Explanations

Before answering Matt’s text on Saturday, I knew I needed to talk to one of the girls to see if they had any words of wisdom for me. I was like the little sister of the group with zero dating knowledge. Okay, maybe not zero, but pretty close. I had always focused on school and track, so I didn’t really have time for dating. I had the odd boyfriend in high school and summer flings, but never anything long term or serious. Maddi had been dating her boyfriend for a while now, Elena had just gotten married. (Yes, married!), and Aleah was hardly ever single. In fact, we kind of made a deal over summer to help her enjoy some time to herself and be single so she agreed to not date anyone until coming back to school. She also had some family stuff going on in her life recently so I made the suggestion so she could invest her time and energy in herself and her family. Regardless, they all had more experience in the dating game than I did so I thought it would be best to talk to one of them before deciding on anything.

I walked into the apartment on Saturday night, Matt’s text still sitting open on my phone. I could tell by how dark and quiet the apartment was that no one else was home. I decided to call Elena; after all, she was married so I figured she would have some good insight. I also missed her a lot and hadn’t really had a chance to talk to her in a while.

“Hello?” She answered cheerfully after a few rings.

“Hey pretty lady! How’s married life?” I asked.

We chatted for a little bit and caught up before I told her everything about Matt, including our date and the text he had just sent.

“Wait” she said. “He’s your TA?” She sounded pretty surprised.

“Yeah, he’s young though, and I don’t know what the rules are around that so I’m keeping everything low key until I figure all this out. I don’t want the guy losing his job or anything; he transferred out of state for it.”

“Hmmm. That’s not like you Sar” She said back.

“I knowwww” I whined. “Ugh, I don’t know what to do.”

“Okay, do you want my honest opinion?”

“Of course!”

“I think you should hear him out. In the years that I have known you, I have never heard you talk about a guy the way you talk about him. If he’s distracting you that much, then there are obviously some feelings there that you should explore.”

I thought about what she said, and she was right. Maybe I was overthinking everything and there was a simple explanation for the other night.

“You’re right. I’ll tell him that we can meet up and talk.” I said.

We chit chatted a bit more before saying goodbye, and promising to plan a girls night with all of us the following week.

After hanging up I pulled up Matt’s text and typed my reply.

You’re not an ass, but yes we can do a re do J When were you thinking?

His reply came within a few minutes.

Brunch tomorrow?

My Sunday was wide open so I figured it would be good timing. We decided on a time and place to meet and with that, I flopped onto my bed and slept right through the entire night.

 The next morning I took my time showering and getting ready before heading out to meet Matt for brunch. We met at my favourite place to go for breakfast and when I got there, Matt was already sitting at a booth with 2 cups of coffee sitting in front of him. He didn’t look like he had the first few times I had seen him. He had slight stubble growing in and bags under his eyes – he looked like he hadn’t slept in days; however, when he saw me walking towards the table he immediately smiled and his eyes brightened.

“Hey!” He said cheerfully, as I slid into the booth. “I ordered you a coffee”

“Thanks!” I said with a smile and started looking over the menu, which was pointless because I got the same thing every time I went. My go to breakfast was called the Sunrise Special. It was a crepe stuffed with egg, grilled ham, and cheddar cheese that was rolled up in the crepe and grilled to make a panini. It was a panini crepe, and probably the best thing in the world.

After ordering and making some small talk, I could tell Matt was nervous about bringing up the other night so I decided to just go for it.

“So, how’s the truck?” I asked anxiously.

“Oh you know, couple grand in damages, could be worse…” He said back.

I couldn’t tell if this was his way of making light of the situation or if he was just one of those people who didn’t hold onto grudges. Judging by how angry he was on Friday though, I don’t think it was the latter.

“I know I owe you an explanation. I’m sorry for just closing off from you the other night, my adrenaline was going and I was pissed about my truck…”

I nodded “Rightfully so.”

He sighed heavily before continuing “I don’t usually talk about my upbringing to people so it’s hard for me...”

Just then our breaky arrived but I was too nervous for what he was going to tell me to even enjoy my food. (Okay let’s be honest, I still devoured it and loved it, but my stomach was doing flips)

In between bites he took my hand, which surprised me, and look at me with so much sincerity. “There is something different about you. Something that makes me feel comfortable. The fact that you agreed to hear me out after Friday night shows you don’t judge a book by its cover. Even some of my closest friends don’t know much about my background and I like to keep it that way.”

