Boy in a Band (A Morgan Mallory story) (39 page)

             
“What feelings are those?” he asked.

“The complex messy ones, the ones we never talk about.”

He laughed and it was like music to my ears.

Mathew and I spent the next day and night together.

             
“Once again she’s leaving my bed,” he mused. “I never did finish that song. Maybe it’s time.”

             
We were lying in his bed, my head resting on his chest.

             
“Don’t go beating yourself up over this, Morgan. And don’t get the guilt’s and tell Max. It would finish you two.”

             
Maybe be the best thing.
He ran his fingers through my hair, from my scalp to the end and back again. I closed my eyes, feeling the tug, hugging up against him.

             
“Don’t talk. Right now, what I want is right here. I can’t think about getting home, can’t think about my feelings for Max.” I said, swallowing hard. “About my feelings for you.”

             
I kissed his chest.

             
“I wish things weren’t always so convoluted when it comes to you,” I said.

             
He squeezed me.

“Simple, remember
? Just a boy in a band,” he said, rolling on top of me.

“That boy has never been simple
,” I said as I ran my hands down his back.

Mathew
dropped me at the airport. Once again I was getting on a plane with my heart aching. I called Max’s house when I got home. He didn’t answer, and I left a message on his machine. He called back about six.

             
“Long day?” he asked.

             
“Long day,” I answered feeling exhausted emotionally and physically.

             
“How was the rest of the trip?”

             
“Good.”

             
“Gayle?" Max asked.

             
“She’s good. I had a nice time with Bridgett and her.”

             
“Was Mathew at the wedding?”

             
He knew we had been long-time friends. He also didn’t hide it very well that it bothered him that I had a male friend. He thought it was weird.

             
“Yeah, he was there,” I said.

I
pictured him when our eyes first locked at the wedding, and saw him walk out of the bathroom at the hotel without his shirt on. I closed my eyes, pictured him driving, his white dress shirt rolled up.
Oh, Mathew
.

“You two spend all ni
ght talking and ignoring everyone else?” he asked, digging.

My eyes flew open.

              “We didn’t get much time to talk. He had a date,” I lied, wanting to divert any more specific questions.

             
“You sound tired.”

             
“I am. I think I’ll stay home tonight and see you tomorrow after work.”

             
“I’m pretty tired myself,” he said displeased.

             
I could tell he was miffed at me. He wanted me to come to him, but wasn’t offering to come to me. I wondered what I possessed that I seemed to attract the selfish men. I went to bed early and dreamed that I was sitting next to Mathew in a church. It was someone’s wedding. I kept trying to remember whose wedding it was. The groom was waiting with the minister at the front of the church, his face not clear to me. We kept looking up the aisle, but there was no bride. “Here Comes the Bride” started playing again, and I looked at Mathew.

             
“Something‘s wrong,” I said.

             
I looked back at the groom. He was looking directly at me, his face suddenly clear. I woke late and lay there thinking about the dream. The wedding part I could understand as I had just been to Melanie’s, but the groom confused me.
Why had he been looking at me, or was he looking at me with Mathew?
I closed my eyes and thought about us in bed together yesterday. I could see his face smiling at me. I thought I’d worked Mathew out of my heart. It had taken one night for him to get back in, to totally confuse my feelings about love.

I reflected back over the years
. I could hear him play. “Play for me” I would say. Kim jumped into my head. I could see him sitting at the end of the pool, Kim reclined against him, the afternoon he kissed me hard in the bathroom, the night I gave my virginity to Kevin. I tried to remember all the times we had been together since then.
Was it possible he still had such a hold on my heart, or was it just the memories that came flooding back when I saw him?

             
What I felt for Mathew was different from what I felt for Max.
What did I feel for Max? Did I truly love him? If I did, why would Mathew be able to reel me in like he did? How was I going to feel tonight when I saw Max?
I wanted to run back to Mathew. For the first time, I wanted to run to him, instead of away. I’d always sort of run away. If not physically, when he was an asshole, emotionally, tried to stuff it down; afraid of my feelings, afraid of what he made me feel for him, afraid of what I assumed he didn’t feel. I called Gayle.

             
“Are you surprised?” she asked when I told her how I felt.

             
“I didn’t think I would be so confused.”

             
“Confused about Mathew or Max?”

             
She was being a friend, listening not scolding.

“About my feelings for Max
. Mathew told me not to beat myself up about it, but I am. Don’t get me wrong, not about being with Mathew. I’m beating myself up on what I don’t feel. I should feel guilty as hell, but I don’t,” I said.

“Go see Max tonight
. Put Mathew out of your head. He’s not an option, Morgan. Mathew is like a drug to you. Knowing full well it’s not the best thing for you, you keep going back. I’m not judging, just been observing for years,” she said as she drew out the word
years
.

