Life Reconstructed: Chapter Thirty-Two

Cat stayed late at work the following evening. Much though she hated to admit it, she couldn’t quite manage to get Mary’s words out of her head. Or Matt’s for that matter. In their own way, each had told her the same thing. She was so focused on other people that she didn’t seem to be seeing herself.

Cat frowned, staring down at her computer absently. The problem was, she wasn’t sure exactly what she was supposed to do about that. Fact was, she didn’t actually feel like she was running away from her problems. Just the opposite. For the first time in years, she felt excitement, anticipation, and familiarity with the life she was living—with the people she was getting to know.

With the projects she’d started or helped along. Those had led her to…well, to everything. That’s how she met Matt and Alex. Those projects cultivated the bond she now shared with Amelia. In an indirect way, they’re even how she got on a Canasta team.

At the thought, her eyelids jerked. Sitting guiltily on the left side of her desk was the black binder, the one she’d sworn she’d destroy today. The one that should have been empty, all contents sitting on the wrong side of the shredder. But there it remained, perfectly intact.

Staring at it now, she felt her fingers seize over keyboard. It wasn’t stubbornness that kept her from tossing it in the garbage heap. It was…something different, harder to describe. And weirdly enough, it had nothing to do with Matt. Gaze narrowing, Cat felt her teeth scrape up against her bottom lip as a new thought occurred to her.

Then again, maybe Matt and Mary had been right all along. There was one thing that hadn’t changed in her life. One thing that remained fine. Good. Okay. There was one thing that her projects hadn’t affected. Though, in their own way, they’d been the catalyst to this moment.

Her eyes bounced from the contents of the binder to the computer screen in front of her. Her fingers inched over to her mouse. Opening up her internet browser, she typed in her question.

Cat didn’t call Matt that evening as she left for work. Turning her phone to silent, she lifted her chin to a daring angle. She wasn’t interested in having her enthusiasm dashed by him again. This time, this time she wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of validation.

She didn’t need his approval.

Climbing inside her vehicle, she determinedly ignored the small voice in the back of her head, whispering the unnecessary observation that there was now yet one more thing she couldn’t talk to Matt about.

Frowning, she cranked over the ignition. Backing out of her parking spot, she spent the remainder of her drive assuring herself that there were a lot of things that she and Matt could still talk about. That she was overthinking things. Overreacting.

It was oddly comforting to hear the lies—even as she knew them for what they were.

 

 

 

Wednesday only seemed to prove those thoughts true. Waiting nervously, her hands pushed deeply into her front pockets, Cat watched the superintendent of her building check out the newly painted kitchen. He’d called Tuesday evening and inquired over the project. After she’d assured him that everything was done had his true intentions been known. He needed to stop by to do some inspections for a unit that had recently been vacated—he figured it wouldn’t hurt to check out the kitchen at the same time.

Cat hadn’t been fooled by his words. Translation: he wanted to make sure that when she inevitably moved out, he wasn’t going to be stuck with an apartment colored an unrented shade of paint.

Holding her breath when he entered the room, Cat waited for him to notice the door. Her eyes twitched to keep from looking directly at it. Instead, she leaned up against the table and kept up a steady flow of small-talk, anything to keep him just distracted enough… It turned out to be unnecessary. Whistling, he circled around, his double chins wobbling with the movement of his body as he took in the fresh space.

And then, suddenly, he was looking right at the newly constructed door. Cat held her breath. Then his eyes moved on to the next one. “It looks good, Ms. Cryer,” he said, using her last name because he probably couldn’t be bothered to remember her first. Cat didn’t mind.

Clapping her hands together, she smiled demurely, her eyes glancing down at the floor. “Thank you. I’m pretty happy with it, myself.”

“Good, good. Well, I won’t keep you any longer—that is, if there’s nothing you need from me?” But it was clear from the haunted look on his face he wasn’t interested in any forthcoming complaints.

“No, no,” she rushed to assure him. “I’m good. And, um, thank you for letting me, uh, make this place a little more my own.”

He grunted in response. That was literally as socially polite as the man could make himself out to be. Again, Cat didn’t mind.

When he left moments later, the heavy door shutting behind his bulk, Cat reached instinctively for her phone. Calling Matt, she waited impatiently for him to answer. This. This was something they could talk about. Grasping for the phone with almost frenetic movements, she waited for him to pick up.

“McBoy’s Hardware Store—”

“Matt,” Cat rushed to say. “Grant just left my apartment.”

“Who?”

She took a deep breath. “The landlord, er, the Super.”

“Oh.”

Cat frowned. “And he loved the kitchen.”

“Oh, good…” Cat told herself she imagined the slight indifference in his voice, in his very lack of words.

“It’s official,” she pressed on, her fingers gripping the phone almost violently. “He didn’t notice a thing.”

“Not even the new paint?”

