Page 192 of In at the Deep End

Maybe I took every tenderness and turned it into evidence of something that had never existed.

He rolled onto his side and stared into the darkness.

That wasn’t fair. Owen had never lied to him. That was what made this so much harder. If Owen had been cold, or cruel, if he’d said something unforgivable, Matt could have pointed to it and told himself that was the moment everything had ended.

But Owen hadn’t done any of those things.

He’d stopped reaching first, and somehow that said everything.

Matt pressed his face into the pillow.

He hadn’t wanted to believe it. He’d spent days finding explanations because the alternative hurt too much.

Owen was tired. Owen was busy. Owen was worried about something. Owen was trying to give him space.

But there was only so long a person could keep inventing reasons for someone else’s distance.

At some point, you have to accept what is right in front of you.

Matt swallowed hard.

I got it wrong.

The thought was so simple that it hurt more than all the others.

He’d believed the summer had changed them. Maybe it had only changed him.

He’d fallen in love with Owen. He’d stopped protecting himself against the possibility this could become something real.

And Owen hadn’t. Or perhaps he had, and had decided it couldn’t.

Either way, the result was the same.

Matt was going to Edinburgh. He would hand in his dissertation. He would stay with Eric. He would come home.

And then he would have to learn how to stop looking for Owen in every part of his future.

The hardest thing wasn’t leaving.

It was going to be coming home and pretending he hadn’t expected Owen to be there.

Chapter Thirty-Six

Matt’s phone buzzed, and he pulled it from his pocket, hoping for one stupid moment that it was Owen.

Except Owen won’t have time to send messages. He has a house full of guests.

The party would be in full swing by now. Matt had been trying not to give it head space, but he’d been stuck on a train since nine-thirty that morning. Two changes and almost eight hours of not looking at his book, not watching anything on his tablet, not doing anything except think.

Then he remembered his phone.

Eric: Sorry. Got held up. I’ll be there in ten minutes, maybe fifteen.

He sighed, but didn’t put the phone back into his pocket.

Stirling station was airy, its walls covered in white brick tiles, the ceiling high, allowing what light there was to pour in. People moved around him with bags and cases, heading towards trains or away from them, each person apparently certain about where they were going next.

Matt envied them.