Night Owl (19 page)

Finally, Bethany wound down to tearful hiccups.

She said she couldn't wait to tell her father that he was right about me, that I was no good after all. He
was
right, I thought.

She said she would get her things when she returned and stay with a friend, and could I please not be around when she packed.

"Of course," I said, lighting my third cigarette. "I'll go out. I can gather up your things, if you want..."

I thought of Bethany's stuff crammed into the trunk of my car.

"Fuck you," she said, and she was gone.

That night, I didn't let myself reach out for Hannah. Bethany might call back for another round of cussing and questioning, and besides, I didn't deserve Hannah's comfort. I deserved a night alone.

I deserved worse.

Had I really made things right by breaking up with Bethany? I had no intention of telling Bethany about Hannah or Hannah about Bethany. Could I pull this off? Could I blithely begin a relationship with Hannah on this foundation of lies?

I peeled back the sheets and checked my phone.

8:45 a.m.

Hannah would be getting ready for work. More like on her way to work. I hoped she wasn't too wiped out from our weekend in the mountains.

Maybe today I could meet her for lunch—for real.

I frowned. Would I need to dress up like a "businessman" again? Sooner or later, and preferably sooner, I had to tell Hannah that I was M. Pierce. She would understand. She would see how I'd been cornered into the lie about my line of work. Wouldn't she?

I pulled on a t-shirt and flopped into my office chair. I opened my email. An email appeared as I was deleting spam. I smirked at the sender name: 
FIT TO PRINT
.

That goddamn zine. I subscribed to their updates simply because they were vocally obsessed with the mystery of me. They weren't idiots, either. Somehow they had uncovered my representation by Pam's agency. Keeping an eye on them couldn't hurt.

I skimmed over the subject line.

My body went cold.

My throat constricted.

It wasn't possible. I clicked the link to the story.

M. PIERCE'S IDENTITY UNVEILED; FIT TO PRINT FIRST TO PRINT

July 8, 2013

Author M. Pierce is Denver resident Matthew Robert Sky Jr., an anonymous source recently revealed.

Though Sky forced friends and family to sign non-disclosure agreements protecting his privacy, sources close to his girlfriend say they have long known she was protecting Sky's secret.

"She would never tell and always fudged about his work," said one friend, "but we had a bet going about it. There were a lot of small clues. He controlled and manipulated her with threats."

I tried to keep reading.

The words blurred on the screen.

I knew I was having a panic attack. I knew this. I knew the symptoms.

I couldn't get enough oxygen. The air in my apartment was suddenly frigid. I began to sweat. I needed to breathe. I had to breathe.

Sources close to his girlfriend.

Sky's secret.

She would never tell.

Bethany.

Bethany ratted me out.

I broke up with Bethany and she ratted me out.

My lists.

My lists.

Hannah.

I thought I felt my heart stop.

Where was my pulse? I clutched at my chest.

I was still breathing, but I couldn't find my heartbeat.

My cell rang and rang and rang. How long had it been ringing? The tone was discordant.

I brought it to my ear with a shaking hand.

"Matthew?"

It was Pam.

"Matthew? Are you there? Are you seeing this?"

"Hannah," I managed.

"Excuse me?"

"Is..."

"Matthew, listen. I need a word. I don't care how this happened, it's out. I need to know how you want to spin it. There's a reporter here."

I tried to stand and found myself on the floor.

A reporter.

No, it didn't matter. Pam didn't matter.
Fit to Print
didn't matter. Bethany didn't matter. My secrets and books didn't matter.

Hannah.

"Hannah," I said. "Where—"

"Matthew! For god's sake. I would happily throw Hannah at this reporter and make him schedule an appointment with me in 2016, but she's not here yet. Listen. I can call security and have him removed, or I can sit down with him and pretend to ignorance. Or we can let the cat out of the bag. It's already basically out, so we—"

Not here yet
. Hannah wasn't at work yet. The reporter. The email. Did Hannah get that email? Did she subscribe to
Fit to Print
?

