Matt's Story Read online

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Back Ad

  About the Author

  Books by Lauren Gibaldi

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  CHAPTER 1

  “Matt, can you answer the question?”

  I look up and see thirty-two sets of eyes on me, anxiously waiting for me to crash and burn. If this were the first time Mr. Benson had called on me, the thirty-two sets of eyes wouldn’t care. They’d stay glued to the phones hidden under the desks, the notes being passed, or even, maybe, the notes being taken. But no, this isn’t the first time. It’s probably the fifth, and it won’t be the last.

  “Can you repeat the question?” I mumble.

  Over the snickers I hear the audible sigh coming from Mr. Benson. He tries, he really does, but I just can’t seem to concentrate on the trigonometry problems he writes on the board. They’re numbers and letters and just as mixed up as I am. If I can’t figure out myself, how can I figure out a problem that has absolutely nothing to do with me? In a former life, I was actually a decent student, but there’s something about guilt and regret and disappointment that make you stop caring.

  Mr. Benson starts to repeat the problem again, and I hear tapping coming from the desk next to me. A girl—Cindy, I think—is hitting her pen on her paper, pointing to the number forty-six and giving me a hard stare.

  She could be lying. She could be leading me on to make everyone laugh. But what the hell, I have nothing to lose. I pretend to mentally calculate the problem in my head, scrunching up my face and letting my eyes drift to the ceiling, and answer “Forty-six?” when he gets to the end.

  “Yes,” he says, audibly relieved and surprised. “Very good, now . . . ,” he continues, but I zone out again. I look over at maybe-Cindy and give her a half smile, whispering, “Thanks.” She nods back with an amused smile and wide blue eyes. She has auburn hair that waves down her back, and blunt bangs. Her nose is small and juts out a bit like a ski slope, and she kind of reminds me of, funnily enough, Cindy Lou Who, from How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Maybe that’s why I think her name is Cindy.

  If I were Jake, I’d invite her back to my house and we’d be making out within minutes. But I’m not Jake, and she’s not Ella, so her bangs and eyes and nose don’t really matter to me.

  I turn back to the paper I’ve written nothing on and realize that “Can you repeat the question?” was the first thing I’ve said all day.

  The bell rings, and all thirty-two sets of eyes find partners and talk about their plans for the weekend. It’s Friday, after all, so everyone has something to do, while I have a nice TV marathon waiting for me. If this was any other year, I’d try to fit in, try finding a group to blend in to and maybe make friends, but it all seems so pointless now. It’s February . . . college is around the corner, barreling down on us, and we’re all leaving anyway.

  I just wish I’d gotten to finish out senior year in Orlando. Life was awesome for those six months there. I had friends, a girlfriend, a life. After a lifetime of temporary houses and temporary friends because of moving around for Dad’s job so much, I finally felt, I don’t know, stable. And then we were uprooted to Houston in December, ruining everything. And let’s not forget the shitty reason why we’re here.

  I make my way into the hall, bumping into a few people gathering around the door, and hear my name.

  “Matt. Matt!”

  I turn around and see maybe-Cindy walking toward me.

  “Hey,” she says, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear. “Cindy,” she says, pointing to herself. Ah, I was right.

  “Yeah, hey,” I say. “What’s up?”

  “Um, I was wondering if maybe you wanted to study sometime? You seem kind of . . . lost in there.”

  I push my glasses back on my nose and look down. It’s nice she’s inviting me to study, but I’ve managed to go the past two months here without making friends, and I’m okay with that. I look up and see not Cindy, but Ella looking back at me. She’s standing in the hallway, shuffling from foot to foot, and I want to grab her, but I can’t because she’s not really here, and I’m not there, and it’s all in my head.

  “Yeah, kind of,” I say, instead, shaking the vision away, “but it’s cool. I’m figuring it out. Thanks anyway.” I try to sound appreciative, but also give her a no at the same time.

