearly every day, busting my ass to make sure he was still alive, begging him to check into rehab again, dragging him into the shower because he smelled like death, forcing him to eat because he was skin and bones?
I knew it wans't the time, the place, for an argument. It would solve nothing anyways. Even if I told Claire she needed to get off her high horse, Matty would still be lying in that hospital bed behind those doors, clinging onto life.
Adam and Chelsea were walking down the hallway, their eyes welled with happy tears, until they saw George's ghostly face in the hallway. I didn't hear how he explained to them that Matty was here, and had overdosed, but I saw Adam squeeze the flesh of his face with his hands, and Chelsea run to Claire, her heels clicking violently against the linoleum.
Chelsea hugged her friend, and Claire accepted the embrace, saying "I can't loose him, Chels."
She already had lost him. Matty had lost himself.
I had just been trying to help.
Right?
"Don't tell Tinnie," Claire said amongst her sniffles. "Is she okay?"
Chelsea nodded. "She's pushing now. She's doing good. Ross is doing good. Babies are good."
Claire nodded, and her face looked like it wanted to smile, but couldn't find the strength to.
I felt Adam's arm drape over me as he sat next to me, and he pulled me in for a brief hug.
"What happened?" he asked me.
Oh, Adam was a dear.
"Matty called me this morning; he was hysterical. I knew he had taken too much," I swallowed. "I went to his apartment, started banging on the door. He didn't answer, then a few minutes later George was walking toward me. He kicked the door in, and Matty was just lying there on the couch..." I trailed off.
Adam could figure out the rest.
"What did he take?" Adam asked, his arm not leaving me.
"I have no idea, Adam. He had everything imaginable in that damn apartment, strewn everywhere. Coke, Oxys, Xanax, Adderall, you name it."
Adam put his thumb and index finger against the bridge of his nose, then squeezed my hand.
"Agh," I winced.
Adam eyed me.
"My wrist hurts," I explained.
Adam took my hand in his once more, carefully examining it .
"Jesus Christ, Red," he said. "This doesn't look good. You need to have it looked at. It's sprained at the least."
His girlfriend's eyes met mine and were burning a fucking hole into my skin. He saw this when he looked up, and dropped my hand like it was a hot kettle.
"Do you want me to walk you over?" he asked me.
"No," I said, standing up. "I got it, Hann."
While I was in ex-ray, I heard two doctors discussing Matty. They said that he would be fine, but would probably spend the next 12 or so hours sleeping it off.
There was a weight lifted off my shoulders, but the instant the doctor had finished putting on my cast, I left the hospital.
Matty would call me when he needed me.
=
{Claire's POV}
The three hours I sat in the waiting room felt like eternity. Matty's parents had arrived, so stricken with worry that they didn't even notice us in the room. The nurses let them in, but no one else.
His parents had been in the room with him for nearly an hour before anyone popped out. Finally, when a tall, slender nurse with a short pixie cut exited the room, I immediately shot up.
"Please," I begged the nurse. "I have to see him."
She sighed, irritated, and closed her eyes in frustration.
"He is stable," she explained. "Sweetie, I can't break protocol. ICU is only for immediately family."
Without pre-analyzing my actions, I grabbed her shoulders and shook her.
"Please!" I yelled. "He's, he's my...my..."
My ex? My soul mate? My sunshine on a cloudy day? My savior?
Matty's mother popped her head out, her face wrecked with emotion.
"She's his sister," she said, taking my hand.
I said nothing, merely followed her as she lead me into the room. It was quiet, isolated, makchines beeping, clocks ticking, Matty's father tapping his foot against the floor.
Matty had been cleaned up, dressed in a hospital gown, his face looking like he was content in a dream, tubes into his nose and each of his arms.
The montor that was playing the melody of his heartbeat was steady, and it was the most beautiful sound I had ever heard.
"H-has he woke yet?" I whispered, quietly, as if not to disturb him.
Denise shook her head. "No, dear. Not yet. They said he will, though."
He would wake up.
Tim looked equally worried as his ex wife, but also quite confused. He and I hadn't met.
"My name is Claire," I said, offering my trembling hand to him.
Matty's father nodded as he shook my hand. "I know, love. I've heard all about you."
I gulped, not finding words to respond to this.
Denise and Tim had a quiet, but firm conversation about the their son's future. Though they did not agree on many things, their love for their first-born son allowed for them to agree that he needed to go to rehab, and for an extended period of time.
