Unloved: A Novel (The Undone)

I’m high on Matt Fredderic.

He leaves me in the shower with a quiet command to rinse off. I bundle into a big green towel and sit on the lip of the bathtub, feeling hazy and dazed. Like walking through clouds.

My clothes are folded neatly atop the sink counter, but it feels wrong to put them back on. Instead, I slide on an oversized shirt that looks a bit like a Lisa Frank art piece and pull my hair down. The curls are bouncy but frizzier from the extended steamy shower.

I should feel self-conscious, but it’s impossible to feel anything even similar where Matt Fredderic is concerned.

Instead, it’s only a floaty joy bubbling under my skin. He’s like a shower and cool sheets after baking in the summer sun. A nap after the beach, all at once comforting and invigorating.

Healing.

There’s a slight awkward silence when I come into the bedroom and stop across from Matt with a towel wrapped around his waist. We both hesitate, shy smiles and twitching hands.

He clears his throat. “Hey.”

“Hey.”

Matt leans over my desk, pushing aside the spread papers for the cardboard beneath, pointing to it as he angles his head over his shoulder to ask, “What’s this?”

Every bit of syrupy warmth evaporates, ice in my veins.

“I don’t—it’s stupid.”

He frowns but decides to trek on. I can’t decide if I hate him or love him for it. “Why? It looks like a fun list.”

It’s a dare, waiting for me to play with his flirty comment. He waggles his eyebrows as he reads a few of them aloud.

I don’t need the reminder—I remember them all.

Dance on top of a bar like Coyote Ugly.

Third base in a car.

Skinny-dip! (But don’t get caught or go to jail!)

Go on a crazy spring break trip. (But don’t get arrested!)

Get a tattoo.

Lose my virginity to someone who loves me.

There’s more, but I stick on the last one. It aches to think about. To try and dissect the real way Tyler felt about me.

“It was something Sadie and I made freshman year. For me to check off all the things I’d never done but wanted to do.”

He contemplates it for a second before grabbing the list and running over to my bed. It’s hard to rip my gaze from him. He turns and winks at me over his shoulder, like he knows what I was looking at.

“Tattoos?” he asks. “I’m checking that one off. Do you have a Sharpie?” He opens my desk drawer without waiting a beat, grabbing a green one and a black one from my neat pile. “Which one should we do next?”

He’s excited, and it frees a piece of me that’s been locked away for years.

Tyler was excited, too, when he first saw it. Then the excitement wore off. I bury the hope beneath the memories of his laughter, warning myself away.

“None of them,” I snap, grabbing the board away from him. “Seriously, it’s something stupid from freshman year.”

My own words sound so hateful I shut my eyes. But it’s not toward him. The hatefulness and anger are all for myself, because there was a time when this was important to me. A beacon of hope after leaving home. But it faded away, along with my excitement. Now when I look at the list, the doodles and lipstick prints, I only feel the ache of the loss of time.

“Let’s try this a different way,” Matt says, but it’s almost like he is talking to himself. “I would like to do these things on your list with you. I would love it, actually. But only if you want to. Do you want to try one with me?”

His voice is soft. I feel a little bit like crying.

“Now?”

He shrugs with a weak smile. “Yeah. Why not? If I’m the one you want to do these things with, then the only thing that’ll stop us is you, because we’re in this together. But you’re in control of our direction, Ro.”

His words are lovely, gentle. But something about it is wrong. I feel it like a pinch to my arm.

“What about you?”

“Me? What about me?”

He’s still smiling—dopey-eyed and boyishly handsome.

“It’s your body, too, Matt. You have just as much control as me.”

The words feel heavy and awkward, and part of me wants to shy away. But there is another, larger part of me that’s insistent this is important.

My words pull the carefree expression from his face, brow furrowing as he examines me. The fact that the idea is so foreign to him makes me feel a quick spark of anger in my stomach.

He raises his hands, like he’s going to reach for me, but then he clenches his fists and rests them on the bed between us. A bitter laugh—then a smile, lips parted.

I wait quietly, watching as he tries to push back his usual move here—like he’s actively unlearning the protective flirting that’s so comfortable for him.

He glances back at the list like a lifeline before exclaiming, “I think we start with the whipped cream—do you have any?”

It would be so much easier to agree. To change the subject entirely.

“You know that, right?” I say. “That you have control, too? That you have a say?”

It’s quiet for a long moment. Enough for us to both to sit in the discomfort of the conversation, yet be comforted by the mere presence of each other.

“I’m not—” He stops himself, clenching his jaw. “I know I sleep around. I know what people call me, but… it’s not— I’m not that with you.”

My stomach hurts, chest squeezing with empathy. “I know, Matt.”

He nods. “I just… this is new for me.” He laughs a little, scratching the back of his neck, ruffling his damp golden hair. “And I might not be good at it, so… I’m sorry if I mess it up.”

He’s kinder than Tyler ever was to me. More empathetic and understanding, more in tune with those around him than anyone I know. And he’s apologizing because so many people have made him think he isn’t good at this part—that he’s not worth anything other than sex. Like he doesn’t even deserve the opportunity to try.

“You won’t,” I say calmly.

He winces. “I might.”

“By your logic,” I say, stepping closer, “I will definitely mess it up.”

“You?” He shakes his head vehemently. “Never.”

I raise my eyebrows at him, extending my arms as if to say, see?

“Do you want to go out with me?” I blurt out.

He blanches, dropping the cardboard to the ground and scrambling for it, almost knocking his head into my bedframe on his way back up.

“What? Like—like on a date? Or…”

“Yeah,” I nod, a little giddy with excitement. I’ve never asked someone on a date before. It’s exhilarating, freeing where I thought I’d be anxious.

Matt takes a minute, eyes flicking across my face and down, reading my body language. An endearing smile, hesitant and bright all at once, spreads across his face and he nods rapidly.

“Yeah. That’s—yes, Ro. I’ll go on a date with you.”

This isn’t some magical healing conversation for Matt. Everything here feels delicate, like he’s on the precipice of something. But it’s a start—and a real date is exactly where we should start. To do this right.

Matt crawls across my bed and lies back against my headboard, beckoning me to him with a cheeky smile.

“Now come read me the list, princess. Some of the handwriting is horrible.”

Sadie’s handwriting looks like a physician’s scribbles, where mine is intentional and loopy, decorative.

“Okay,” I say, falling into him again.