"Fuck."

When Matty awoke, the sunlight tore into the room with a blinding brightness. He lay there doing little more than squinting and groaning, in the bed in the spare room, for a good three minutes.

He was too cold, with the sheets curled tightly around only half of his body, and too hot at the same time, as he found himself sweating all over, having fallen asleep in last night's clothes. He hadn't spoken to anyone since he'd come back inside last night; he'd left Amber to explain it all at her leisure, finding that he didn't really mind what became of everything anymore.

Really, the only thing he could focus on that morning was his hangover. Somehow, it had managed to be worse than he'd expected. His mind felt empty like a cavern, but crumbling at the seams, as if the more awake he was, the more everything was caving in. The destruction of everything was inevitable, and Matty lay there, deep into the morning, just letting his head cave in on itself: bitter and regretful of the night before.

The only benefit he found to having passed out in last night's jacket was the easy access to his cigarettes; something he couldn't deny that he needed in that moment. He dug into his pocket and lit one up, gazing across at the open window curiously. From the bright light making its way into the room, he could tell that it had to be somewhere around noon. Despite that the bright sunlight gave him no form of motivation to actually get out of bed.

It didn't take Matty long to conclude that anything he'd discussed last night was off limits. Reality was harsh and bitter when he was sober - it was all far too unpleasant for his taste, and despite his hangover, Matty was just more than certain that he could keep everything at bay if he just tried hard enough.

It was all a fucking mess really. A mess he was quite frankly terrified of. He would let the others think what they wanted of it, but he was certain that the last thing he'd ever want to do was to spare one of his own thoughts away to his great wreck of emotions and half right feelings.

"Fuck." He repeated aloud, just to himself, just to the silence of the room: the quiet of Gemma's house looming all around him.

At the back of his mind, he was sort of vaguely aware of the fact that he really should be getting out of bed soon, but he just wasn't quite ready yet. There was also the fact that he really did reckon that the moment he got to his feet, his head might as well snap straight from his neck and roll off his shoulders, and topple right down to the floor. It was that kind of hangover: one of his worst.

But still, the worst part of it all, by far was the fact that he could remember every second of the previous night in vivid detail. As in the Saturday morning light, Matty felt that if he could have one wish in the whole world, it would be a wish to forget it all, for everything to truly go away.

-

A good half an hour later, Matty finally pulled himself out of bed and to his feet. He did his best not to literally collapse onto the floor as he stumbled downstairs in a desperate rush for a glass of water, or some paracetamol, or anything really.

The very moment he set foot in the kitchen, however, he came to accept that no matter how late he'd left getting out of bed, it was always going to be too early for him to deal with what lay ahead of him.

"Shit- fuck- I thought you'd gone home- I-" Gemma let out a shriek and frantically pulled away from a dark haired boy who'd pinned her up against the wall, their lips connected in a manner that was entirely too graphic for a Saturday morning. The guy was tall and handsome, but with a nose that was far too big for his face.

Matty raised his eyebrows, smirking a little as he stepped into the kitchen and began to root around in the cupboards for a glass. He found that he was just far too hungover to deal with this; not that he'd really care very much either way - they both still had their clothes on, after all.

"I'm going soon, don't worry." He rolled his eyes, scoffing a little as he sipped away at his glass of water, bracing himself before slowly turning back to face the two of them.

The guy had distanced himself from Gemma significantly, striking Matty a look that gave the impression that he was somewhat terrified of him. And really that was what had Matty stumped the most of all: he was hardly even convinced that he could frighten off a fly. Oddly enough, though, Matty found himself considering this all a blessing, as he knew for certain that Gemma wouldn't try to bring up some of the more delicate points of last night in front of some guy Matty had never even met.

"So who's this?" Matty gestured vaguely at the guy beside her. He didn't actually care, he just thought it a better alternative to staring mindlessly at one another through the silence.

"Ryan." His voice squeaked a little as he spoke, looking Matty up and down with an indistinguishable kind of look in his eyes. "My name's Ryan."

Gemma stared expectantly at Matty for a good minute, pressing him to respond: to care to return the courtesy. Instead, Matty busied himself with finishing his glass of water and carefully setting it down on the counter behind him.

"This is Matty." Gemma eventually grew impatient and filled in for him. "He was over last night." Ryan shot her an astounded look. "Fuck- no. Not like that, we- no, Jesus Christ, no, we-"

"I like cock." Matty cut in rather crudely. His lips crawling up into a smug kind of grin, as both Gemma and Ryan looked at him with eyes blown wide. There was just something euphoric about it saying it aloud, about saying it like it held no weight over him at all. Although, that was a reality that Matty could only dream of.

"Yeah..." Gemma let out a sigh, doing her best to pad out the stunned silence. "He likes cock." She explained, glancing hopefully up at Ryan, who just nodded vaguely: unable to take his eyes off of Matty.

"What?" Matty scoffed, so very aware of Ryan's eyes fixated on him, taking him in with a kind of awe and wonder that did an awful lot to dehumanise him for a Saturday lunchtime. "You never seen a real life queer before?" Matty shook his head in disbelief, laughing a crude kind of bitter chuckle. "Fucking brilliant."

Matty snorted, the sharp, white hot pains of anger coursing through his body and numbing his nerves almost entirely. It was as if, in that moment, his sexuality meant nothing, as if him as a person held no value. It was just about justice and what was right; what he wouldn't let average looking straight boys think and say about him.

"No, I-" Ryan quickly snapped out of it, shooting Gemma a desperate kind of pleading look, as if he'd thought, even just for a brief moment, that she might have been on his side over Matty's. "I just... wouldn't think that you were. Surprised me, that's all." He mumbled, shooting Matty the world's most desperately pathetic apology.

"Surprised you?" Matty scoffed, slamming the cupboard door with entirely more force than was necessary, before turning to make his way out of the kitchen. "Doesn't sound very bloody likely does it? Look at me. Jesus Christ, take one fucking look at me. It's like how it took me one fucking look at you to guess that you're probably the most ignorant straight boy in the world."

"Thought sexuality had nothing to do with how you look?" Ryan was close to sneering at him. Like he found this all desperate funny, or perhaps in just one last ditch attempt to break the awkward manner of the situation.

"Thought being a cunt had nothing to do with how you look, but I've never fucking met anyone who's equally as physically and mentally repulsive as you." Matty didn't give him chance enough to respond before he slammed the door shut behind him. He didn't even give Gemma so much of a glance; he could deal with her take on all of this later, or he could just ignore it all until the day he died - really, either seemed like a fantastic option.

Matty lit himself another cigarette as he made it out onto the street, shoving his headphones into his ears, and doing all he could to shut off the world: spending time, trying to kid himself that what had happened with Ryan hadn't cut into him in ways he couldn't even explain. Eventually, he just added the experience to his ever-growing collection of things he just never wanted to think about again. With that, he quickened his pace, desperately wanting to get home and to bed more than anything else in the whole world.

-

The house was busy. The moment Matty got through the front door, he was instantly hit with noise. Too much noise. A whole world of noise coming from only a few rooms. It was too loud and too much, and Matty was just far too hungover.

