Yes, I know this is like a month overdue (sorry!), and kind of off-topic for the series, but you get Matt brooding over Tyler and Caroline together for waiting. And it somehow morphed into Matt introspective. Why is it that whenever I write oneshots they always change from what I originally wanted into something else?
Spoilers: Same as Alpha and Mate.
I still own nothing but a bad case of writer's block and a computer.
Matt doesn't know where everything went wrong.
One day, he and Care are fine, more than fine. The next... He remembers waking up in his bed, wondering why his neck didn't hurt. He doesn't even know why he thinks that it should. All he knows is that Caroline doesn't want to see him, is avoiding him, and he doesn't know why.
And then Tyler comes back from wherever he's been, and Matt doesn't like how his best friend (ex-best friend? Hell if he knows anymore) looks at his girlfriend. He doesn't like how Caroline blushes when she notices how Tyler looks at her, and the little looks and touches they share. He doesn't like how they always look so happy whenever Tyler manages to coax Caroline into playing a game of pool, and how her laugh cuts through the air of the Grill like little silver bells.
He hates how they have silent conversations when they're talking to him (they're always polite, that's even worse than screaming or silence), deciding what they can tell him about whatever the secret they share is. He hates seeing the look on Caroline's face that used to be directed toward him being aimed at Tyler.
He doesn't understand how this could have happened, how they ended up like this.
Isn't stealing your friend's girlfriend against the Guy Code or something, Matt wonders one day when he sees them sitting together at one of the picnic tables by the basketball court. Caroline's sitting on the table with her feet on the bench laughing at something Tyler just said, and he's grinning up at her from her feet like he's just won a million bucks.
He understands how Bonnie felt last year now, when he sees them together and the realization of exactly how lonely he is crashes into him. But that doesn't mean he wants her pity.
He shrugs Bonnie's hand off and goes back inside.
He's been dreaming about Vickie again for some reason. And it's always the same dream, too.
They're little again, like back when their mom actually acted like a real mom, and they're just running around the town square, giggling and being stupid little kids. But then Vickie falls down and blinks up at him with her big brown eyes and whimpers, "Hurts, Mattie."
And her hands and her knees are all drippy wet redness that his five year-old mind can't comprehend, and then she's screaming. He tries to grab her, hug her, but she disappears and he's alone. But he can still hear her calling for him to help her.
He always wakes up in a cold sweat and the memory of Vickie sobbing, "Help, Mattie, it hurts," in his ears.
He's Tyler's ex-friend, Elena's ex-best friend, her and Caroline's ex-boyfriend, his mom's ex-son, ex-quarterback, ex-a helluva lot of other things. Ex, ex, ex, ex, ex.
And he's fucking sick of it.
He's forgotten how to be Matt Donovan. He's forgotten how to be anyone except someone's ex-something. He can't live like this. He won't.
He wakes up one morning, gets in his truck, and drives. He comes back before his shift at the Grill that night, but he left for just a little while and that's enough for now.
It's not enough when he realizes that no one had even noticed that he hadn't been at school.
These trips start out as one day every few weeks, when the dreams and loneliness start pressing in too much, but they turn into once every few days way too quickly.
He begins to take his trips over the weekends, leaving immediately after school every Friday and only coming back late Sunday night. He goes farther and farther each time (once he makes it as far as Miami before turning around). He wonders if this is what Tyler did while he was gone, just drove and drove and didn't stop except for gas and food and bathroom breaks.
He never wants to turn around.
And eventually he doesn't.
He quits his job at the Grill and packs his bags. He isn't coming back. Not this time. He's done with with this town, done watching Caroline and Tyler together, done watching his friends get on with their new lives that don't include him.
He glances in his rearview mirror when he passes the town limits and smiles at the picture of him and Vickie that he'd taped up there.
He's done being everyone's ex. Time for him to be him, nothing more and nothing less.