Page 83 of Darkness Defined

Oneofthesedays,I was going to learn not to drink with Matt. All it did was make sure I made a fool of myself. I still wasn’t sure how much of the night had been real and how much imagined. Had he really said he wanted me to kiss him, or had that just been a product of wishful thinking on an uninhibited mind? That I hadn’t seen hide nor hair of him in days suggested the latter. He could be pretty bad with avoiding things he didn’t want to talk about, but this was taking it to a new level. At least when he was avoiding me before, he was still coming back to the dorm.

Whatever his issues or reasons, though, I needed to talk to him. We couldn’t go on like this. It had been hard enough pining for him in secret. That was gone now. He knew I was interested in him beyond friendship and we’d kissed… passionately. Just thinking about how he’d pulled me closer made me uncomfortable in all the best ways. We were definitely overdue for a conversation.

There was one glaring problem, however. I couldn’t find him. After I’d woken up Saturday, the only sign of Matt was the rinsed glass by the sink and the fresh cup of water he’d left on the coffee table. I searched everywhere, but he was nowhere to be found. Not in his room. Not at the cafeteria. Not in the training rooms. I’d even bumped into a few classmates that hadn’t gone home after finals, but they hadn’t seen him either. Apparently, wherever he’d holed up didn’t have prying eyes, or at least none of the places I thought he might be hiding.

Exhausted after yet another fruitless day of searching, it was time to face the truth I’d been avoiding with every cell in my body. Matt was gone. He wasn’t coming back. And it was my fault. There was always a chance that I was wrong, that this time when I returned to the dorm, it wouldn’t be empty. Despite the hopeful thought, I wasn’t really optimistic. A couple of days I could understand, but four was decidedly intentional. Honestly, I wasn’t sure why I was so determined to find him. He clearly wanted nothing to do with me. Maybe Daniel had been right all this time, and I was the problem. I swallowed past the sudden lump in my throat and realized I was staring at the lush green carpet outside our… my dorm room.

The door opened as silent as ever. My gaze instantly fell on Matt’s pack sitting by the couch like it did every other day. It looked like it had been slung there and some of the contents had spilled out. I frantically sought his door. It was closed. I didn’t care about respecting his privacy, I just wanted to see him. I was halfway there when the door slammed shut behind me.

“Alex? It’s about fucking time.”

I froze and looked around. At last, I found him stretched out between two of the kitchen chairs. His head was tilted back so I couldn’t make out his face. However, I could clearly see the almost empty bottle of tequila on the table beside him.

“Where have you been? I need your help,” he grumbled.

“Me? Where have you been? I’ve been worried sick.” It was only when the words were out that I realized how true they were. I’d practically been beside myself when no one seemed to have a clue where he’d vanished. I walked over as he casually dismissed my concern with a wave of his hand.

”’Mere. Need you to make sure my nose is straight.”

“What?” I stepped close and stifled a gasp at seeing the state of his face.

He rolled his head slightly to look at me, but his blue eyes were murky and lacked focus. “Make sure the damn thing is straight. I’ve gone this long and I’m not about to let one cheap shot land me with a crooked nose.”

I battled with my shock and floundered for words that wouldn’t come. Who had done this to him? Why was his nose broken? What did he expect me to do about it?

“Are you just going to stand there? Isn’t it bad enough that I had to set the damn thing myself? Which hurt like hell if you were wondering.”

“What even happened?” I asked, still perplexed about how we’d gotten here.

He scoffed. “Someone hit me in the face, obviously. Just look at the blasted thing.”

“I don’t even know what I’m looking for.” I leaned over to get a closer look. Whoever had done it had not been small. The bruise around his nose looked like it would cover half of his face at least once it set.

“All you have to do is see if it is smooth. You know what my nose is supposed to look like. Make sure it does.”

I leaned in more, stopping just shy of actually touching him, and squinted to inspect the damage. I could see where the break must have happened by the thin red line. As far as I could tell, it looked just as straight as ever.

“Matt I…”

His lips brush against mine and the words drifted off. I looked down at him just in time for him to crane his neck and steal another. After all of my anxiety over the last few days, I couldn’t help but kiss him back. I hadn’t imagined it, he really wanted to kiss me. The kiss grew more aggressive, and I pulled back.

“Matt, I don’t want to hurt you.” There was no way kissing was pleasant with an injury like that.

“Alex, I haven’t been able to feel my face for the last twenty minutes.” His hand slid through my hair and he pulled me back down so our lips could meet once more. Michelle Carter was a fucking idiot. Matt was an incredible kisser.

Every cell in my body was hyper aware that this was the first time Matt had initiated a kiss. It didn’t even matter that he was drunk yet again. Alright, it mattered a little, but I was too busy drowning to properly care. I loved kissing Matt. There was a whole other world there waiting to be discovered. Would there ever be a day that I wasn’t totally lost in him?

The chair screeched as it threatened to slide out from under him. I wrapped an arm around his waist to make sure he wouldn’t fall. At the contact, though, he let out a pained hiss.

My worry returned tenfold. “What?”

“It’s nothing,” he mumbled, “just my side.”

“Your side?”

“Yeah, but really, it’s nothing. Don’t worry about it.” He dropped his propped legs to the floor and shifted to get up.

I forced him back down and lifted his shirt. His side was a mass of bruises, black, blue, yellow, purple, pretty much every color but normal skin. “What the hell happened?”