Silver Linings

**Bonus post!**

“You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me” Matt mumbled under his breath.

We had just left the pub and realized someone had trashed his truck.

“I can’t believe someone did this!” I exclaimed. “Do you want me to go with you to file a police report?”

“No.” He said flatly.

“Don’t you think it’s better to have 2 people as witnesses to the damage instead of one? It might be better for insurance reasons and filing a report…” I said back. I couldn’t believe that no one saw what happened or tried to stop it, I mean who just trashes a random person’s truck?!

Although, there are a lot of high schools in the area so it could have been some kids thinking that vandalism is a good way to pass the time.

“I mean I don’t need to file a police report” He said while angrily walking around the truck to assess the rest of the damage.

“Wait, what do you mean you don’t need to file a report? Of course you do! I’m sure your insurance company will require that and how could you not…”

Matt cut me off. “I’m not filing one because I know who did it.” He started walking towards the driver door “Come on, I should get you home.”

I didn’t know what to say – we had just met each other so I didn’t want to pry into something that was obviously personal, but I also wanted to know what the hell was going on.

I got into the truck and looked over at him. His previously friendly eyes were icy now and his mouth was so tight I could see his jaw bone shaking. He put the truck in drive and sped out of the parking lot.

“Matt, who would do this to you? You just moved here, I don’t get it…”

“Look Sarah, we just met and you seem like a really great girl so I don’t want to drag you into something stupid, can we just drop it?” He said coldly, while still speeding.

I started going over various situations in my head that could explain what happened. It didn’t make any sense to me. Matt seemed like such a down to earth guy and had only been living here a couple of weeks so I had no idea why someone would go after him like that. I didn’t even realize we were back at my apartment until the closing of Matt’s truck door snapped me out of it.

He opened my door and walked me to the front of my apartment building.

“Umm, well thanks again for dinner. If you want to talk or if I can help with anything, just call me okay?”

He nodded and forced a small smile. “Thanks”

I turned to go inside when he gently grabbed my wrist. “I’m really sorry about tonight…” he said softly.

“It’s not your fault. I’d be pretty ticked too if someone did that to my car” I said while nodding and trying to understand what happened still.

He gave me a deep hug goodbye and it was if I could feel his tension and anger. I just wanted to help him or have him talk to me but knew that the night was over and it was best not to push anything with him this worked up.

After he left, I walked up to my apartment, cleaned my face, brushed my teeth and flopped onto my bed. Usually my mind would run rampant after something like that, causing me to toss and turn for hours but for some reason, I fell asleep within minutes of my head hitting the pillow.

_____________________________________________________________________________________

The next day was my dinner with Chloe so I was looking forward to having some catch up time with her. I also knew that having a good girl chat about my date with Matt would be helpful.

At 6:20 I heard the buzzer and ran over to let her in.

“Hey hey!” She sang as she came into the apartment.

I smiled at how she was always able to make everyone else feel as positive as her.

“Hey! I’m just about ready why don’t you grab 2 glasses of wine for us?” I shouted from inside the bathroom as I finished up straightening my hair.

“You mean a glass for me and a red solo cup for you?” She said teasingly with a grin.

“Oh shush! I’m quite capable of drinking from a GLASS and not breaking it” I mused back.

She just rolled her eyes with a smile “Whatever you say!”

We got to the tapas place a little after 7 and had to wait another 10 minutes before getting a table.

Once we were seated and each of us had a drink, we started talking about what we did over the summer and caught each other up on everything going on. I knew I shouldn’t have talked about going out with Matt since Chloe is on the track team too, and I didn’t want any gossip going around, (especially with Matt being a TA) but I knew that I could trust Chloe with my whole heart. It was also kind of hard to avoid talking about him since she brought him up anyways.

“So, did you notice that new hottie on the track team? He looks like some sort of Greek god. I mean he’s perfectly tanned and has movie star teeth!” Chloe gushed.

I blushed. “Ya, his name’s Matt. I, uh, actually went out with him last night…” I said while sipping my white wine.

“What?! And you’re waiting until now to tell be because?!” Chloe yelled. I’m pretty sure we got a dirty look from the older couple at the table next to us.

“Well it was kind of weird. He’s a TA for my social psych class too so I don’t really want anyone knowing we’re hanging out. Or hung out. Whatever it was.”

She held up her hand "Scouts honor! But what do you mean it was weird? Did you guys hook up?!” She asked excitedly.

I laughed a little “No! Come on Chlo you know me better than that anyways.” I continued on and told her about our whole night including the truck incident. When I finally looked up Chloe looked surprised and intrigued all at the same time.

“Crazy ex! That’s gotta be the only explanation. It’s totally something a psycho ex would do. Think about it, Sarah. She probably saw him out with another girl and went bat shit crazy” She said with confidence.

“I thought of that, but I get the feeling it’s not an ex” I replied. “He’s only been living here a few weeks, so that’s not long enough to have an ex.”

“She could be from wherever he lived before; did he mention anything that would give you a hint about it during dinner?” Chloe asked.

As I thought back to our conversation that night, I tried to think of any clues he would have given away but nothing came to mind.

“No, nothing. He was so angry after it happened though, and he doesn’t seem like the type to get that furious towards an ex-girlfriend. I think it was bigger than that but I don’t know for sure because we didn’t really talk after. He just dropped me off...” I said quietly.

“Where did he transfer from? Maybe we can cyber stalk him and see what’s up!” Chloe suggested.

I went to open my mouth to answer but closed it when I realized I didn’t have the answer to her question. I had no idea where he transferred from or what school he went to, where he was from, or anything about his family. He had spent most of the time asking about me and my background, that I realized I literally knew nothing about him.

“I…I don’t know. We spent most of the night talking about me and my background. It was so comfortable talking to him that I didn’t even realize he didn’t talk about himself once.” I said.

“Hmm, that is kind of odd. But maybe he was just trying to get to know you better and be polite?” She suggested with a smile. Oh gotta love ya Chloe, always looking for the silver lining and giving people the benefit of the doubt.

“Ya, maybe” I smiled back and changed the subject to our upcoming meet.

Chloe and I spent the rest of the night eating, drinking, and chatting about our summers and the school year ahead. Before we realized, it was already 11 and we headed home.

As I was walking back to my apartment, I kept thinking of the night before and how after talking about it with Chloe, I just got a weird feeling from everything. The fact that we only talked about me and he didn’t share anything about himself made me re think things. And then the truck incident. He refused to file a police report and said he knew who did it, yet he wouldn’t say anything else and said he “didn’t want to drag me into something”.

I was having a mental debate to myself. If Chloe was right and it was some sort of ex-girlfriend situation, I knew it was something I did not want to be involved in. Messy breakup with a crazy ex? No thank you. I know it would be easy enough to just cut ties since we only hung out the one time and is it really a good idea to start things up with a guy who has someone after them like that?

On the other hand, there was something about Matt that pulled me towards him. Despite the weird feeling about him not talking about himself and the whole truck thing, my gut was telling me he was different.

Ugh, why do I always over think everything?! I thought, as I was walking into my building.

Should I give him the benefit of the doubt and go with my gut? Or just take the easy route, call it a bad date, and keep our interaction to school and track?

Just as I got onto the floor for our apartment my phone vibrated with a text.

I pulled it out of my purse and saw it was from Matt.

I’m sorry again for last night. I feel like such an ass. Can I make it up to you? I need to explain some things…