No Plan B

7

The next few days went on the same way: Matthew would wake me up with the smell of breakfast, he'd drive me home, we'd try on clothes for the magazine, and then we'd go home to Matt acting so confident it kinda made me feel weird. Granted I've known him for only a few weeks, but when we step inside his house, everything changes. He could take control, start conversations, and even invite me to watch a movie with him or go out of the house to hang out. This was a new Matthew that I had just introduced to prematurely.

At the end of the week, we had salvaged a lot of my clothes because a lot of them were still at the store I bought them from. Matt offered to take us out to get my clothes back, but he also used that as an excuse to go shopping. We bought a lot of other things to decorate my temporary room to make it more like what was once home. He was pampering me terribly, as if I were his new pooch that had a terrible life, but, the further I thought of that scenario, I began to realize that I was in that scenario.

He bought me a new phone.

I was sitting on the couch, scrolling through social media and browsing the web. Matt was at the grocery store because, well, what other reason than we needed food?

I had been keeping my eye on a certain apartment building that was pretty good sized. With my new salary, I thought I'd have enough by next month, we'll so I'm not dirt poor after.

Once again, I found myself on Matty's Instagram page. He posted me on it a few days ago from when we went out shopping. We got ice cream; Matty got chocolate with rainbow sprinkles and I got the cookie dough kind with a cone. It was messy.

The picture had been very pleasing to the eye with a view of his ice cream in front, and in the back was me eating my ice cream impressively neat. It was late already, so the setting sun could be seen behind me.

"Nice sunset and a nice person to accompany it 😊", the caption read.

I read over the caption a million times, trying to decode it, even though it was obvious. He said the sunset was nice, and so was I. The comments were all smiley faces or joyful emojis, and a few were about Matt being a cutie, but I kept coming across comments asking who I was. Some asked who I was to Matt, how I knew Matt, and why he was hanging out with me. I was tagged, so some of those questions should've been answered.

There was a sudden knock at the door and I heard the door knob jiggle and open, "Hey, can you help with the bags?" Matt greeted, smiling with several bags in his arms.

I nodded and set my phone down to run out and grab the grocery bags. Within ten minutes, all the groceries were put away and the bags were stored in the trunk to later be returned.

We had planned a movie night; Matthew wanted to watch a new movie that came out on Netflix recently. I forgot the name, but Matt wanted to see it so I decided to go with it.

A few hours later, we were sitting on the couch with popcorn in between us and two separate, soft blankets. Matt was huddled up in his blanket and he asked if I was ready. I nodded. He started the movie; I kept my nose under the blanket so I wouldn't get cold. He had the air on.

Half the movie was over, and I felt as if Matt was closer to me. Our arms were touching now, and so were our legs. The movie turned from somewhat innocent to a little more freaky. I didn't know how to react to the movie or to Matt's scooting. I knew it wasn't me scooting because I was sitting at the same cushion spot as in the beginning.

Like most romance movies, there was a heavy make out session. Matty began squirming a little, but he did it every once in a while to hide the fact he was. Clearly, he was uncomfortable but my mind began to wander to the question "why was he uncomfortable?" He enjoyed these movies, in fact he would talk to me about them during dinner and he would summarize the plot for me, but now he seemed as if a force was making it somehow uncomfortable to sit. Now that I had thought about it, he watched these movies on his own. Who knows what he secretly does while watching these movies.

I began to worry about how Matt was doing, so I asked, "Matty, you okay?"

He looked at me and nodded, "Yeah, I just, uh, g-gotta pee. Be right back," he hurriedly said. I paused the show and he ran off to the upstairs bathroom rather than the downstairs one. That made me question why, but the question lingered for hardly a second before I got on my phone and began scrolling through social media. His confidence seemed to have faltered when he spoke.

I let my attention shift to the Instagram page for the modeling company. I had recently been put on it due to my recent joining. They posted the nicest pictures of me from the set, and a duo photo of Matt and me in the middle of the collage, laughing at each other. It was from a shoot last week and Jan did something stupid behind the camera. Jan is one of the photographers.

"Welcoming our newest member @connorpbrooks ! We've only had the pleasure for one week, but we're already in love!"

The crew had already grew accustomed to me being around and accepted me as one of their own, and, to add on, they all followed me on all social media and I, of course followed back. As if it were a chain reaction, my follower count shot up on everything putting me at around 10k followers on Instagram and 8k on Twitter.

I began noticing how long it was taking Matt to finish in the bathroom, so my worry began to rise. He left for the restroom at around 7:47 and it was 7:53 when I checked last. Temptation began making me wonder if I should check on him.

I stood and made my way to the stairs and about half way up, I heard desperate cries from down the hall. My eyebrows knitted and worried curiosity began to pulse through my veins. I creeped down the hall to Matt's room, that contained a master bathroom, but the sounds seemed to be from the bedroom not the bathroom.

The sounds were muffled, as if held back or filtered to make them quieter. I didn't know what was going on behind the door, maybe he was being strangled to death. Nah, but curiosity grew more and more.

I knocked lightly on the door, "Matt, you okay?" I asked innocently and softly.

The noises stopped abruptly before Matty replied, "Y-yeah. I, uhm, cut myself on the counter in my bathroom. I-it's pretty big b-but I'll be fine," his voice was shaking as if is body was tremulous.

"Oh, you want to help? We've got alcohol downstairs and bandages," I offered with the most hospitality someone could offer.

He hesitated before speaking, "It-It's fine. I've got band-bandages in my bathroom, a-and alcohol."

I nodded, although he couldn't see me, "Okay. Just, call me if you need help," I said.

"Uh-huh."

I could hear a lie from a mile away, from experience, and that was one of them. I didn't know what he really was doing, but I was desperate to get to the bottom of it, so I waited on the all by his door. The muffled noises continued until they were ended with a higher pitched sound that lasted only for a few seconds before ending.

Then, I ran downstairs back in my position from before. At the chime of 8:03, he came back downstairs. He had a bandage on his wrist with a little blood, but it was widespread. He was smiling as he plopped back down, "Ready?"

I nodded and movie resumed. Matt was glued to my side, but, honestly, I didn't mind. His dark brown hair was messy and his coffee eyes seemed automatically refocused onto the movie. I placed my hand down on the cushion and gripped it slightly so I could play with the fibers. I felt a warmer hand go atop of mine and I knew who it was.

i honestly don't know what this was