Wild Bastard

35

Rie

"Hey" I yell after Matthew.

No one has ever done what that bastard just did to me. I'd never been so deep in the mud in my life. I followed him, nearly breaking my legs in Vikky's heels.

When I jumped out into the street, I found the asshole walking away. I was carried forward by an invisible force of desperate rage.

"Matt, you fucking bastard!" The words come out hoarsely, because my throat is cramped.

The bastard wouldn't even stop. With a heavy stride, he forges ahead.

I stumble and hastily throw off the damn shoes. It's a lot easier to walk now. In a few steps I catch up with the bastard and throw his fucking T-shirt at his back.

"Choke on it!"

He only turns around in response and grabs my arm painfully so he can push me away and growl through clenched teeth:

"Go away, Reenah!"

The threat-filled demand sweeps past me. Like hell he's going to stomp me into the dirt again. The bastard turns his back on me again, but out of control of my torn emotions, I shove him with force.

I don't care what this narcissist has in mind for himself. I don't care that Matthew and adequacy are completely incompatible. Emotions have taken over, and now the only thing I need to do is to take it out on the one who created all this blackness.

"You goddamn asshole! Don't you think about someone else in your selfish world?" I don't recognize my own voice.

With all my might, I punch the jerk who is ignoring me in the shoulder, and then nearly crash into him. Matthew turns sharply around and grabs my neck.

"I said go away!" The black gaze nails me in place, destroys me, crushes me. Strong fingers grip my throat. Scorching, burning into the skin. The air practically ceases to penetrate my lungs.

"Or else what? What are you going to do?" I exhale into a face a millimeter away. "Fuck and leave me again? That's how things happen in your life, isn't it? Simple as that!"

"And you are not looking for the hard way either, aren't you?! Why did you sleep with him? Free lodging?"

I'm shaking. It hurts inside.

"You... you fucking..." Matthew gasps for air, as if he's the one being strangled right now, not me. It's weird, but I'm not scared. Fear is the last thing I feel right now. So I stubbornly stare into the frantic eyes while my pulse pounds frantically in my temples "I thought you weren't one of them..."

"Of who? Who, Matthew? The easy-access whores? Don't judge everyone by yourself and your surroundings! If you get a call in the middle of the night and you're ready to stick your dick in the first chick, I'm not like that! I've got my fucking pride! I have dignity!" I don't notice my voice breaking at the last words, because the images of him sleeping with that girl explode in front of my eyes again, and the feeling of being used gnaws at my gut once again. "For you, sex is fun! It doesn't matter with whom, when, or how. But that doesn't mean it's the same for me. I didn't find myself in a dumpster to be fucked by you. And to be left aside at the first phone call from your ex...! Shit!"

I realize that the last words came out of my mouth in a burst of rage, and I feel even more disgusted about it. I turn around on stiff legs and stubbornly walk back. I want to leave. I want to get my keys and get out of here, because I don't have the strength to do anything else. A small pebble on the pavement digs its sharp edge into my foot, making me groan in pain. My throat tightens in a ring, as if Matthew had never taken his hands off it. Choking, tearing. The tears threaten to flow, but I quickly squeeze my eyes shut and swallow often.

And then suddenly I feel a sharp stop and Matthew presses down on my back with all his strength. He wraps his arms around my waist, and then slides his palms feverishly up my belly. The heavy, ragged breath on my ear intoxicates me, excites me... tears me apart... I have no strength to move. It's as if I've been sucked dry. Emptied. Grinded to powder.

"Reenah.... " Matthew greedily nuzzles his nose into my hair, inhales deeply, and I can't even get my body to supply oxygen. He squeezes my ribs with such force that a little more and they are sure to crunch. The lump is getting more and more unbearable. It hurts. It hurts so much that I don't know what part of my body the pain is localized in. Whether it's the stabbing from the bristles that Matthew presses hard into my shoulder, or whether it's the pain in my ribs from the force of his pressure... Or maybe it's the pain inside me. "My Reenah..."

I press my eyelids tightly together. The warmth of heavy body burns my back, my breath is deafening. My body struggles desperately to withstand the pressure. Hard fingers dive into my hair, but don't pull, don't rake it into a fist. He moves them chaotically, as if he's trying to check something, to make sure that it's me and not someone else in front of him.

"Matt, let me go" The words are barely audible, but I can feel him shaking his head negatively from behind me.

"Rie, there were no exes" I freeze as the meaning of what he said penetrates my inflamed mind. "No exes, no future ones. No one, except you, Reenaaaah!" Matthew turns me to him with a jerk and put his palms around my head, his fingers tangling in my hair.

I suppose I should be relieved, but I'm not. The crazy eyes opposite seem unreal. There is so much pain, despair, rage in them. There is chaos inside Matthew, bursting forth. On a physical level, I can feel him shaking. Or it's me. I can't get a tooth on a tooth.

He strokes my lips with his thumbs, runs his cheek over mine too sharply, as if he's apologizing for what happened there at the club.

His cell phone starts ringing in his jeans pocket, and we ignore it for endless moments. People pass by, cars pass us, honking unsatisfactorily. It's as if we've fallen into some parallel dimension. Neither he nor I can break this electrified connection.

The ringing stops, but a second later it cuts through the space again.

"Damn it!" Without letting me move away, Matthew pulls out his phone and takes the call. "Hello... What?" The grip on my body first loosens and then disappears altogether. Matthew recoils backwards. The expression on his face changes instantly, turning deathly pale. "How is she? Where did the ambulance take her?"

I shrink inwardly. My sixth sense is screaming that something terrible has happened. He only cares about his family, so... I scrutinize his masked face. I try to catch even the slightest emotion, but there is none. Just a tightly clenched jaw.

"I've got it. I'm going over there now."

"What's wrong?" I blurt it out as soon as the conversation ends.

"Lana's in the hospital"