I drove back home, driving a few miles over the speed limit, which was very unlike me; but I was so eager to get back to Matty. As I was driving, I made a mental do-to list for the day, number one of which was contacting the courthouse about what we needed to do to get married. “Married,” I said aloud, not able to control the huge smile that spread across my face. I was marrying Matthew Boyd. I should think myself crazy for moving this fast, but every fiber in my being knew that this was right. Had Matty not moved away, this likely would have already happened, I told myself. He had said that he had been in love with me and had thought our first time together would have been the start of something; we’d just had to wait sixteen years to get to the place we’d always been meant to end up at.
I had daydreamed so many times that Matty had not moved, that we had continued our high school years together, finally moving from childhood friends to a romantic couple. Maybe we wouldn’t have had sex on that night long ago as we wouldn’t have felt the urgency to be together before it was too late. But we both knew, deep down, that it would have happened eventually.
So what if we’d only been back together for three days? I knew him now just like I had known him then; and he clearly knew me, too. Yes, we were older, but our souls were still the same. The sixteen years apart suddenly felt like only sixteen days.
“Matty!” I called, opening my front door, only to be jumped on by my dogs. “Oh, my babies!” I squealed, dropping down to my knees to give them both snuggles and belly rubs, forgetting once again that I was supposed to discourage the jumping as part of their obedience training. “Mommy has been so preoccupied over the past few days, I’m sorry. I will make it up to you with…. TREATS!” And with that, Sadie and Jack both barked in excitement and quickly headed towards the kitchen where their treat jar was. I followed them with a big smile plastered across my face, stopping in my tracks when I saw Matty sitting at the kitchen table, silent and with his head in his hands.
“Hey, Matty,” I said, my heart dropping at the sight of him, the smile on my face instantly gone. Something was clearly wrong. “What’s going on? Are you okay?”
Matty slowly lifted his head up and I could see he had been crying. He didn’t look at me, just shook his head, clearly unable to speak.
“Is it your folks?” I asked, with a sinking feeling in my stomach. “Is someone hurt or sick?” I crossed the room and put my hand on his back. “Matty, please tell me what’s wrong.”
Matty shook his head again before leaning into me. He body shook as fresh tears ran down his face. I just held him for a few moments, stroking the back of his neck, waiting for him to speak. He finally sat back up straight and pushed his cell phone towards me. I looked down at the screen, immediately seeing that there was a text message from Molly. The words cut through me like a knife. “Hey Matt, just so you know, I’m pregnant. And yes, it’s yours. If you want to ever see your kid, you’d better get back to L.A. asap.”
The shock of those words literally made me sick, and I quickly turned to the kitchen sink and choked on dry heaves as there was nothing in my stomach to bring up. Matty came up behind me and wrapped his arms around me, burying his face in my hair. I could feel his body shaking as he said, “It’s okay, Leah, I’m going to fix this. Nothing is going to change for us. We will be together. I promise!”
“How?” I shrieked as I turned around, pushing him away with tears streaming down my face. “You’re going to have a baby with another woman, and that woman is Molly Timmerman. In L.A. How the hell can we be together now?” I pushed past him and ran up to my bedroom, realizing half way up that I was stomping up the stairs like a teenager. Well, so what? I’d held my emotions in for years; what point was there in me holding them back now?
Matty was right behind me on the steps and followed me into my bedroom. The bedding was a tangled mess from our lovemaking, and the sight of the rumpled sheets and blankets brought on another round of tears from me.
“First of all, I don’t even know if I can believe Molly’s message,” Matty said, taking a deep breath and reaching for me. “She was really pissed at me when I broke things off. She could just be making a revenge play to get my attention back. And secondly, I do not care if she is pregnant or not, it does not change the fact that I love you, Leah; that I want to be with you. Nothing has changed!” He had ahold of my arms and was forcing me to look him in the eye.
“Nothing has changed?” I spat out he words through my tears, shrugging his arms off of me and backing away into a corner of the room. “You are going to be a father. You are going to have a baby. With a woman I absolutely hate. You are now tied to her forever. That changes everything, Matthew.”
Before he could answer, his phone dinged again with a new text message. He read it and yelled, “Stupid bitch. Now she is threatening to go to H.R. if I don’t respond to her. Leah, please, I gotta call her, get a handle on this. I’ll be right back.” Matthew turned and I could hear his footsteps running quickly
