The Matchmaker

by Kitty Parker

  I mused on that as I scrounged around the kitchen for something for Emma to eat. Did this mean we were back where we were before, just friends? Or something more? She wouldn't have acted like this two months ago, but I had never known anyone to act like she did now. And as for me, well… yes, she was the Matchmaker, and I doubted that was going to change, for me or for anyone else. But she was right. Life was too short for it to matter, with something very wrong with Lex and her looking like she was going to collapse at any second. Rhianna had been a fluke, after all; I couldn't even manage to credit either with malicious intent towards Brock. Not when I had seen how lost Rhianna looked without him during their interminable two-day separation. To hurt Brock was to hurt Rhianna, that much was obvious, and whatever her faults, Emma didn't hurt her friends.

  And although I still didn't trust her, I could no longer believe that Rhianna had the capacity to conspire to break Brock's heart. Not when I had seen, three days ago, the tenderness she had used to handle an Emma who had looked as lost as she had appeared on my doorstep, had seen Rhianna listen to a quiet murmur from her friend and then without a word lead her to a car and drive away. The Matchmaker- who was she, really? Just a phantom. And now all my former affection- never really destroyed, despite all my efforts to hide it as deeply as I could- had once more reared its head. I still wanted her; that much I knew. But like usual, I didn't know what she thought.

  I reentered my room bearing a tray with a glass of water, a grilled cheese sandwich, and a bowl of soup; offerings that seems rather paltry when Emma glanced up at me from my bed, wearing my clothes, and appearing quite comfortable there. She looked good there, in my bed- I cut off those thoughts, shifting tensely. Those thoughts rarely led anywhere safe.

  She took the tray with a half-hearted smile of thanks and, without word, began to inhale its contents. She wasn't lying, about not having had any nourishment. Idiot.

  I hovered around the door, not sure if I should leave or not. It didn't seem right, Emma being so needy, even if taking care of her did- but I wanted to make sure nothing bad had happened to her.

  After a few minutes (the soup was already gone, and the water mostly so), she looked up at me. "I would invite you to sit, if it wasn't your room," she observed with a good attempt at her usual wry grin, though there was still tightness in her jaw and grief in her eyes, "I'm not contagious, you know. Unless insanity's catching," she amended, with a mock thoughtful glint in eyes that were already looking less bloodshot. I grinned and sat down on the bed beside her. There was the Emma I knew and- I knew.

  "Are you o- are you going to be okay?" I asked, almost tentatively. I wanted to know what was wrong really badly, but I didn't want to disturb whatever equilibrium she had achieved and set off another sobbing fit. Crying girls made me feel awkward.

  She thought a second, the not-really smile dying. "I will be," she finally allowed, eating as she talked. "If Allan li- is okay." She sighed, and the terrified, feral look returned to her eyes. "He got into a car accident, you know." Finally! I was going to learn what had happened! But the blandness in her voice scared me, because it showed just how frightened she was. It was the sort of voice she used to disguise the depth of feeling beneath it. "He's in the ICU now, has been for days. Bleeding in the brain or something- his condition's very unstable." Her grip around the cup tightened convulsively. My eyes widened. What did one say to that? I hadn't thought it would be that bad. "If he dies too- God, I don't know what I'll do." It was a statement, not a plea, but I could hear her desperation beneath it. So,

  "You'll manage," I assured her, trying to convey all my conviction despite the awful fear for my friend that gripped my heart like a vise. Dammit, Lex had to get better! He just had to, because I said it was going to happen! "You'll grieve and then learn to live with it, because that's what you do and you're the strongest person I know. No one else could have dealt with all the shit you've been through."

  She smiled at me, sadly, regretfully. "I'm not strong, Darien," she told me, and that admission worried me more than anything else I had seen or heard today. It drove in the point of just how bad this situation really was. But also, the fact that she was confessing that to me… it was a good sign, right? "And I never dealt with anything. I just buried it all beneath a lot of secrets and cynicism and alter egos. I decided to stop going to therapy; I shouldn't have. Maybe if I had kept going, I would be saner right now. I don't know. But I'll try to find her again, no matter what." She sighed, but this was a sigh of relief. "I think, though- I think I've finally got rid of his ghost. I can- I can move on now."

  She had finished eating, and she was looking right at me now with all the intensity of her burning gaze. I gulped with something I refused to acknowledge as nerves. "Dan came and swept me off my feet. I was a little girl, wanting to be older and a princess, and he came to be my Prince Charming," she said, and somehow her hand had found mine and gripped it gently. "But I never really believed in fairy tales, and you- you're different. You're real and my best friend- not to be cliché or anything- and you challenge me and make me stronger and all that junk that sounds really mushy." No. No it didn't. Not when I had been waiting for her to say this – whether I knew it or not – since I had bumped into her in front of the Matchmaker's locker. She bit her lower lip gently. "I know I have issues that aren't going to go away and I'm hard to get along with and all that, but – I like you. Like in the way of boyfriends and girlfriends. I- I won't be the best girlfriend in the world, and I'm not giving up the Matchmaker, but…that's it." She raised her arm as if to say, here I am, do with me what you will.

  A long moment passed, where I couldn't speak and she stared at me out of eyes afraid for more than just Lex. Then I leaned in, close enough that I could feel the heat coming off her flushed cheeks. "I don't want the best girlfriend, and I don't care that you're the Matchmaker and have issues and stuff," I murmured, "If I haven't told you before, I should have – I don't want you any differently than what you are."