He stood there for a moment, taking it all in: the hum of the TV from the living room, the muffled sound of the radio on in the kitchen, interrupted by the sounds of the washing up - plates falling into the sink, and the steady running of the tap. Amidst this all was conversation, faded and indistinguishable, but still, to Matty, it was the loudest of all of the sound in the entire world.

As much as he didn't want to confront it all, as much as he just wanted to quietly make his way upstairs and lock himself in his bedroom to just deal with everyone and everything so much later, curiousity did get the better of him. He couldn't quite understand it properly, but really, Matty couldn't quite understand the majority of what was going on in his life anymore. Pushing all rational thought aside, he placed his keys down on the table beside the door, slipped his shoes off, and trusted in his feet to guide him through the hallway and into the kitchen.

Matty was met at the doorway with looks of surprise and even awe from both his mother and his brother. The two practically froze mid sentence, instead turning to stare at him from where they stood in the doorway between the kitchen and the dining room.

"Hey." He let out a sigh, speaking just to fill the silence, glancing vaguely between the two of them, before reaching around through the cupboards behind him in search of some paracetamol.

"Where were you last night?" His mum had evidently decided to cut out the pleasantries entirely, meeting him straight with a sharp, almost bitter tone. It wasn't spiteful, just concerned: the kind of concern you couldn't help but harbour when your eldest son suddenly turned up at one in the afternoon in yesterday's clothing and his hair sticking up all over the place.

"Gemma's." Matty supplied readily, not doing so much as to turn back and glance at his mother, instead busying himself with taking a pill from the box of paracetamol and getting himself a glass of water.

"Gemma's?" She repeated, eyebrows raised, almost like she didn't quite believe him.

"Yeah." Matty answered hotly: his voice quick and sharp. "Are you actually doing the washing up are you just planning to leave the tap running for fun?" He gestured towards the sink, where the washing up lay, half done and abandoned. He didn't wait for her response before he reached over and turned the tap off, leaving room to ring with a new, almost unnatural kind of silence.

"Matthew-" She began, agitation evident in her tone, despite that however, she did her best to keep it all under control, not really wanting to start yelling in front of both of her sons.

"What?" He snapped, everything seeming to rise to the surface inside of him, and all out of what seemed to be nowhere. He turned back around to face them, leaving her watch to as he swallowed the pill, washing it down with half a glass of water.

"Are you hungover?" Her eyes widened slightly, looking him up and down in a state of disbelief.

"Yeah. What? I'm eighteen. I am allowed to get drunk. It's perfectly within my right to be hungover, I'm not your little kid anymore, alright?" He slammed the glass of water down onto the counter.

"You were supposed to be babysitting your brother and instead you were out getting drunk with Gemma." Denise repeated it all aloud, almost as if she just couldn't quite believe it herself.

Matty nodded in confirmation. "I forgot." He added in his own defence. "About babysitting." He gestured vaguely as he spoke, turning briefly to his brother, who had retreated away to the back wall of the room. He offered him a brief kind of apologetic smile. "Sorry, Lou."

"You forgot?" His mother repeated, eyes growing wider by the minute. "You can't just forget about your brother-"

"Well, looks like I did- what do you want me to do about it? I'm sorry. But look, there's nothing I can about it now, it's not like I can go back in time and fix it all, can I? Because honestly that seems an awful lot like what you want me to do here-"

"Matty, that's not-" She shook her head, turning between her two sons and shaking her head. "Doesn't matter. We can talk about it later, when you're not in such a mood. Just go and get some rest, alright?"

Matty studied her dubiously for a good moment. Part of him couldn't quite bring himself to trust in the situation at all. Her letting him off like this seemed just far too good to be true, but if Matty knew anything it was that maybe he just ought not to question it.

"Alright." He nodded, grabbing himself another glass of water before wordlessly making his way upstairs, far too aware of the way their conversation instantly resumed in his absence. He tried not to concern himself with what it was they'd been talking about, what it was that they'd so obviously thought to exclude him from, and how much his absence just hadn't seemed to matter so much to either of them at all.

Matty tried not to let it get to him, but it did. He couldn't help himself. Really, he was the posterchild for helplessness: stretched out and crumbling at the seams. But he sat down on his bed and wished for a world in which everything was better, the world made sense, and he just wasn't scared of anything anymore.

-

His next Saturday morning came to be significantly more depressing than the one prior to it, but at the very least, this time around, he found that he'd woken up without what felt like the whole world exploding inside his skull. He had that going for him.

Matty didn't want to feel particularly melodramatic or anything like that, because as Amber had assured him, this wasn't some kind of cliche movie, this was reality life, and they were real people, and this was how real things went down, but he hadn't seen George since last Thursday. Last Thursday being the day he'd first spoken to him. And really, Matty had tried not to make a mountain out of a molehill here, but he just couldn't stop himself, if only just for a crippling want to find something worth climbing to the top of: to make meaning out the monotony that had frozen over his everyday life.

Last weekend had turned out pretty shittily, but that meant nothing to say that this weekend was in anyway better. He did try to focus on the positives, even though they were few and far between, they were there: he'd spent some time with Louis on Sunday to make up for Friday night and that had definitely served to be the highlight of his week, and then on Wednesday, he'd gone over to Gemma's again, and they'd sat around being boring and sober and talking about silly things that meant nothing at all. The highlight of that night had perhaps just about been Gemma finally getting Ryan out of her life for good.

It turned out that Ryan had been the guy Gemma had been upset about on Friday night. The one she'd gone on for a quarter of an hour, despite the fact that Matty hadn't picked up a single word. He'd been an asshole all along, and really, that shitshow last Saturday morning had been the final straw to it all.

Still, all of that did nothing to remedy the mess than continued to crumble to pieces around his head, because despite the passing of seven days, because despite the time to himself, because despite the time to think, Matty still hadn't the slightest clue as to what it was that he was actually supposed to do in answer to the great conundrum that was his gender, sexuality, and general identity. And then there was the fact that despite not having so much as looked at him once since that Thursday, Matty still couldn't get George out of his head.

The best, and really only solution he'd found to everything was just to do his best not to let himself think about them. He wasn't stupid enough to kid himself that perpetual ignorance was any kind of secure or permanent solution, he was just emotionally weak enough to go along with it for the time being. And really, it had all been going decently well enough for him until the very moment he'd dragged himself into the shower and curled his hand around his cock, his head going to the very same place it had every night since the Thursday that had started it all.

And then, as if his life wasn't depressing enough already, Matty got out of the shower after he'd came, sat down on the edge of the bathtub and had a little cry. It was kind of more than a little cry. Really, if he was being honest with himself, it was a horrible kind of ugly cry, leaving him red faced and shaking, as his head ran back in on itself: forever going in the same circles and tearing away at him from the inside. It couldn't go on like this. He knew that for sure.

He sat there for a good ten minutes, crying his eyes out to the point where he was just sure he'd ran out of tears completely. Once he'd stopped however, he didn't feel any better, just empty. The worst kind of numb. A persistent, physical, numb kind of ache that crawled up inside of him and tugged at each and every one of his bones. It was the kind of numb that made him want to shove his hand around his cock again - just to feel something, but he knew by now that it would only make everything worse.

