Silver Screen Romance (Book 3)

42. Talk To Me

Matt's POV

I paced around Joel's room, not completely sure I should even be here. Mandy would be arriving with Carey any minute now and I still hadn't accepted the fact that she had chosen him. I guess I wasn't willing to accept it because she had yet to tell me herself. He was just always there when I wanted to talk to her and Jimmy had let it slip that he had walked in on them being a little too affectionate for just friends.

Val was in her own world, acting like nothing had happened. I hadn't been able to have a talk with her about that. We were divorced and I was in love with one of our closest friends, but she changed her opinion about that every 5 minutes and today it seemed like she was completely okay with it.

I finally decided to walk out when I heard shouting. Spencer was yelling at Tal and when the front door opened Mandy walked in with Carey. I immediately hid in Joel's room not ready to face her. I waited a few minutes before peaking out again and once the coast was clear I snuck out the front.

"Where are you going?" I stopped in my tracks to see Julia walking outside, shutting the front door behind her.

"I just can't – I need to find my happiness without her first." I admitted.

She smiled, sympathetically. "You know, I don't know Mandy very well, but I think I have gotten to know you pretty well and if you don't mind I have a little advice to offer."

I gestured for her to continue.

"First, if you don't mind, I would like to know what exactly happened between you and Val?"

I sighed. "That's a long story."

She smiled. "I've got time."

I bit my lip and took a deep breath.

"Well she has always been into modeling and fashion, she got an offer to go to Italy and she took it. I didn't want to hold her back. I wanted her to be happy. I thought that we could make it work, but the long distance thing was something I had never done before. Val and I had been together since we were teens, we didn't know what the hell we were getting into when we started Avenged, but she was there for us, for it all, when Jimmy lost his way, when I wanted to give up, she was there. I always had her by my side, she went on every tour and handled all of our business shit, I didn't know life without her until she finally did something for herself..." I stopped and realization spread over my face.

"I'm such an asshole." I had given up on Val first, not the other way around. She tried and I just didn't want to see it. I wanted the easy way out.

"What are you thinking?" Julia asked.

I shook my head. "She didn't ruin our marriage by leaving, I ruined our story by letting her go. I didn't try hard enough and I can't blame her for giving up on us when I did the same thing."

"So now I have another question..."

I shook my head already knowing where this was going.

"What made you fall for Mandy?"

I inhaled sharply. "Where do I even start?"

She smiled. "Well how about at the beginning. Like when you two met?"

I recalled the night that we all met at Joel's moms in Maryland. "I hadn't expected to meet someone like Mandy, especially since all Joel ever talked about was Alisha and they were both completely different. Mandy walked in like she owned the place and greeted us like we had known her for years. I still remember what she was wearing...I guess because I wasn't expecting it at all."

Julia waited for me to continue.

"It was a cut up Johnny Cash shirt, some black skinny jeans with a hole in each knee, and some all black high top converse, and she was completely covered in tattoos. At the time her tunnels were about the size of a quarter and her hair was bright red."