I listened to them, nodding every so often in agreeance, but I couldn't take my eyes off of Matty. His face was porcelain, beautiful. There was stubble speckling his jaw, the area between his nose and top lip, his chin. His mother had stroked his hair back, and he was lying there, motionless other than the tiny little movements his chest made as it rose up and down.
He would not die in this hospital bed, and that precious, precious fact was so dear to me. I was crying, tears both happy and sad as they cascaded down my cheeks.
"Wellings is much superior, I've heard. Jagger went there in the seventies," Timothy explained.
"Wellings is a joke," his mother argued, clutching her son's hand in hers tightly. "My poor little boy."
I hurt for her. I hurt for Matty's father. I hurt for Matty. I hurt for myself.
I don't know how much time passed, only that doctors and nurses flooded in an out, checking his vitals like clockwork. He was fighting, and winning the battle, if not the war of himself and his own mind.
Happy wasn't the word to use when I realized that Matty would live past this. It was more of a feeling, more of an assurance, that my spirit would not be ripped in half and thrown to wolves.
The sun was going down, and Matty's father had kissed his mother on the forehead, and told her to call him as soon as Matty woke. She agreed to, and was on and off of her phone, contacting her agent. She had been working, and was exhausted.
The rain started up again, the tranquil sounds pulling me into a pattern of looking at Matty, then out the window. Denise was talking about her son, and I was so mesmerized by this person who had raised this wonderful spirit.
"He was always such an inquisitive little boy," she explained fondly. "He never would stop asking questions, never stopped talking."
I smiled. "He's still that way, Denise."
She had Matty's hand in hers, then took mine in her other.
"You're a lovely girl, Claire. Matty's quite fond of you," she commented, unsure of our relationship but quite sure of the emotions we shared for each other.
"I'm fond of him," I answered her, though my feelings were much more than that.
The rain was starting to pour now, the beginnings of a wretched storm. A nurse, the same one whom I grabbed earlier, entered to tell us that visiting hours were ending soon, and only one of us would be allowed to stay. Denise did not want to leave her son, but I encouraged her to go home and rest. She would need to take the next shift, need to spend the morning making arragnements and writing checks for her son's rehabilitation program. She was a good mother.
In my moments alone with Matty, after all of the doctors and nurses had left, his mother had found the strength to walk away, I took complete and full advantage, and did everything I did not have the heart to do to a conscious Matty.
I slipped my shoes off, tucking them underneath the table, and crawled into bed with him, pulling the thin blanket over the both of our bodies. I was shivering, but he was so warm.
He was breathing, he was alive.
I did all of those things I wanted to do, needed to do. I traced all of his tattoos. I smelled his hair. I told him how much I loved him, a thousand times and I still wasn't tired of saying the words because I knew they were true.
He had told me once, that no other person would make me feel the way he had made me feel. I knew that was the truth, now, as I laid with this man, I knew the actions I had to take, the words I had to speak to him once he woke.
=
{George's POV}
I spent the night in the waiting room, my giant frame curled up into a ball on the couch, never really falling into an actual, full state of sleep. It was more of my consciousness going in and out, me thinking of how uncomfortable the couch was, wondering if Tinsley was okay, wondering if Matty had woken.
Like always, Claire filled my head, even when I was sleeping. Especially when I was sleeping.
Adam tapped me on the shoulder, carefully, as if to guage whether or not I was actually sleeping. It was sometime past four in the morning, and my kindest and most loyal pal had silently placed a coffee in front of me. I gulped it all down, despite the burning sensation that went down my throat.
"C'mere, mate," Adam said, gesturing for me to follow him.
I rubbed my eyes, exhausted, but not wanting to sleep, not even a little. There was too much going on, anyways. I followed Adam down a few hallways, into the Womens and Labor wing of the hospital.
Tinsley's room was filled with balloons and flowers, all in celebration of the two little creatures she had apparently given birth to a couple hours ago. Ross was snoring violently in the chair, and Tinnie looked beautiful but exhausted as she slept in the hospital bed.
Adam put his index finger to his lips, and walked me to the corner of the room where Chelsea was, a little pink bundle in each arm.
"Look," Adam said, his voice softer than I had ever heard it.
Each of the girls had their eyes closed, but apparently had their mother's eyes, their cute little features matching hers as well, though they had headfulls of Ross' dark hair underneath their little hats.
"Oh, fuck," I whispered.
Adam hit me in the shoulder and furrowed his brows.
"Sorry, mate," I said. "They're so beautiful."
Chelsea smiled, gently rocking back and forth with the babies in her arms.
"Which one is which?" I asked both of them.
They looked completely identical, and were dressed entirely the same, from their little baby-pink hats to their cozy ivory blankets they were nestled in like little burritos.
