Someone Else's Fairytale (17 page)

“So it doesn't look like there's any more media coverage of you. No wild rumors about you carrying my love child. All good.”

“I'm so relieved.”

“Had enough
Hollywood
glamour in your life?”

“To last several lifetimes, yeah.”

“How's Matthew?”

“Huh? He's fine, I think. I still owe him a movie sometime.”

“He around a lot?”

“Yeah, he doesn't live all that far. Walks past our house on the way to campus.”

“Oh, okay.”

“How are you tonight, Chloe?”

“I'm good. You?”

“I'm eating celery, and I keep wanting to offer you some, but I don't think I can find a way to stuff it through the internet.”

“I'm not hungry, thanks.”

“What's that you're working on?”

“Drawing diagrams to understand how the Golgi apparatus works.”

“Oh, that thingy in cells where proteins get assembled? Is it proteins?”

“Don't you start quizzing me too.”

“Sorry.”

“Yeah, you sound really sorry.”

“You usually work until after dark?”

“Three nights a week, yeah. Matthew walks me home, though.”

“Seems extra nice of him.”

“He's Texan. Very chivalrous.”

“Oh, okay.”

“You seem very interested in Matthew.”

“I've never had a female best friend.”

“Well, you've got me. I'm a friend.”

“True...”

“I've talked to you twice this week. I think that's way friendly.”

“Yeah.”

“No more vandalism on your house?”

“Nope. There was a cop car cruising the neighborhood pretty regularly for a while. They're being vigilant.”

“Really? I'd think your incident was pretty minor compared with other stuff they deal with.”

“Yeah, I think that's true. But this one they nipped in the bud, it looks like. Seems to be working.”

“That's great. I'm relieved.”

“I need to go. Matthew's coming by any minute.”

“Oh, right. Talk to you later, then.”

A month after the window break, Matthew and I were seated on the floor of the living room with printouts of web pages strewn all around us.

“I'm not even sure what I'm looking for,” I said. “Themes in the types of web searches I do when not studying? I don't hardly do any.”

“You search news stories. You think you have it hard? I don't even have internet at home.” He reached for my netbook. “May I?”

I handed it over and turned back to my mess of papers. Matthew was right, I did search news stories. Usually crime ones. I didn't want to talk about that to my Media Studies professor. I liked the guy – on my paparazzi report he'd written, “Mind if I share this with the class? Just kidding!” - but that didn't mean I wanted to open a vein and pour out my heart in a class I only took for the company.

Matthew was clicking away on my computer.

I reshuffled my printouts, then gathered them all together and tried to sort through them again.

A few more minutes and a few more clicks and Matthew hadn't said a word.

“You find what you need?” I asked.

“Um...”

“Hmm?”

“How often, exactly, do you talk to Vanderholt?”

“I don't know. He calls whenever. He's very chatty.”

“He calls you every other day, Chlo.”

“Well, I don't answer all those.”

“Okay, he calls you every day. Every other day is about how often you answer.”

“What are you looking at?” I looked up at him.

“Your Skype call log.”

“Why?”

“Because... Sorry. You're right. This is none of my business.”

“I've been stupid again, haven't I? I'm totally not picking up on his signals and being more than friendly.”

“I dunno.”

“Just be honest.”

“You don't talk to me that often.”

“What?” Before I could catch myself, I laughed.

Matthew got very quiet.

“Wait... what?” I said. “Am I missing something? Because that whole myth about females being able to read minds? We can't.”

“He bothers me.”

“Jason?”

“Yeah. He's too forward with you.” Matthew leaned back against the couch and rested his hands on his bent knee.

“What do you think might happen?”

“He's trying to charm you.”

“Maybe, but it isn't working.”

“So why do you talk to him so much?”

“I dunno. Now that you point it out, I'll cut back. You're right. It's probably giving him the wrong idea. I just never thought someone like him would want to get any ideas about me, you know?”

“Why not? Don't insult yourself, Chloe.”

“Because it's random. I'm not insulting myself. I seriously doubt I'm the only girl he tries to charm, though. He's got to have how many fawning over him?”

Matthew nodded. “Yeah, that's smart that you know that.”

“Why thank you. Okay! Sorry, that was irony and I know you hate that. Lowest form of humor and all that.”

“Well, I guess I was patronizing, so I deserved it.”

I nudged him with my elbow. “Thank you for looking out for me.”

“Yeah... sure.”

He wanted to say something else, that was obvious, but I didn't quite know what. Despite how close we were as friends, Matthew could be quite shy and reserved. I didn't push the issue, but I did steal a lot of glances at him that evening. He was seriously cute. And he was my best friend. I purposely didn't follow those thoughts too far, in case I was misreading.

But I did note that he was the opposite of my ex-boyfriend, Jon. Jon was popular and outgoing, and Matthew was quiet and introverted. Jon was on track to make good money, while Matthew dreamed of becoming a high school English teacher in a small town somewhere. Jon was several years older than me, but Matthew was my age. Matthew wasn't anything like any guy I'd ever been interested in before. Not a bad thing.

The following Friday, Matthew went home for the long weekend. I was at work, wiping down the counter when someone slid their purse right into the path of my cloth. It was a nice leather purse too, not something I'd want to risk getting bleach on. I looked up.

The woman who looked back at me had my face, or close enough. Same heart shape, except she didn't have a cleft in her chin. Same big brown eyes, same thin lips. “Beth?” I said.

She glanced around. It was clear she wanted to be anywhere but here, with me. “Chloe,” she said, “you know that Chris got paroled, right?”