I don't remember ending the call with Pam and calling Hannah. I only know that her voice was on the line.

"Hey you!" she said.

I could tell that she was moving. Wind rushed over the receiver. She sounded normal. She sounded cheerful.

"Hannah. Hannah, listen."

"Matt?"

I reached for my office chair and it swiveled out of my hand.

"Matt, what's going on?"

"Hannah." I swallowed. I tasted bile. "Where are you?"

"I'm... about five steps from the agency, and about ten minutes from getting growled at by Pam for being late. Look, are you—"

"Don't go," I said. "Hannah. I need you to come over. Don't go in. Don't go to work."

My voice broke.

Hannah hadn't read the article yet, but she was about to collide with a reporter who had.

"Matt, you're scaring me. What's going on? Are you okay?"

"No, Hannah, I'm not. I need you, please. Come over. Now, please."

"I will. It's okay. Breathe. God, Matt, you make me so scared for you. I'm coming right now, okay? Let me—"

"Please just come, please Hannah..."

Hot tears spilled over my eyelids.

"Matt, I swear, I'll be there. I have to tell Pam I'll be late. I'll be there, though, just..."

My mouth worked speechlessly. I wanted to beg her not to talk to Pam. I wanted to threaten her. Come directly here, or else...

He controlled and manipulated her with threats.

"Please," I whispered.

"I'm coming. I'm going in, I'm telling Pam I'll be late, and no matter what, I'm coming over Matt. Give me ten minutes. Five minutes."

"No matter what," I repeated.

"No matter what."

"Promise. Hannah, Promise. Promise you'll be here no matter what."

"Matt, I promise. I'll be right there. No matter what."

CHAPTER 20

Hannah

_____

MATTHEW ROBERT SKY
Jr. was born on November 9th, 1984. His father, a renowned orthopedic hand surgeon, and his mother, a pediatrician, were killed in a bus accident in South America when he was nine. They were doing philanthropic work in the favelas of Rio.

Matthew and his brothers, Nathaniel and Seth, were raised by their uncle in New Jersey.

He graduated at the top of his high school class and attended Cornell University. He published his first short story at the age of twenty.

He left graduate school after a failed suicide attempt and stayed in a psychiatric ward for over a month. Upon release, he began a downward spiral into drug and alcohol addiction, followed by a string of petty crimes and misdemeanors.

Until getting sober at the age of twenty-three, Matthew lived a playboy lifestyle on the east coast, funded by the considerable inheritance released to him on his eighteenth birthday. He never stopped writing.

After over fifteen rejections, he queried Pamela Wing with
Ten Thousand Nights
in 2007. The book was published to national and eventually global acclaim.

I watched, dazed, as everything I wanted to know about Matt spilled onto the internet.

July. The month of Matt.

The month without Matt.

Even the big news stations and papers ran stories on M. Pierce's unveiling. No one could get an interview from him, not even a comment, but Pam quietly confirmed the author's identity and released several generic statements.

"Mr. Sky's private life was very important to his writing," said Pamela Wing of the Granite Wing Agency. "The media has respected him as an artist; now they need to respect him as a human and stop splashing his life all over the net."

One reporter finally caught Matt outside of his apartment. An altercation ensued. The reporter was badly beaten. Charges were filed, then settled outside of court.

The local papers and news stations lost interest by the middle of July.

Fit to Print
got national attention for uncovering the story but never revealed its source. They continued to run a column on Matt's life and writing. Pictures appeared there regularly.

I saw a ten-year-old Matt boating with his parents, his hair swept back.

There was Matt in his high school graduation gown.

Matt on the rowing team at Cornell.

Matt and his friends riding lunch trays down a snowy hill.

Matt and his girlfriend, Bethany Meres.

Want to tell you so many things.

It was Bethany Meres, various articles speculated, who released the information that led to Matt's uncovering.

