I shut out the world and read hungrily.
It was The Surrogate, of course. It was the complete manuscript.
The story darkened as I read, and more than once my throat tightened with grief. The surrogate's lover found out his secret and abandoned him. I felt Matt exorcising his turmoil in the prose. Only a few people would know the truth of this fiction.
If I had wondered at Matt's agony in the cabin in Geneva, now I knew. For him, the loss of me was a presence...
...a hole in his life that should not be filled. It was over, and it could not be over because he could not forget. She would become all that emptiness. In that, there was a comfort.
Nothing lasts forever, and nothing ever ends.
I scrubbed the tears from my eyes. I wanted to fly home to Matt, but I'd only put two hours on the clock. Fuck.
Matt's novels notoriously ended on low notes. The Surrogate was no exception. It closed with the surrogate on the run.
I gaped at the final line.
He disappeared off the cold grid, into the blackness of darkness.
What did that vague-ass sentence mean? Did the surrogate kill himself? What?
I stormed into Pam's office. She was laughing before I got there.
"Okay Hannah, what do you think?"
"I think he's a dick! And I hate literary fiction!" I jabbed the manuscript at her. "God, it's like... he spends every novel getting you by the balls, only to tear them off!"
Pam raised a blow. I blinked.
"Why Hannah, I didn't know your opinions could be so... explicit."
"Sorry, I—"
"Quite alright. Matthew's view of the world is dark. But you know that, don't you? I took you for a fan."
I folded my arms and tried to think objectively. Pam was right. I loved Matt's fiction... when I didn't love Matt.
Now?
Now I saw him every day—Matt in slippers, Matt after sex, Matt sniffing around the kitchen—and I couldn't bear to think he housed such strange sorrow.
Sad things seem truest to me.
His words. More of his words.
"Pam, I—"
"Go on," Pam said. She nodded at her door.
"I was... going to ask for an early lunch."
"Take a day, Hannah."
I wanted to hug Pam. Except never.
I gunned it home.
Matt was sequestered in the office, of course. I flung the door open. By the look on his face, my intrusion shaved a year off his life, but a smile quickly replaced his surprise.
"Hannah, hey." He rose from the desk. "What did you think? I gave Pam—"
"I know," I said. I buried my face his shoulder. "Matt, it's too sad."
He chuckled and hugged me.
"But Hannah, you know I think—"
"I know! I know. You think life is sad." I drew back enough to search Matt's expression. "But are you happy?"
His brows lifted.
"Of course I am. How can you ask me that?"
"I don't know. Your writing, that story..." I blushed. Had I read too far into Matt's fiction?
"Hannah." He lifted my chin. He stroked my cheek and feathered a hand through my hair. "I have you. I'm happier than any man has a right to be."
"That's all I need to hear," I whispered. "Every day."
"Oh, suddenly she has demands."
Matt defused my maudlin mood with a swift smack to my ass. I yelped and laughed.
As we held one another, my head on his chest and his chin in my hair, my gaze wandered to the desk. His notebook lay open.
"Are you starting something new?"
"Mm."
"What is it?"
"Our story," Matt said. He tilted his head and regarded me carefully.
"Our story?" I frowned. I could hardly handle The Surrogate. I knew I couldn't handle Matt turning us into a tragedy.
"It's a love story, Hannah."
"How does it end?"
Matt's gaze was suddenly inscrutable.
He hiked up my skirt and lifted me. I wrapped my legs around his waist.
"It never ends," he said, and he carried me out of the office.
EPILOGUE
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M. Pierce Writes from the Grave
February 3, 2014
AARON SNOW, staff writer