Aftermath

31

"So you're just leaving?"

"Cal, you know it's not that simple." Matthew looked hurt by her words. She didn't care.

"It's never that fucking simple."

"Callie, please..." he tried reaching out for her, but she jerked away. His words died in his throat.

"Don't touch me." She said bitterly.

"There isn't anything left for me here. My parents are gone. Rowan, and now my job. I don't know what you expect me to do." There she had it. That was all she needed to hear. She was nothing. She wasn't enough to make him happy, just enough to distract him for a moment until better things came along.

"I want to be enough for someone to stay." She whispered. "Enough for you to stay." Matthew's face was stricken with realization.

"Cal that's not-" she held a hand up to stop him and shook her head. Calpurnia got out of his car and slammed the door shut. Matthew got out of the car after her and jogged to catch up to her.

"Calpurnia, stop."

"No." The word was venomous. Stern, powerful and harsh. Matthew stopped in his tracks. "I'm done, Matthew. I'm finished."

She thought of her dad leaving her. Her mother undoubtedly blamed Cal. Rowan ditching their plans and going to the party. Matthew taking a promotion to get away. The wetness on her cheeks startled her back to the present. To Matthew standing before her. He looked torn between staying put and consoling her.

She inhaled deeply and wiped her cheeks with the backs of her hands.

"Congratulations on your job. Mattie." She offered the best smile she could muster and walked over to press a chaste kiss to the corner of his lips. "I'll see you around." She whispered and when she pulled back his skin was blue. His clothes were tattered and he was cold to the touch. She backed away quickly a choked scream ripping from her lips.

...

In the early hours of the morning, long before the sun had come up, she woke from the nightmare in a panic. Shakily she stood from the bed and pulled on a sweater. Her hands trembled as she tied her boots and pulled on her coat, but when the cold December wind finally hit her cheeks she took in a gasp of air. A dull roar pounded in her ears, and her body felt staticky and tingly. Just a bad dream. A walk will help. She chanted these words to propel herself forward, afraid if she stopped even for a moment, she'd lose it. The sidewalks weren't clear, but the snow crunching under her feet didn't bother her.

Flashes of Matthew's face tormented her. Just a bad dream. A walk will help. His face when he asked her the questions. His face when she walked away. His face in the nightmare. With each one her resolve seemed to deplete and her panic, skyrocketed. When the snow bit her hands she didn't even know she fell. But once she was down, she didn't get back up. A weight had settled itself into her, holding her down. The pounding grew from a dull roar to ear piercing, but there was nothing she could do to stop it her eyes squeezed shut. Just a bad dream. A walk has to help. Her cheek pressed against the cool ground, and the night air whipped around her.

"Cal!" she tried to shake the voice away, uninterested in reliving the bad dream. "Calpurnia!", shut up she willed her brain. But her mind betrayed her on the third call. Mattie. She wanted to see him, to see his real face, not the face she kept seeing in her nightmare. Matthew. 

"It's me Cal" his voice was so close. "Come on," she forced her eyes open this time.

"Mattie" she whispered. His face was red, instead of the startling blue. His breath billowed out in clouds around his face. 

"Come back inside, I'm so sorry, please just come back in." Cal took his outstretched hand and he helped her to her feet. 

...

"You don't have to stay." She spoke as soon as the bedroom door latched. She may not have intended for things to end up this way but hadn't forgotten their fight. Matthew stood at a distance. He didn't say anything right away, instead looked her over.  Cal looked away from him towards the door, willing someone to come barreling through it, and get her out of this conversation.

"Look at you, Calpurnia" He wasn't wrong. She obviously hadn't done it on purpose, but it was stupid of her to walk out in the middle of the night in an unfamiliar area, especially without telling anyone. But his tone still hurt. 

"Thank you for the assessment," she bit back. Cal couldn't take the pressure of his presence. She didn't trust herself yet, to not let him pull her back in, but she wouldn't be conned into submission by him. Not until he gave her a straight answer. He strode over to the side of the bed and picked up her hand gently. Her eyes were trained on his face, his on her hands.

"You didn't even have your phone," his words were a whisper. "I came to your room and you weren't there and then your shoes were gone." She felt something wet on her wrist and realized he was crying.

 "Matthew."

"You kept mumbling something under your breath. 'Just a bad dream, a walk will help.' That's what you said. Over and over." Cal remembered the dream, his face cold and lifeless.

"Mattie-" He looked at her then, his brown eyes glassy. Wordlessly he caved, coming to sit beside her. A sob wracked his body as he pressed his hands to his face. She lifted her hand to his head and ran her fingers through his curls as he cried, pulling him to lean on her shoulder. "It's okay now. I'm okay." Cal whispered softly. He lifted his head when he'd calmed down. "I'm sorry I walked out. I just wanted to clear my head, I didn't mean to."

"I wasn't being fair. I was being a jerk." Matthew's breath hiccuped. "I shouldn't have said those things to you, Cal. It was unfair of me to give you an ultimatum. I don't even know why I did. Nothing will ever consume me, more, than you." 

"I can't live with the nagging feeling that you are going to leave me when things get hard, just like I would never ask that of you." 

"I know, I know."

"Do you?" The words were stern when they left her lips. "I'm not going to sit here and hope that I can convince you. I want you to know I love you. I want you to tell me if I am not making you feel loved. I want you to come to me for reassurance. If that's not something you can do, and if that's not what you want, then fine. But you're going to have to man up and say that, I will not be a scapegoat for you to be a coward." 

"I'm not going anywhere. I want to be right here, I want to be wherever you are."  

"Okay."

"Okay," Cal fought the smirk threatening to tug at the corners of her mouth. 

"Shut up." Her lips twitched only momentarily before she got them under control again, but Matthew caught it and his own lips turned up into a small smile. "Don't mock me." She couldn't get the words out without laughing. 

"Shhhh" Matthew scolded. 

"As if,  if they aren't awake yet, they aren't waking up." Matthew's eyes crinkled in an effort to hold it back, but it was no use and he started laughing too. 

"I love you, Matthew. " She kissed his cheek, then his nose. "I love you, I love you, I love you." His lips. "Even when you're an idiot."