A defeated tear falls, and I promptly brush it away. “No, I can’t. In essence, what Lorenzo told me was that my collection is trash and everything I made is unsalvageable.”
“It can’t be as bad as all that,” he says.
“Yes, it can.” I shake my head, sloppily throwing another pile of clothes into my suitcase. “I honestly can’t believe I did this. After two years of busting my ass, I met a guy and threw everything away all over again. And for what? For nothing. For another relationship that’s leading nowhere.”
“Hey, just stop for a second.” Matt walks over and puts his hands on my shoulders. “I know we haven’t exactly defined what’s going on between us, but we’re not nothing.”
“Yes, we are,” I tell him, stepping out of his hold. “Have you forgotten the fact that you’re moving to LA? We barely know each other and now we’re going to live thousands of miles apart, and we’re kidding ourselves by thinking that this can be anything other than what it actually is.”
“And what actually is it?” he asks.
I sigh and aimlessly look around the room. “It’s a fun thing that happened while we were on vacation and now we’re going to go back to our lives and that will be the end of it.”
“I see.” Matt’s voice is low, and his posture turns tense. How was it only five days ago when we were tangled up with each other in Capri without a care in the world?
“I’m sorry,” I murmur. “I just don’t see the point in delaying the inevitable.”
“The inevitable what?” he asks, taking a sudden step closer.
I stay where I am. No retreat this time. “The inevitable phone call that comes after you and I visit each other a handful of times. The phone call where you tell me that what we had was great, but you just don’t see things working out. That it wouldn’t be fair to me to keep things going when you’re not emotionally invested and I’m not ambitious enough for you. I’d stay just as I am and I’d be living with my sister all because I decided to throw my future away so I could have a fling during my Italian summer.”
“Okay,” Matt says firmly, “I understand that you went through some hard stuff today, but whatever happened, it doesn’t give you the right to suddenly think that I’m some piece of crap who’s just trying to have fun with you. Compared to what I’m usually like, I have been embarrassingly clear about how I feel about you. I haven’t tricked you. I haven’t lied. And I definitely haven’t done anything to give you a reason to lump me in with your lame ex-boyfriend. I’m not him and I didn’t knowingly do anything to jeopardize your career, so don’t put that on me.”
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you!” I almost shout. “You didn’t have to jeopardize my career because I was more than willing to do that myself. I was constantly daydreaming about you and going on our romantic rendezvous when all I should have been doing is growing as a designer and working on my collection.”
I can feel myself spiraling. I’m hurt and confused and I’m taking a terrible day and making it a thousand times worse. The longer Matt stays in this room, the further I’m proving that misery loves company. He needs to leave before I make him hate me completely, if he doesn’t hate me already.
“I’m sorry,” I tell him. “I shouldn’t have let you come in just now. I’m exhausted, a person I really admired told me I probably shouldn’t be a designer and I’m not in the right emotional space to talk to anyone. Can we take a break and regroup later?”
Matt looks back at me like I’m a completely different person, and maybe I am. Maybe he’s seeing the real me for the first time and it’s better that he’s seeing it now so he can find out early that I’m not worth the trouble. He slowly walks past me, heading to the door. I don’t stop him, and he makes it halfway before turning back around.
“For the record, this is you ending things, not me. I had every intention of pursuing this.”
My head is pounding. I can’t think straight. All I want is to be alone and to have time to process, and instead I’m swirling around in a bottomless cyclone of self-hatred.
“I know, Matt,” I say brokenly. “I know this is my fault. I’m a terrible designer and I’m a terrible person and this should only prove that you’re better off without me, so please just leave.”
The tears I’ve been holding in for what feels like forever finally begin to fall in earnest and I move to the windows so he won’t see them. I can barely breathe and my cheeks are soaked when I feel his hand lightly touching my waist.
“Violet,” he says, so softly it hurts. “Look, I’m sorry. I’m still not sure what just happened, but we can work things out later, like you said.”
His other arm starts to steal around me, and I don’t know why, but in this moment I can’t stand being touched. I don’t want to feel good. I want to feel what I’m feeling and be left alone. I shrug his arms off and step away, twisting around to face him.
“You shouldn’t want to work things out with me,” I tell him. “You can do better. You don’t see it, but I can. All I want is to go home, finish my collection and move on with my life. I want to work and feel like an adult, and I want to do it by myself.”
My words sink in for both of us, and for Matt, it looks like my rejection hit him right in the gut. I can now successfully toss another self-sabotaging log onto the fire.
“Got it,” he says after several seconds. “In that case, this was fun and good luck with the competition. Also, feel free to throw away those chapters I gave you. They weren’t very good, anyway.”
He walks out of the room and the door closes behind him in a deafening click. I walk over to my suitcase and look down at the pages he’s referring to. I should do what he says. I should throw them away. I shouldn’t read them. I think about taking them out of my bag and leaving them behind for him, but something inside me won’t let me. Instead, I pack them away more securely, sandwiched between two of my sketchbooks so the pages won’t bend.
Two hours later, after I’ve finished crying on the floor beside my bed, I make myself stand up to finish packing. I’m just emptying my beach bag to flatten it out when I end up holding the underwater camera Matt gave me when we were out on the boat. My insides twist and I start to feel sick all over again.
I try to remind myself that Matt and I were never going to last. It’s better off this way and I saved us both a lot of time and heartache. But if I did the right thing, then why do I want to sprint to his room and beg him to forgive me?
I can’t dwell on that now. I’m doing him a favor. He shouldn’t have to deal with this. All I can think about from this day on is the competition. Without any distractions, there’s a sliver of a chance that I can still win, even without Lorenzo’s vote. That’s what that optimistic part of me is trying to believe. Too bad the darker, more insistent part is busy whispering that no matter what happens with the competition now, somehow, I’ve already lost.
19
