Page 70 of A Smart Girl's Guide to Second Chances
I stared at him.
‘I wasn’t giving you space. I thinkIneeded some space to think,’ Matt admitted. ‘I never understood why you were so obsessed with the curse. I didn’t get it. You’re so rational, and this fixation was soirrational. But on the way back from my buck’s, when you told me that you’d made a mistake on our wedding form... well, I did just enough psychology at uni to wonder if maybe sometimes a mistake isn’t a mistake. That it’s a manifestation of what we unconsciously, secretly want.’
I felt like I was on one of those theme-park rides where the bottom fell out from under your feet. Except my solid ground was Matt. Or it had been. My cream silk shirt began to cling to me as I broke into a nervous sweat.
‘And the one question,’ Matt continued, ‘I’d kept pushing down for the last few months finally came to the surface and just kept circling around my mind: Does she believe in the curse because she doesn’t want to marry me?’
He reached for the stem of his glass with a slightly shaky hand but didn’t take a sip.
‘I’d been flying to Sydney for work so much that I think I convinced myself that going to the airport and buying a plane ticket wasn’t really a big deal. I knew that if I went to stay with my parents or one of my sisters, I’d have to tell them what was going on. And I knew that if it was easy to come home and be with you, then I would. And I wouldn’t be able to think clearly. I’d just keep organising our wedding, stay busy checking everything off our list. But I did need some time to think.’
I stared at him in shock. Matt had fled to another state. Because he’d needed space. From me. Because, deep down, he didn’t think I wanted to marry him.
As I took a sip of my own wine, I felt that door deep inside me, wide open for the first time in decades as I’d poured my soul into my vows, slam shut. I’d thought that Matt was the one person who would never, ever blindside me. I’d been wrong. I couldn’t taste the chablis, which was almost certainly excellent.
‘The curse is broken.’ I could see his face fall when he realised that I hadn’t protested, that I hadn’t screamed,Yes, of course I want to marry you, Matt!
‘What?’ he finally asked, looking confused.
‘It turns out that Alex proposed to me on our last night together in Oxford,’ I said quickly. ‘I didn’t remember it because I’d taken a Xanax after drinking, and I lost a few hours.’
‘You got engaged. But you were so high on prescription drugs you don’t remember it. Actually, that’s a good thing because you broke your family’s curse, which you don’t believe in except you really, totally do.’ Matt neatly summarised exactly what I’d said with a dangerously steady voice.
I nodded. I could tell that he was annoyed, that by mentioning the curse I’d flung petrol onto the flames of his doubt.
‘But that’s not good news, Becs. If we follow the logic of the curse, I’m the second fiancé, so we’ll make it down the aisle. But we’ll be the ones in a terrible marriage. I’ll be your alcoholic, emotionally repressed grandpa. Or your workaholic, self-centred dad.’
I felt every muscle in my body stiffen.
‘I think we’re getting distracted here,’ I said. ‘You lied to me. You ran away to another city instead of talking to me about our relationship. I had to chase you across the country to try to fix a mistake.’ I pulled the form, a bit crumpled after a day of travel,out of my bag. I pushed it across the table towards him. Matt’s face fell.
‘Yeah, I’m sorry, that was really shit of me,’ he said. ‘Sometimes I’m not... very good at facing up to things. My instinct is just to smooth things over. I thought if I gave us some space then, I don’t know... everything would be okay.’
Matt hated conflict. He would always give someone the benefit of the doubt, to decide that something wasn’t worth kicking up a fuss about, to try to see the bigger picture. I knew that tendency made him so excellent at his job – he instinctively knew how to forge a path through tricky situations. It was one of the qualities I admired in him.
He picked up the piece of paper sitting in front of him. To an outsider, it might have looked as though he was reading it carefully. But I knew him well enough to see that his mind was elsewhere, that he couldn’t even see the words on the page in front of him.
‘Can I have a think about this?’ he asked. I felt my stomach churn. Matt looked surprised by his own words.
Not again. Not you, Matt. Please don’t leave me. Everyone always leaves.
A wave of nausea rolled through me. I felt like someone had turned off the light switch in my brain, as if everything was darkness. I bit my lip and didn’t reply. Because I knew that whatever I said would be a version ofplease stay– in this caseplease marry me. And I couldn’t, not again.
‘Why don’t we have breakfast together tomorrow morning?’ he suggested. There was no invitation to stay with him. I didn’t even know the friend he was staying with.
I wanted to say no, to tell him that I had to get home. But I recognised the expression on Matt’s face, I’d seen it once before when he’d talked about his childhood, about a lifetime of being overlooked. I felt something in me soften slightly.
‘Okay,’ I managed to get out.
‘How’s your mum?’ Matt asked.
‘She’s having surgery on her ankle tomorrow, but she’ll be able to go home the next day,’ I said. ‘She’s been at Dad’s hospital.’
‘That must have been weird for you,’ he said.
‘Yeah,’ I said. I knew that he was trying to comfort me. The fact that he knew how this situation would affect me felt like salt in the wound rather than a balm.
‘I’ll see you tomorrow,’ I said, standing up and turning away from him quickly before he could see the tears welling up in my eyes.
