Chapter 49: Matt

I was sitting on a curb. Claire made a snowball and handed it to me, to put on my throbbing face. Then she sat by my side, shivering.

'In retrospect,' she said, humorless, 'I probably should have gotten my coat before storming off.'

I took off my jacket and put it around her.

'Aren't you going to get cold?'

I shrugged.

'I don't really get cold these days.'

We were silent for a couple of minutes, watching the snow fall down in the beams of electric light.

'What actually happened there, Matt?'

'I came by to talk to you. And Sam decided he felt like beating me up.'

'And you didn't fight back?'

'No.'

'Why?'

I sighed.

'I wanted to. But then I figured he must have had a good reason to feel that way.'

Claire chuckled.

'Of course you did. You're one strange dude, Matt.'

I tried to smile.

'Yeah. I've been told that before.'

'So what did you want to talk to me about?'

Where to begin?

I put the snowball down and wiped my face, thinking, feeling her sit beside me without looking. So much has happened since that day in the university cafeteria. When was it? Yesterday? A couple of days ago? I couldn't even remember. It felt like a lifetime ago.

I smiled.

'Do you know how when you're very, very afraid of something for a long, long time, and then it finally happens, only it's so much fucking worse than you have ever even imagined, and you're completely fucked, so much that's it not even a little funny? And you think that that's it, and feel strangely fearless, because no matter what life throws at you from that point on, it can't possibly be any worse?'

'Yeah, I wrote a whole song about that.'

'Well, that's bullshit. Because something like that happened to me, only I don't feel fearless. I feel scared as hell. I know for a fact that it can, and will, get so much worse.'

She turned her head slightly, listening.

'But you were right, though. I do feel liberated, regardless. I'm done, just really done letting fear dictate. I think I'm done with a lot of things.'

'Like what?'

I shrugged and turned to her, suddenly not caring that much anymore.

'Hey. Do you think you can know a person without really knowing everything about them? Like, truly know them?'

She thought about it.

'I think no one can really know everything about anyone. But you can know the things that matter.'

I kept silent for a while.

'Do you think you know me?'

She smiled.

'What kind of question is that? Of course I know you!'

I frowned.

'But you don't. You don't know me, Claire. You don't know me at all.'

'Sure I do.'

'You don't. The truth is...'

I swallowed.

'The truth is that I'm a liar. I've been lying to you, and everyone else I know, for my entire life. I'm made of lies.'

She laughed.

'Jesus, Matt. So is everyone else. We are all made of little ugly insecurities, and falsehoods, and masks we show to other people to make them like us. What, do you think you're somehow unique in striving to be, and be seen as, something you're not? I don't want to burst your bubble, but that's just called being human.'

The word cut me like a knife.

She continued, not noticing:

'Sure, I might not know all your secrets. You're shy about sharing your past with people, maybe because it sucked so bad. But don't be fooled: I know you, Matt. I know all the parts that matter. I know you're kind, and weird in all the good senses, and funny, and fucking in love with music. I know you can't make a good cup of coffee to save your life, and that you really loved your mom. I know that you like listening more than you like talking, and that you really listen, not just go over what you're going to say next inside your head. More important than that, I know that you're the type of person who wouldn't hit Sam back because you figured he felt sad. I know you're good people, Matt. I wouldn't be your friend if I hadn't.'

I didn't answer, unconvinced.

She shook her head.

'Okay, Matt. What type of horrendous lies do you think you told me?'

I licked my lips, gathering the courage to say the thing I came here to say.

'Some of them are big, and some of them are small. Some I'm not ready to share yet, and some I maybe never will.'

But maybe they weren't the part that mattered after all.

'But the biggest one, the one I can't bear anymore, is this. I told you a long time ago that I just wanted to be your friend. That was a lie.'

I looked her in the eyes.

'I don't want to be your friend, Claire. I never did, from the moment I first really saw you in that bar, trillion years ago. I want so much more. I feel like not being with you is killing me. I don't know if it's driving me insane, or if it's the only thing that keeps me from completely losing my mind. I only know that life is short, and sometimes, for no good reason at all, it's shorter still. And I can't waste another day lying to you and being afraid. The truth is -- the only one that matters to me -- is that I want to be with you more than I have ever wanted anything. I'm crazy about you, Claire.'

She listened, and I couldn't read her expression. I couldn't really think at all, just talk. She looked angry, or hurt, or both and something else, or something different altogether. I couldn't tell.

When I stopped talking, she pierced me with her dark, green eyes, eyebrows lowered, corners of her mouth turned down.

'Then why the fuck did you tell me the opposite?'

I crossed my arms, trying to get warm, Affects slipping through my fingers.

'Because I am a liar and a fool, I guess. And a coward, too. I spend my whole life keeping people at a safe distance. I didn't trust you, or myself, or the whole damn world. I was afraid, I was stupid. I thought I was being smart. Maybe I was? I don't know anymore.'

'So what changed? Huh? Tell me!'

Everything fucking changed! Everything. Mickey, and Mitchel, and Zero, the smell of burned wool, the taste of blood in my mouth, the tentative piano notes, the Protector coming to my work, burned hand bandaged, cold threat in her tired voice. Tanya's house, her husband, her fire as she said: "I fought to be where I am." I did, too. Didn't I?

I was so used to being in control, and now I wasn't, and I started to suspect that maybe I never had been. So the real thing that changed was, the thing that was really different now, was...

'Me. I changed. I've done many stupid things lately, but not this. This is the only thing that I've done right. And maybe it came too late. But hear this, Claire: I love you. I don't want to be without you. I understand that you might not feel the same, and that's okay. I just, I know that a time will come, sooner rather than later, when this will be the only thing I won't regret.'

She looked at me, each second feeling like an eternity, her face serious and blank like the winter sky, and then -- was it real? -- I thought I saw a familiar mischievous gleam igniting in her eyes.

Claire smiled.

'Well, that's better,' she said.

And kissed me.

#

Somehow we got to my apartment, hungry for each other, for life in all its splendor. My small bedroom, with its cheap furniture and Rubik's cubes and piles of books, suddenly felt like a palace. We kissed, we held each other, soaking up warmth and closeness and being here and now, in the present, finally with each other. Then we stood across from each other, undressing, and someone, or maybe both of us, began to giggle, and couldn't stop.

And then she was in my arms, her skin on mine, silky and smooth, radiating heat, the softness of her breasts pressing against my chest, the electricity of her touch sending me into a new kind of madness.

And the rest was magic.

And sometime later, in the darkness, laying there with her, her body pressed against mine so tight I wasn't entirely sure where I ended and she began, I have forgotten every sorrow and every horror, every future and every past that had tortured me, and felt, for the first time in a long time, ever, happy and calm. Like I was whole.

Like I was finally complete.