"The one on the left is Millie; on the right is Maisie," Adam said.
Chelsea shook her head. "Hmm-mmm, Maisie's on the left."
Adam cocked his head. "Are you sure?"
Chelsea's blue eyes rolled. "Duh."
I crouched down to look at the tiny things closer, their little faces so pink, unmoving. They looked like little dolls.
"Plus, I have my own system of how to tell them apart," Chelsea explained.
"What's that?" I asked her, stroking Millie's cheek. It was the softest thing I had ever felt.
Chelsea beamed at me, proud of herself as she stood and laid the babies down in their little rolly-bassinet. She grinned as she carefully unwrapped one of the babies from their burrito, and removed a sock that was the size of my thumb from Maisie's foot.
"Maisie's signiture color is pink," she explained, showing off the tiny pink dots of nail polish. "And Millie's is purple."
Chelsea and I quietly high-fived.
"Chelsea!" Adam yelled under his breath. "My nieces are two hours old and you painted their nails?"
Chelsea shushed him with a smooch to the lips, and it seemed to disarm him, at least momentarily.
"Wanna hold them?" she asked me.
A smile stretched across my face so wide that it was beginning to hurt as I cradled the twins in my arms. They were weightless, precious; they smelled like sunshine, they seemed unreal.
It was a lot to digest, that these girls were a physical manifestation of the love that their parents had for one and other. That Millie wouldn't be lying here sucking her thumb, Maisie wouldn't be stretching her tiny little legs out, if Ross hadn't have just went with it and kissed Tinsley that night.
I was so happy for them, so envious of what they had.
If I had not tried to be Good Guy George all the time, perhaps I could have all of the things I wanted, the only thing I wanted.
"I'm going to find Claire," I said, still swaying my body back and forth as I held the babies.
"Has Matty woken up yet?" Chelsea asked me.
I shrugged, because I had no idea. I imagined Claire was in there with him still.
"Let me know when he wakes, man," Adam mumbled.
Both Ross and Millie were starting to groan and kick their legs out, their sleeping patterns disrupted by our conversations.
Hann took Millie, and Chelsea took Maisie, and I kissed each member of the Hann-MacDonald family on the forehead, not negletcing Ross in the least.
My head buzzed as I ran through the maze of the hospital hallways, feeling a little like I was going mad, but a lot like I was doing what I had to do, what needed to be done, despite the circumstances.
When I made it to the ICU, I put on my best Bedford Danes charm to gain access into Matty's closed-off room.
"I'm his brother," I lied.
Surely it wasn't so far fetched that a handsome, 6'5 gent like me had been spawned from the same parents as teeny tiny litte Matty had.
"His brother," she narrowed her eyebrows at me, pushing up her glasses incredulously.
I nodded. "We're adopted."
She sighed and sipped her coffee.
"Your family sure has a lot of siblings," she said, her lips pursed to her mug that had a picture of a cat on it and read "paws off."
I cleared my throat. "They were the Brangelina of the late eighties and early nineties."
"Ah-huh," the nurse said. "Follow me. Your...sister, is in the room as well. She and your...brother have been quite cozy in there."
I blinked at her, not knowing how to process my own thoughts.
"How long has he been awake?" I asked her.
Her Mickey Mouse scrubs moved quickly as she used an electronic key to gain access to a set of six rooms, designated for intensive care patients.
"A couple hours," she informed me.
She walked me to Matty's room, and stopped to peek inside the small, rectangular window of the door. She sighed, the infelctions in her voice being something between awe and frustration.
My head cocked to peek inside, only to see Claire's body on top of Matty's, his arms plugged up to machines, but wrapped around her. Her gorgeous face was resting on his chest, and his hands were stroking her hair, his lips pressed to her forehead as she slept against him.
Matty looked like absolute shit. His face was white as a ghost and the bags underneath his dark eyes were purple. But he was alive, breathing, holding my girl like he had every damn right to.
And Claire had never looked more peaceful.
"How long has he been awake?" I stuttered, standing motionless outside the room.
"Nearly two hours," she answered me. "When you go in, can you explain to him that he has to wake her? We need to run some more tests and I'm tired of meandering around her body to draw blood and take his blood pressure. He won't let us wake her."
I swallowed these words. They were hard, dry, and my mouth was parched, but I did it.
I looked at Matty for a moment, his lips moving in the same patterns over and over a few times.
My eyes squinted to realize he was saying "I'm so sorry, baby," as he took her tiny hand in his and kissed each of her knuckles like they were fucking diamonds.
