Unloved: A Novel (The Undone)

I know it’s Freddy before he even knocks.

Opening the door slowly, like I’m afraid to truly rip the Band-Aid off, only hurts worse. Revealing him inch by inch—head ducked, eyes to the floor. He looks so small standing in my doorway, a cut on his lip and eyebrow, red around his eye—which I was expecting, considering the text Bennett sent me ten minutes ago.

I was expecting him—but not like this. He’s sweaty, hair damp, and not from a shower. It looks like he shucked his skates and hockey pants, threw on sweats, and sprinted across campus to the dorms.

“Hey,” I say, gentle and quiet. He doesn’t look up.

The dorm is empty the day before Thanksgiving break officially begins, and Sadie is gone with her brothers for the holidays—staying at the Koteskiys’, which fills me with an overflowing bittersweet feeling. Endlessly happy for Sadie, Oliver, and Liam having a family to call home. But a little bit lonely in our empty dorm apartment.

Now I’m thankful for it as I step back to let the dreary figure of Matt Fredderic into the room.

“Come in,” I say, like a light command. He follows me, shuffling, but stops just inside the threshold, holding his bag up on his shoulder with a white-knuckled fist.

“I—” He stops short, voice thick as he clears his throat. “I’m sorry.”

He still won’t look at me.

“Are you okay, Matty?”

A nod, slow and trembling.

He needs someone to care for him, to look after him. So I take his tightened fist in my hand and slowly uncurl it, pulling the bag off his shoulder. I prop it by the door to my room.noveldrama

“Come with me.”

I keep my voice whisper-quiet, pulling him through my room and into the bathroom. Turning the water on hot, I grab a fluffy towel from beneath my bathroom sink and lay it out on the counter.

“Shower. Take your time, and I’ll get some stuff to clean up the cut on your face. Okay?”

He nods, finally lifting his eyes to meet mine. “Okay.”

Matt looks worse somehow when he comes out of the bathroom, hair dripping and only dressed in the boxer briefs I left him. He rifles through his backpack where it lies on the floor next to the door, grabbing soft gray sweatpants.

He’s exhausted.

Mazzy Star plays quietly on the speaker on a looping playlist, “Quiet the Winter Harbor” softly serenading us.

“Come here,” I say, calling him to me. I’ve changed and am sitting against the wall on my bed. The lights are off, only the twinkling of the fairy lights glowing as Matt kneels heavily on the bed, unsure.

“You want me to—”

“Lie down.” Another command, soft but clear.

He lies next to me, head in my lap.

I take the antiseptic wipe, ripping it open and pulling it across the cuts on his face. He doesn’t wince, but I do, something like a sympathy pain shuddering through me.

A Hello Kitty bandage, which made me laugh when I found it in our little first aid tin, feels wrong right now, but he lets me put it on the broken skin of his eyebrow without complaint.

Only staring up at me, wide-eyed and in wonder.

“I wasn’t there when it happened,” he croaks, turning onto his side. “And, after… I wasn’t— I was not okay.”

I want to stop him, to ask questions already, because I’m so desperate to understand this beautiful, sensitive man. But I don’t, instead raising my hand to gently scratch his bare back.

“I wasn’t there when my mom died. When I got there, she was gone. And Archer was… We both couldn’t handle being in that house. I came back a week later.

“It wasn’t good, I didn’t want to feel any of it anymore. So I started drinking a lot. And then she was there—”

He closes his eyes and shakes his head, body tightening for a moment.

“Who?” I say.

“Carmen,” he replies, shame coloring his cheeks. “I was… I had a relationship with Dr. Tinley.”

My stomach drops—somehow it isn’t at all what I was expecting, and yet it’s not surprise I feel. It’s sickness, because my imagination is running wild. I want to ask a thousand questions, but I hold them back.

I just hold space for him to talk.

“She was my biology professor freshman year, and I was… I was fucked up, Ro. It was so stupid. I don’t even know why—”

He cuts himself off with a hard swallow.

“It’s stupid,” he repeats. “But we just—I never stopped. I was so depressed, and I was drinking all the time. It wasn’t smart, and it’s embarrassing now—”

“It’s not embarrassing,” I whisper, unable to stop the words from spilling out. “You were grieving.”

He nods slightly. “I think that she knew that. And I think it was easier for her, to have me like that. To keep me—but she was married.” His voice turns almost frantic. “She was married, and I didn’t know. I swear I didn’t know, Ro.”

“I believe you, Matt.”

The confession settles him, his head relaxing back into my lap, hair damp and soft against my bare thigh where my T-shirt has ridden up.

“It was embarrassing. Her husband was standing there, and they were fighting while I just stood there, like a fucking child. It’s disgusting and I hate… I hated myself after. I was drunk and sloppy and sleeping with my professor, destined to become exactly what everyone said I would be. The school slut.”

The hateful words are strangled, caught in his throat as he forces them out.

“But I thought it was real. I thought I was in love with her,” he laughs, but there’s no humor in it. “And I thought she loved me.”

The admission is broken, heart wrenching, and makes my chest ache. Has he ever told anyone about this?

“She told me she was sorry—that she didn’t mean for me to ‘get the wrong impression.’ ” A chuff this time. “But she was so surprised that I thought…”

He pauses almost too long, eyes filled with unshed tears. Reliving this time in his life is draining him, his body growing heavier and heavier.

“That I thought I meant something to her—that it was anything but sex. That I was a ‘serious option.’ And I was good at sex, I’m good with my body, but I thought she liked me for more. And then, when I realized everyone was only gonna see me as this? I embraced it. And… everyone liked me more for it. So I just became Freddy—the good-time guy, hockey star. A partying playboy legend.”

Matt shudders once, which devolves into shaking. “My mom would be so disappointed in me.”

“No, Matt, don’t say that.”

His whole body is trembling now, tears finally spilling across his cheeks. He rolls onto his back, hands rising to cover and rub his eyes, trying to hide, but floundering without his usual flirty, humor-filled mask.

I turn him, slowly and deliberately, until he’s facing my abdomen, my fingers scratching his scalp and stroking his hair gently.

“I’m s-s-sorry. I don’t k-know w-why I’m shaking,” he chatters quietly, tears still spilling silently. “I’m n-not cold-d.”

“It’s okay, Matt.” I tuck his head into my stomach, bending over him to kiss his temple. “It’s okay.”

I wait until his sobs have subsided, then pull him off my lap and put a pillow beneath his head, covering him with a blanket. He’s so tired, eyes blinking rapidly, but he won’t close them; he’s too focused on trying to keep watching me. I turn off the music and reach for the lights on the side of the bed before his hand flops out to stop me.

“Leave them on,” he whispers. “I want to be able to see you.”

“Okay,” I say, heart still in my throat while I crawl into the too-small bed beside him.

We don’t cuddle this time, instead holding hands, foreheads pressed together.

“Get some sleep,” I say, pressing a soft kiss to his nose.

I know I won’t sleep. I’ll spend the night watching over him, because I can’t do anything else. It’s a want as much as it is a need, to care for him, to protect him. My mind is flying a million miles a minute with the information he’s dumped into my lap.

For a moment, I think he’s asleep and I start to pull away. To grab my laptop and set all my plans into motion. But he snuggles deeper, closer to my body as he grips my hand a little harder.

“I miss my mom.”

I keep my crying silent as I grieve for the woman I’ll never know, and the boy she loved more than life. The boy I know she’d be proud of, even if he doesn’t know it.

I’ll take care of him, I vow to her silently. I promise.