“Well, of course he noticed that,” Cat told him slightly exasperated. “That’s why he came.”

“Hmm.”

“But the door—Matt, he totally didn’t notice the door.”

“I thought that was the whole point?”

“Don’t tease me, Matt.”

The chuckle she heard on the other end of the phone warmed the insides of her stomach, and suddenly the block in her airways opened. Clutching her phone, Cat wished she could see his face.

“So how’d it feel? Taking your first real deep breath since it happened?”

“Amazing. So amazing, in fact, that I want to celebrate tonight.”

“Uh, tonight?”

Cat’s stomach tightened again. Don’t overthink it. Don’t overthink it. “Tonight’s not good?”

“Well…I’m just about finished with Amelia’s closet and I was hoping…”

“Oh!” Cat said, her voice taking on a pitchy quality. Here it was again, that thing that they didn’t speak about. Since last Friday, she had yet to set foot in Matt’s workshop again. In fact, she hadn’t even gone to the hardware store. It felt too saturated with negative energy. Matt knew how she felt about the hardware store, and she knew how he felt about her feelings on the matter.

“No problem,” she rushed to explain now, her voice shoveling the words out of her mouth. “Another night this week then.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yeah. Of course.” Hanging up she told herself that she really was okay. It didn’t matter than Matt hadn’t invited her to come and hang out with him while he finished the project. It didn’t matter that there was this whole part of his life that she felt like she couldn’t talk about anymore.

And that it was slowly eeking out into other areas. At the thought, her eyes traveled down the piece of paper sitting on the kitchen table. The letterhead—with its telling government agency logo—was as undeniable as the sequence of the nine-digit numbers attached to the document.

Form SS-4

It was fine.

Mary was right. She was probably making it more than it was.

 

 

 

But as the days went by, Cat wasn’t so sure. Matt spent the night on Thursday. They sat on her couch after work and watched a light romantic comedy. He asked her about her day at the office but other than a brief anecdote about the world’s longest scarf that Janice spent her break working on, there wasn’t much to tell.

Which made her feel guilty. Terribly guilty.

She’d almost told him then. Her mouth had been open, the words trembling on the tip of her tongue—but then he’d leaned down on the couch, his mouth brushing against the hairs on the side of her neck, just above her ear. Shivery at the almost-contact, Cat had barely registered the words.

All thought of talk had gone out of her head. Shifting back against his shoulder, her mouth had tipped upward and it’d been all the invitation he’d needed.

The guilt had returned the following day. That is, until she’d received a call from Amelia.

“Oh my God,” Amelia had squealed over the phone during Cat’s lunchbreak. “It’s here and it’s…I’m so in love I’m considering moving in.”

“What?”

“The wardrobe. God, Cat I can’t believe you didn’t tell me.”

“The wardrobe?” Cat’s voice was mechanical, tense.

“Matt just dropped it off and, oh Cat, you minx. It’s, it’s, even more than I hoped for!”

Cat swallowed down the growing pit enveloping her stomach, crawling up her throat. Matt had finished her wardrobe. And Amelia thought that Cat had known about it. And why shouldn’t she? Composing her voice, Cat said: “Oh yeah?” It was weak, but it was the best she could do.

“He customized the shelves so that—”

But Cat wasn’t listening anymore. Chewing half-heartedly on a hunk of lettuce, she let her fork drop absently into her salad bowl. He’d finished Amelia’s piece, and he hadn’t even bothered to tell her.

It was mortifying. It was telling.

“…seriously, I can’t believe it.”

“I’m glad you like it.” Cat heard her voice as though through a fog.

“Like is not the word.”

Cat felt tears prick at her eyes. Her appetite disappeared. With a shove, she pushed her lunch away. “Um, listen Amelia I actually have to go.”

“Oh, sure, yeah—”

“Yeah, I’m sorry but I’ve got a client coming in a few minutes.” Which was a lie. Her next appointment didn’t start for almost two hours, but she just couldn’t do to this anymore.

Her pride was suffocating.

“Oh, sure. Of course.”

Staring at the clock long minutes later, Cat felt the first stirrings of anger take over her emotions. Turns out, Mary had been wrong. She wasn’t making a mountain out of a molehill. She wasn’t finding an excuse to fuel the letdown on anticipation (whatever the hell that really meant, anyway). Matt was shutting her out of areas of his life. Big areas. Areas that a few weeks ago she’d held a pivotal role inside.

The rest of her workday was a waste: she hardly remembered her afternoon meeting with Mr. Roberts or her follow-up interview with Amanda Yates. Her attention was focused on entirely one thing. The signal of the end of her day.

It came a little later than usual, because she had a few personal calls to make after finalizing some of the paperwork for Amanda, but she reminded herself that was actually a good thing: she couldn’t leave too early. It simply wouldn’t do to have a meltdown in the middle of the very public hardware store. Ending her last phone call, Cat loaded up her belongings before getting into her car. As she headed across town, she considered what she’d say.

