50. MATTHEWS

MATTHEWS

“ Y ou’re blaming the accident on me?” I stared at him for a long moment.

My heart was in agony over the back and forth, the realization that our entire lives were a disaster. Could the two of us even co-exist anymore without destruction?

“No, Plum. Never.” He grabbed my face roughly in his hands and stared at me with the most painful look in his stunning ocean eyes. “Not that,” he said. “Without you, I was left to find joy while fighting for my sanity against every stern correction Dad could hurl my way. It was never enough for him, but I held on to the fact that I had been enough for you .”

Ryan had done whatever he could to shove that bright, beautiful boy back into a box too small to contain his light because he didn’t know how else to handle his son.

“So I found outlets that made me feel alive. I traded spots with you. I lived in that box, where I was put, a tiny injured bird without the ability to fly because I gave my wings to you. Then drugs changed that. I felt alive. People enjoyed my company. I was the center of attention. I could fly again.”

He turned to look at me then. “But no matter how high I fly, it's never far enough away from him and never close enough to you.”

“You can’t blame me for this!” I scowled, heartbroken and frustrated.

“I can’t help it.” His voice cracked under the emotion. “You’re the only person that just loved me. Dad always wanted baseball. Mama wanted kindness, the boys wanted a party boy, Ella wanted sobriety, Arlo wanted a brother, and Silas wanted a leader. But, Clem, all you’ve ever wanted is me. ”

“So what? We’re in this mess because I didn’t expect anything from you. Because I loved you too hard?”

“Why can’t it just be love? Why does it have to be too much? ” He asked, anger building between us.

“You aren’t in love; it’s infatuation! We had our time and it’s gone. What we’re doing is just fun, it’s a distraction. We’re different people with different lives,” I practically cried out the last part.

“You keep saying that,” he huffed and released me from his grasp, rolling on top of me in the bed and pinning my arms to the mattress. “You’re wrong. I know what way I want to love you, Clem.” He dropped his chin so our lips hovered inches from each other. “Infatuation is a flash in the pan, it’s a firework or a lightning strike. The way I love you is the erosion of rock, it’s the tide coming in every night, it’s the way the trees lose their leaves every fall. It’s slow, it's consistent and natural.” Cael’s voice rolled into a tight whisper.

“Picture day,” he said. I followed the twinkle in his baby-blue eyes. The gaze I so desperately wanted to be angry with. “You got bubblegum stuck in your hair, and your Momma had to cut it out and you cried the entire bike ride to school. But you sat in front of that camera, and Dad still carries that picture of you and your crooked little bangs in his wallet. I loved you so much that day I thought my heart would explode from my chest. We were nine.”

Our entire life was memories.

He was trying to remind me just how much he loved me.

But I knew, and it was already so painful.

“Christmas, years later, you gifted me the ugliest bracelet I’ve ever seen in my entire life. I swear you made it from the thread you pulled off your sweaters. But it was from you, and that’s all that mattered. You had thought of me.”

“This bracelet outlasted every single feeling either of us had ever had. The one that still clings to my wrist is the last bit of you I still carry around with me. My heart on my sleeve,” he cooed.

“We were thirteen when I kissed my first girl.” He stared at me. Hailey Lancaster cornered me after Science in the back building. “It was horrible, and all I could think about was how badly I wanted it to be you. How guilty I felt that it hadn’t been? But then, when I told you…” He stopped, swallowing the overwhelming feeling that formed.

I remembered that day and how empty I felt when he stumbled over his words and told me he’d had his first kiss with her, the head cheerleader.

“I left out the secret, and you were so brave and happy for me we ended up going for ice cream. On the way home, you tripped and ripped the jeans your Mama had just bought you. You cried the entire walk home and I knew that I hated you being sad, but I was so young I didn’t really know how to prevent it.”

“Cael.” I opened my mouth to stop him, but he hushed me.

“I need you to understand that I never forgot a single memory you gave me, Clem.” His grip shifted on my wrists.