Matty let the numbing sensation spread through every inch of his body as he got to his feet. He turned to face his reflection in the mirror and tried to pinpoint just what it was that was wrong with him. There had to be something; he'd figured out so much by now. This all just hadn't stemmed from nothing. That just didn't make sense at all.

But facing his reflection was perhaps the worst thing to do, because suddenly in the cold air of the bathroom, he became perhaps overly aware of every inch of his own skin. He fixated on the way his shoulders slouched and sloped in slightly, the way that if he sucked in a breath, you could see the outlines of his ribcage through his chest, the way his hips were all too narrow and his legs all too skinny, his knees bony and too big for his legs, his hands tiny even on his short arms, and his skin flushed a horribly bright pink all over.

That wasn't what he focused in on though. Suddenly, each imperfection meant nothing in comparison, as he stood and faced his reflection. He faced his body as it was and opened up his mind for just a moment. He stood there and stared at his skinny frame, at his angular torso, at his flat chest, at his dick, hanging almost limply between his legs.

Looking at himself like that, he was just so obviously so male, so unavoidably masculine, as he stood there torn away from anything else he had to his name. He felt exposed, like it was almost uncomfortable to stare at himself like this, to see himself clearly and honestly, as a body, as bones and skin - free from demeanour and character, from clothes and expression, free from everything that helped the world make more sense to him. Free from any kind of comfort and familiarity he found in himself and his own sense of identity.

It made him sick. A horrible kind of sick that sank in through his skin and deep through his bones. Like he wasn't human, just a set of broken pieces shoved hopelessly together. He was overwhelmed with a desire to feel real. To feel like he belonged, even in just his own skin. Just to feel like the reflection he met in the mirror could possibly be him. The real him: the person lost inside of this mess.

He hadn't thought an awful lot about his gender. Truthfully, he hadn't known where to start and he'd just been so awfully terrified to ask. But there in that moment, Matty stared at his frame: naked and shuddering slightly, and with all the confidence in the world, knew for certain that he just couldn't be a boy.

-

"I'm so fucked." Matty's words were barely more than a whisper as he paced back and forth through his bedroom. "Everything's so fucked." He repeated, tears welling in his eyes as he struggled to get even the slightest kind of proper grasp on the situation. He was just all out of ideas as to where he could go from here.

"Everything?" Gemma's voice came from down the phone, finding that she had just as little of a grip on what was going on as Matty did himself. "What's going on?"

"Everything." He stressed, rubbing his eyes and wishing to push the whole world far away from him.

"What specifically though?" Gemma really did try her best, feeling the desperation in Matty's voice, and hating that she just didn't have the slightest clue as to how she might put it to rest. "What made you call me? There was something, wasn't there?"

"Yeah." Matty swallowed hard, dragging his gaze down to the floor, to his feet, to the imprints his pacing footsteps had made in his carpeted bedroom floor. "I... fuck, Gemma, fuck... I..." He took a deep breath, doing all he could to get some kind of oxygen, some kind of clarity to his brain. "Look, I'm... I... I'm not a boy. I'm not a fucking boy. Fuck, fuck, fuck- I just... fuck. I'm not a boy. What the fuck do I do? What the fuck am I supposed to- how do... I just... fuck-... I'm just this mess... I... I..." Matty struggled to breathe, descending into a series of messy sobs.

"Fuck, Matty, I-..." Gemma couldn't help but hate the fact that she felt like she was just anything but qualified to offer him advice and support, but despite that, she was still very much his best friend, and this couldn't change that.

"Yeah, fuck - exactly. That's all I can fucking think- all I can fucking- fuck." Matty let out a groan, collapsing back onto his bed and just focusing on breathing for a few moments. "Fuck." He repeated aloud; it had almost become somewhat of a mantra at this point.

"Look, Matty, look you know I love you no matter what, don't you?" Gemma began, desperately hoping that her words might do even the slightest thing to calm Matty down. "Because I do, and you're my best friend, whether you're a guy, or a girl, or whatever the fuck else."

"Thank you." Matty let out a breathy kind of sigh, doing all he could to steady his breathing as he focused on Gemma's words: on the concern and sympathy behind them. For a good ten seconds he dedicated his brain entirely to the fact that she'd love him still, regardless of whatever kind of mess had unfolded up inside of his head. He knew that was important.

Gemma listened down the line until Matty's breathing began to steady, only then beginning to continue. "So what was it that happened? Because something happened, didn't it? I mean... last weekend you were at 'sometimes I don't really feel like a boy' and now... you're sure that you're not a boy at all."

"Gem, look, I am not sure of anything." Matty let out an uncomfortable kind of choked sob, trying to brush it off as a spout of badly placed nervous laughter. "Fuck." He let out a groan, shaking his head, as he felt himself physically filling with the deep kind of regret for everything, especially the person that he'd let himself become.

"What happened?" Gemma repeated, her voice softer this time around. There was a hint of something patronising in her voice, as it undeniably bore reminiscence of the way you might speak to a child, but oddly enough, Matty found that he really didn't mind it at all. It was comforting somehow.

"I just..." Matty took a deep breath, doing all he could to compose himself before continuing. "I just knew. I just looked in the mirror, I looked at myself properly, I looked at myself for a long time, like properly just stared at myself and took it all in... I just... I just knew. It was all wrong. It feels wrong. I feel wrong. Because I'm not masculine, I'm not- I'm not a boy, that's all wrong, that's all just fucking wrong- I just... I don't know if I'm a girl though, fuck Gemma, I just don't know, I just- I don't know."

"That's okay, fuck, Matty, that's so okay. You don't have to know. I'm not asking anything of you. Look, do you... I don't know, want me to call you something different or something like that?" Gemma's voice was somewhat tentative: so very curious, but still so very careful, knowing Matty well enough to know that in this state, he was just so far beyond fragile.

"Fuck, I- fuck, I don't know. I don't know. Fuck... I don't fucking know." Matty bit his lip, shaking his head firmly as he struggled to his feet. "I don't want to think about that. It feels all too formal, too set in stone- too real. Fuck, I don't want this to be real, like... fuck, all of this was fine when it was just this mess sort of vaguely at the back of my mind, but now... now I'm just really not a boy. I can't... avoid that. I can't fucking fix it either. Like what the fuck am I even supposed to do, I just-"

"Matty, look..." Gemma lowered her voice, doing all she could to pull off soft and comforting. "You don't have to do anything. Look, this isn't supposed to be a problem, is it? Your gender doesn't need fixing, does it? Come on, think about it. There's like nothing you can do about it, like, you can't make yourself be a boy if you're not. You've just got to accept it, haven't you?"

"No one else will." Matty snapped, his mind coming to a very quick conclusion about everything. "I can't just... people are going to look at me and see a boy, and I'm supposed to correct them, and then what am I supposed to say? Sorry I don't have any fucking clue what or who I am, please just don't mention gender in any way, shape, or form around me or I will literally cry? Like that's not going to fucking work, is it?"

"Yes." Gemma felt a little more confident in her advice this time around. "Say that. Say exactly that. And if they don't take you seriously then they're not worth your time, are they? You don't want someone who won't respect you in your life."

