Fell In Love In Stages // a matty healy fanfic

Hearts Broken In The Same Places

When he was done, I felt the ball in the base of my throat hardening and the muscles tightening as I watched him pull a cigarette from his pack, stick it between his lips and light it. After taking a long hard pull, he yanked the cigarette out of his mouth and clenched his teeth.
Much of my life had been devoted to trying not to cry in front of people, so I knew what Matty was doing. You clench your teeth. You look up. You tell yourself that if they see you cry, it will hurt them, and you will be nothing but a sadness in their lives, and you must not become a mere sadness, so you will not cry, and you say all this to yourself while looking up to the ceiling, and then you swallow even though your throat refuses to open and you look at the person who loves you and smile.

He flashed his crooked smile, then said, "It doesn't get much more personal than that"
I got up off the bed and knelt on the floor beside him, put my head on his shoulder and hugged him by the waist.
He was stroking my hair. "I'm so sorry", I said.
"Don't be", he said. His voice calm.
"Matty," I said. I couldn't say anything else. He was too smart for the kinds of solace I could offer.
That word hung in the air awhile. I couldn't see his face, but I could feel him swallowing his grief in great, empty mouthfuls.

I unclasp the locket that had been weighing heavy around my neck and with a soft click, the silver heart parts into two, to reveal a tiny picture on either side.

"This is my mom" I say, "She passed away last year. She was my only friend. In the truest sense of the word." I smile at the woman in the locket, smiling back at me.
"And this," I point to the picture on the left, "Was taken at my grandparents house in Melbourne. Out of all the houses I've lived in, this was the only one that felt like home."

The picture was of a porch with a wooden rocking chair that over-looked the ocean. "Every afternoon, she'd sit on this rocking chair and tell me stories from her childhood. And even though I myself was a child at the time, I lived vicariously through her and her memories. I look at this picture and I see this day from six years ago- the day we're seeing, my mom has three years before her illness makes a recurrence. In the day captured in this locket, you and I are just kids. We've got the best and the worst of it in front of us," I said.
"I hope not," he says. "I sure as hell hope the worst is behind me."

I close the locket and place it around my neck. It felt significantly lighter. It dawned on me just then that this was the first time since her passing that I'd actually talked about her.

Yes Charlie helped me cope, but in ways that didn't involve a lot of talking. Only doing. Shopping. Parties. Getaways. And in doing those things, I never allowed myself to heal.

Matty took my hand and looked at me with red rimmed eyes and said, "Thank you for opening up about her. I know it can't have been easy for you. I like this 'opening up' everyone's been telling me about" he chuckles softly.

As I looked into his eyes, a part of me wanted to tell him I loved him, but I wasn't sure if I really did. Our hearts were broken in the same places.
That's something like love, but maybe not quite the thing itself.

After a while, I pulled him over to the bed and we lay there together as he told me about his childhood, and his nana and his friends. All the things that made him happy, even if only for a moment. And I told him about all the places I'd lived in, all the things I'd seen and felt a part of, but not quite.
Soon enough, the coffee wore off and I struggled to keep my eyes open. I eventually gave in and drifted off into a dreamless sleep.