I nodded as I continued eating. Shoveling food into my mouth was the only thing preventing me from asking a million questions. Patience, Sarah, he’s getting to it I thought.

What kind of background could he have that made him so closed off from even his friends? Was he in the mafia or murdered his entire family?! I started panicking with the thoughts inside my head.

“I had a really shitty childhood” He blurted out while staring down at his plate. It was if he wanted to tell me everything but couldn’t look at me in the eyes. He took my silence as a cue to carry on.

“I never knew my father. I don’t think my mom even knows who my dad is. She spent the majority of my childhood sleeping with different guys she would meet at the pub in our town before finally settling down with a fucking lowlife I now get to call my step father. She’s struggled with addictions her whole life. I don’t know why, she had a great family and came from a very privileged background but at some point just strayed down a wrong path. My grandparents were great to me and tried stepping in multiple times to take my brother and me away from my mom, but she wouldn’t allow it. She would beg them for money, saying that we needed food and clothes, but whenever they gave her any she would immediately spend it on booze or whatever the drug of the week was at the time. They caught on to what she was doing and cut her off. That’s when they tried taking custody of us, and things got messy.”

I was so entranced in what he was saying that I had stopped eating and was just staring at him. At this point, the waitress had walked by a few times, but she could obviously tell it was an intense conversation because she hadn’t interrupted us once which I was grateful for.

“Anyways, right after my mom married my step dad, my grandparents refused to let us live in that house. They knew that my mom and James would use together, drink together, forget we were even there, and have all night benders with the rest of their junkie friends. I even saw one of their friends almost die of an overdose right in our living room. So, it ended up going to court and my grandparents were granted full custody of us when I was 14. Once I moved in with them, everything started looking up. We felt love, we got cared for, proper meals, help with our homework, basically everything that a normal child gets from their parents. My grandparents were absolutely wonderful and I don’t know where I would be today if it wasn’t for them…” He said with a sigh and looked me in the eyes finally.

“Matt, I’m so sorry you had to go through that. I can’t believe you turned out so well put together after all that.” I said as I looked empathetically at him. Something still didn’t make sense though. “I’m confused though, what does that have to do with your truck the other night?” I asked

“Well, my grandparents died about 2 years ago, within 4 months of each other. Because my mom was an only child and they had no relationship with her after they took custody of us, they left everything in their will to me and my brother. Since they also paid for both of our schooling, neither of us have any debt so we have just saved and invested the money.”

“Anyways, once they died, my mother started trying to contact me, so did James. She was furious, and thought that we owed it to her to give her the hefty inheritance they left us. As much as I would love to see her get better, I know she won’t. They’re both still major junkies, I’m surprised neither of them has dropped dead to be honest. About 8 months ago, James started threatening me and my brother, saying he would arrange to have someone “take us out” if we didn’t help them out. That’s when I decided to take the TA job here and get as far away from them as possible.”

Things started to make a lot more sense now. No wonder he didn’t talk about himself much on our date. I started feeling a great deal of sadness for him and what he went through growing up.

“So, James? Was he the one who trashed your truck?” I asked.

“Yeah, I guess he found out where I am living now. I dunno if he’s just trying to scare me or what. I’ve had it though. I had to deal with enough of their shit growing up and I just want to move on, you know?”

I nodded back to him and reached out to touch his hand. “Thank you for explaining. You didn’t need to tell me everything but I appreciate that you did and that your comfortable talking to me” I smiled at him. This was a lot to take in. Was I putting myself at risk by hanging out with Matt? Even though there were a million thoughts going through my mind, I also couldn’t help but notice that there was still a flutter in my tummy when I touched his hand.

It was as if he was reading my mind as I was contemplating what to do “So, did I scare you off for good or do you think you could put up with me long enough for me to take you on a proper re do date?” he asked me with a weak smile.

There were so many reasons to not give this a try and just walk away. It would be easier and probably safer but I needed to stop over thinking things and just go with my gut. And my gut was telling me there was something here.

I gave him a big smile and answered, “I would love to.”