and extremely upset. Who wouldn’t be? The woman had tried to take her own life!
Matty had called nine-one-one and ridden with Clarisse to the hospital. When she’d heard Clarisse was going to survive—of course she was—Matty had finally broken down, tears that wouldn’t stop. Walking home to her dorm, she’d run into Chris, returning from a Pomona orchestra concert. One look at her face and he’d invited her out for coffee. She hadn’t wanted to be out in public looking like hell. No problem, he’d drive her to his apartment, where he’d set up the spare bedroom if she wanted to stay over. They’d shared a bottle of wine. Talked until very, very late.
She’d never made it to the spare bedroom.
The next morning they’d agreed it could never happen again. They weren’t that kind of people. He was too old for her—more than ten years older. She was his student. An affair was wrong, and he could lose his job. They’d stay away from each other.
They couldn’t stay away from each other.
For the next six months they’d tried to break up, gotten back together, then did both again. All those agonies of longing and pain followed by the joys of giving in to temptation, the guilt, the fear—by the time Clarisse caught on and set her sights on Chris, Matty was frankly exhausted. When she’d caught them together, along with the pain there had been relief. Finally it was truly over. No more temptation. Because Matty understood what he was and how foolish she’d been.
Chris had come after her, he’d explained. He’d laid the blame on Clarisse. It wasn’t what it looked like, he’d sworn to her...
Please. It was always what it looked like.
Three weeks later, Clarisse took enough sleeping pills to look ill, but not really threaten her life, and Matty had known it was over for them, too. She’d waited, even telling herself she shouldn’t, but Chris hadn’t come looking for her again.
On the pier now, arms wrapped around herself, squinting into the wind, Matty thought about how she’d come such a long way since then. She’d built a good, rich life for herself. Dated a couple of guys seriously, though none who took her over the way Chris had.
Yes, she was comparing. She’d always been comparing.
But unfairly. Her feelings in college had been intensified by her youth and inexperience, by the lure of the forbidden, by the perfect bubble in which their encounters took place. She hadn’t met his friends, he hadn’t interacted with hers. They’d had no problems to cope with but the drama of their own taboo passion.
A tear made its way down her cheek. She flung it forward into the sea, sniffed angrily and turned to go home.
Enough. She’d done what she’d come here to do. Brooded. Remembered. Cried one beautiful tear. The actress side of her had been fed.
Now she’d do her father proud, march home, get up at 0700 hours and take on the next day of her life.
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