My disbelief is all-consuming.
How are we talking about this instead of the enormous, emotionally charged elephant in the room?
His eyes darken in frustration.“But I’m still waiting to talk to Bancroft again.I don’t understand the need for this self-sabotaging—”
“That’s because you’re not thinking about Helen when she becomes unemployed.Or Lou losing the one place that brings him joy every morning.Anyway…” I clench my teeth, trying desperately to keep the threatening tears of frustration at bay.“I let you go all the way.Do with me as you pleased.”I lean forward slightly, my voice trembling with a dangerous mix of defiance and pain.“I’m pretty sure I can handle a little make-out session with some random guy for James to let me keep my café.”
My words hang in the air, poisonous.Deliberately diminishing what we shared to hurt him back.
The frustration in his eyes vanishes, eclipsed by a flash of disbelief.Then, wounded agony rips through his composure.His face pales, jaw working silently before clenching hard enough to bulge out sharply.
An explosive sound of pure fury rips from his throat.His hand lashes out sideways.It connects hard with his coffee mug, sending it flying.It smashes against the floor several feet away, shattering instantly in a spray of dark liquid and ceramic shards.
I flinch back, a sharp cry escaping my lips.
Matthew lurches forward in his chair, planting an elbow heavily on the table, his trembling hand clamping hard over his mouth.His eyes squeeze tightly shut.His broad shoulders shake with the force of the breath he struggles to control.
“Matt—”
He brings his fist down on the table like a hammer.The explosive bang cuts the air from my lungs, shaking the table and splashing the coffee around in my mug.
“I’ll grab your fucking clothes.”
He pushes his chair back abruptly, its legs scraping harshly against the floor, and storms out.
I press myself back into my seat, unable to breathe.I stare at the spot where his fist hit the table, seeing only the tremor running through my own hands.
Frozen.
A solitary tear tracks a hot path down my cheek.I swipe at it with the back of my hand.My breathing sounds harsh in the dead quiet.
The fury.
The fist.
The way he looked at me…
No, the way he looked through me before he stormed out.
My gaze drifts to the shards of ceramic and coffee on the floor, near the island.
How?
How did we get here from there?
The unbearable tenderness in his eyes as he knelt before me in the shower.The reverence in his touch as he dried my skin.
And now this.
This mess seeping into the grout, echoing the emotional shrapnel littering the space between us.
The intimacy feels like a fragile dream abruptly shattered against the hard edges of reality.It leaves only this ugly ache deep in my chest, knotting tighter until it physically hurts.
How much time passes, I don’t know.
The sound of measured, steady footsteps cuts through the silence.
My head snaps up.
