Page 99 of If We Were Young

Back down the stairs I made my way to the kitchen and leant against the AGA. The room was a little warmer now and I guessed the boiler had begun to work and heat the old house; either that or my blood still boiled from Matthew sex. Reaching over, I flicked the kettle on and then searched for mugs.

I discovered a lot of healthy food. Seeds, nuts, crackers that looked like cardboard. I’d found at least a partial answer for the washboard stomach.

I was all for the gym and working out, even more so the last five years, but I couldn’t resist a bowl of pasta. Ma said it was the only part of my Italian heritage I’d ever truly embraced. She wasn’t wrong.

Once I’d opened every cupboard in the place and found the makings of tea and while I waited for the kettle to boil, I looked at some framed photographs on the wall. The frames were all black, and the photos seemed to date right back. Matthew with his boys, none of their mother. It gave me a little pang in my chest. Not of guilt, or relief even. More the fact that it was heart-breaking that the beautiful man upstairs didn’t want to keep a record of his marriage in his new house. It showed a bitterness that I wouldn’t have expected from Matthew. I chuckled to myself and shook my head. He was angry at you for fifteen years and you didn’t do anything wrong.

I’d have to ask him about it.

I wanted to know everything about him.

What made the boy with the pencil behind his ear and the paint-soaked fingers grow a bitter edge like that?

I moved to the next frame where Matthew smiled alongside an older couple. It must be his parents, I guessed. He had their looks. His dad’s smile and defined cheekbones, his mother’s dark hair.

The next frame was a younger Matthew still. He was loitering outside a shop. His dad was laughing and had a broom in his hand. Matthew was not laughing. Tall and skinny, his dark hair was standing on end. He was the Matthew I met my first day at university, staring at me out of the picture like he lounged against that dorm doorframe all those years ago.

I should have told you how I felt the moment I met you.

I huffed out a breath and for a long intense moment, breathing became painfully impossible. My chest so tight, my heart thudding uncontrollably, my legs numb and heavy.

I stared at that face, smooth and achingly handsome. He should have had all the girls all over him on campus, but he never did. It was always just the two of us; holding hands as easy as it was to laugh and talk.

I stepped closer to the picture looking at all the details, memorising it. I didn’t see it at first. So focused on the tall and gangly boy with the folded arms, I didn’t look at the bigger picture, but then something made me look over his head. The shop sign was bright green. Carling Supersavers. I looked closer and tried to get it to make sense. The name can’t change.

Carling Supersavers…

Supersaver Foods.

It had changed.

Oh.

“He used to think he was so funny.” I jumped at Matthew’s voice. I couldn't turn to look though, I’d walked into secrets within these photographs that my old friend had never told me. Three years at university together, three years holding hands, studying together. Late nights with endless talk and yet it seemed there were some things he’d never said. “‘Matthew, my boy. Don’t you see, I’m the supersaver. They all come to me when they need food. I save them.” He transformed his voice into a deeper timbre, impressive with his as low as a bass anyway.

“It’s just one shop though?” My tone tightened. “You never told me.”

“Told you my dad was a greengrocer? While I’m walking you home to your mum and dad’s huge semi in the suburbs of Surrey every day. Hardly, Ronnie.”

I turned to face him. Leant against the doorframe, he looked like an echo of the past, his arms still crossed, dressed in drool-worthy tracksuit trousers which hung low on his waist.

“That’s rubbish.” I shook my head. “You never had to not tell me things about yourself. I told you everything about me, about how Ma wouldn’t let me live in halls. How I hated being the student who had to commute in every day while all the rest of you were having fun and I was still being called to find out when I would be home for dinner.”

I glanced back at the photo and the boy with the anger on his face.

“You were ashamed of him?”

Matthew shifted forward, his steps almost silent. His fingers brushed at my hair. “He was ashamed of me. Couldn’t understand why I didn’t want to get involved with the family business, why I insisted on doing the art and design degree.”

“You were different from one another?”

“Very much so.”

“What happened?” This was the key to understanding the Matthew now to the one then. Something must have happened.

“I became who he wanted.”

“Why?”