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Chapter 17: All Out

Cause you have taken
All the wind out from my sails
And I have loved you just the same

Like a Fool - Keira Knightley

MATT REMAINED SILENT and walked past me indicating I should follow him. I obliged, but it took everything I had in me not to storm out the door and never come back. It was important to close that chapter of my life if I wanted to have the remote chance of ever moving on. I needed to be the bigger person, once again that is.

If I didn't know he was a Hollywood star, I would have easily mistaken Matt for a homeless man. A very messy beard was covering most of his face, his clothes looked like they needed a desperate visit to the laundry room or just set them on fire and there were empty bottles and boxes of food all over the house.

"I don't hate you," he muttered as soon as he sat on one of the kitchen stools.

"Well, you are a greater actor than I thought then..."I said sitting in front of him across the kitchen island.

"I was too pissed-I'm still too pissed off at you..." he shook his head purposely evading looking at me,  "the whole world feels sorry for me because my fiancee was sleeping around behind my back, it made me look like an idiot, Olivia. You could have at least been more careful!"

"I never cheated on you, you need to know that," I used the most soothing tone I could, " I know it looked like that but nothing happened before we broke up."

"He surely wanted Liv, and you knew it," he finally raised his eyes from the counter, his gaze seemed darker than usual. A revelation suddenly hit me like a bolt of lightning.

He thought we were going to get back together.

Matt never imagined this was a definitive break up, and that was killing him.

"But nothing happened," I locked eyes with him feeling somewhat sympathetic, "ever since we broke up and even before that I've been trying to find myself, many things in my life revolved around you and I'm just- I'm just trying to adjust..."

"And while you were doing that soul search, when was the moment you decided to start fucking another guy?"The smirk returned to his face, the sarcastic tone and the angry attitude were blatantly obvious too.

I felt heat invading my cheeks and stood up immediately, "I'm not going to allow you to keep slut-shaming me, don't be such a hypocrite Matthew!"

"Hypocrite!?" He stood up.

"I know about your affair with Rachel," I said amazingly calm crossing my arms over my chest, "so you can start by cutting this bullshit 'I'm a saint' performance."

His jaw dropped and I knew I caught him off guard, precisely the effect I was expecting to have on him. I've been saving that card for years now secretly wishing I never had to use it.

"Nigel did her hair for years, and you know Nigel can't keep a secret..." I said answering his unasked question.

"It was nothing compared to what we had..."He managed to murmur.

"A long term nothing more like but it's fine, I found out years after it was over and we were in a good place so I decided to let it go," as the words left my mouth I became aware of how far away from that version of me I was, how ready to move on and have an active part in my life I had become in the last couple of months. Leaving Matt had been the first step in what seemed like a long road to finding me.

"Since we are being honest, I always knew about you and Jake during our first break up," he slowly sat back down, "I low key hated him ever since."