"But, fuck, I'm fucking terrified of losing people. I can't just... I fuck- fucking hell, Gem, I just wish none of this ever even existed, I wish. I fucking wish I was a boy, you know that? Right now I wish I was the most fucking manliest man in the entire world, because then I'd be normal. Then people would accept me, then I'd feel okay. Then everything wouldn't be a mess. Then I could just be gay. And then I wouldn't have to think about gender or sexuality at all. It'd be fucking simple that. I'd fucking love that, you know? I fucking would."

Gemma's new found confidence seemed to dissipate into nothing, as all of a sudden, she realised that she just had absolutely no idea of what it was that she should say.

"Like what the fuck am I supposed to do with my sexuality now? Like it's not like I can... I just... no one's going to fucking want me, are they? If I want to have a boyfriend or even just fuck a guy, maybe even just kiss a guy. That's not going to work, because gay guys want to kiss guys, and I'm not a fucking guy, and I don't think I can let myself pretend, that's not any way to fucking live is it? And then straight guys want to fuck girls and I'm not a girl. And yeah, bisexual guys want to fuck girls and boys, but separately, not some fucking mess between the two of them. Who the fuck wants me? No one's going to accept that. No one's going to want to accommodate it. And I can't fucking deal with that."

"Matty... you... you don't imagine that you're the only person in the entire world who feels like you do, do you?" Gemma's voice was quiet, tentative, and cracking in places, but still, she was trying, so desperately hard, and that meant the world. "Because there are people like you, have you not thought about that? There are definitely people who will respect you, people who will love you, people who aren't going to care about fitting you into one of two genders. There are people like that, of course there are."

"Then where the fuck are they? Where in all hell is the answer to my fucking problems?"

"Matty, I don't know. I think the idea is that you accept who you are and go out and find them for yourself. If you need to prove that someone loves you for who you are, then you need to do that, you need to find someone to tell you so. If you need to, then go out and make it happen. But you just need to accept that this is who you are, and that there's nothing you can do to stop it."

"Yeah... okay." Matty took a deep breath: Gemma's words suddenly beginning to settle and make sense in his mind.

"I love you and I accept you, alright? People do and people will. Don't forget that."

-

To his credit, Matty did follow Gemma's advice. Just perhaps not in the way she'd intended it to be followed. But then again, it was never as if she'd set out anything in the way of clear guidelines for him in the first place.

Come Saturday night, Matty had come up with what he'd deemed to be his master plan: a work of genius, in which he'd be sure to fix everything all at once. Or, if things didn't go as planned, at least he could have the satisfaction of calling Gemma up again just to say 'I told you so'.

Matty looked a mess. But it was all okay because he'd gotten drunk before he'd even left the house. It had all been too easy come eleven, with his brother up in his bedroom, and his parents away in the living room, talking loudly over the TV, and just entirely too engaged in their own conversation.

He'd come to declare that Saturday as one of his worst days, but something he'd had to deal with nevertheless. Therefore, it really wasn't his fault if his solutions were just far from orthodox, or even successful, for that matter. But Matty did feel a hell of a lot better with himself with the best part of a bottle of wine down him. After all, he really did have to be at least tipsy to even think about going through with this.

Matty had come to perhaps even relish in the fact that he looked like a mess. He finally perhaps looked just as confusing and fucked up as he felt on the inside. It was all about self expression, wasn't it? That was what it had to be, with him sneaking into his parents' bedroom to steal his mum's makeup, like he was four years old all over again.

But instead, Matty stood there at eighteen and for the second time that day, faced his reflection in the mirror.

He'd pulled his hair up into a bun, doing all he could to stray it towards the elegant side of messy - the kind of look girls actually sought after, and not just a consequence of general ineptitude when it came to everything. He'd done a better job at repainting his nails, as that was at least something he did vaguely frequently.

When it came to make up, however, he was sure he'd committed some sort of cardinal sin with the brightest of red lipsticks slathered thickly across his lips, and dark, almost raccoon rings of eyeliner smudged out around his eyes. He'd combined that with the tight leather jacket and girls' jeans he frequently wore, and really, he didn't look terrible. But he just didn't look particularly fantastic either. He found some charm in that, however.

He couldn't quite explain it, but Matty stood there at eighteen, and for the third time that day, faced his reflection in the mirror. And for the first time in far too long, he smiled.

Matty carried that same smile out of the back door as quietly as he could, making his way out onto the street without attracting any attention. From then on, it was a series of busy roads: illuminated with brightly coloured artificial lights that dragged him into the city, to the part of the world that really did feel alive.

He found himself buzzing off an unknown high, making his way through town with what he might have even called determination. And in the evening light, not for a moment did he think to worry, to stop with concern, to hide his face, to hide himself from every stranger on the street. Tonight he wanted them to have him. He wanted the world to really see who he was, with everything thrown out on the table. Matty wanted a reaction. He wanted to leave a mark: a lasting impression. He wanted to be remembered - to be more than another face amidst the sea of many. For suddenly, 'average' and 'normal' no longer meant a thing to him.

The way to the club was almost ingrained into his mind; it was a journey he'd taken perhaps far too many times before, a place he'd come to know well over the last year of his life. The very first time he'd ever set foot inside he'd come in search of answers, with a mess of confusion on his mind, and upon that Saturday night, he returned in much the same manner.

The club was tucked away on the end of a street, with a bright neon sign out front, producing an almost noxious kind of pink light that flooded the interior also. The whole place reeked of tacky: tacky trying to hard to be modern, stylish, maybe even beautiful. But Matty couldn't look himself in the mirror and deny that he was very much the same. Yet despite its appearance, the club was his favourite. He always came back, after all.

It was however, worlds away from the series of clubs and bars that Gemma sometimes took him out to: places with bathrooms that didn't perpetually smell like sick, and nice seating at the bar. Those were the clubs he went to for something else, though. Those were the places he went with friends, for a drink, to dance, to laugh, to maybe end up throwing up in the gutter outside of a Morrisons at two in the morning.

However, Matty went to this club when he wanted to get fucked.

He scanned the crowd as he walked in, quickly locking eyes with one boy from across the room. He was exceptionally pale with blonde hair and bright blue eyes, and sure, he was pretty, Matty just didn't feel like he was really his type. Instead of pursuing him, he made his way straight to the bar, cutting through the room with a feigned kind of confidence that he'd put down to a fifty fifty split between the wine and the lipstick.

He couldn't deny that the barman looked at him oddly as he took a seat and ordered a drink, but there was something up in his head that told him just not to care. Instead, he concerned himself with glancing across to a man, perhaps just a few years older than him, with thick, dark hair, who sat a little way away from him. Matty spent a good few minutes doing all he could to make eye contact: batting his lashes and pouting excessively, but the man didn't seem the slightest bit interested.

Matty soon grew irritated, finishing his drink as he did all he could not to let a certain feeling sink in: the notion that he'd been right all along, that no one would want him like this. People came here because they liked guys, not whatever the fuck he could possibly be. He started to wonder if this had just been entirely the wrong place for it, but really, Matty didn't have the slightest idea as to where else he should go. He began to consider making his way over to the dancefloor, to find the boy with blonde hair and blue eyes, who really wasn't his type, but would do. Really, Matty had never had very high standards in the first place.

