Everything we never said

Chapter twelve - Small places

I lay on my side and study the room Alexander grew up in, it's clean, cleaner than he kept it I'm sure. There's a Jennifer Love-Hewitt poster taped to his wardrobe from her short lived music career.
The carpet is beige, the trims are beige, the sheets are beige. The blue of the wallpaper provides the only colour in the room with all the pine furniture.

I hold my tight belly and cautiously.... slowly, stand. This time I have alone is the best bathroom break I might get.
My baby doesn't come rushing out and gingerly I step closer to the bathroom, it's a Jack and Jill style with a door to another bedroom on the other side but there's a tub, a shower and a big vanity with a large mirror and of course my target, the toilet.

I sit down wondering who lived on the other side and with relief notice no fluid or blood has passed.
I wonder how this is going to work? How I can stay in this house, in this room and let his mother take care of me?
And he's staying? A few hours? The night? The week?

Forever?

I'm his woman now? That is certainly news to me, the slip must have been for Matthew's benefit. The baby's...? God, I wish.
It must be the guilt.

When I step back into the room Matthew waits on the end of the bed with a glass of water in his hand, he looks up and rushes to me when he sees me too.

"Oh sweetheart, tell me you're okay?" He wraps an arm around my waist and helps me back to bed.
"Doc says I'll be fine, the kid is fine. I just need to relax" I try to smile for him.
"How do you do that with that big idiot hanging off you? I know how he gets to you, you let him get to you" Matthew accuses.

"Well I just have to remember he doesn't feel the same. He doesn't see me and his broken heart aches, he doesn't want to scream and force me to love him. I'm not even a friend anymore, I have to remember that, that's how. But the kid is his Matty, he might be interested in at least being there for her. I want that, I want that so bad"

"The asshole said you needed to take pills, that you're staying here" he hands me the glass and while I'm still vertical I swallow down the painkillers that hopefully kill the pain in my stomach so I can relax.
"Doctors orders, its embarrassing to say the least. I was invited for a salad not round the clock attention" I groan.

"My mother is over the moon about it, don't worry. Oh shit... that you're here, not that you're unwell... that came out wrong" Matthew shakes his head with a grimace.
"I knew what you meant" I giggle and pull him to sit back against the pillows with me.

"So...? Where's your girlfriend? Krystal seems.... nice?" I smirk.
"Her measurements are nice, her morals are lacking and she has daddy issues. She's also currently trying to get on with Cam in the backyard, he's squirming for the first time in his life. It's quite funny actually" Matthew chuckles.

"And you're okay with that? Don't you care?"
"Nah, it's not going anywhere. She just clings you know? You go, she goes. Sometimes I use the bathroom as an excuse not to see her face for ten minutes. It's so over but I don't ever really remember it starting, just woke up and there she was from the night before" he shrugs with a frown.

"Men...." I sigh. "I thought you were too old for games?" I bump his shoulder.

"Well it seems no one else is quite like you Veronica, no one is as gentle or as pretty. No one laughs with me the way you do. Until I find someone with everything you have.... games is all I got to keep me company" he grumbles.
"Sorry you're alone, sorry about us" I turn and kiss his cheek.

"Then why don't we try again? Really try? Let me take you out, let me stay the night. Let me show you I can love you better, you won't wish for a thing, I promise"
"I know how perfect you are Matty, I already know how we fit. It doesn't matter how good you are for me, to me.... I'll always wish for one thing" I apologise.