  “Oh, okay,” she says with a shrug. “Have a good weekend.” With a smile and a wave she turns around and walks in the other direction, and part of me feels guilty and wants to chase her down and say, “Sure,” but the other part just really doesn’t care.

  After the final bell, and a long trek through the parking lot, I get in my car and drive to Chris’s rehab facility. I don’t have to go, but Mom’s going to be late, and Dad is obviously staying at work until God knows what hour, so I guess I should be there. As much as I hate what he did and how it made life hell, he’s still my older brother.

  After about thirty minutes, I park and look up at the center, a more familiar sight than I’d like for it to be. I hate this place—the bland, concrete exterior; the lifeless people milling around; the fake cheery flowers and fountain outside—but lately it’s become less haunting, which might even be scarier. When Chris first came here, I didn’t want to visit; I wanted to avoid it—and him—for as long as possible, but eventually my guilt hit. So now I’m here. Again.

  I sign in at the front desk, where a bored secretary sits, wearily watching me. After going over the same set of rules I’ve heard before—and he’s clearly said before, judging by the monotonous tone of his voice—he leads me down a windowless hallway, past more fake flowers in oversize vases, and into Chris’s room.

  You see these situations in movies all the time, but never think it’s going to be you visiting your brother after he went through hell and back. After he was caught selling drugs. After he was kicked out of college. After he was put in jail, forcing our parents and me to move here to help get him out. After he was finally released and, as per court-ordered rules, had to recuperate here.

  Chris is on his bed when I get in, staring out his window. Seeing him always surprises me, no matter how many times I’ve been here. Mom always says we look alike—same flat dark brown hair, same slanted nose—but I don’t see it anymore. He’s so much skinnier than he was before we moved away—the athletic build from years of soccer has been whittled down, and his face is hollow and pale, not the fuller, cocky one I used to know. I wonder what he sees when he looks at me.

  “Hey, lil’ bro,” he says with a smile on his face when he sees me.

  Even though I’m still pretty upset with him, I find myself smiling back. “Hey, Chris.”

  “How’s it going? How’s school?”

  I shrug. “Okay,” I say, because what else can I say? School kind of sucks, and I hate that I’m here and not back in Orlando? I hate that you screwed up both of our lives? Yeah, like he wants to hear that. “How is . . . everything?” I ask.

  “Good,” he says with a bit more energy. “Good. I mean, I’m leaving soon, so that’s—”

  “Yeah,” I cut him off. “It’s awesome.” There’s an awkward pause. We used to be able to talk for hours—I told him everything. And now these are our conversations. Short and stifled. Distant.

  “And maybe when I’m back home, we can hang out.” A tinge of hope is in his voice. Were this last year, I would have jumped at the suggestion. Hell, I would have jumped at the suggestion anytime, but now I don’t know what to thi
nk. What would we do? What would we talk about? He took away my desire to be around him when he ruined everything for me. And even now that he’s getting out, having been clean and apparently restored, after the revelation came about that he wasn’t in charge of a drug ring after all, it doesn’t feel any better. Because he was still part of it in the first place.

  But, he’s my brother, so I say, “Sure,” and leave it at that. We’ll figure out the specifics when he comes home. In a week.

  “Hey, Matt,” a voice says behind me, and I turn around to see Delilah, Chris’s girlfriend, walking in. She’s here often, I’m told, but only rarely do our visits coincide. She’s cute, with inquisitive eyes and black hair, and I wonder why she’s still with him, why she’s giving him her time. Yeah, they dated for, like, four months before everything went down in November, but still, she deserves better. I never thought I’d think that about him.

  “Hey, Delilah,” I say, then turn back to Chris as she sits down on his bed. He’s visibly happier; a smile on his face replaces the awkward look from earlier when he clearly didn’t know what to say to me.

  “Hey, baby,” he coos, and she melts, and I feel the familiar pain I get whenever I see couples act like couples.