It was just as he was about to give up, however, that a guy slipped into the seat beside him. He'd immediately caught Matty's attention: tall, and dark haired, with broad shoulders, and a hint of a smile across his face. Somehow, before Matty could even think of what to say to him, he had the bartender's attention instead.

"Can I get a beer, mate?" He asked, his words coming out in a deep, thick tone that did horrible things to Matty's mind. Just as Matty thought that he'd lost all hope of getting his attention, the man had turned directly to him with that very same smile. "And what about you, sweetheart?"

Matty grinned, blushing as his heart soared up into his chest in something that he might have even described as disbelief. "Shot of vodka." He smirked, watching the barman momentarily: he fixated on the odd look in his eyes, like he had the whole world to say about this fucking weird mess that had turned up looking like some sort of emo hooker, but Matty really didn't have a care in the world.

It was then as the guy turned to properly look at Matty, doing the best he could in the low light, the penny did finally drop. "Oh... fuck." He let out an exasperated kind of breathy sigh, his eyes growing wide like saucers, as slowly, Matty turned back to face him. "Fucking hell... Matty... wasn't it?" He shook his head in disbelief, forcing a nervous laugh as he took his beer from the table, almost as if to hide himself behind it.

"Yeah..." Matty began, glancing around uncertainly. "Umm... who the fuck are you?" Part of him would have wished he could have been polite, seeing as this guy, for god knows what reason, seemed to actually be attracted to him, but he was running entirely on alcohol, on a bubbly, toxic kind of confidence, and just pure fucking dumb luck.

"Fucking hell." He put his drink down, meeting Matty's eyes for a moment, and really, Matty couldn't deny that he did look familiar, but he struggled to place just why exactly. "You had a proper go at me, mate, thought you might have remembered that at the very least. Pretty sure you called me the most repulsive person you've ever met."

"Oh..." Matty giggled, wondering if he could brush it off. "I do that a lot. I'm quite stubborn, quite stupid as well, trust me, I probably didn't mean it." He took a deep breath, downing the shot, and turning back to the guy with a grimace.

"Ryan." He supplied, watching Matty oddly for a moment or two, waiting for it all to come back to him. "From Gemma's house. You know, you walked in like last weekend and it was really awkward because we were well, a bit preoccupied, and then suddenly I'm the most repulsive person you've ever seen and she won't talk to me anymore. That Ryan."

Matty's eyes grew wide, choking a little as it all came back to him. "Fucking-... fuck... wait... so... what... I...? You do realise this is a gay club-"

"You do realise I wasn't being homophobic at all?" Ryan rolled his eyes; he definitely hadn't intended to sit down next to Matty, of all people, he'd just picked the prettiest boy at the bar, and it had happened to be him. "You do realise I'm bi, and you do realise I was looking at you like that, not because I'd never seen a 'real life queer person before', but because, you know, I thought you were so hot that there wasn't going to be a single chance in hell that you'd be into dudes, let alone me."

"Oh..." Matty bit his lip, unable to deny that he'd fucked up there, and really, whatever Gemma'd had with this guy, and all for really no reason. At least, he had been a dickhead to start off with, but under the dim, pink lighting of the club, and with the shot of vodka to his system, Matty found that Ryan was suddenly nowhere near the dickhead he'd once been, and really, his nose just didn't look anywhere near as ugly as it had done before.

"Yeah." Ryan nodded, meeting him with a nervous kind of smile. "And I'd understand if you don't want to talk me, because I mean, it's a bit... weird, I guess, I fucked your best friend and then she told me she never wanted to speak to me again- yeah, I should probably- go-"

Matty cut him off, latching onto his arm, with a pleading kind of desperate look set intently into his eyes. "No... please, stay." He batted his eyelashes up at him: trying all he had, and watching intently as Ryan eventually let out a sigh and sat down again.

"Alright, sweetheart." He grinned, resting his chin into the palm of his hand, his arm rested against the bar. "So am I still the most repulsive person you've ever met, or what?"

Matty giggled, his cheeks turning red - a shade that, at the very least, had to match his lipstick. "No... course not. I mean, look, I never hated you, I just thought you were being a dickhead, alright, and I was hungover and pissed off, and so tired, and so moody, come on, you had to see that, I looked a wreck."

"You looked pretty." Ryan told him, unable to stop his lips from forming a grin. "Even then. I think you always look pretty. You look gorgeous now, let me tell you that. Prettiest boy in this whole club."

Matty couldn't help but grimace at the word 'boy', finding that he could do nothing more than focus on that intently, disregarding the rest of the compliment entirely. He forced himself to smile, to nod, and look appreciative regardless.

"Gorgeous?" He echoed, his voice shaking a little. "What? Now I've turned up like this mess, all... fucking reject hooker make up look up here, and these, these aren't even my best jeans." He gestured down at his legs, pulling at the fabric a little. "They're too loose. I've got such fucking horrible weedy little legs." He grimaced.

"Gorgeous." Ryan repeated, just as certain as it had been before. "You look so good in lipstick."

"Fuck." Matty blushed, properly this time, Ryan's words seeming to sink right into his skin, because this meant everything, this meant the world. Because Matty really was drunk enough to let some random guy in a bar call him gorgeous and let all his problems wash away with it.

He held this as proof; all he needed to know that people would love him, people would accept him, and that boys like George, maybe just weren't worth his time. He focused intensely on every positive, soaring high above entirely else, and completely disregarding the fact that this was Ryan: Gemma's Ryan, or had been Gemma's Ryan. And although, they had never actually spoken about it, Matty was sure there was some unspoken rule about not fucking your best friend's ex. Well, really, they'd never actually dated, so he'd really never actually been her boyfriend. He'd just fucked her. Somehow that seemed to sit so much better in Matty's mind.

"What is it, sweetheart?" Ryan asked, moving a little closer to Matty. "You alright? Do you want another drink or something?"

"You know? You're hot. You're so hot." Matty tossed aside all common sense entirely, deciding that from this point on he was going all in. He even went as far as to whine a little as he glanced over Ryan, focusing on his body - that tall, broad frame, and perhaps not so much on that nose, that really didn't quite fit on that face. But really, he was enough. In Matty's eyes, under the neon lights, he was perfect. He was the world.

But at one point, just about every boy had been.

Ryan blushed, grinning as he got to his feet, stretching his hand out to Matty. "Do you wanna dance?"

"Fuck, please." Matty nodded, growing weak all over, as he let Ryan pull him to his feet, entwining their fingers as he let his strong hand, perhaps twice the size of his own, lead him across to the dancefloor. To the brighter lights, to the music that seemed to vibrate against the floor, and to catch eyes with that blonde haired boy, who looked across at him, disappointed - knowing he'd lost his chance.

Matty liked that. Being wanted. Eyes on him. Lustful eyes and sweaty bodies pressed tightly against one another. The simple things, the nights where he didn't have to think. As in that moment, he felt high, high above everything else, floating off the floor, with enough confidence to take down the world.

And that was wonderful.

It just shouldn't have been: it was all wrong, it was all lies, all words spoken too softly, too much drink, and a strong disregard for all that could come of this. But Matty just couldn't find an inch of space up in his head for a single inkling of the truth.

And still, under the neon lights, with a hand around his waist and another against his neck. That was fucking wonderful.

