“You hadone job, Matty. What do you mean he ‘went rogue’?”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” he says, voice dripping with sarcasm. “Do people usually leave little notes of explanation behind before they ditch people in the middle of the night? Because I sure as hell didn’t get one. I have no idea. He was there when I fell asleep, and when I woke up, he and his stuff were justgone.”
It wouldn’t be fair of me to throw anif you’d just paid better attentionaccusation in his face, because it could have happened to anyone—but I’m sorely tempted.
If Joshua’s been gone since this morning, though, why am I only finding outnow? I’m sure he’s miles away, long gone in who knows which direction. Where would we even begin to start looking for him?
CALL ME ASAP!I text Danica, even though she still hasn’t replied to any of my messages from earlier.Joshua’s unaccounted for. I thought he was with Matteo.
“You didn’t think that might have been a relevant detail to mention when you called me?” I say as soon as I’m done. “I left everyone back at camp without a guide so I could come help youand Joshua. You led treks in the Andes, Matty—you shouldn’t need me to come rescue you!”
“He took our only phone charger,” Matteo says bitterly. “And most of the snacks.”
“Again—relevant details.”
“We both know you wouldn’t have come tonight if it was justmeout here,” he protests.
He’s right about that much.
“You dug this hole for yourself,” I say. Maybe it’s going a little toofar, but it’s the truth. “You were all over Zoe—I’m not surprised he didn’t want to stick around! Just because you’re hurting from Blair doesn’t mean you get to hurt everyone around you, too.”
My words land like the sharpest little blades.
I never meant to say them out loud. I never meant to cut this deep.
Despite everything, all the distance and damage we’ve sustained these last few years—these last fewdays—he’s still like a brother to me.
Deep down, I think he knows it. Matteo has pressed right up against the limit of what a friendship can come back from, crossed into betrayal territory, doubled down and blamedmefor said betrayal, and then went on an emotional bender as soon as Blair broke up with him—
But at the end of the day, I think he knows he’s not beyond forgiveness. He’sright thereon the edge…but it all comes down to this, right now. He needs to own up to what he’s done before we can ever begin to mend the canyon-sized rift between us.
He doesn’t speak for a long time.
I take a seat on the ground, wait him out. Grab a handful of trail mix from my pack and make it look like I could do this for as long as it takes even though I’m anxious that Danica hasn’t replied yet, anxious about Joshua.
“I—” Matteo eventually starts, but cuts himself off.
He takes a deep breath. Swallows.
“I should never have said yes to coming out here,” he finally says, staring into the fire like it’s a window to the past, until his eyes suddenly flick up to meet mine. “There are a lot of things I should never have said yes to.”
It’s not an apology, but it’s a start.
After all his avoidance, this direct eye contact feels a bit on the intense side. I don’t break, though: I look and I listen, trying to see inside him so I can finallyunderstand.
“I told myself Blair would be worth it,” he goes on. “She made me feel like my life could be so muchmore, you know? Like I wasn’t truly living until I took some sort of huge, unexpected leap of faith.”
His gaze shifts back to the fire, back to his memories.
“I didn’t realize how stagnant I’d been feeling,” he says, tucking his hair behind one ear. “Blair told me her secret one night—a secret she said not even you knew—that she’d bought a one-way ticket to Peru. She painted the idea of this huge adventure, the thrill of never knowing what comes next, just taking it day by day.”
He swallows, brows pinching together as he looks down at his hands.
“I’ve never met anyone who lives in the present like Blair,” he continues. “She doesn’t have regrets about her past, she doesn’t worry about her future—she just lives in the moment. So when she asked if I wanted to start over with her in Peru, it sounded pretty magical.”
It’s the most perfect description of Blair, and exactly why I came to the conclusion a long time ago that it would never have worked out between us no matter what—if she hadn’t run off with Matteo, it would have been someone else.
“It’s a lot less magical when you’re the one getting left in the dust,” I say, unable to keep the bitterness from creeping into my voice.
