The hallway was dimly lit, but it was still easy to see the distress on Julie’s face. Matt didn’t care. She deserved to be miserable.
“Matt? Oh, God. I don’t know what—”
He held up his hand. “Don’t say anything to me. She wants to talk to you.” Matt brushed past her coldly as she carried Flat Finn into Celeste’s room. He leaned against the wall and crossed his arms while he began to come undone in his own way. Never had he been this angry with anyone. How had he trusted someone else to step into Celeste’s world? Of the many mistakes he’d made, allowing Julie to push Celeste too far was the worst one of all. Matt leaned against the wall in the hallway, his expression icy and distant.
By the time Julie left Celeste’s bedroom, his rage was barely contained. Matt didn’t even want to look at her. He was disgusted with her and with himself. When she stepped close to him, he snapped. “Stay away from me. I can’t deal with you right now.”
“Matt….”
“I swear to God, don’t talk to me now. Don’t.”
“I’m so sorry. You have no idea.”
“I don’t want to hear it. I don’t want to hear anything from you.”
“Matt, you know I love Celeste, and I would never have done anything to hurt her.”
“Well, you did.”
“If you would just let me explain again why—”
“You don’t stop, do you? You want to get into this? Fine. Let’s get into it. You thought you could just show up here and insinuate yourself into our lives? You can’t. And you also can’t act like I’m the bad guy. Like everything I do for her is somehow totally brainless.” He moved so that he was facing her, placing his body inches from hers. “I’ve busted my ass to keep Celeste in a stable place, and you just ruined it. You ruined her. God, Julie. You’re here for a few months, and you think that you know what is right for Celeste? Nobody asked you to fix anything. You can’t.” He ran his hands through his hair as he continued to unleash on her, not recognizing his own voice. “You can’t change this. And your constant reminders that you think we’re all completely crazy are not helpful. Do you get that? What is wrong with you? Don’t you have your own life to attend to? Or is this how you make yourself feel better about your crappy father, huh? You excuse the way he treats you for no good reason, and you love him based on nothing more than a few lousy e-mails a year.”
Matt couldn’t stop. He continued his vicious attack, hardly hearing himself or her, and speaking with no filter as he let free every ounce of anger.
When he was done, when he had torn her to the ground, he walked to his bedroom. “Go to hell, Julie.”
He shut the door, turned off the light, and got into bed. Despite the chill, he took off his T-shirt, one that Julie liked, and threw it across the room. It felt like an eternity went by as he lay on his back, in shock over everything that just transpired. Everything that he said. The fear that engulfed him tonight was more than any he’d felt before. Even when Finn died. It wasn’t about fear then, just grief. Deep, merciless grief. The fears around Celeste had built slowly and steadily over time, but they were different from tonight’s. That phone call…. Matt thought his heart might have stopped. And now it wouldn’t stop pounding.
He thought for a while, sorting through the things he yelled at Julie out in the hall. Striking out about her relationship with her father was cruel and unfair. It wasn’t his place, and he shouldn’t have even broached the subject tonight of all nights. Who was he to comment on parent-child relationships? Then he taunted her about Finn, about playing it safe and hiding online. Matt was a hypocrite.
Celeste is not your job. We’re not your job. We’re not your family.
Oh God, what had he done?
He’d been blaming Julie for all of this. But he was wrong about why. It wasn’t that Julie had gone too far with Celeste—or with Matt. It was that she had given them somewhere to fall from. They hadn’t had that in years. There hadn’t been anything else to lose until now. He was angry with her for giving him hope because now the crash hurt like hell.
I’ll never be what you want. You don’t like me? Then stay out of my life.
He didn’t want Julie out of his life. But he didn’t know if he wanted her in it. She pushed. God, she pushed so hard. It felt as though she disapproved of so much about Matt, but he could see that wasn’t the full truth. She did like him, but she also saw all of his shortcomings that he was already so painfully aware of. But maybe she pushed because she saw potential in all of them to live more vibrant, functional lives? Even him? Matt blinked back tears and tucked an arm under his head.
Everything was going to explode soon. He could feel it. There wasn’t much time left. Julie was right when she said that they couldn’t keep avoiding the real world. This false one was going to disintegrate, and he wouldn’t be able to stop it. It would happen by the end of the school year. He’d essentially set that deadline in a chat with Julie by telling her that Finn would be home for the summer. Matt needed this to be over. It all felt like too much.
His dark room was too empty, the quiet acutely painful. The clock on his nightstand clicked loudly while he lay still and waited for the worst of his agony to pass. He was good at squashing emotions, but tonight was tough.
Later, the door opened slowly. “Matt?” And then she was there, sitting on his bed. In the moonlight, he could see that she looked as wrecked as he felt. “Matty?”
His anger and his fear still hovered, but he looked at her.
“I’m sorry. Please. You have to forgive me.” Julie’s voice was breaking. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry,” she kept repeating. “Matty, please. You can’t be this mad at me. I can’t take it.” She dropped her head onto his chest and slid her arms under his shoulders, pulling him against her.
Matt’s eyes stung as she hugged him tightly, and he lay unmoving while she clutched onto him. He should push her away, tell her again to go to hell, because keeping her at a distance might be the smart move. He didn’t know anymore. Perhaps all of the choices he’d made since Finn’s death had been the wrong ones. Matt didn’t know who or what to trust, but he moved his hand to the back of her head and gently stroked her hair, trying to soothe her trembling.
“Shhh….” he said.
Matt was taken aback by how affected she was by what happened between them. Julie’s pain was not just about Celeste. It was about him. “I’m the one who’s sorry. I didn’t mean any of the things I said to you. You didn’t deserve that.” It was true. She didn’t deserve his hateful words when he was too cowardly to tell her the truth about anything. All she had been doing for months was to try to help.
She rested her cheek against his chest, still clinging to him, the warmth of her body against his bringing him relief and calm. Matt’s hand traveled from her hair to the top of her tank, over the straps and just grazing her skin.
“I was awful,” he continued. “Your relationship with your father is none of my business. Of course you love him, and you have every right to. What I said was unforgivable.” Matt kept his hand on her, starting to touch her shoulders and her back. He hoped that she could feel his sincere remorse. “You’re the best thing to happen to Celeste. She was lost before you got here. As if she didn’t belong anywhere. You’re saving her. I never should have said what I did.”
“No, I pushed her too much,” Julie said quietly. “And you. It won’t happen again.”
“You’ve been perfect. I wish I could tell you everything, but I can’t. Not yet.” It would happen. One day she would know everything, but not tonight. First they had to recover from this.