Chapter
44

I didn’t hear from Mathew for days
. I took Gayle’s advice for once and went back to Max. She was right; Mathew was not an option. He was not so easy to remove from my heart, however. He finally called a few weeks after the wedding, and we’d talked several times since then. We talked about the nights we had spent together recently and our past. We reminisced fondly; I could hear the miss in his voice. Anything else we kept light, simple. Living so far apart, and our lives wrapped up in where we lived, it was better for both of us that way.

When fall came
, both Mathew and I started back to school, and he started part-time as a paralegal. Kingdom Come was still playing gigs, but I think he had come to realize they might never make it big. His frustration was evident, and the partying seemed to be spinning out of control. He always played it down with me, but I could imagine. Having been in the back room of the Apollo only once, I knew that scene happened every time they played.

Over the next year
-and-a-half, I would be with Mathew two more times: once in Los Angeles when Kingdom Come played there, the other in San Jose when I went to visit Gayle. Both times he would recapture my heart. “Like a drug” Gayle said. She was right. I had picked my drug of choice long ago. I’d been unfaithful to Max three times, all with the same person. It made me have doubts about my ability to love or be committed to anyone, even Mathew. When we were together, it was intense. When we were apart, we went back to being best friends.

Max and I
had been growing apart slowly. I was focused on school and work; Max focused on work. Our relationship was going nowhere. My trysts with Mathew screamed at me that something was missing, otherwise how could I do it. I realized that I didn’t want to analyze it, so I kept pushing my feelings down. I remembered the summer Mathew told me to lose Ben; he had made me look hard at my feelings. Mathew had made me realize, all those years ago, that I didn’t love Ben; I’d loved the thought of being in love.

Ironically
, Max and I finally broke up over his indiscretion with another girl. He never did know about my rendezvous with Mathew. I thought about throwing it in his face when I caught him, but I didn’t. It wouldn’t have changed anything. The reality of my twisted thinking was that I with Mathew first, so I really hadn’t done anything wrong. I’d spent five years trying to make Max and me work. Like Ben, I realized that what we’d had wasn’t love, at least not love like I thought it should be. I was single for the first time, and it felt odd.

             
I was living at home again, full-time. I started San Diego State that fall after taking several years off school. I’d worked, and then moved to Park City, Utah with Pat to ski and work for a winter. The University was so much bigger than the junior college I attended out of high school. It was hard to get classes. Harder it seemed in every aspect. I thought I’d been grown-up at thirteen; now at twenty-four, I felt as if I knew nothing. It seemed I’d spent a lot of years going in the wrong directions. Now I was going through the motions of what I thought I should do, and I’d hit another roadblock. And emotionally, regarding men, I felt dead inside.

              “Morgan, it's Sara,” my mom called out to me.

             
Sara, Sara who?
I was thinking school, not San Jose.

             
“Hello,” I said, taking the phone from my mom.

             
“Morgan, it's Sara.”

             
I instantly recognized her voice. My mind raced back in time, and I pictured her smiling at me, the time I’d stood alone in the middle of his room.

             
“How are you?” I asked, surprised.

             
“I’m okay. And you?”

             
I hadn’t seen or spoken to Sara in years and suddenly the hairs went up on my arm.

             
“Good, busy,” I answered. “I started back to school. Trying to figure out what I want to do with my life. My last relationship blew up, and I figured I needed a new direction. What’s going on?”

             
There was a pause and all I could think was
please let him be okay.

             
“It’s Mathew. He needs you, Morgan,” Sara said softly.

             
I listened as she told me the story. He’d been in a car accident, hitting a woman head-on and injuring her very badly. High on alcohol and cocaine, he’d entered the freeway on an off-ramp. He had pulled into traffic in the wrong direction. He was okay minus some cuts and bruises. The woman he hit was rushed to the hospital and treated for numerous broken bones and lacerations. He was sent to jail.

The judge had since ordered him to a halfway house rehab facility for six months and to pay
restitution to the woman he hit. He had already been there three months. He was allowed to go to his classes and his job via the bus. Other than that, he was to be at the facility. I sighed with relief. It was bad, but could have been worse.

             
“I’m so sorry, Sara. It’s been a long time since Mathew and I have talked. Melanie’s wedding was the last time we spent a lot of time together.”

There was no need to mention the two times after that, she hadn’t been around.

“He called a couple times after that, but he’s not real good about keeping in touch,” I said.

             
I closed my eyes and pictured him propped up against the pillows at the Hyatt. The sheet rumpled just below his waist, his hair untidy from sleep. We’d talked of Cinderella, and the glass slipper. No there were no fairy tails, just life.

“He feels so bad about hurting someone
. He can be very sensitive, as you know. She almost died.”

             
“Good, god. What can I do to help?” I asked, feeling helpless.

             
I thought about his sensitive side, the one rarely revealed. The side of him that could find me a frog in the pond in Santa Cruz, the one who could say he’d missed me, when all I wanted was to smell the jasmine, the Mathew who played his guitar for a single audience, the one who’d confessed that he was glad I was still in his life after Melanie’s wedding.

“Come see him
,” she pleaded. “He won’t call you because he’s ashamed, that’s why I’m calling. He’s talked about you and could use some support. I know you two have been close over the years. He considers you one of his best friends.”

