“Hey…” Matt shifted closer. “Come here. You look like you’re contemplating running away forever. I’m sorry. We don’t have to talk about this if you don’t want to. I just- I- you have me now. If you want to talk, I’m not going to run the other direction.”
He would probably leave, just like Ben did. He wrapped an arm around Callie and pulled her close. She went, gave in to the warmth of him, the allure of his body, the hard, broad chest and the crisp smattering of male hair and the delicious scent of skin and sweat and sex. She let him hold her, let herself feel powerless and oddly peaceful up against him. She let him comfort her with his silent strength. I won’t give him the chance.
“Imagine yourself at fourteen…” Matt’s hand paused on her arm. He was clearly confused at the abrupt change of subject. “Go on, imagine it. I’m- I’m going to attempt to talk about it, but… there are other things that need to be explained first.” She couldn’t really believe how calm she was being. Everything inside of her screamed at her to be quiet, to keep her secrets inside, to not wound herself further with yet another person’s condemnation. Her heart ached, and it was that she listened to. Just for one night, for once, she wanted that pain to be a little lighter than it had been for so very long.
“Okay. Myself at fourteen.”
Matt stroked her hair away from her forehead. It felt nice, the touch of his firm fingers dancing along her scalp. She turned into him and draped an arm across his chest. Her mouth was right above his nipple and she tried not to look at it, the way it was still slightly hard. Worse, she had to control her tongue from snaking out and tasting it. What is wrong with me? God… one second we are talking, the next I’m so distracted I can’t even think straight. It’s because I’m a mess. One hot mess.
“Myself at fourteen…” Matt went on. “I guess I would have fucked everything in sight. Or at least tried to. Teenagers are horrible. They are these walking- just- walking hormone bags.”
“You wouldn’t if you grew up in Hundville.”
“Where? Hundwhat?”
“Hundville. Population of four hundred. Half an hour north of St. Paul, Minnesota. For the town being as close to a large city as it was, it was so- backwoods.”
“I would have expected that down south, but really? Up there?”
“Yeah. I- it was a crazy religious town. Not the kind that does bad things. At least, not overtly. The kind that kills with silent judgment. I swear you couldn’t even be in your house and take a breath without someone knowing and talking about it.”
“Oh. That kind of thing.”
“Yeah. The kind where everyone goes to church on Sunday, there were two churches and no bars, but then the rest of the week they just forget that they are supposed to be nice good people. Unless their neighbor or someone else messes up. Then they are pretty quick to remind them.”
“So, you grew up there?”
“My mom and dad worked in St. Paul. They commuted since that was less than the cost of houses in the city. I hated Hundville. I hated that they made my sister and I live there. I hated that there was nothing to do and nowhere to go. It got worse as I got older. I was always a deep thinker. I had too much independent thought, that was the problem.”
“I could imagine it, in a small town like that.”
“When I was fourteen, this family moved to town. It was actually the church closest to our house. It got a new pastor and that pastor had two sons. One of them was in my grade. Johnathan. He was- he was incredible. My fourteen year old self thought so. I started taking notice of how I looked. I started doing my hair every day. I started caring about what I wore. I wanted to wear makeup, but that was out of the question.”
“It’s hard being fourteen,” Matt said sympathetically.
“It gets worse.” She braced for judgment, for a stream of questions, but none came. No, of course not. He hasn’t heard the worst of it yet. “So, it turned out, that what they said about pastor’s kids was true. At least, it was about Johnathan. He noticed me too. I probably wasn’t very subtle. It wasn’t long before we were sneaking out. I said I was at volleyball practice or basketball or going to do homework or watch a movie at friend’s houses. My curfew was eight and I was always home before that.”
“Sounds like something kids do.”
“Not in Hundville. It wasn’t the kind of town where anyone did that. No one cheated, no one got divorced. People didn’t drink. They didn’t do drugs.”