  “Hi, you,” she responds quietly, but he hears. “I’m sorry for interrupting y’all—should I come back?”

  “No, don’t worry about it,” Chris quickly says, and a part of me twinges with jealousy. “We were just talking about Matt’s school and stuff.”

  No, we weren’t.

  “How’s the new school treating you?” Delilah asks, including me in the conversation. “Enjoying your senior year?”

  “Um, it’s fine,” I answer uncomfortably.

  “Wait until next week,” Chris says, suddenly much perkier. “I’ll be home and we’ll make it memorable. It’s your senior year, dude,” he exclaims. “Live it up. Remember mine? I was the king at being awesome.”

  “And coming home late, from what I recall,” I say, remembering our mom pacing the living room when Chris was, once again, an hour late. He always “accidentally” turned off his phone, or “accidentally” left it at home. “How many times did I cover for you?”

  “Two or three—”

  “Hundred times,” I say to Delilah, and she giggles.

  “Mom always got over it,” he says, waving his hand, then turning to Delilah. “I’m too cute to resist.”

  “Yeah, you are,” she says, smiling.

  “Get a room,” I say, rolling my eyes.

  “I think we’re in one,” Chris says, gesturing around him. He starts making these ridiculous kissing faces at her and, yep, I’m out. It was okay for a second, but now . . .

  “I’m going to leave you two alone,” I say, standing up abruptly.

  “You don’t have to leave, Matt,” Delilah says.

  “No, I know, I just . . . I have homework,” I say, not really wanting to see them making out any more. “I’ll see you at home soon, and all . . .” I trail off, realizing how true that really is. I wonder how it’ll be then, with him and Delilah. With him and me.

  “Yeah, cool.” Chris nods, looking at me with hope, but I don’t think he gets it. “We’ll talk more then.”

  “Sure,” I say. “See ya.” I wave and he waves and I leave.

  Chris and I were best friends growing up. We moved around so often for our dad’s military job, we had to be. We didn’t have anyone else. Being more social, he always took care of me in a new school, making friends instantly, and then introducing me around. He never grew tired of taking my quiet self under his wing. So it’s weird, for once, seeing that he needs help, and he doesn’t know what to do next. We’re reversed, and I don’t know how to help him once he’s home. I don’t know how to be that better person, because the last time I saw Chris, he was winning the state championship for his soccer team, and now he’s out of prison and rehab for drug possession and addiction. How can everything change so much?

  I get home to an empty house. I throw my bag on my bed and sit at my desk, opening my laptop before I can tell myself not to. I go right to Facebook and search for her name: Ella Rhodes.

  She hasn’t unfriended me yet, which I figured she would. She should have. I haven’t spoken to her since we moved away. It was a crappy thing to do—to just leave, not explain anything—but I was so scared, so confused about everything that I didn’t know what else to do. I just wanted her to move on after I left, and not be involved in my family drama. But according to her Facebook page, and the text I got this morning that made me want to crush my phone, she hasn’t let me go. Why won’t she?

  She hasn’t updated her profile, except for changing the picture. What once was a shot of the two of us spinning in circles on the school’s roof is now a picture of her and her best friend, Meg. Meg’s grinning and Ella is just . . . there, kind of smiling. If you didn’t know her well, you’d think she was fine, that she was happy. But that smile—it’s her fake smile, the one she has when she wants to show she’s okay, but really isn’t. It’s the smile she’d give me before a show, when she was shaking from the fear of singing in public. It’s the smile that would be replaced, later, by a real one, a genuine one that would melt my heart and make me want to keep it to myself forever, hidden away from anyone else’s view, else they’d see the magic she has.

