Chapter 26
Matt watched me walking towards him, his body tense, his bruised fists clenched tightly by his sides. He didn’t look like someone anyone sane would want to approach. Luckily all the betrayals, intrigues and complications I'd caused over the last couple of months convinced me that I was far from in my right mind so I continued to make my way over to him.
Before he had a chance to say anything that would either see me breaking down into floods of tears or turning into a whirling hell cat of fury, I looked straight into his eyes and said clearly, "Matt, I'm so, so sorry. It's all my fault."
Even through his rage I could see that I had taken him aback. After all I wasn't usually known for apologising off the bat and saying that I was wrong before being backed into a corner and forced to realise it. Little did he know that I'd had a bit of experience apologising in recent times and the way things were going I was getting to the stage where I simply assumed whatever I did was going to be wrong.
Matt didn't say anything for a long time, it was as if we had frozen and it began to annoy me that cars were passing by and birds were flittering about and chirping merrily. It wasn't fair to rub in the fact that life was going on quite happily despite how much it felt like I was never going to be properly happy again. I would rather the sky wasn't as clear as it was, that the sun wasn't shining, that groups of uni students didn't occasionally walk past on the pavement laughing and generally rubbing my nose in the fact that they weren't about to be ripped emotionally to shreds by their most beloved brother. Still, what I would rather didn't seem to be playing much part in my life these days.
"Do you have any idea how much you've screwed things up?" Matt said eventually, his voice harsh and intense.
"Yes," I answered miserably.
"Really?" He sounded sceptical. "But you went ahead and rooted him anyway?"
"Matt!" I said, protesting at his vulgarity but knowing at once that it was a bad idea.
He took a step towards me, his eyes flashing with fury. "Well didn't you?" He demanded. "Or didn't you like the language I used? What would you rather me say? Slept with? Made love? Screw that! I'm not cushioning this for you, you jumped into his bed now you have to bloody lie in it!"
"I know, I'm sorry-" I began, trying to mollify him, but he cut me off.
"But if you knew and if you are sorry then why did it happen? Why did I find out like I did? Why would you do it Talia? Are you really that selfish?"
My eyes filled with tears as I nodded and answered in a small voice, "Yes."
"That's not good enough!" Matt shouted, slamming his hand down on top of his car and releasing a little cloud of dust, testament to how rarely he cleaned it. "You're 18, you're an adult now, and a few tears and apologies aren't going to make things better anymore."
"Well let me explain then!" I said desperately. "I need to tell you why I did it, just listen to my side of it."
"Your side?" He sounded incredulous. "Your side consists of lying on your back with your legs-"
I slapped him.
I couldn't help myself. One minute I was desperate to placate him and the next I just wanted to hurt the bastard. If I was supposed to know better than to use tears and apologies to get out of things he should know better than not to say the sorts of things I'd expect to come out of Micky's mouth, not his.
My arm reverberated with the force of my palm striking his cheek and my hand started to tingle painfully, letting me know that I had put all my strength into hitting him. I gave a weird sort of juddering gasp and stepped away in shock. I'd never hit anybody like that before, with the actual intent to hurt them rather than just play fighting, and I felt awful.
"I'm…I'm sorry," I stammered, my hands flying to my mouth and my eyes widening in disbelief at what I'd done. Who did I think I was? Bloody Scarlet O'Hara?
"So you keep saying," Matt said dryly, turning away from me but not before I'd seen the contrition and raw rage warring in his eyes.
A few tense, weighted seconds passed in silence but then, when Matt still made no move to leave, I found myself pleading quietly, "Please let me tell you what happened."
This seemed to break the spell he'd momentarily fallen under and he whirled angrily back round to face me. "I don't want to hear it," he hissed. "Didn’t I make that plain enough? Give me my bloody keys and sod off."
I put my hand holding his keys and wallet behind my back and persisted with, "But Jack and I, we-"
Hearing Jack's name seemed to spur my brother onto new levels of anger and he said, so menacingly I shivered, "Don't try and defend him. He knew about your problems with touching, he fucking knew but he went ahead and did it, did you, anyway. Don't you dare try and pretend that this is somehow not his fault because I have had enough bloody lies thrown in my face today."
"But it wasn't-" My last desperate attempt to get him to listen to me failed as he grabbed me by the shoulder, pulled me forward and effortlessly plucked his keys and wallet from my hand.
"Enough." His tone brooked no argument. "Go back inside and tell Jack to pack up his things. I'm going to be away from here for a couple of days and when I come back I don't want there to be any sign of him in the flat, understand me?"
"You can't do that!" I protested, pulling at his arm as he turned away to unlock his car.
He pulled his arm away from me effortlessly and climbed into the car before looking up at me. "He can take his rent money back, I don't care, just make sure he's gone."
"Are you going to Tommo's?" I asked before he slammed the car door, I wanted him to at least be somewhere I knew with someone I trusted to look after him. But he shook his head and when I asked him where he was going he wouldn't tell me, he just pushed me out of the way of the door and shut it quickly before starting the engine and roaring off. I stood there for a moment in the cloud of exhaust fumes and wondered how I was ever going to make him see that the whole thing was my fault. Mine!
I couldn't stand there long, however, Jack was still up in the flat and I had to make sure he was alright. Releasing a long sigh I turned and headed back for the building, thinking as I did so that with all the running up and down of those bloody steps the only consolation of this whole big mess was that I was probably getting fit.
So Much to Learn Page 46
