𝐍𝐎𝐍-𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐄 𝐒𝐎𝐍𝐆𝐒

The End

Sitting on the curb, I don't know how long I'd stayed there. Hours? I only knew cause my phone reassured me time was passing regularly. But I felt stuck at 05:31PM. I was waiting, for what I didn't know. The message I sent him, I read it over and over again. I went back to the words that would have haunt me forever: maybe, somewhere, in a less miserable universe...

The world kept spinning round the square. People went back and forth, everyone wrapped in their own lives. I was there, but I wasn't. Not at all. Not until Matty appeared, and suddenly I felt my heart beating in every part of my body. I didn't even have to turn my face to recognise him. I just knew he was there, and he was sitting on the curb half a meter from me.

But when I did, when I turned to face him – my hair prevented my view, I moved it away – he wasn't looking at me. His shoulders arched, his elbows resting on his knees. Matty stared in front of him and didn't speak. His profile made my stomach twist. The furrowed brows, the pursed lips, the wavy and slightly ruffled hair, all added a dramatic note to his figure.

"Hi", I muttered.

"You can do better than that", he said.

I stared at him as if my eyes could pierce his right temple and read his mind. I was so confused. I thought he never wanted to see me again.

"I'm sorry", I whispered. There were many things I wanted to say, but that was the only one that made sense.

He stayed in silence. I wanted to touch him. I wanted to get closer. But something in the way he was sit discouraged me. There was something broken, broken, hopelessly broken between us.

"How are you feeling?", he asked.

It was early for sunset, but the sun was already starting to bleed. The confused outline of Matty's hair was painted in gold. He still wasn't looking at me.

"I'm fine", I murmured, hesitating. He meant my body, not my mind. He wanted to know about the abortion. "I was a bit scared. But it didn't hurt. It was fast. It was nothing really."

He stared at an immaginary point in the air that should have caught fire. His voice was sharp as a knife and his words full of disappointment. "I should have been there."

"I know."

"But I wasn't."

"There is nothing I can say to make it better."

"Oh no, I want you to speak, Arianna. I want to know what you're saying to yourself", he said calmly, but cold.

"Okay", I murmured quietly. "I know I made a choice we had to take together. I shouldn't have cut you off. I'm sorry. But with you... I wouldn't have been able to get rid of it."

"Cause I'm the kind of man who tells a woman what to do with her body, right?"

I shook my head, my mouth struggling to meet my mind. "You're not. But I know it meant something to you and... I just couldn't look you in the eyes, knowing I couldn't give you what you wanted."

"So you think I'm the kind of man who thinks a woman is less than a woman if she can't give him a child?"

"No!" I groaned in frustration.

"You disappeared and had an abortion, on your own, as if we were in the 50s or in fucking Texas. As if you were doing something forbidden, something wrong. As if I could have ever judged you. But there's nothing wrong in interrupting a pregnancy. You don't want kids? It's fine, Arianna. I could live with that. You know what's wrong? That I wasn't there. You weren't supposed to get through it alone. I should've been there. I wanted to be there, with you. For you. Cause we had to be together. We were Arianna and Matty, and we had to be together."