-

Matty had lost his mind under the lights, in the mess of the crowd, with Ryan's body pressed close against his own, and the whole world seeming to run like blood through his veins. He found it again with his legs spread wide, under the dim glow of golden light, warmth all over him, and unknown shadows cast on unrecognisable walls.

He forced his eyes to focus, his mind connecting back to his body as he faded out of what he could only describe as a drunken haze: something within him beginning to sober up finally. He couldn't help but hate the come down, the truth of it all, the cold, harsh touch of reality, the looming bittersweet sadness, and indeed the inevitability of it all.

A series of slow, hazy blinks brought him through to a state of proper consciousness: a full awareness of where he was and what he was doing. He sat there motionless for a minute more, doing all he could to make sense out of the shadows cast onto the walls, of an unfamiliar room, a place he didn't know, yet despite that, this unexplainable warmth, a feeling that somehow, for some reason, he was loved.

Matty couldn't deny that he needed that.

He didn't quite get onto pondering the exact nature of his situation before the door opened, letting a harsh kind of white light into the room, and stood amidst the light was the familiar face that brought it all back.

"Fuck..." Matty grumbled, shuffling forward a little. "Ryan..."

"Are you alright...?" Ryan's voice was slow, tentative, never taking his eyes away from Matty as he reached for the light switch on the wall. "What are you doing in the dark?"

Matty watched as the shadows vanished and the room seemed to glow a beautiful shade of gold. Despite the fact Matty was still yet to grasp the specifics of his situation, he felt an overwhelming sensation of comfort set deep within him: something like an innate, unexplainable notion of safety.

"I don't know..." Matty's voice was muffled, his face down towards the ground. "Ryan... I... don't quite remember, really." He admitted, feeling a little stupid more than anything.

Ryan offered him a sympathetic kind of smile and closed the door behind him, setting down two mugs of tea onto the bedside table, before sitting beside Matty on the double bed in the centre of the room.

"Did you make me tea?" Matty's eyes grew wide, fixating on the two mugs that Ryan had set down beside them. He nodded. "I'm actually honoured." Matty exclaimed, grinning a little as he glanced across at Ryan. "Wait... fuck... this is your place, isn't it? I mean... yeah..." His eyes spun frantically around the room. "What happened at the club? I don't even remember leaving, I'm-... what time is it?"

"Matty..." Ryan lowered his voice in an attempt to soothe him, placing a gentle hand on his back. "You okay?" His voice remained soft-spoken as he reached for his phone to check the time. "It's like two in the morning. You got really drunk back there, like properly wasted, like you know the kind of drunk that it wasn't safe to leave you on your own like, so I asked if I could take you home, but you insisted that I didn't, so I took you to mine."

"Oh..." Matty trailed off. There was a part of him that couldn't help but wish that something more than that had happened along the way. He was desperate to be wanted, to feel loved, even in the worst way.

"I can take you home now if you want. You slept a bit of it off, I think." He offered, really as if he didn't mind either way. Matty couldn't help but hate that. He knew that Ryan was only trying to take care of him, but Matty hadn't gone out that night to be looked after.

"What? Do you want me gone or something?" Matty had risen his voice before he could stop himself, turning to meet Ryan with an insistent kind of anger in his eyes.

"No." Ryan exclaimed, moving closer to Matty as if to show just that. "I just thought you might want to, I mean if you didn't really remember me taking you here then I guess it was kind of against your will, but I really did think it was the best thing for you-"

"No, Ryan, thank you." Matty forced himself to think straight, doing all he could to remind himself that in that state of intoxication he would have likely ended up passed out in a spare trolley in the middle of a Sainsbury's carpark. He couldn't imagine that that would have been a particularly pleasant situation to deal with. This was certainly a better alternative.

"It's alright." Ryan told him, smiling a little as he reached for his cup of tea. "You can stay overnight as well, that's fine too."

"Yeah, thanks." Matty let out a sigh, settling himself back down onto the mattress and spreading his limbs out across the bed.

They sat like that for a while. In a soft, very early morning silence, as Ryan sat there sipping his tea, and Matty lay down beside him, doing all he could to keep his worst kind of thoughts from seeping back into his head.

He couldn't stop them in the end. He never really could. No sense of salvation was permanent, and with every night there would always be a morning to follow. He couldn't help but hate that, just as much as he couldn't help but hate himself.

He hated himself for wanting more, for using every single person in his life, for running in circles away from the whole world, from everything he should just let catch up to him, but he didn't want to think about the person he was, and much less the person he could end up to be. Nothing scared him quite like that.

In the quiet, under the warm glow of the light, he lay there and thought of this night, and how it was yet to accomplish anything, how he lay there, suddenly unwanted, useless, broken, falling apart, with chipped nail polish and lipstick fading off his lips. He wanted to will himself back to the very beginning of the night, to the beginning of getting drunk, when everything just felt golden, and he could bask in a real kind of wonder that he might have just even been able to pass off as happiness.

"Matty, are you alright...?" Ryan glanced over to him, noticing the glazed over, lost look in Matty's eyes, as if he'd just about drowned in himself, his mind falling to pieces all around him.

"Not really no." Matty choked out, desperate not to cry, desperate not to cry in front of perhaps the one person who found him attractive, because god, he was such a fucking ugly crier. And more so, desperate not to cry as to not make it tangible, to make it real.

"Matty..." Ryan let out a gasp, setting his tea down, and properly turning his attention to Matty in the bed beside him. "What's wrong, sweetheart? Fuck, don't cry, please don't cry." He grasped Matty's hand, pulling it away from where it had entangled itself in the sheets. "Come on, gorgeous, don't cry, it's going to ruin your makeup."

Matty snorted a little, forcing himself to sit up, taking no more than a moment to sit properly on his own, before letting himself fall into Ryan's side. "God, I'm such a fucking idiot." He let out a sigh, rubbing his eyes, and grimacing momentarily at the black smudges left on his fingers. He decided, however, that by this point, he just didn't care.

"You're not an idiot, come on, Matty, I-"

"No, look at me, you take me home from a club, and what do I do? Fucking cry on you, Jesus Christ? Fucking hell, this is whole new levels of tragic, this." He shook his head in disbelief, forcing himself to sit up properly again. Matty took a deep breath and did all he could to compose himself, brushing his hair out of his face and adjusting the bun he'd tied it up in.

"Like you're the first drunk boy that's cried on my shoulder." Ryan rolled his eyes, laughing to brush off the notion.

The word 'boy', however, could only make it worse. "Fuck." Matty choked out, every bad thought he'd ever had about his gender creeping in suddenly. "Fucking hell, I just- look... just... am I going to sound even more pathetic if I just straight up ask you to fuck me?"

Ryan's eyes grew wide, very much in disbelief. He blinked slowly at Matty for a good few minutes, almost as if he was entirely certain that he just might disappear at any moment.

"That's... look... I came out tonight because I wanted to get fucked, alright? I feel like shit, I look like shit, and everything's such a mess. I want someone to want me. To want me as I fucking am. Is that just asking too much?" Matty trailed off, meeting Ryan's gaze nervously, holding his whole world out in his hands, waiting for Ryan to crush it into pieces.

