“Good.” She waited a few beats, still looking at him over the wall of his cubicle, but he refused to return her gaze, hoping she’d get the idea that he was done talking. He let out a breath when he heard her move away, heading back to her office. Thank God his chair faced away from the cubicle opening so he didn’t have to see her while she sat working at her desk.
Now he just needed to figure out how to do what he’d always wanted and get paid for it.
Chapter Twenty-Four
After work on Friday, Matt made a spur-of-the-moment decision to go home for the weekend. It would be a quick trip and lots of driving, but he needed the time and space to think and figure himself out. He’d lost Hannah from being too chickenshit to realize that he cared more about her than a crappy job that he didn’t even like. Sure, it paid the bills, but she was right. There were lots of ways to pay the bills. And lots of time to get stuck in a rut where paying the bills was the most important thing. He was twenty-two, almost twenty-three, and only responsible for himself. His parents had always taught him to save for a rainy day, so he had some money saved up, enough to get by for a while, especially if he kept his expenses about the same.
The clock in his car read 11:49 when he got to his parents’ house. He’d called on his way out of town to warn them that he was coming. One lamp glowed in the window when he pulled his truck into the driveway, letting him know that his mom had waited up for him. She sat in her favorite chair reading a book, wearing a robe, ready for bed as soon as she saw that he’d gotten in safely.
She stood when he walked in the door and gave him a hug. “Are you hungry?”
He hugged her back, already feeling more grounded from the drive and the anchor his mother provided. The familiar smells of home surrounded him—fresh baked bread mixed with the lemony smell of cleaners and the scent of the fabric softener she used floating up from her clothes.
Pulling back, he nodded. “Yeah, I could eat.”
She smiled up at him and headed into the kitchen, getting out the rolls she must have baked that evening. “It’s a good thing I was making stew for dinner tonight. I always make a big batch and freeze half so your father and I can have it again later. But when you said you were coming I left it in the fridge.”
Matt sat at the dining room table, happy to let his mom fuss over him. He hadn’t been home since Thanksgiving, and he enjoyed having someone take care of him. After she’d warmed up his food in the microwave, she set it in front of him, running her hand over his hair and down to his back in a show of maternal affection. He looked up into her face and noticed her concerned eyes.
“Is everything alright, Matt? It’s not like you to just up and drive across the state like this. Are you in trouble?”
Swallowing down the first bite of stew, he shook his head, giving his mom a reassuring smile. “No, Mom. I’m not in trouble. I just needed to get away and clear my head. I’ll tell you about it tomorrow.”
She nodded, covering a yawn. “Okay. Well, it’s late for me, so I’m going to bed.” She dropped a kiss on the top of his head. “Goodnight. See you in the morning.”
“Night, Mom.”
The next morning Matt woke up early, eager to get out on the water. That was the real reason he’d come. He planned on discussing everything with his parents, too, but first he needed to get his own head straight.
March could be iffy for surfing in Westport, but the weather cooperated this weekend, thank God. After checking the surf report, grabbing a quick breakfast, his longboard, and wetsuit, he headed for the Jetties, not wanting to have to pay the fee to get into the state park today.
He sucked in his breath when he got in the water, the cold permeating his wetsuit. It was just warm enough out today that he didn’t go for the drysuit, but it had been so long since he’d spent much time in the ocean that he regretted that decision. Not enough to get out and go home to change, though.
Paddling out, he used the cold to focus his mind and spur him on, glad that there weren’t too many people out competing for the available waves. It wasn’t great surfing, but it felt so good to be on a board again, one with his body, fully present, moving with the flow of the ocean. The only other time he’d felt like this recently, this feeling of inhabiting his body instead of living in his head, was when he’d been wrapped up in Hannah. She did this to him, gave this to him, and he didn’t even think she realized how much he needed this feeling to stay sane, how much he needed her. He needed it like he needed air.
Football came close. It gave him the physical exertion he craved, coupled with the feeling of moving as part of something bigger than himself, though he had to keep his head in the game, paying attention to the unpredictable movements of other players. In the water, on a surfboard, he moved based on instinct, feeling the shifts in the ocean more than seeing them.
But football was over, and he lived too far inland to get to the ocean on a regular basis. With Hannah he acted on instinct, on feeling, more than with his higher
