Lightning Bolt

CHAPTER FIFTY EIGHT

YESTERDAY BROUGHT THE BEGINNING,

TOMORROW BRINGS THE END,

AND SOMEWHERE IN THE MIDDLE,

WE BECOME THE BEST OF FRIENDS.

I pressed my shaking finger to the send button staring at the brightly lit screen, watching the email I had written to Aimee disappear to her doorstep.

It was done! All I needed to say, all she needed to hear was written down in black and white. And just to back up my story I had forwarded the last few emails I had received from Benson.

Anxiety took a hold of my heart.

I knew Aimee would be broken hearted. I knew she would look on me as a whore but she would be right. At least now she would now know the truth about the man she laid next to at night. Even if she chose to ignore me and branded me as a liar I had done my part. There were no secrets now.

**********

"So? How are things today?"

It was a Saturday afternoon and Lucie was skyping her daily call to me.

Since I broke up with Matt, we had spoken every day and although I appreciated her concern part of me wished it would stop. It was becoming increasingly hard to look my best for over an hour on the computer screen, and the need for them to be here pulled deep within me.

I missed her so much and Charlie. I missed them all! But of course I never let on. I needed her to see I was coping now. She had enough on her plate without my messed up life adding to it all and over these past couple of weeks life has become just a little bit more manageable.

I still couldn't sleep, my depression still in full swing, but when I woke in the morning my heart didn't seem to ache quite as much. The heavy fog not seeming as dense, the hope I was latching onto becoming a constant light in the dark. I knew this change in me was due to only one man, Matt.

We had seen each other twice since that first time, both at his place watching a film together with me sipping carefully on fresh coffee and Matt draining of beer after beer. I'm not sure if he took in any of the movie he had chosen, I know I didn't. I couldn't seem to concentrate.

Instead I would sit and pretend to stare at the screen trying to be inconspicuous while watching him out of the corner of my eye, noticing how his hands knotted tightly around the cool glass bottle he held on to, his knuckles white. I was hyperaware of his body being so close to mine, his leg inches from my own.

You could feel the tension in the air, the atmosphere heavy upon our shoulders. Neither one of us knew what to say. We were walking on egg shells, thrown into new territory and we didn't know how to proceed.

When Matt excused himself to use the bathroom or to grab himself another beer which he did often, I would take the opportunity to drink him in letting my hungry, longing eyes gaze wistfully over his body.

I watched the way he moved under his now baggy, loosely fitting clothes. His bald head looked wrong, the prominent bone poking from his skin at the base of his skull. His head which, once upon a time sat on strong shoulders were now concaved and permanently hunched forward as if he was in pain.

He had changed drastically but his masculine familiar scent wafting towards me in his wake, brought back memories of the man he used to be along with the guilt and shame of my betrayal, never letting me forget what destruction I caused.

But I wouldn't change the baby steps we have made in the past weeks. At least now I was able to be in his company no matter how thwart. And without him realising it he was helping me, curing me. He was like a magic pill to my pain. He soothed the jagged edges of my broken blue heart and I never wanted to leave.