“He said that to you?”

I wondered what else he’d told Sara about me.

              “Yes. I know he values your friendship, more than values his past relationship with you,” she said, her words alluding to the fact she knew more.

             
“Morgan, can you come for a visit?”

             
I was silent a minute, thinking, wondering if I dared open that door again. Knowing that if I opened it, I’d be exposing myself to his fragile state, exposing myself to what I might still feel.

             
“It would be so good for him emotionally,” Sara said.

             
I didn’t think of Mathew as being very emotional, although I’d seen rare glimpses. I flashed back to the wedding, him so handsome in his suit. “Come with me” he had asked. Sara waited.

             
“I’m sure I can work something out.”

             
“That would be so great,” she said.

             
“I’ll look into it and get back to you tomorrow,” I said.

After we hung up
, I reflected back on our last few times together, the weekend of Melanie’s wedding, the hotel in L.A., Jack’s in San Jose. He knew when he asked me that I would come, that I was weak when it came to him. He knew if he was patient, he could pull me back. It had appeared to me those times that he had cleaned up, but I was with him so briefly, and all three times alone with him. No outside world. He could live hard and hide it well when he wanted to. The rock-and-roll, drug-and-alcohol thing sort of went hand-in-hand, and Mathew liked it all. I’d experienced the partying he could do. I booked a flight and called Gayle.

“I can pick you up
,” she offered.

             
“No, I rented a car. I want to be able to get back and forth easily. I have no idea what this is going to be like. How long I can see him and stuff. I hope he’s okay about me coming.”

             
“You nervous?” she asked.

             
“I am, Gayle. We’ve drifted apart. We haven’t talked in a long time. He doesn’t know about me spending a winter in Park City, that I’m back in school; that Max and I broke up, nothing. I’ve been out-of-sight, out-of-mind.”

             
I tried to envision what he would do when he saw me and couldn’t.

             
“It will be fine, I’m sure. You two always seem to be able to pick it up, or get it on,” she teased.

Maybe
Sara had overstepped her boundaries. She had asked me to come, not him. Maybe she had been the one to suggest to him that I visit, not the other way around. Sara had put my name on a list of approved visitors. She said she had told him I was coming. Sara didn’t mention how he felt about it, which made me edgy. I was going to see him, assuming he would be happy about it. I went to the Hertz desk in San Jose to pick up the car.

“Need directions
?” the gal asked.

             
“Yes, to here,” I said, showing her the address.

             
As I drove, I realized I was looking forward to seeing him, despite the circumstances. I was anxious about his reaction to me. I parked the car and checked my face in the rear view mirror.
Flying always made me feel grimy.
I took a deep breath, trying to settle the butterflies in my stomach as I walked through the front door.

             
“I’m here to visit Mathew O’Conner,” I stated to the woman at the front desk.

             
She peered over her reading glasses at me. She was older, maybe fifty, her blonde graying hair shoulder length. Laugh lines etched out at the corners of her green eyes.

             
“Your name?”

             
“Morgan, Morgan Mallory,” I answered.

“A good Irish girl
, eh?” she smiled while she checked her list.

“You could say that
,” I answered, looking around.

The lobby was drab, metal chairs with plastic seats lined one wall. The carpet industrial and grey, reminding me of Mathew and me at the airport gate that one time.

              “I’ll call him to the cafeteria. That’s where visits take place,” she added as she picked up the phone.

“Can you please send Mathew O’Conner
? He has a visitor.”

             
She hung up the phone and removed her reading glasses. Her smile was kind. She must laugh at home I figured because there wasn’t much to laugh about here.

             
“Follow me,” she said as she started down a hall.

             
The walls were stark white with worn linoleum floors.

             
“Here we are,” she said, pushing on the swinging door.

             
It smelled like a school cafeteria. The room was filled with Formica-topped tables with drop-down bench seats. I noticed a couple sitting at one of the tables, talking quietly, holding hands. Mathew came through double doors from the other side. His hair was short. He had on jeans and a button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up. He smiled as he came towards me.

“Have a nice visit
,” the lady said as she turned to leave.

             
“Thanks,” I said, not able to take my eyes off him.

             
“Hey, kid,” he said as he reached me.

             
He hugged me tightly to him and some of my nervousness disappeared.

             
“Come on, come on,” he said, taking my hand, leading me to a table.

“Sit down
,” he said excitedly, straddling the bench.

             
He sat on the same side of the table so he could be close, so he could continue to hold my hand. I looked into his blue eyes and could see some of the despair Sara had alluded to and yet they were sparkling at me too.

             
“Tell me what happened,” I said.

He started from the beginning and told me ever
ything he knew. He didn’t remember getting on the freeway at all. He said he hardly remembered leaving the party. It wasn’t until he hit the other car that he came out of his blackout. Things got chaotic and confusing. He remembered going to jail. The police basically told him about the accident. His eyes welled up with tears when he talked about the woman he hit. I had never seen Mathew cry, and my heart broke for him.