Life-moving moments

Chapter 23

Matt calls me the next day and is full of apology.

"Ava, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have lied to you. I panicked, okay. I don't want to keep you locked up in my room but the thought of you around James drives me nuts. He's in love with you. I know you don't believe me but I'm sure of it. And I'm a little afraid that you might be a little in love with him too."

I stay silent. There was really nothing I can say that won't be a lie but it seems Matt isn't waiting for me to deny it.

"Please, I'm sorry," he carries on. "I don't want to make you feel trapped. Let's just go to this party Emily's throwing for you and I'll do my best to be nice to James."

I know this is his peace offering and maybe this is what I need. I've never been in company with James and Matt when Matt is willingly being amicable. Maybe this is what will help me to figure my shit out.

On the day of the party, Matt comes to my house early. He seems nervous and agitated.

"What's wrong?"

"I hate this. All of this. They way things are between us now."

"What do you mean?"

"I hate that you decide when sex stops and I don't have a say in it. I never thought we had a problem, but you did and then you decided that the solution was not having sex. I feel like I have been forced to love you from a distance because you don't know what you want but I know what I want and I only want you!"

He immediately steps in closer but I step away.

"Matt, please stop pushing me on this."

All pretense of tenderness vanishes and Matt gets really angry but we're saved from further argument because my mother and sister get back from the shops at that moment. My mother insisted on contributing to the platters so I go to the kitchen to help her set them up.

Later, when Tweety's back seat is loaded with food, Matt and I leave for the party and Matt immediately picks up where he stopped.

"I just don't get how this works. How is this better? I don't get this whole chastity thing. It's just old fashioned and stupid."

I say nothing. I want to explain, I've tried to explain about the talk at the workshop, how it had resonated with me and how I had later found a series of articles on the internet, backing up what I'd learnt. I wanted to explain it in detail, I'd always wanted to, because it had been mind-blowing and I was eager to share it with him but Matt, as usual, only wanted to have his say and was not really interested in listening.

"And what makes me angry is that there's no time-frame to this. You just want space. Well space is infinite, is this sex break going to go on for infinity."

He rambles on, not really giving me time to answer until we get to Emily's house, which is thankfully only a three-minute drive.

Ronel and Tauriq meet us at the door and help us carry the platters inside. We spend the rest of the afternoon setting up and moving furniture around, the party is about to start as all of Ronel and Emily's friends are there, and even a few of Tauriq's, when I get a message from Verna.

VERNA: Hey. What time is your party tomorrow? Can you please send the address?

ME: Hi, it's tonight, actually.

I go back to the message I sent her last month and check the details. I definitely gave her the right information.

VERNA: Oh, shit. I'm so sorry. Isn't your birthday tomorrow though?

ME: It is but the idea is to party until then besides this is the only date that would work for almost everyone.

VERNA: This sucks. We're all at the music festival in Kenilworth.

There's a beat of radio silence while I mull my disappointment.

VERNA: Even if we left now, the roads are all jammed up here, there's no way we'd get there in time.

It's bullshit of course. They wouldn't leave the festival, jammed roads or not. The thing is, I know how precarious my place in that group is. I've always known. I was always the outlier. I was the one who had worked and saved to buy a car while the others mostly partied and slept around. I was the one who was the most "religious" in the bunch - their description, not mine - and it was pretty much only Stella and I who were genuinely friends. Stella was the one who had cemented my acceptance there, because Stella, like Emily, was universally popular, whereas I was too "intense". Without Stella around, I was just really a hanger on and it had never been more obvious than at that moment. 

It was only because of Matt that I kept trying with the group. He fit in better with them than I did.

"Your friends are awesome," he'd said, when I told him that when I was with them, I felt like I was forcing myself into a mold that didn't fit. "You just don't appreciate them." 

As if everything hinged on me. Maybe it did but I felt like at least I tried. I didn't feel like the others tried hard enough to fit me in either.

So when I told Matt that they weren't coming, the only people that he had liked out of everyone I knew, I hoped he would commiserate with me - not decide to throw the whole plan out of the window - but he didn't and chose to leave alone instead - leaving me behind while I was hurting and vulnerable.