My Heart's on an Auction, It Goes out to the Highest Bid

Leaving the university gave me a rush as I jogged to my car and got in, starting to drive toward my house. I was filled with happiness and anticipation, Matt was coming home today from being on tour, and I would be able to move back into our house tomorrow, with him.

As I walked through the door, I noticed that Alice was sitting at the kitchen table, her feet up on the wood and her hair in a clear shower cap covered in a liquid that looked like moisturiser.

“Took your time!” She cried. “Yet again. I had to try and dye my own hair!”

Her toes were covered in toe separators and I took note of her freshly painted toe nails. I rolled my eyes and internally cringed.

“Sorry.”

I walked into the kitchen and threw my bag on the ground next to her chair.

“Champagne? Alice, since when can you afford champagne?” I asked, seeing the glass on the table.

“I didn’t get it, Matt did.”

“What?” I cried, “Matt’s here?”

“No, it was at the door when I got here.”

I turned on my heel are ran upstairs, perfectly aware that I had left my box of letters open and sprawled on my bedroom floor when I left this morning. As I ran into my room, I was taken aback by the sight. There was a bouquet of Christmas Lillies, my favourite flowers, on the desk. I knew instantly who they were from.

Racked by guilt, and confused by the dual rush of love, I stared at them for what felt like ages before I felt someone’s presence behind me in the doorway. Realising that I hadn’t yet packed up the letters I spun around, praying it wasn’t Matt home early.

“I put them in here.” Alice said, pushing past me and sitting on my bed. Her eyes moved painfully slowly toward the letters on the floor. “Care to explain why you’ve been writing to Ronnie Radke in jail?”

“Not really, Alice.” I said huffily, dropping to my knees and putting the letters away in rapid speed.

“Well I want an explanation.” She said as I placed them back in their hiding spot. “Clearly you feel guilty about the intimacy within them, or else you wouldn’t have hid them for so long.”

“What? How do you know how long I’ve had them for?”

“You think I don’t check the mail? I’ve been looking for them for ages when you weren’t home and I’ve never found them. Until today. I wish I never had now.”

“Well now you have, and you regret it, so can you leave it alone and respect my privacy next time?”

“Have you been cheating on Matt?”

“No, Alice, I haven’t and I never would. I love Matt. And besides, Ronnie is in jail anyway, I’ve never even met him.”

For the first time in the conversation I looked toward my best friend, cautious, knowing that she could read me like a book. Her eyes scoured my face and I bit my lip in worry – in guilt.

“Why would you even…” She sighed. “Look, Matt… he’s an awesome guy… and you’re so, so lucky… so many girls would kill to have a guy like him. Don’t throw it away, and don’t go behind his back, okay? He deserves better.”

“Don’t you dare tell him about this.” I said, reading what she was thinking. “There is absolutely nothing to those letters, alright? We’re friends, that’s all. I love Matt, you know that – and I don’t want him to worry, you know how jealous and weird he gets. And you don’t have to go around telling me how lucky I am – I know he’s an amazing guy, that’s why I married him and why I plan to spend the rest of my life with him, alright? So just drop it. You’re my best friend, not Matt’s.”

She sighed again and rolled her eyes. “Whatever Emily. Just don’t fuck it up. Especially not for some washed up drug addict.”

I had to swallow my words of defence, knowing that if I defending Ronnie, Alice would be even more suspicious of our relationship – whatever it may be.

I groaned and threw myself on my bed, lying there momentarily to grasp my thoughts.

I was just being stupid, the feelings I felt were so ridiculous I couldn’t even bring myself to process them. I loved Matt, I was married to Matt, Matt was my husband, my soul mate. So why did I feel like Ronnie was? Why did I feel like I was closer with a man I had never met? Was I bored of my marriage after only six months? Was I sick of the normality of Matt? His sweet gestures, his undying affection and soft demeanour, something some girls could only dream of… had I turned away from the comfort of him? I had everything with him, why was I trying to throw it away? Why couldn’t I just ignore my feelings for this phantom man?

But Ronnie wouldn’t be phantom to me for much longer. In two weeks, two weeks, I would be seeing him, and maybe then all my questions would be answered.

No, it was stupid. Totally ridiculous.

I was just missing Matt, and when I see him tonight, I would forget about Ronnie and whatever it was I had with him.

There was a knock on my door and I sat up on my bed to have Alice walk into my room and sit opposite me.

“Look, I’m sorry Emily.” She said. “Of course I’m your friend and I support you in what you want but… you don’t know Ronnie, and Matt loves you so much…”

“It’s okay Alice, relax. I promise there’s nothing going on with me and Ronnie – I haven’t even met the guy. I just miss Matt when he’s away, so I write to Ronnie to replace it, okay? I promise.”

She looked unconvinced but she didn’t press the subject. Instead she leaned over to me and hugged me tightly.

“Come on,” she said softly. “We don’t have long until Callum’s.”

“Shit! I forgot! I have to get Matt from the airport before that!”

“Actually you don’t, he called just before you arrived and said he’s landing an hour early so he’ll meet us here. So now you’re going to help me with my hair!”

***

The familiar feel of his tattooed arms around my waist made me feel oddly uncomfortable. My head rested against the chest it used to fit so well against, only now it felt like I was leaning on a jagged, brittle rock.

“Welcome home baby.” I managed to mutter, stepping back and looking up at his face.

Matt smiled and leant down to kiss me. His lips caressed my earlobe and he muttered into my ear, his breathe a faint whisper.

“I missed you.”

As Matt pulled away from my ear and attached his lips to mine, I felt it almost a chore to kiss him back. I began to feel like a Stepford Wife, a robot trained to cater to his needs, what was expected of me. But then I realised I had wanted all of this. Before he left five months ago, I was utterly in love with him, I couldn’t have waited to kiss him and touch him and hold him. What had happened?

Images of Ronnie and his conjured up personality filled my head and I began to kiss the foreign lips with more passion, my growing need for more expanding. I felt my body being pressed hard into the door, the lips moving from mine and to my neck, mine copying on the fellow body in front of me.

I opened my eyes when I heard Alice calling up to us. We needed to go. Suddenly I was aware of what I had done. It became clear that I was staring at Matt. A smiling Matt, who would never have believed I could do what I just did. He groaned and stepped away from me, his eyes looking over at the bag on my bed.

“Ready to go back home after this party?” He asked. “I can’t wait to be with you again. I’m sorry I was away for so long baby.”

“It’s okay.” I whispered as he walked across the room to get my bags.

Tears sprung to my eyes.

He was so sweet, and I didn’t deserve him, not with all of these second thoughts swirling around in my head. I hadn’t even done anything wrong yet, and even still I was racked with guilt – because I knew what would happen. I knew I was already falling for this person who I had mostly created out of fantasy. Ronnie was just letters. He was the knight in shining armour in my mind. Yet, I knew in reality he was a struggling drug addict, in jail, unemployed, with no one.

“Hey, hey it’s okay.” Matt said, holding me. “I’m sorry, I didn’t think it would upset you this much.”

“No, Matt, really it’s fine.”

“I love you.” He said, kissing me and wiping my tears. “I always have and I always will, okay? A few months apart can’t change that, right? And I’m here now.”

I nodded, hints of a smile appearing at the corner of my lips.

“Come on,” he said, taking my hand in his and leading me out the door and down to stairs to a waiting, and already tipsy, Alice. “Let’s go.”

As we drove away, sitting next to Matt in the passenger seat, my bag by my feet, I couldn’t shake the feeling of guilt that was plastered onto my skin.

I had hoped seeing Matt would help me figure out what the hell I was thinking.

It had just made me so much more confused.