The Muse's Undoing

If this ever gets out, whether in family court or online since Fischer is a public figure, I know how the clickbait articles would read.

No one who doesn’t know us would ever truly believe that my childhood was about as innocent as they come. That every time Fischer showed up for whatever reason, my mom practically had to introduce him to us—You remember your big brother, Fischer, right?

“This is never gonna be okay,” I whisper as it crashes over me all at once.

“Sweetie…” She’s still crying like she’s losing something precious without a clue what this is going to do to me. How the idea of not seeing Fischer for an indefinite amount of time feels like scraping out the inside of my heart. “I know you think you love him, but this was never gonna work. You know that right?”

“No…” I say with complete honesty. “I didn’t know that. I actually thought you’d be happy for me. For us.”

She sniffs again, but then she decides on another tactic.

“Matty, tell me the truth. How did you see it ending?”

“With him,” I say.

“I can’t see it,” she tells me.

“That’s not my problem.”

“Can we both acknowledge that I probably know you better than anyone?”

I frown down at my hands and shake my head. “You don’t know me the way he does.”

I can practically hear her eyes rolling.

“Fine,” she sighs. “But I know you pretty fucking well. And over the last—what? seven? Eight years? You’ve had a revolving door of lovers. One right after another, and every time, you rhapsodize about them—how they’re special, perfect, this one, you’ll say—there’s no one like her. I’m obsessed.”

A tear falls on my hands, and then another.

“You’ve asked me how many times, is this what love feels like?” She pauses for a breath while I wipe my cheeks only for them to get wet with tears again. “I know this thing you have for Fischer hasn’t run its course yet, and I’m sure this sucks for you, but you and I both know it was going to end badly.”

I lock my jaw and shake my head, but I won’t respond to that. Fuck her. Fuck everyone who can’t mind their own goddamn business and let two people live their lives. It’s not even worth arguing. I know she thinks she’s trying to protect me. And I know she’s had her suspicions since Fischer’s recovery. But I also know from the bottom of my rapidly breaking heart how wrong she is.

“Would you have ever accepted us?” I ask her.

She’s silent a long time. “I would have tried.”

“I have to go.”

“No. Why? What are you gonna do?”

“I’m gonna be alone, apparently. That’s what you wanted, right? Well, you win. Hope you have a great fucking day.”

“Matty!”

I end the call.

I’ll forgive her for this eventually. Maybe. But I can picture that about as well as she can picture me in a relationship. Forget the fact that before this, Fischer and I were living together.

Forget the fact that the idea of going twenty-four hours without him is giving me actual chest pain. And forget the fact that what I said to her on our walk the other day wasn’t “is this what love feels like?” It was “I get it now. It’s him.”

48

FISCHER

Gibson and I are both drunk when the sun comes up. We’ve talked for hours. Mostly about the custody situation. Lawyers. How to handle Nicole. But now we’ve meandered to the subject of Matthew because with each passing hour, I feel his absence more acutely than the last. His texts break my heart, but I don’t know how to respond. This has to be killing him because it’s killing me. I pray to whatever higher power there is that he knows—he has to know—that I wouldn’t survive losing Vaughn. That I could never abandon my son the way someone once abandoned me.

“I had a feeling about you two,” Gibson says.