Chicago (a Friday Night Lights fanfiction)

Confession

They never did get around to dinner. They made love once hastily, urgently, needing the reconnection, and then again, more slowly, rediscovering well-known places and sensations, savoring the moment. At last they fell asleep.

The familiar sounds of the city getting started woke them early the next morning, the pale light streaming in the windows.

"Hey."

"Hey."

"Hang on." As Julie was coming in for a kiss, Matt put a finger over her lips, leaping out of bed to hit the bathroom and brush his teeth. Of course Julie had to do the same. But at last they were under the covers together again, cuddled up together in the center of his bed.

"So, you missed me?" she asked.

"Yes, I already told you that."

A sleepy, satisfied smile spread over her face. "I want to hear it again."

Matt laughed. "I missed you." He leaned in to kiss her, briefly.

"I missed you, too," she said, stroking his arm.

Reaching out, Matt let a strand of her blonde hair slide between his fingers. He had dreamed of touching her like this, of having her here in his bed, his apartment, his life.

But Julie's thoughts were off somewhere. He could tell by the way she was stroking his arm, firmly, like she meant something, and the way she wasn't looking him in the eyes any more. "So ... I kind of have something I need to tell you, and ... I don't want you to freak out."

If there was ever a way to make a person freak out, it was to tell them not to. Matt held himself very still, feeling the tension that had coiled in him last night beginning to twist inside him again. "Okay." He took a deep breath, waiting for the other shoe to drop. He should have known there was another shoe.

"I ... had an affair with a TA at my school."

He tried not to picture her with another guy, tried not to think that this was what had been nagging at him all this time. He said nothing.

Julie seemed to debate what else to say, at last going on, "And ... he was married."

Matt's eyebrows rose in surprise, but he still didn't say anything. He wanted to let her get it all out first, before he tried to figure out what to say.

"And now it's just this ... big ... mess." She looked at him, waiting. "Aren't you gonna say something?"

"What do you want me to say?" He didn't know what she was looking for with this confession. Was she apologizing, did she want him to understand, or commiserate, or yell at her? He just didn't know.

"I don't know," Julie said awkwardly, echoing his thoughts. "Are, are you mad, are you ...?"

He was mad. At her, at the married guy, at himself. He was sad for her, for the mess she had gotten herself into. He was frustrated that it couldn't have been just as simple as that she missed him and needed him back in her life. He was sympathetic to how easily you could go wrong, get yourself involved in a situation you never expected. He felt so many things he didn't know which of them to start with.

But right now, looking in her eyes, Matt could see that what she needed was someone to tell her that this wasn't going to ruin her life. He could only imagine how furious Coach Taylor must have been, how many lectures she must have heard from Mrs. Taylor. People made mistakes, they messed up their lives, and then they fixed it. That was what Julie needed to hear.

He forced himself to smile. "Yes, Julie, I'm mad," he said, in a tone that indicated he was anything but. "I'm furious. I'm very disappointed in you." She looked at him wide-eyed, disbelieving, and he added, more seriously, "It's fine. It's fine."

"I don't know, it's just my parents got ... super pissed off."

"Yeah, well, those are your parents. I'm not your parents. Okay? It's not like we were together or anything, you didn't cheat on me." Her eyes studied his face, looking for any sign of him lying to her, telling her what she wanted to hear instead of what he actually thought, and he reassured her again. "It's fine." It was fine. But it was also kind of not fine, and Matt needed some space to figure it out. He continued, "But—I mean, I hope this doesn't freak you out, but ... I don't know, it's ... I think maybe that you and I, we need to, um ... We need to go get breakfast." She had been hanging on every word, worried about what he might say, and now she laughed, the way he had wanted her to. "Because I'm hungry. And there's a very good bagel place, just down the street."

Julie laughed, starting to move out from under the covers. "Bagels it is."

"Bagels. All right." Matt got up. He really was starving, since they had missed dinner last night. "Here we go." He grabbed some of his clothes and headed for the bathroom to take a shower, needing that space to think over what she had just told him.

That she'd had an affair with a married guy—well, that was just the Swede all over again, wasn't it, just Julie reaching for something that seemed exotic and finding out it wasn't what she'd thought it would be. But that she was here after her life came crashing down around her ears, that was what worried him. He'd thought she was here because she missed him, and that was great. But if she was really here because she didn't have anywhere else to go and he was easy—well, how could he settle into his life, never knowing when she'd take off for something more exotic and land back in his lap because he was familiar?