If Only Tonight

Chapter Twelve: Revelations

There was something bothering Matthew. The longer he took to deal with it, the more it muddled his thoughts. Matthew kept running around the track. The players were lucky enough to have a track encircling the field within the complex, and then there was the gym. By the end of it, Matthew was breathing hard.

Having tired himself out, Matthew walked on to the field and sat down on the grass. His thoughts had drifted off to the morning. He had woken up on the sofa, alone, a blanket draped over him; Mia was no where in sight.

Matthew let out a sigh. It was his fault Mia had been attacked. The thought refused to fade. Jason…he thought with malice. ‘Scared that I’ll get her before you?’ Jason had left the question hanging between them. There was no competition between them. Matthew was more interested in staying away from Mia than gaining her affections. How could Jason have been so sure that she meant something to him?

Jason was out to get him. That much Matthew already knew. The last time he had tried to have a go at Matthew, Jason’s plan had backfired. It had been a good thing Matthew had been hanging out with Nathaniel and Oliver on that cold winter night, he was glad they had gone to Felix before anything could happen.

The more he thought about it, the more he was puzzled. He had never acted nice towards Mia. He had been cold to her in front of pretty much everyone, including Jason. So where did Jason get the idea? Matthew wondered.

What exactly does she mean to me? Matthew asked himself. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to know the answer. Jason had to have seen something that he refused to acknowledge.

The very first time Matthew had even seen Mia, she had effectively taken his breath away. He didn’t know why then, and he certainly didn’t know why now. Not only had she been assigned to him, she had also become his and Oliver’s roommate, making it that much harder for him to keep away from her. Matthew racked through his brain trying to sort things out.

She had turned to him during the thunderstorms. Mia had chased him down for his appointments. She had been the one to intervene on his behalf when it came to talking with Felix and letting him off of attending the games. The only thing he had done for her was take her to see off her friend.

It was then that something occurred to him. Jason had seen them when Matthew had opened the door to her. He had figured out where she lived because of that. He had seen them sit together at the game, and he had most likely seen the entire exchange. There was one more thing that stood out. Matthew was sure he had seen someone lurking in the shadows when he was practicing on the field, during the last game. He was sure he had seen someone after he had gotten Mia to come over.

Maybe it was Jason…it had to be Jason! Mia had told him she wouldn’t be going to the game when he had asked her. Jason must have wondered what she was up to.

The more he thought about it, the more it made sense. Jason had wanted another go at Matthew, and he had tried to get to him by hurting Mia.

I need to stay away from her, Matthew resigned. There was no other way. Jason might have been moved from the same wing, and though he was suspended; Matthew knew he would try to get back at him.

After the last game on my ban…I won’t bother with her, he thought unhappily. It was much easier to get along with her, than to go against her. Matthew hoped his resolve would last.

-----

“He WHAT?”

Mia sighed, her hand held the phone away from her ear. Stacie was having a fit. She had blown up the moment she heard of what had happened.

“I’m fine…” She muttered.

“Why didn’t you call the police, you dolt?”

“I didn’t want to get myself involved with the police.” Mia said once more.

“Mia, I should come there right now and drag you with me to Australia. You should look for safer jobs…go back to the university.”

“I’m fine! I’m not going to quit just because of one incident.” She said adamantly.

“What are you waiting for? For him to come back and finish the job?”

That’s got to hurt, Mia thought. She didn’t know how to respond.

“Mia…what he did was assault you…and had those guys not come in when they did…he could have raped you.” Stacie said gently.

That word…Mia had been refusing to think about. She was lucky that things hadn’t escalated to that point.

“But he didn’t!” She interjected. “Jason’s suspended and he won’t be on my roster even when he comes back. Felix even moved his room.”

“Fine…but you know maybe you should take this as a sign…and do something…”

“Like what?” Mia asked. She had already been thinking about doing something about her helplessness.

“Ever heard of…boxing?”

Mia groaned at the suggestion.

-----

“Hey Doc! I didn’t think I’d see you here.”

Standing by the reception counter, Mia turned around to see Nathaniel. He was wearing a team shirt and a pair of track pants.

“Staff are allowed to use the gym.” She pointed out. “And I thought we agreed that I get to call you Nate and you call me Mia, instead of Doc.”

