The One

🔨 Chapter 8

🔨 Matty POV

I wake up to the sound of birds chirping and the early sunlight coming through the window. I look down at Prim laying on my chest, my arms wrapped around her. Her hands are on my shoulders. If I didn't know better I would think I'd died and gone to heaven. 

I look down at her pretty sleeping face. I run my fingertips up her forearm just to assure myself that this is real. How many times have I dreamed of holding her again? Touching her again. It's a dream come true to have her here in my arms.

It just feels right. No. Perfect. It feels perfect. And I wonder if I've completely screwed up. When I proposed that we temporarily forget about the last five years, I did not expect us to fall immediately back to where we were at seventeen. But that is exactly what's happened. I'm at risk of losing my heart to her all over again.

She totally called me out on my overthinking last night and I'd forgotten what it's like to have someone around who knows me better than I know myself. My mind was running through all the information she shared with me yesterday. Someone, a female, told her I dated Jessica for four years starting from freshman year. A bald faced lie. Jerry wasn't really her boyfriend. She brought him to the funeral because she was so convinced I was married. Which she says my mom told her at graduation. Why would my mom tell her that?

I've always wondered what would have happened if Jessica wasn't there at graduation. Prim looked so happy and hopeful. She admitted last night that she ran because my mom told her I was engaged. Now I have some new 'what ifs'. What if my mom didn't tell Prim I was engaged? Maybe she wouldn't have run. Maybe she wouldn't have brought the fake boyfriend to the funeral. Would we be together?

Then there are the nightmare scenarios my mind goes through. Like what if Hank came to talk to her about the job, instead of me. They could have finished her house in a week without me, I may never have seen her. Or even worse, what if her dad's house sold and she never came back at all?

I know we're not back together. But it's pretty easy to pretend that we are when she is laying in my arms like this. Man, it feels so good. I need to go get ready for work. I roll her onto her back and look down at her. Her plump pink lips are slightly opened. I want to kiss her so badly. Senior year I would have done it without thinking twice. Then I would have buried my face in her neck and suckled it thoroughly. Okay, this isn't helping. I carefully exit the bed and find my shoes and my dead phone.

I feel like I should leave a note after she so sweetly let me stay. I find a sticky on her desk and write "Thanks for letting me stay. Best sleep I've had in a while. X" I instantly regret leaving the X which she will know is a kiss. So I erase it and change it to an M for my initial. Better.

As I jog across the field I remember going the other direction last night. It was hauntingly familiar but something I hadn't done in so long. I think that nostalgic feeling is going to be happening a lot now that she's back.

I step through the front door to find my mom sitting on the couch. I frown, "You're up early."

When she starts talking I can see she's upset, "Where have you been?! You didn't come home. You didn't answer my texts and calls! Didn't you know I'd be worried about you?" She looks so weak there on the couch, and I feel terrible.

I sit down next to her and hold up my phone. "Sorry, my phone died." Then I realize this reaction from her is strange. "You remember I'm twenty-three, right? I've stayed out all night before and you never said anything."

She purses her lips, "Since you moved home, you have stayed out only twice, Matthew. And both times you were playing poker at Chad's house. You told me before you left that you might not be home. Last night I was really worried!"