  A grin split her face, one that made my insides flip over, although even it was still touched with sadness. Her grip tightened on my hand, and my smile must have matched hers because she was glowing too. I leaned in that final inch and….

  The tray fell off the bed with an ear-splitting crash. Tension dissolved, and we both stared at it for a second, before dissolving into laughter that did us both a world of good, though it sounded like more than a bit of hysteria on her part. Eventually, we sobered.

  "So," she asked without any of the shyness most girls would have, although she did not have her usual unassailable confidence on, "Are we together now?"

  My smile wouldn't go away, despite the worries about Lex that persisted in the background of the room, underneath the romance and exorcised ghosts. "Yes," I answered, unable to hide my glee, "Yes we are." She hadn't let go of my hand, but now that I looked down at it, I saw how pale it was and remembered just why she was lying in my bed in the first place. "But you need to sleep, now."

  She made a face at me, probably for destroying the romance of the moment, but I wanted her to go to sleep before she started feeling guilty for that very thing, being happy while Lex might be dying. I knew Lex would only be happy for us; I also knew that she wouldn't be so sure.

  "Oh, fine," she agreed reluctantly, lying back down. Feeling especially daring, I leaned over and dropped a kiss on her forehead as I drew the blanket over her body, then I gathered up the tray and left the room. She was asleep before the door closed.

  As I returned to make sure she was asleep, a phone vibrated on the bedside table. Confused, I checked my pocket. My phone was definitely there, but there was also a phone on my table – I glanced at it. Emma's, and the caller ID read 'Mom'. Highly doubting that Emma – I stopped the daydream sequence that threatened to start at thinking that name (We're together! Finally!) – had bothered to inform her mother where she was, I flipped open the phone.

  "Emma?" Mrs. Lexington's voice was filled with so many emotions that I couldn'
t begin to extract one. Where was she, at the hospital? Suddenly, anxiety for Lex overwhelmed all my other thoughts.

  "No, this is Darien," I replied. Could I ask about Lex? Why was she calling now? Had something happened? Had she only just now noticed Emma's disappearance? "She's at my house, but she's asleep. Should I wake her up?"

  "Oh, no," And now I could hear the relief in her voice, that seemed to emanate from her heart and something deeper even than that, and I had to admire this woman's strength of character to be that calm in the face of tragedy. "That's fine. But when she wakes up, can you tell her that Allan's going to be fine?"

  The vise of my terror released me; I could breath again. Another specter floated out of the room and dissolved into nothingness. "Yes, I'll tell her," I assured Mrs. Lexington with a relief that nearly matched hers, and she hung up with a quick thanks for caring for her daughter – like I needed gratitude for that.

  I glanced down at Emma, curled up in my bed, looking young and content asleep. A slight, peaceful smile had spread over her face, untouched by any nightmare lines, as if she had heard her mother.

  "Yes," I echoed to the still happiness of the room, "Everything will be just fine."

  Epilogue

  * * *

  The Matchmaker has seen a lot of relationships throughout my time in high school. Some of them haven't needed her help. Allan and Candy, who are both heading off to college in Boston (her for clothing design and him for PR – with football no longer a possibility, he figured he was at least good with people), aren't officially a couple, like usual, but they'll stick together, always coming back to each other because of a friendship deeper than any romance. Maybe (probably) they'll end up together, maybe they won't; they're the sort of people who would be happy either way.

  Some relationships have needed the Matchmaker's aid. Brock and Rhi have decided to stay together although he's going to Boston College for football and she to McGill. They've made the long distance thing work before they told us, and I didn't have the heart to point out the holes in that logic. It might work, but even if it doesn't they've already made memories to last a lifetime.

  Even Darien and I needed the Matchmaker, if indirectly. Without her, he would never have deigned to notice me and I wouldn't have bothered to look past his arrogance. But now, when I set out for MacAllister and he to Amherst, at the very least it'll be on good terms. I'm not sure if we'll last, that far away and with tempers like ours; resisting temptations isn't always Darien's forte, and neither of us are big on being tied down. But whatever happens, he helped to drive away my ghosts and made my last years at high school the best I've ever had. And whatever he says, that's because of the Matchmaker.

  Darien said, in the middle of the explosion that cleared the air enough for something new to grow, that the Matchmaker tried to create love, to manipulate people into caring for others. But I've given it some thought, and I don't think (really, who would know better than me?) that he was right. She can't create that emotion; no one can. What she does, what I did, what Ellie will continue to do after I leave, is construct the setting for something more to grow. We bring people together who would usually never even consider each other, but it's up to them to carry it past the cold logic of person A and person B.

  That distance is the mystery of human feeling that I can't penetrate, no matter how much I try. It's the reason violet eyes are fading from my memory but will always live somewhere in my heart, still sending me into paroxysms of hysteria. It's Darien holding me through those shaking fits. It's Mrs. McGavern eating dinner nearly every day at home with her sons now and my mother pampering her injured son. It's romance, family, and surrender; it's devotion, selflessness, and acceptance. It's something I can't name and don't believe in, but have seen: in my parents, in Brock and Rhi, Allan and Candy, even me and Darien. It's the enigma of locker 142, of a date appearing in your locker to sweep you off your feet. It's the phantom that is, was, and will be

  The Matchmaker.