"Fuck, Matty- you... you want me to fuck you?" He couldn't help but stutter a little, his words paced all too quick and just all too slow, somehow all at the same time. "Fuck... I thought... fuck... you shouldn't want me, you know? The most repulsive person in the world, first boy to come up to you at the bar, your best friend's shitty ex-boyfriend- this is all... wrong." Matty's heart sank down to his knees. "But god, Matty, all I've ever wanted since I first saw you is just to fuck you."

Matty didn't wait a moment before finding his way into Ryan's lap, pulling his arms around his back and pressing their lips together. "Then fuck me." He whispered, pulling away, meeting Ryan with a look of desperation.

"Gemma-" Ryan began, eyes widening.

"Fucking forget about Gemma, fucking forget about everything, forget about everything fucked up and wrong, everything hurting you, everything hurting me. I mean... we have to forget... how else can we live?" Matty let out a sigh, not giving Ryan time enough to answer before once again, he connected their lips.

Ryan abandoned words completely and spoke instead in his hands around Matty's waist, and the brief few moments until he'd leaned forward and used his weight to press Matty down against the mattress.

Matty let himself be used, let his limbs turn to jelly, his body to nothingness, falling like dust into Ryan's grip. He let him. Under the golden glow of light, at half past two in the morning, with too much drink still in his system. Matty let him.

He entrusted his own heart, bleeding and broken, hammering away inside his chest, to the moment. He entrusted it all to the warm touch of Ryan's skin, to the curve of his back, to his broad shoulders, to the careful kind of look in his eyes, and to the dip in the mattress where they lay.

The world faded away and dissolved in shades of pink and gold, in long fingertips against pale skin, in hands lost in hair, in lips almost afraid to leave each other be, in eyelids softly fluttering closed, in pliant bodies and gentle moves, met with strong arms and quick motions.

He tasted the gold on his tongue, the world painted up around him like a temple, with strong pillars and a warm summer breeze. Under his chest, he saw the world as he might have envisioned it to be - a storybook kind of perfection. They lay together in the dip of the bed, the whole world seeming to shake around them like a storm, the bed creaked and moved with the force of the strongest typhoon, and the muscles in his back rippled like the harshest of seas.

He lay there feeling loved more than used, feeling alive, feeling free, seeing beauty in the dullest of things, Matty let the ocean split and the tide wash him up, pulling him away from the choppiest of seas, for the tide to wane back out around him. Breath left his lips for what felt like the longest amount of time, and he lay there, as Ryan pulled away and out of him, expecting to settle down amidst golden sands, but what had once been golden, shone only a brassy yellow at best.

Matty lay there naked in what was essentially a stranger's bed. He immediately covered himself in the blankets, doing all he could to hide away from the truth that lay beneath it all, his eyes sneaking off to watch Ryan stumble to his feet, looking no longer like any kind of God, no wonder of nature at all, just a tall man, with a nose far too big for his face, tying off a condom and throwing it into the bin.

They didn't say a word as Ryan slipped into bed beside him. Matty was just thankful that they didn't have to. It was late, it was awkward, and all he could do was look at the man lying in bed next to him and think of Gemma. Think of what he'd done, and really what it did all mean. There was no escaping that, not really, despite all the stupid thoughts he'd put a world of trust in.

He lay there awake in the darkness for far too long, watching dimmer shadows dance on the wall, glancing across at the two discarded cups of tea on the side, out there with everything he'd once been. Matty couldn't quite explain it, but he'd lost something tonight. Perhaps a part of himself in these sheets, under Ryan's body, in every pet name he could give him. It was a part of himself that, try as he might, he just couldn't quite seem to get back.

And then as two am became three, his eyelids grew heavy, and Matty tried desperately to fixate on anything besides the mess he'd made out of everything.

-

As Monday morning came around, Matty came to realise that he hadn't even left his bed since he'd gotten home on Sunday. Come that Sunday morning, he'd been the first to wake up, before even the sun had begun to rise in the sky. Admittedly, he had considered his options, about staying a little while longer, or at the very least, waking Ryan up to say goodbye. However, he did neither of those things, and had instead left without a word, not even a note left on the bedside table, not even the slightest sign that he'd been there in the first place.

Matty had stumbled into the streets that morning, headache pounding throughout his body, and a night full of regret running through his veins. All his hopes and dreams had deflated away inside him like a balloon, and at six twenty that morning, he found himself waiting at a bus stop in the cold, taking his hair down, and wiping his makeup off onto a tissue.

He'd gotten home no longer than fifteen minutes later, making his way inside as quietly as he could, taking advantage of the Sunday morning, of the still and calm of the house, and indeed the still of the world. Doing his best to brush away his worst thoughts, he wandered into the kitchen and made himself a sandwich as quickly and quietly as he could. He took the sandwich, a glass of water, and some paracetamol up to his bedroom, locked the door, and stayed there for the rest of the day.

Matty had never exactly intended to dedicate a whole day to wallowing in his own self pity, but that was just the way things had ended up. He'd sat curled up on the edge of his bed, letting all his worries and regrets run in rampant circles around his mind. He'd cut himself off completely, just letting his phone run out of charge from the night before, and ignoring whoever tried to knock on his bedroom door.

Part of him wished that Monday could drag on in much the same fashion, but reality had done quite the job of ensuring that he didn't get away with that. He did, however, wonder, perhaps only briefly, if that had been for the better.

He awoke to his mum banging on his bedroom door, much more persistently than she had done the day before. Matty lay in bed and just listened for a while, letting the world get on and life happen around him, but soon enough it became rather evident that she just wasn't going to give up.

"You can't hide away in there forever, Matty. Look- you've got work in... forty minutes- you're going to need to get up and have a shower, and get dressed, and eat some breakfast, you know, pretty sharpish?" She raised her voice to a tone that Matty found to be inescapable, even from behind a locked door.

The concept of work, of going out that day and doing something with his life, of acting like a person, like someone who hadn't just fucked everything up. He'd have to go and smile and serve coffee to strangers all day, and god forbid that George might make some sort of reappearance at all, because Matty couldn't even imagine anything that might make things worse for him.

He just didn't want anything to do with his own life anymore. At least not the life he'd already made for himself: the mould carved out for him to slot comfortably into. The thing was that he just didn't fit into anymore, not in the slightest. It hurt him all over, and this was a breaking point of some sort, as he knew deep down in his heart, that he just couldn't do this anymore.

He couldn't deal with people, with life, with the mess he'd made, with the person he'd become, and just what everyone would think.

"Matty..." His mum started again, her tone a little softer this time around. "Are you alright in there?" He gave no response, unsure of what he could even say to that, if he'd wanted to say anything in the first place, that is. "Look, Matty, please, just tell me you're alright, even if you're not going to come out or speak to me just let me know you're in there? I'm worried about you, okay?"

Matty took a deep brief and got to his feet, purposefully avoiding catching his own reflection in the mirror on the wall, as he wrapped his duvet around himself rather like a cocoon, and stumbled through his bedroom to the door. He stood there and just breathed for a moment, doing all he could to put his mind at ease before he unlocked the door and pushed it open.

"Matty..." His mother's eyes grew wide as they made contact with his own through the crack in the door. "What's going on? Please, talk to me."