"Bethany was crazy about Matt," said a close friend of Meres, "and he was crazy about her. She said more than once that she thought a proposal was coming. Then he ended it out of the blue." That was three days before the story broke.

Despite his non-disclosure agreement, Matt never pressed charges.

He kept his head down.

Bethany made no statements.

Pam fielded the occasional reporter.

Matt's family and friends maintained a stony silence.

As for me, I was nothing to no one in the story of Matt.

I ignored his calls. I didn't listen to his messages. I didn't read his emails. Eventually, I changed my cell phone number and made a new email account.

With a loan from my mother and my first paycheck from the Granite Wing Agency, I got a small condo in Denver.

I began my hollow life.

There was nowhere I could go and nothing I could do to escape memories of Matt. I accepted a perpetual feeling of nausea as a new condition of my existence.

I loved him—I realized this when it all collapsed—and I had never known him.

So it was possible to love a stranger.

I didn't allow myself to dwell on the extent of Matt's lies. Matt the businessman. Matt with the bachelor pad. Matt calling me his. Matt laughing and smirking as I enthused about M. Pierce. And worst of all, Matt making me an unwilling accomplice to his cheating.

How could he do it?

How could he smile and chat with my family while he used me like that?

The only people who knew why I was suffering were my family members. I told Chrissy, Chrissy told mom, and mom told dad. If Jay knew, he didn't care.

Matt didn't go to the house, but mom thought she saw him drive by a few times.

He didn't come to the agency.

I probably should have quit the job on principle—after all, Matt helped me get it—but I didn't. It was my dream job. I needed the money. Matt had his fun with me and I got the raw end of it. At least I had something to show for my pain.

Pam must have known I had some stake in the M. Pierce identity explosion, but we only had one conversation about it. It was the day after the news broke, the day after I walked into a reporter babbling about Matthew Sky being M. Pierce. The day after I read the infamous
Fit to Print
article.

The day after I promised to go see Matt
no matter what
, and never showed.

I remember how I felt when I woke that day, as if someone had scraped out my insides. I was a walking shell of Hannah.

I had a job to get to. I had motions to go through.

I showered and dressed mechanically. I arrived at work ten minutes early. Pam was waiting for me, leaning against her desk.

"Hannah," she said, giving me one of her terse smiles.

"Morning." My voice didn't sound like mine. It was a croak coming out of my hollow body. I didn't bother to clear my throat.

"I'm glad to see you. I wasn't sure..."

I paused on my way to my office.

I had been worried Matt would be there, camping on the steps of the agency, waiting for me. It was a relief not to see him—and it hurt, too. By that point, he hadn't begun his barrage of phone calls, texts, and emails. I didn't know if he would even fight for me.

His secret was out. His fun was over. Maybe he would simply discard me, a casualty of his double life. I couldn't put anything past him.

I turned and took a shaky breath.

"I love this job," I said as calmly as possible. I forced myself to meet Pam's eyes. Worse than her usual steely stare was the concern I saw in her gaze. "I have no reason to miss a day."

"No?" She smiled at me. Fuck, I was ill equipped to deal with this friendly side of Pam. I needed Pam the bitch, not Pam the shoulder to cry on. And I
would
start blubbering if she didn't quit with the soft eyes and concerned smiles.

I cried myself ragged last night. I cried through my shower that morning. My reservoir of tears was by no means exhausted.

"No," I said.

"Alright." Pam pursed her lips. "Matthew was asking about you yesterday. He sounded very concerned. In fact, he hung up on me."

I never want to learn how to say goodbye.

My eyes stung. I swallowed.

"We got in touch," I said.

Pam studied me a moment longer. I wondered how much she knew, how much she might have inferred. The big news to the literary world was that M. Pierce had a name, Matthew Sky. The big news to me was that Matthew Sky had a girlfriend.

I was reeling in my own private agony. Pam might have guessed as much.

"Alright," she said again, this time with a finalizing tone. The all-business façade fell back over her face. "Today I need you to..."