Flat-Out Love - Park Jessica (книги txt) 📗

“What?”

“Did you know that Celeste used to play the piano? She was very good. She used to take lessons. In a gorgeous old building near here, off Memorial Drive.”

Julie couldn’t figure out where he was going with this.

 “Guess who was walking home from her lesson just in time to see the accident?”

“Oh, Matt…” Julie could hardly speak.

“Yeah. It was perfect timing, really. Celeste got to see the fire trucks and ambulances. She got to see the smoke billowing out of the family car, and best of all, she got to see her brother’s lifeless, bloody, mangled body.” Matt was speaking quickly now, the words spilling from his mouth as if pausing for too long would leave him even more unprotected than he already was. “The smoke? That’s why Mom doesn’t like having fires in the house. Or matches. We can’t light matches when she’s in the room because the sulfur smell gives her flashbacks. Airbags, I guess, have a similar odor. Ironically, Celeste likes having fires in the house. They make her feel closer to Finn.”

Julie stood up, and Matt walked away, turning his back to her. He leaned his shoulder against the window frame and stared outside.

“So the perfect family with the perfect son fell apart. Mom’s depression got totally unmanageable, and she checked herself into a psych unit for six months. Dad disappeared into his godforsaken ocean studies, and Celeste became nearly catatonic. I did what I could for her. I got her up in the mornings, I helped her get dressed, I fed her. I loved her. But it wasn’t enough. Don’t get me wrong. Celeste was never your typical kid. She’s always been eccentric. But Finn’s death destroyed her.”  All Matt’s walls were crumbling. All the secrets and the emotion that he had worked so hard to protect this year were coming out. Julie almost didn’t recognize the person in front of her. “And then, smart girl that she is, she ordered Flat Finn. Unbelievable. She just went online and ordered a replica of her brother. And that stupid cardboard thing brought her back. When Mom got home from her inpatient treatment, I tried to get her and Dad to do something for Celeste. Get her help.” He shook his head. “But they loved Flat Finn almost as much as Celeste did. Maybe part of me did, too. Because it kept him alive for us, in some sick, insane way. At some point, Celeste insisted that Finn would be on Facebook, so I did that for her. The Finn is God name was probably my jealousy. He was so damn perfect. Everybody worshipped him.”

“What about you, Matt? What happened to you?”

“Me? Nothing. I didn’t get to grieve because I had to take care of everything that my parents couldn’t. I don’t hold them accountable for that. There is no right way to react. Mom, in particular, didn’t like when I did anything that reminded her of Finn. He hated math and physics. In fact, he hated school. He wasn’t a bad student. Academics just weren’t where his heart was. So I did, and do, the opposite. I excel at school in ways he never could have.”

“Celeste made up the story about him traveling?” Julie asked.

“Yes. It’s actually something Finn would have done. He was just as great as she says he was. Those made-up stories about Finn helped her, and Flat Finn gave her something tangible to hold on to. And at the same time, while that goddamn one-dimensional picture has been keeping her afloat, he’s wrecked all of us. When we’re around Celeste, we have to act like Finn is alive, like his brains were never smeared all over the sidewalk.”

Julie flinched. “I don’t know what to say.”

“There was no obituary in the paper. My mother claimed it was because she would have felt obligated to print his real name, AnatolFinneus Watkins, and she wouldn’t do that to him. Finn hated his first name and only went by Finn. There was a tiny, private funeral.

“Nobody comes into the house. I know you’ve noticed. How could you not? Whatever my parents can do to keep up the pretense that their son is just away, that someday he’ll be home… Other people would ruin that scenario. My parents don’t talk about Finn’s death, and friends of the family and colleagues know not to bring him up. Mom and Dad pretend they’re doing it for Celeste, but it’s for them, too.” Matt spun around and let out a sad laugh. “It’s insane. I know that. It’s all entirely insane.”

“Why did your mom let me come into the house that first day? Why did she ask me to stay?”

“She felt a loyalty to Kate, I guess. I don’t know that I understand it. Maybe she was… I’m not sure. Looking for a way out of this. Looking to get caught. She could trust you because of her connection to your mother. You know how you feel about Dana? If you two didn’t talk for twenty years, you’d still be there for her if she needed you, right?”

Julie nodded. “Of course.”

 “I didn’t mean to lie to you. I didn’t think you’d be here that long. Nobody stays in our lives anymore. We’re all alone. So when you emailed Finn, I wrote back. You were easy to talk to, and I needed to feel close to someone. To you.”

“You should have told me. After you knew I was staying, you should have told me.”

“I know. My mom and I fought about that. I didn’t want you living here because she didn’t want you to know the truth, and I thought you should.  But she saw what we all came to see. That you are brilliant with Celeste. With all of us. You were this life force that we needed so desperately. I didn’t stop things between you and me—you and Finn—because it was the first time that I’d felt anything in so long. I got to be myself for the first time in years, with no constraints and no labels. You freed me.”

Julie crossed the room until she was standing in front of Matt. Her heart broke for him. She stepped in closer and took his head in her hands, making him look her in the eyes. “I’m so sorry.”

He didn’t say anything, and she could feel him trembling. God, he looked so drained.

“Why aren’t you yelling at me? You have to be angry,” he said quietly.

“I’m too sad to yell. I don’t get to be angry with you, do I? Your brother died, so I don’t get to be angry.”

He reached up and put his hands on her arms. “I never meant for this to become so complicated. I didn’t plan this.” His voice shook.

Julie touched his cheek softly and then ran her fingers over his lips. “This was never going to end well. You realize that, don’t you?”

“It could.”

“No. This is too messed up,” she told him.

“I know,” he said.

 “And you’re so broken.” She wiped a tear from his cheek.

“I know.”

“And you hurt me.”

“I know. I never, never wanted to hurt you. You have to believe that.”

“I understand. I really do,” Julie managed to say. “But what Finn and I had was real. And you wrecked that.”

“There was no you and Finn. There was you and me.”

“No.”

“This,” he said gesturing between them, “is real. You and I are real.”

“No, we’re not. We’re not anything, Matt. Not after this.”

“Don’t say that. Julie, please don’t say that. I fell in love with you. And you fell in love with me.”

She brushed the hair from his face and stepped in closer. There wasn’t anything she could do to fix this—she could put hinges on Flat Finn, but there were no hinges for grief and deception. Anyway, she was too shattered now to pick him up from this. Her heart was broken. She missed Finn. She missed the Matt she used to know. He looked so completely spent, so full of anguish. She stroked his hair as she cradled his head in her hands. If there were a way for her to take away his suffering, she would. He would do the same for her, she knew that.

She lifted her mouth to his, kissing him deeply. Deliberately this time. She knew what she was doing. Matt’s lips moved with hers, his emotion tangible, his aching too much. Julie let herself disappear into the moment. It was easier than thinking, than trying to understand what had happened. The words he had written to her as Finn played over and over: You can look back now and see how you should have known, but you were focusing on the facts instead of the feeling. Matt had been trying to prepare her.