I ran my hands through my hair and tugged it a little. I was exhausted. Frustrated. Heartbroken. An internal debate was going on in my head. I wanted to fall to my knees and thank God that he was still here. And then, when I rose, I wanted to punch him in the face all over again.
"Em," I spoke. "Actually, I'll leave them be."
Because I had to.
The nurse looked at me, wide-eyed, but shrugged it off. She entered the room to check his vitals, but I was gone before he could see me.
It was dim outside, the sun just beginning to rise amongst the darkness of the night. It was not the prettiest sunrise I had never seen, but it was the one most worthy of my memory, because I knew now, that things would go on.
I knew that Tinsley had given birth to the babies, and they were perfect. I knew that I had done everything I could for Matty, and now that he had hit rock bottom, he had nowhere to go but up. I knew that Claire was desperately, madly, profoundly in love with Matty. Whether or not she knew that, I was unsure. I only knew that I had to let her figure that one out herself.
In the mean time, I was amazed by my life. I got paid a huge amount of money to fuck off with my mates and bang on a set of drums. I was surrounded by beautiful people, inside and out. There was this sunrise, all gorgeous and orange and purple.
I turned on Pearl's ignition and lit my spliff in unison, then cranked Drake up to full volume. It was time, now, for Good Guy George to rest, to breathe, to enjoy his life, and let others do the same.
=
{Matty's POV}
Eight Weeks Later
"No," I said into my cell phone, chucking my cigarette over the balcony. "The cravings weren't as bad today."
Dr. Hall expected my call every single evening at 7:00 on the dot, and if I was more than five minutes late, he would banter me with questions like "Do you really want to be sober Matthew?", "Are you taking this seriously, Matthew?", "Do you not understand the concept of time, Matthew?"
"Glad to hear it," Dr. Hall said.
As much as I loathed how much of a hard-ass he was, I appreciated him for every minute he gave me. I shouldn't need anybody, but here I was, a man alone in the world.
Dr. Hall had appointed himself as my sponsor when I had slept with my first two sponsors. If I didn't know, without a shadow of a doubt, that he was capable of killing me with one blow, I would have smacked him across the face when he told me that along with drugs and alcohol, I could also no longer have sex until it was deemed "safe enough territory for me to being exploring."
No cocaine. No Oxys. No Xanax. No Adderall. No alcohol. No sex. No weed.
The last one I firmly ignored.
"What are your plans for this evening?" Dr. Hall asked me, like he always did.
I bit my lip as I peered into the glass doors of my balcony, seeing my two friends seated on the couch, apparently in some heated debate.
"Just enjoying a movie night," I told him.
This was only my third night home, at my actual apartment, which felt like a literal oasis compared to the rehabilitaton program I had recently left. The detox was awful. I had never felt more violently ill, and for weeks I looked even worse than I felt. I thumbed the sixty-days-clean coin that I was given a few days ago, the one that, despite its cheesiness, was precious to me.
"Alone, or with friends?" Dr. Hall asked me.
"With friends," I answered him.
George was shoving popcorn violently in his mouth now, cheeks full like a chipmunk. Claire was rolling her eyes at him, a Red Vine hanging from her perfect lips as she tried to figure out how to work the high-tech remote to my telly.
I smiled.
"Which friends?" Dr. Hall asked.
"George and Claire," I said, smiling at two of my favorite people in the world.
"Things between you and George are well?" Dr. Hall asked.
I lit another cigarette and rested my back against the balcony, continuing to watch my two loves, their interactions more entertaining than whatever film they had chosen to watch.
"Good. We're recording the new album soon," I explained to him.
"And I assume you're comfortable around Claire? You've had closure enough to remain friends?"
Gabriel Hall was so nosey.
I supposed I paid him enough money to be, though.
The night I woke up, from my near-death, I knew Claire was with me before I even opened my eyes. I could feel her body, perfectly molded against mine, her breathing patterns all too familiar against my skin.
She was scared to death.
I had never, ever, felt so sick in my entire life. Physically, because I had taken enough drugs to murder an elephant, and mentally, because in hurting myself, I had truly hurt the only girl I would ever love.
All of the mistakes I had made, all of the mistkes she had made, were too much for us to handle in our current states of life. I was addicted to cocaine, writing, being self-absorbed. I was addicted to her.
She was a beautiful mind, body, spirit, who was discovering herself. She needed to know, to understand fully, how special she was. I could tell her over and over, and I always fucking did. But she would need to firstly know that about herself, before she believed it from me.
"Sure," I answered Dr. Hall. "Comfy as fuck."
