The Book of Matthew (The Alex Chronicles Book 1) by K.T. Doyle Page A

Matt’s world. Thanks to the numbness, there hadn’t been for weeks.
    We threw our coats on the floor of the practice room and retrieved our guitars from the cabinet. We sat on metal chairs opposite each other.
    “Where should we start?” Matt asked, flashing his usual crooked smile.
    Our eyes locked. His green eyes, usually dark and beautiful, looked like two little swamps—murky and ugly.
    Suddenly, it felt like the Novocain had worn off. I realized this was our last guitar lesson of the semester, and perhaps my best and last opportunity to find out what Matt was thinking.
    “I know where we should start,” I said calmly. I laid the guitar on the floor and sat forward in my seat, my elbows on my knees. “How about we start by discussing what’s going on? What do you think?” I paused and smiled. “You first.”
    His eyes grew large, and then softened into a confused squint. “What do you mean?”
    “You know damn well.”
    He shifted in his chair. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
    “Like hell you don’t!” I threw my words at him. “We flirt, we fuck, and then that’s it?”
    Matt sighed. “What do you want me to say?”
    “You’re a finance major, right?”
    “Yeah, so?”
    “So tell me what’s going on because something doesn’t add up.”
    “What do you want from me?”
    “Answers,” I said. “The truth. What do you want from me ?”
    Silence.
    I felt the urge to strangle the words from him. “Well?”
    Nothing. Silence.
    I stood to leave. “I’m not going to deal with your indifference any longer.” Leering over him, I gave him one last parting blow. “We had sex on a kitchen counter! Did you forget? Sooner or later we’re going to have to deal with that!”
    I stormed out of the room and slammed the door closed behind me. The heat of angry tears quickly welled up. After descending the last step, I took a left into the kitchen.
    I stood in the darkness blinking back the watery flood. A relationship with Matthew Levine would probably never work , I thought. All the anger and confusion came leaking out, one teardrop at a time. I covered my face with my hands. The kitchen echoed the sounds of my sobbing.
    From up above there were muffled noises and the sound of pounding footfalls. I didn’t need to turn around to know Matt was there in the darkness with me.
    I rubbed away the tears with my shirtsleeve and turned to face him. He flipped on the light and looked at me. There was a mask of terror and anger on his face and a burning fire in his eyes.
    He walked up to me and words erupted from his mouth. “Of course I remember!”
    I flinched. “I—”
    “Want to know something, Alex?” he interrupted. He leaned in close to my face. “My girlfriend broke my heart in here.”
    It took a minute for his words to register. “Oh my God. You have a girlfriend?”
    “ Had ,” he said. “I had a girlfriend.”
    “How long ago?”
    “We broke up four months ago, in August, right when the semester started.”
    “I’m sorry,” I said, still angry. “What happened?”
    “I had an engagement ring for her,” he began.
    “Wow, okay,” I said.
    “I wanted to give it to her in a quiet, secluded spot. So I brought her here.” He paused.
    “And?”
    “She wouldn’t take it. She said there was someone else.”
    “She was cheating on you?”
    “We dated all four years of high school. She’d been cheating on me our entire senior year.”
    I reached out to touch his arm. “Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…” I trailed off.
    He held up a hand. “It’s fine. You didn’t know.”
    I tried to make him feel better. “You’re a little young to get married, anyway.” I winced at how insensitive I sounded.
    “I wanted to get married after college,” he said. “I thought Christine was the one.”
    I said as little as possible, out of shock at the revelation of his secret, and because this was the most he had said to me in the three months since we’d met. I didn’t