  She gave me that smile—the real smile—the last day I was with her, two months ago. I didn’t want her hurt by the fact that I was leaving. I didn’t want to see her sad, so I kept trying to keep her happy. We were lying on the couch, squished close together. Her parents were on their way home, so we’d come downstairs and were pretending to watch a movie, when really I couldn’t keep my hands off her. We both knew what the next day held, but we didn’t think about it. I didn’t want either of us to feel the loss already. So I kissed her as much as I could, and when my hand went to her hip, her shirt came up a little, exposing a sliver of skin.

  “I love this, right here,” I said, rubbing the skin with my thumb.

  “Then it’s yours,” she said, with that smile, and her eyes burning impressions into my soul. I kissed her again and again until we had to release in fear of drowning in one another.

  I thought I was right in leaving her like that. I thought it would make things easier, but seeing her in these pictures, I’m not so sure.

  I made the decision right after my family and I found out about Chris. Mom was hell-bent on moving here, but I didn’t get it—I didn’t even know how we could support him—he was in jail, what more could we do? Turns out, a lot. We could be threatened and burglarized by the guy Chris owed money to. We could be endlessly frightened and followed. We could be the people who turned in the real seller, and got my brother cleared for most charges and moved from jail to rehab.

  It’s been a long two months.

  But at the time, I just hated Chris for taking me away from Orlando. From Ella.

  The thing was, I made Orlando home—I had Jake, who with all his faults became a weird sort of best friend who took me under his leather-clad wing. I had our band, the Pepperpots, which was steadily getting gigs and making me feel part of something. I had Barker and Gabby. I had Meg, Jake’s girlfriend, as crazy as she was. And, yeah, I had Ella, who brought meaning to everything. Who sought me out and gave me meaning. Who understood everything I went through and never gave me pity, just a second chance.

  And, God, she was hot.

  But I also had my brother, and blood is stronger than anything. My path was chosen for me.

  I told her that we were leaving because of a “job” my dad got—and she promised we’d be okay. That long distance would work. She was crushed—I was crushed—so she had to believe in something. But I didn’t. I was afraid it wouldn’t work, I was afraid of how close we were getting, and I didn’t want to bring her into my new life, one I hadn’t even told her about.

  And so I said good-bye that night before we left, and she cried, and I held it in, and we made false promises that nothing
would keep us apart. I closed my eyes when we hugged good-bye, because I didn’t want to know anything other than her.

  “Is Ella going to come by before we leave?” my mom asked while packing the car.

  “Nope,” I said, as passive as possible.

  “You said good-bye yesterday?” she asked. She liked Ella a lot. She wanted me to have a normal life, eagerly invited people over, like that first night, when we spent the night saying yes to everything. It was past midnight, and my mom was cool with the four of us—me, Ella, Jake, and Meg—crashing at the house. She had pizza ready for us.

  That night, we all slept in the living room, the girls on the two couches, and Jake and I on the floor. I was right next to Ella’s couch the entire night, and when she dropped her hand to mine before falling asleep, I held on and didn’t let go.

  I close my laptop and rest my head on my hands. I can’t do this. I can’t torture myself with the past. I can’t be riddled with what-ifs and regret.

  I pull out my phone and see the text still there. I should have deleted it earlier, after reading it during lunch. I should have thrown my phone into the trash. But I couldn’t. Because it was Jake, and I know, just seeing his words, that I hurt him almost as much as I hurt Ella. Because much like his father, and other people in his past, I let him down, too. I open the message.

  Stop being such a dick. Call Ella. Do one decent thing and end it. You owe her.

  My plan sucked.

  CHAPTER 2

  “We’re home!” Mom calls out. In one week I’ve managed to become semiexcited for Chris to be home. I don’t know what it’s going to be like, having him around again. He’s changed so much since . . . before everything. But once we were best friends, and I can almost see us slowly slipping back into that. Maybe he can help me. I still haven’t responded to Jake’s text.

  I come out of my room and see her and Chris walking in. Mom’s making his homecoming more exciting than it should be, with his favorite dinner premade and even a cake. She seems to forget he’s on probation, and this isn’t just her son visiting from college.