"That doesn't even make sense," Dr. Hall muttered as I watched Clare now violently pressing the buttons of the remote, her pretty eyes wide and frustrated.
George was rotating inhaling a blunt and tossing hanfulls of Skittles into his mouth. My spirits were lifted when they realized they could actually be friends once more. The truth is, they were lost without each other. I wasn't sure if anything was continuing between them, but if it was, it didn't seem to be causing any akwardness.
Still, though, George had to have known Claire would never feel for him the way she felt about me. I think he had accepted it. She still called him Georgie and let him spin her around, but their touch didn't linger quite as long. Plus, George was getting tons of tail, and for that, I was extremly proud of him.
"Matthew," Dr. Hall spoke, "I need you to be certain of your own capabilities. You seemed to have began the process of moving on from her, I just don't want the interactions to be too much for you to handle."
I exhaled three perfect smoke rings and thought of Claire.
I would never let her go, not until I was pried from this Earth, and even then, I have this feeling, that my soul would be lingering on, searching for the nape of her neck, the curve of her spine, the warmth of her laugh.
"I'll let you know," I informed him.
"Have a good night," he said and ended the call.
My cigarete burned to the butt as I continued watching Claire and George. Claire was apparently trying to get him to help her with the remote, but he was too preoccupied on sugar and marijuana. Claire was now immitating George, her curvy legs spread out like his, a Red Vine substituted for the blunt, yapping away and running her hands through her hair like he did.
I couldn't hear anything, but from the way his face moved I could tell he made the typical George Daniel scoff/laugh, and snatched the remote from her to turn on the film.
"Having fun?" I asked the two of them.
Claire rolled her eyes and crossed her heavenly legs over the other. "Yeah, what a blast. George is making fun of me because I can't figure out how to work your stupid remote."
The blunt hung from George's mouth as he thumbed about, the main title screen of Fight Club finally appearing on the screen.
I sat down between the two of them, fetching the blunt out of George's mouth. He didn't protest. Claire's pillowy lips smirked at me, and I smirked right back.
She swallowed and bit her lip. "I need to use the restroom."
I nodded at her, exhaling the smoke into her face.
Claire hopped up, her body graciously molded in a pair of dark-washed jeans and a David Bowie T-shirt, her bare feet tip-toeing on the hardwood floors. She whipped her long, dark hair back and turned around to look at me just as she was about to enter the hallway.
"Matty?" she asked.
"Mmm?"
"Wait for me?"
I took a long exhale from the blunt, the sweet, sticky smoke calming me, hoping she knew just as well as I did that our exhange of words was not about the film.
"For as long as you need, love," I answered her.
And when she batted her lashes, letting my eyes lock on hers for the most brief of moments, I knew that she knew perfectly well what I meant.
=
// a sneak peek into "Salvation in the Secular Age"//
It had been a year since I had seen him. His long, luscious curls were replaced by a mop of messy waves. His cocaine and pills were replaced by calls from his sponsor and the fidgeting of his sobriety coins. He drank wine by the glass, not the bottle. He still could talk endlessly, but it wasn't because of the drugs, it was because his soul was a lit with the fire of life.
It had been a year. I had a new boyfriend. My memoir was published, and extremely successful. Tonight was not the first night I would drink champagne underneath the stars at an elegant party. I was happy. I had found myself, amongst everyone else. I was full, whole, complete.
And yet, I yearned.
The slow jazz music played as I scanned the party for familiar faces. Ross and Tinsley were taking advantage of a kid-free night, and he was waltzing her away. Chelsea and Adam were laughing at some animated story George was telling, his longer hair now moving slightly in the breeze of the warm night.
The champagne was sharp and sweet as I swallowed nearly the entire flute in one gulp. When my eyes were darting around the room to find Owen, I was interrupted, stopped, frozen in the moment.
It was amazing really, that Matty could lock me in with his eyes, paralyze me, make me weak. He could make me feel things from ten yards away that other men couldn't make me feel when they were inside of me.
And he was walking straight towards me, looking like he fell from the gates of Heaven in a black on black suit perfectly tailored to his body, his hands in his pockets, his eyes never leaving me.
I fluttered my lashes at him and blushed, despite how much I knew I shouldn't. I wasn't sure if it was beyond my control, or beyond my will.
He was standing in front of me now, one hand went to the small of my back delicately, the other resting at my waist, his lips tenderly pecking my cheek in a kiss that I immediately felt everywhere.
"It's nice to see you, love," he said into my ear.
When he took a small step back and his eyes met mine again, I knew that along with everything that had changed, some things would always remain the same.