"I'm ill." Matty shrugged it off, like there'd been no real cause for concern with him at all. "I can't go to work today."

"Alright..." Denise couldn't help but seem rather dubious, knowing in her gut that there was just more to this situation. There was, however, no denying that Matty certainly looked somewhat under the weather. "Have you called your manager?"

"I'm about to." Matty mumbled, turning away from the door and searching his room for his phone.

Denise took the opportunity to push the door open,, stepping inside and pulling her gaze through her surroundings. Nothing seemed particularly amiss, but there seemed to be a certain quality about the room, or just to Matty himself: a weird kind of broken, not completely torn to pieces, but crumbling all over. She watched for a moment, unable to settle or convince herself otherwise than the fact that the look in his eyes was just slow and disorientated, as if there was someone else trapped up in Matty's head in his place.

"Found it." Matty proclaimed, pulling his phone up from behind a cushion and plugging it in. "Fuck, it's out of charge as well- I-"

"Do you want me to call him for you?" Denise let out a sigh. She had tried not to baby Matty as much as she would have liked to, considering that he technically was an adult now. There was, however, no denying that there were situations in which he just needed it.

"Yeah." Matty let out a sigh, lying back down onto his bed and pulling the duvet up over his face.

"Do you want me to bring you up anything? Something for breakfast, some medication-"

"Just whatever... I don't mind... I just... want to sleep it off." Matty insisted, listening to his mother's footsteps, making their way out of his bedroom, into the landing, and down the stairs.

Just for a moment, he allowed his mind to wander, to wish that he really was genuinely ill, and that all that was plaguing him was something he could just sleep off. As truthfully, that really wasn't the case.

-

Matty spent most of the day in bed feeling sorry for himself. He lay there motionlessly, letting his brain tie itself into knots and wishing for his heart to burn a hole right through his chest. He was only vaguely aware of the stream of notifications making their way to his phone, setting it off with an occasional buzzing. He'd glanced over briefly, only for long enough to see that in their majority, they were texts from Gemma.

As much as she was his best friend, and someone he always felt comfortable talking to, he wanted nothing more than for her just to leave him alone that day. Perhaps for a while longer than that. Perhaps just so he never had to face up to what he'd done, to tell her about Ryan, to tell her about everything.

Matty wasn't stupid enough to assume that it all wouldn't come out soon enough, when he was either high or drunk, his brain having departed from his body completely. Or when the guilt had all gotten too much and he reckoned his heart might just rot away inside his chest. He just didn't want that day to be today, he wanted to waste away for a little while longer.

He managed to drift off again in the end, waking for the second time that day to the sound of footsteps coming up the stairs, echoing throughout the house, and seeping in through his open bedroom door. Matty sat up, disoriented and confused, having been sure that it wasn't late enough for even Louis to get home from school yet. Sure enough, as he glanced to his phone for the time, it was no later than one that afternoon.

He didn't, however, have much of a chance to panic about the source of the footsteps before his bedroom door was pushed open further and Gemma made her way into his room, smiling at him plainly, like this was all normal.

"Um... what?" Matty blinked hard, focusing his gaze up on Gemma. "Why are you here? Uh... who let you in?"

"No one." She finished sharply. "You haven't answered anyone's texts since Saturday."

"You broke into my house because I didn't text you back?" Matty's mouth flew upon, his eyes wide with disbelief.

"I was worried about you. Everyone was." She told him rather simply, taking off her coat and placing it on the desk chair, before sitting herself down on the end of Matty's bed.

"You broke into my house." Matty reiterated, his voice a little louder this time. He was however, answered back, not by Gemma, but by the voice at the back of his head, reminding him that he had in fact slept with Ryan.

"I went to the coffeeshop first. Asked your manager where you were - he was a proper cow to me and all, but turns out you're home 'sick'. So, I'm obviously even more worried about you at this point, because like how sick do you have to be to not even text anyone moaning about it? Or at least like, put it on your Snapchat story, or something."

Matty snorted, rolling his eyes. He concluded that really, it maybe wasn't in his right to be angry at her on the basis of this, especially considering what he'd done, and the bubbling pit of guilt rising from the bottom of his stomach, up and throughout his chest.

"How did you break in?" He asked, for curiosity's sake more than anything else.

"Kitchen window's open." She explained, as if it was nothing at all, like breaking into people's houses for menial reasons was something she did just on the daily. With Gemma, you couldn't really know for sure. "I closed it after myself, don't worry."

"How kind of you." Matty let out a sigh, holding his head in his hands and doing his best to compose himself.

"I think none of your neighbours saw me, but would be good to mention this to your mum in case they come around and make her report it as a crime or like-" Gemma stopped herself, properly focusing on Matty, and then, finally concluding that really, he just wasn't sick at all.

"Matty..." She reached out tentatively, brushing her fingers against his shoulder. "What is it? What's happened? Come on, tell me. Look, if you've learned anything recently, it's that these things are going to destroy you if you keep them locked up inside you."

"Everything's fucked, Gem." He let out a sigh, not daring to meet her gaze. Instead, he focused entirely on the floor, his teeth sinking down into his bottom lip to the point that it began to bleed.

"How is it?" She asked, moving closer to Matty and pulling him into a hug. "What happened this weekend? Because something did, didn't it?"

Matty lay still against her chest, tears welling in his eyes, the world spinning in circles around his head. "Nothing." He lied. He couldn't tell her. Not now. Not fucking now.

Not with her arms around him like this, not with the obvious care and respect she had for him, not when she loved him like this: her best friend. He couldn't fuck that all up for himself, not just yet. She deserved better, fuck, she deserved so much better, but Matty didn't even have it within himself to tell her so.

"Then what is it then?" She continued, her voice soft and laced with the kind of caring that Matty found himself to be in no way worthy of.

"Just everything. I keep thinking about things. It's just all too much really. I'm just pathetic, I can't cope with myself. Everything's so fucking fucked, and honestly, I just... I just want to be happy. I want things to go right for once." Matty let out a sigh, tears spilling out down scarlet cheeks. "I'm just not sure if I deserve that."

"God, Matty, of course, of course you do." Gemma pulled away slightly, moving to meet his gaze. "Fuck- don't cry... fuck... Matty, please, don't cry." She stumbled to her feet, reaching around in her coat pocket for a packet of tissues.

Matty felt like all there was left inside him had curled up and died. There was no denying that Gemma cared about him beyond belief, that his happiness meant the world to her, and that all he'd done was gone and fucked that up as well.

"You do." She told him: certain of it. He took the tissues from her hand and dried his eyes, doing so only to hide his face behind them for a little while. "You deserve that. You deserve to be happy. You deserve to be loved. You deserve for things to go right, and they will. Just trust me on that."

"But what if they don't?" Matty choked out, rubbing his eyes and pulling the tissues away.

"They will." Gemma insisted, pulling Matty back into a hug before he could stop her. "And trust me, Matty, I'll make sure of that. You deserve it. I know you do."

Matty lay motionless, as if he was frozen over like a lake, like everything had gone cold inside of him, like everything lay dead and broken, shards of ice and the most fearsome winter.

It was in that very moment, as Gemma held him tightly in her arms, that he didn't think he'd ever hated himself more.

-

hey guys hope u enjoyed

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lov u so much