But it didn’t matter. Walking inside McBoy’s Hardware Store ten minutes later, her head was empty of all but one thought: that she needed to find Matt, and she needed to find him now. Immediately.

Smiling up from the cash register, as she’d known he would be, was Cal Harris, the teenager that Matt had cover the last three store hours on the weekdays.

“Matt still here?” She asked, her voice clipped. He usually stayed until at least five, doing bookwork in his office, just in case Cal needed him.

“Yup. In the back…” But Cat was already gone, her feet smacking smartly against the tiling on the floor as she headed toward the rear of the building. Entering the back warehouse, she didn’t even slow down to let her eyes adjust to the dim lighting. With each step, her temper pricked, rising higher and higher.

“Cal, is that you?”

“Nope.”

At the sound of her voice, Matt’s head jerked up. Just entering from the from stacks of storage boxes, Cat had the small victory of watching the shocked surprise cross his face. Getting up from behind his workbench, Matt met her halfway.

“Hey, what’s up?”

“Look,” Holding her hand, Cat cleared her throat. “I get it. This part of your life is off-limits now, right?” Looking around, her gaze took in the entire warehouse, skipping over the pile of wood leaning against his table-saw, the smell of fresh-cut cedar permeating the air. “Probably, that’s my fault.”

Matt’s brows crinkled. “Cat…”

“But I mean, come on? You finished Amelia’s order and didn’t even think to tell me?” Cat straightened her shoulders. “Dammit, I was instrumental in this whole project but instead of hearing it from you, I had to sit and pretend not to be astonished when Amelia called to talk to me about it.”

“Wait a minute.”

“I kept thinking to myself, well, this will blow over and when it does—” Cat paused, shaking her head, her arms spreading wide. “How’s this going to work, Matt?”

“What?”

“I mean, we can’t even talk about this stuff anymore?” Her voice rose to an unnatural level. “I get it. I really do. This is just a hobby. But it’s still a big part of your life and now I’m just…cut off.”

“Cat.”

“And don’t you dare tell me I’m being dramatic. I’m not,” she insisted, stomping her foot. “I’ve felt the distance. You stopped talking to me, so I gave you your space, because I knew I screwed up with that whole staring a business idea, and I waited for you to…to let me back in. I bided my time and I told myself it didn’t matter. That it was fine. But it’s not. I don’t want there to be walls up.”

“Whoa. Hey, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you but—.”

“You had all of yesterday,” she reminded him.

Matt grinned. “Yeah, well, we got a little…distracted last night.”

“No, don’t make jokes.”

Matt let his head tilt a little to one side. She hated that particular look on his face, the one he wore when he thought she was being frivolous.

“Tell me you didn’t deliberately keep this from me?”

“You’re making it sound bigger than it is. It was a wardrobe, that’s all, not some secret identity.”

“Tell me,” Cat persisted, her arms clutching at her hips.

Matt sighed. Running a hand through his hair, he unconsciously dislodged some specks of sawdust.

“I said I was sorry about the business thing,” Cat reminded her, her lower lip trembling. “And you said it was over, done with.”

“It is.”

“Obviously not.”

Matt sighed again.

“There’s this whole part of your life that I can’t reach anymore.”

“You keep saying that, but you’re forgetting—as I think you’ve always forgotten—that it’s not all of who I am,” Matt said. “I’m more than just a guy who loves woodworking.”

“I know that.”

“Really? Then why aren’t you upset that I’ve never told you about the time I broke my wrist racing bicycles with my friends in the third grade? Or the fact that I’ve never told you I hate chocolate, or that I love professional hockey?”

Cat blustered. “That’s—that’s…”

“That’s also part of who I am,” Matt finished for her. “I hate bikes because of the memory of that fall. Won’t even get on one. And chocolate gives me migraines, which is why I won’t eat them. And—”

“Okay. Fine, you’ve made your point,” Cat considered, but her lips were in a thin, angry line across her flushed face. “But just because you haven’t told me about those things doesn’t mean you were hiding them from me.”

Matt opened his mouth and then closed it at her words.

“I won’t push you, Matt. I told you that. I apologized.”

“But you clearly haven’t actually let it go, yourself.”

Cat gaped at him. “Really?”

“It’s clearly still consuming your thoughts. You’re second-guessing everything I tell you and everything I don’t, but only as it concerns this goddamn subject.”

Cat sucked in a tough breath. “You know what?”

“What?”

“I’m leaving.”

“Dammit, Cat don’t be like this.”

Spinning on her heel, she only stopped long enough to lob over her shoulder. “And this time, don’t bother coming over after you’re done here.” Stomping back up the long hall, Cat could barely see the door by the time she reached it.

 

The post Life Reconstructed: Chapter Thirty-Two appeared first on LitLiber.