“Winter formal, you wore that fluffy purple dress your Daddy hated, that was too short with those platform shoes. That was the night Andre Davey pinched you next to the punch bowl, and you spent the rest of the night waiting for your Dad in the principal's office, but that dress…” He licked his lips. “It’s burned into my memories. It hit that curve of your thighs, and I spent the entire night trying to keep my hands busy because I couldn’t touch them. I found out that day I could love you even more than I already did.”

I opened my mouth to protest, I hated these stories, all these moments. They felt sticky and hot against my skin, and I wriggled beneath him, but he wasn’t finished.

He stopped, closing his eyes for a moment and centering himself. “When we were sixteen, Kiefer Hart–” He paused. “Hurt you, and I’ll never forget the sound of you crying in your room, but that was the day I decided never to let you be that sad again. It was the day I learned how to be angry, I had never felt like that before.”

Hurt flickered across his face.

“But I broke that promise to myself and have spent every day since avoiding making them with anyone because the last one I broke was the worst.”

“Cael, stop.” I pushed on his chest, all while my heart was beating out of mine.

“ Listen ,” he said. His voice wasn’t loud but harsher than I’d ever heard from him as he rubbed his thumb against my wrist and stared at me.

“The next dance I had a plan, after we shopped for outfits. I knew you’d say yes if I asked, so I came to your house to ask if you would go with me and your Momma told me you weren’t home. I knew that was a lie, because where would you go if you weren’t with me? I should have climbed the stupid, broken terrace that night and forced you to talk to me. That would have been my only chance to dance with you that day.”

A month later, Ryan found out about the coaching position. They were gone before people even started thinking about prom invitations.

“I cried the entire way to Rhode Island in the back of the truck, just praying that maybe Dad would change his mind and turn around. That we could go home, and I could feel you again. But my prayers went unanswered, and they continued to be ignored as my Mama withered away and my Dad became cold.”

His words were like ice.

“You want to know why I don’t fight people? Why I move on from shit so easily? Because my heart never left Texas. I’m too busy living in our memories to worry about what people want to argue about now. Everyone is always trying to fill up that hole in my chest with something other than you . You wanna pretend like our time is up, but it never ended for me.”

“It’s too late to pretend like you always loved me,” I whispered, my chin tilted upward, and watched his restraint crumble with my lips so close.

“No, I’ve let you get away with a lot while you’ve been here, Clementine. But not that. You can’t win this one. Time can be found, time can be made.” He flinched, desperately wanting to close the distance between us, but he wouldn’t—not until I asked him. It was my line, and he’d respect it. “Why can’t you see how much I love you—how much I have loved you?”

“I wanted today to be fun and normal, but that’s not us. We can’t do that together anymore! It’s too hard,” I protested.

“Says who?” He huffed. “I was having fun until your fiancé walked into my house!” He shook his head at me. “ We were having fun,” he corrected himself. “I just want to love you.”

“I don’t want to fight with you.” My voice cracked. “I don’t.”

“But you’re still leaving?” He asked, and it broke my heart.

“You know I have to. Texas is home, Cael. ”

“Is it, though?” He asked me.

I had never experienced anything as visceral and painful as the way my heart shattered when he pointed to his chest. Two fingers over his heart, he tapped it.

“This is your home, Clementine,” he said. “I didn’t have a choice back then. I was seventeen, I didn’t…” I had never seen Cael trip over words.

“Cael…”

“You have a choice. Please don’t choose to leave me,” he begged, tears pooling in his glassy blue eyes. The silence dragged as he stared at me. “Will you at least kiss me before you leave?” he asked.

“If I do that, I’ll never go.” I sighed.

I watched the selfish thought cross his features as he contemplated breaking the rule.

“You’ll always have a home here,” he said quietly, pressing his hand to his chest.

Every swirling thought wanted me to give in to him but I still wasn’t sure I could.

“You make it impossible to think straight,” I said, not wanting to give him hope because we both knew I’d get on that plane. The conversation didn’t change that.

“We don’t have to think anymore tonight.” Cael collected himself, tears streaming down his face as he kissed my jaw. “We can just be Cael and Clementine one more time before you leave.”

