“I’m telling you, it’s not intentional,” he insists, lowering himself to the ground a few feet away, scanning the area closer to the tree.
“Not long ago, everything seemed to be falling into place.”I swallow hard, fighting back tears.“Life felt stable.Personally.Professionally.Like I’d finally found a home here.”
And now it’s all slipping away.
“You’re not from Madison?”he asks.
“Only my second year,” I say, wistful.“Like with all the other states, the plan was just to be passing through.I never intended to stay this long.”
“Other states?So you’ve been driving from state to state?”
“Something like that,” I admit, suddenly self-conscious.“Never found a reason to stay.Until Madison.”
He tilts his head, thoughtful.“And what’s the reason?”
I hesitate.Thoughts reel.How can I explain the sense of belonging I found at the café, the connection I felt with Mary and Helen, the love, the illusion of love, I had for James?
“The people,” I finally reply.“The people and the place.”
“The people and the place,” Matthew repeats softly.
“That was my reason then anyway,” I say, shrinking a little under his gaze.“But now…”
“Now?”he repeats.
“Now,” I shrug, my lips pressed in a wry smile, “it’s anyone’s guess.”
“I know it doesn’t seem like it, but all is not lost,” he reassures me, his gaze softening.
“How can you be so sure?”My question is a broken, uncertain whisper.
He goes to speak, then hesitates, as if weighing his words.“Because you’re the same woman who flung her ring into the darkness.That’s not a woman who just loses.”
I stare at him.
James saw a heartless bitch.
Matthew sees a fighter.
Speechless, my throat tightens as tears prick my eyes, blurring his earnest face.
Matthew clears his throat and turns his attention to a low-hanging branch, pushing it aside.“But you sure put some muscle into that throw,” he calls out.
“Believe me, if I had known it would unleash all this hell, I would have thrown it directly at him instead.”I rip a handful of grass from the ground and fling it into the air, watching the green blades flutter to the ground like angry confetti.
Matthew’s soft chuckle reaches me from deeper within the trees as I continue to say, “Ever since I stepped out of that club last night, it’s felt like I’ve stepped into a nightmare.”
The rustling stops.A sudden silence falls over the yard.His gaze is fixed on something in the grass.The corners of his mouth lift, and his eyes crinkle with a genuine smile.He reaches down, fingers brushing aside a blade of grass.
“Well,” he drawls, “nightmare over.I found it.”
My heart leaps.“You found it?”I scramble to my feet, rushing toward him.
He’s still kneeling, the ring held between his thumb and forefinger, a wide grin on his face.He looks up as I approach, and our eyes meet.For a fleeting moment, the world shifts.The late afternoon sun catches the diamond, sending a dazzling ray of light straight into my eyes.
It’s as if he’s offering it to me, not as a recovered possession, but as a promise.A promise of a different life, a life free from James and the suffocating weight of his control.
A life with… him?