“Alright Mia, it’s just that you don’t seem like a person who would ever use the gym…”

Nathaniel grinned as he said this. Mia laughed sadly at that. It was true she would probably never go to the gym, unless it was for a swim, but the past weekend had given her much to reflect over. Stacie had pushed her further into showing up…even if she was showing up two days after their conversation.

“So what are you doing here?” Nathaniel asked.

“Well…I decided…to get in shape?” Mia mumbled, hoping there wouldn’t be any more specific questions, even though she knew that was too much to ask for.

“Uh huh…you’re taking boxing aren’t you?” Nathaniel gave her a knowing look.

“How did you know?” Mia asked, looking up in surprise.

“The receptionist put your gloves behind you…and your form on the counter says boxing.” He told her wisely.

“And because I was there this weekend...it would make sense for you to take something like that...” He told her, quietly. Mia was quiet, and looked away.

“I’m really sorry you had to go through that.” Nathaniel told her. His voice held notes of sorrow in them. It almost sounded as though he blamed himself. She looked up to see his face. He looked upset.

“It’s not your fault, Nate. I don’t blame any of you...just Jason.” She told him.

Not saying anything, Nathaniel only nodded. Having cleared the air, Mia turned to get the boxing gloves off the counter. She shoved them unceremoniously into her bag.

“Are you going home?” Nathaniel asked her.

“Yea...I just came to sign up and pick up the equipment. The classes start on Monday and I’ll probably go for a swim tomorrow. I rushed here...so I kind of forgot to bring a change of clothes.”Mia told him, sheepishly; only to hear him laugh.

“Alright Doc, how about we walk back to the dorms then?” He offered.

Mia smiled; she knew he was going to make sure she was under Oliver’s supervision before he left. She couldn’t blame him.

“Okay...but under one condition.” She agreed.

“What’s that?”

“Stop calling me Doc!”

-----

Mia sat on the couch awaiting Oliver. He still hadn’t come back. She knew the guys were done training, so either he was at the gym or he had gone out; and wherever he was, Matthew was probably with him.

Oliver wasn’t one to avoid Mia; in fact he hadn’t even after the incident. On the other hand, Mia was pretty sure she was back at square one with Matthew. He didn’t bother to speak with her, or sit around with her, unless he had to. When he didn’t, he usually came home and headed for bed. There is no way I’ll ever get along with him, Mia thought with dismay.

Suddenly, there was a sound at the door. Mia perked up, hoping that the one or both of her roommates had come. The lock turned, and the door opened to reveal Oliver. He took out his key and locked the door behind him.

“Hello Mia.” He greeted her, as usual with a smile.

“Hello Oliver.”

She watched as he put away his jacket and shoes. He was the oldest from the three of them; Mia had a lot of respect for him. He had always treated her kindly, unlike Matthew. As he came to sit beside her, having washed up and with a plate of food, Mia decided it was the perfect chance to ask him her questions since Matthew was nowhere near.

“So how was practice?” Mia started, knowing it was best to ease in to the question.

“Same old, same old. One of the guys sprained his ankle. He’s not on your roster. That means we’ll need almost everyone to be fit; since Matthew, Aaron, Damien, David, and Roberts, are all out.” He told her, as he ate.

“Oh...umm...about Jason...I was kind of hoping you could answer something for me.” Mia jumped at the opportunity. Oliver had mentioned the name, even if it was the last name, so it wouldn’t really be her bringing it up.

“Okay...what?” Oliver didn’t look thrilled. He had agreed to talk, that was better than Matthew’s few unclear words.

“I just want to know if anything like this has happened before. Matt told me that I shouldn’t bother with Jason but he’d never tell me why. He told me to ask you if I wanted to find out.” Mia hoped he would answer. The last few times she had tried to ask, something had always come up.

Oliver chewed his food slowly, as Mia’s hopes disintegrated. He’s not going to tell me, is he? She thought, a little disappointed. When Oliver didn’t say anything, Mia spoke up once more.

“I just thought that maybe you would know. It just seems that something happened before. Matt won’t tell me. Nate will tell me to ask you two, so I thought maybe you would...”

At long last Oliver finally said something.

“I can’t tell you if Jason’s ever attacked anyone else that works here. That I honestly don’t know. He’s probably dated most of the women who work here...when I transferred here...he was known as the resident womanizer.”

That was news to Mia.