Sex wouldn’t fix what was broken, but at least we’d have the memory.

“Please,” my voice broke as I begged him.

Cael’s hand slipped from under my shirt and pulled it over my shoulders, kissing the bare skin as he lifted himself over me and framed me in with his body on the bed. He leaned back, staring down at me as I carded my hands through his hair. The moonlight streamed through the window and bathed his toned, tanned body in a hazy white light that made him look ethereal. It danced across his lusty blue eyes, making them sparkle as a tiny smirk formed.

He came down on me, his lips carefully marking my skin, all while respecting my rule, even knowing that it might be the last chance he had to break it. His hand cupped my breast, kneading it gently as his tongue licked a warm stripe down my throat that pulled a tiny whimper from my lip.

“You have to keep quiet,” he whispered.

I cocked my head at him. “Afraid to get caught, Loverboy?”

“Yes.” His lip trembled as his eyes flickered up to mine. “I don’t want to be interrupted. Just you and…” He kissed the underside of my chin. “Me,” he breathed against my hot skin and sent a shiver down my spine. “So, stay quiet for me?” He asked.

“Alright.” I pressed my hand against his cheek, and he leaned into it with his eyes closed, his chest expanding against my body as he felt it all.

“Good girl.” he kissed the inside of my wrist and went back to his primary focus as his hand slipped beneath the band of my shorts into the wetness that awaited him between my legs. “Does he make you wet like this?” Cael asked me.

I shook my head no, and a grin spread across his face.

“It’s just for you,” I said quietly, my hips bucking as his tongue slowly lapped between me. His hands squeezed around my thigh, fingertips digging deep to hold me still as he licked and sucked on my clit in a torturous pattern.

Cael worked until my vision went dizzy and then teased me further as his fingers pushed deep inside of my aching walls, throbbing around him as he curled them against me. I shoved my hand between my teeth to keep from moaning his name and pressed myself back into the pillow. I could feel the smile on his face as he kissed my inner thigh with his damp mouth.

“I’m not going to last.” I curled my toes into the mattress.

“I’ve dreamed this moment a thousand times over the last seven years,” he confessed, his nose brushing against my clit as he moved his fingers faster. “And if I’m never going to have it again, I want it all right now,” he demanded, sitting back to watch as he pumped his hand relentlessly into the wetness. He spread my legs on the bed, his pupils blown and hair messy from getting lost between my thighs. “You’re beautiful,” he praised from his perch.

My body screamed out when he added his thumb and began methodical circles against my aching clit until I couldn’t focus on anything but my senses begging for release .

“Let go for me, Plum,” he whispered and dropped to kiss my stomach as I spiraled down through my orgasm. It was soft and sweet as he relaxed his pace and walked me through the dizzying feelings that overtook my body. “That’s my girl.”

The sound of his praises flooded me with the need for more. I grabbed him by the waist of his pants, shucking the sweats over his hips and helping him as he kicked out of them. There was no hesitation as I fell back against the bed and fell open for him. He rested between me and thrust forward, sliding inside of me without pause. The feeling was instant euphoria. He packed me full and rolled his hips into me as slowly as he could manage as I kissed a pattern into his chest.

Cael’s sweat was salty on my tongue as I licked his throat and tangled my fingers into his hair as he rocked us at a steady pace. He took his time with it, savoring every thrust with a quick nip of my skin or pinch of his fingers on my thighs. I needed it all. It was reminiscent of falling through time with him, tangling our souls together as we tumbled back to the present.

It was moments of breathless panting and soft, purposeful moans before both of us came together and fell into a tangle of sweaty skin and heaving chests. With my head dizzy, I never wanted this moment to end. The moment I pressed my head against his chest and heard the sound of his beautiful, big heart, I knew he was right. His heart would forever be my home. I closed my eyes and tried to sleep, but my head was still too conflicted to let me try.

“You’ll have an extraordinary life, Clementine,” Cael whispered against my hair after he thought I’d fallen asleep.