“What I do know is that Jason is not someone to be friends with. Matt found out the hard way.”

“What happened?” Mia asked, out of curiosity.

Oliver eyed her for a moment. Once deeming that she wouldn’t say anything to anyone, he started to tell her.

“When Matthew first transferred here, we were roommates. Everything was new to him. He missed home, but he was excited. He made friends with Jason in the first few months...and they would go clubbing together. I told him to be careful, but those two were hard to separate.”

Mia listened to him carefully.

“One night, this girl was flirting with Matthew and even though he liked her, he never said anything and just left the bar. Apparently the next morning Matt saw the girl leaving Jason’s room. Jason's room was across from ours at the time. It really pissed him off. Jason had known that Matthew liked her, and the only reason he hadn’t asked her out was because he didn’t want it to become some one night stand.”

It surprised Mia to hear this. Matthew has morals? She thought with astonishment.

“So for a while, things got tense between them, and then one night they went clubbing again, Matthew caught Jason forcing himself on some screaming girl, he shoved Jason off of her before rushing back to the dorms. Matthew stopped talking to him, he pretty much broke off all contact with Jason. Matt told Felix, and Jason got in to trouble.”

Oliver was quiet once more, and continued to eat his food. Mia could feel there was more to the story.

“A year later, Jason got dropped from the first team and put on the reserves, while Nathaniel joined the team. Matt was ecstatic to have someone he knew from his own country to be playing with him. We would all hang out. It was great, and it still is.”

Here it comes, Mia thought. Now she would know what had happened.

“But apparently being Jason’s friend or his enemy is the same thing. I guess Jason never forgot getting into trouble with Felix, so he set Matthew up.”

Mia didn’t know what to expect.

“One night, Nathaniel, Matthew, and I were hanging out the lounge. It was around the middle of winter, and there was nothing to do. So the power went out, and we all raced to Felix’s office to tell him. He was standing there laughing at us, because a few minutes after we got there the power came back. Before any of us could leave, a girl came in to the office looking for Felix.”

Oh, Mia thought dumbly. She had a feeling she knew where this story was going.

“She went to Felix and said she’s been raped by one of our players a short while ago. When Felix asked her if she knew who had done that to her...she told him it was Matthew Rossi.”

“What? But you said Matt was with you!” Mia couldn’t stop herself from saying out loud.

She watched Oliver take another bite of his food.

“Yea and he was. He was with us the entire night. That’s what Felix told her, while Matt looked flabbergasted.”

“The girl insisted, but when Matthew told her who he was, she stopped talking. Felix questioned Matthew for a while, and then he questioned Nathaniel and me. Once he was satisfied, he let us go, all the while telling the girl she would need to answer some more questions. Felix called some other people, and police were involved.”

Mia was on tenterhooks, she couldn’t believe someone would wrongly accuse Matthew; but even so, she wanted to know what the outcome was.

“Once we left the office, we saw Jason standing in the corner of the hallway. It was pretty obvious he was waiting for someone. He said something to Matthew that set him off. Matt ran back to Felix’s office and we chased after him. The next day Matt had to go to the police station. Long story short, it was all over the papers, Matt had Felix backing him the whole time, and in the end it was Jason.” Oliver took another bite of his food.

“He had paid the girl to say Matt had raped her. He was hoping Matt would be dropped from the team. Instead, it forced Felix put up a three strike rule on all of us. After this weekend, Jason has two strikes against him.”

The story had come to an end. Mia couldn’t believe what had happened. She felt sorry for Matthew; he had wrongly been accused just because Jason was angry with him.

“So the girl was lying about the entire thing?” She asked, she hoped that Jason hadn’t touched the girl.

“Yea. She was fine. Jason had paid her a few hundred dollars to lie for him. Felix was angry, and Matt was furious.”

“Whoa...” Mia said, lamely.

Before she could say anything else, the door opened. In stepped Matthew. He mumbled a ‘hello’ to Oliver before retreating to the bed room.

As she got up, she heard Oliver’s quiet voice.

“I think that's why he's a bit of a jerk around you. Anyway, this is between the both of us.” He told her.

Mia nodded in understanding, as she walked to the room. In the dark, she could only see the outline of Matthew’s body under his blanket. A sense of understanding enveloped her. He acted cold towards her because he didn’t want to be accused once again. There was more to Matthew than met the eye; that was for sure.