Chapter 5: The Art of Distraction
The golden hour bled across the floorboards of Matt’s home office, painting everything in a slow, honeyed light. His laptop sat open on the worn leather of the armchair, still warm. A half-empty coffee cup cooled on the windowsill. For a week, he’d clung to the normalcy of their conversations like a life raft.
Her pigeon photo had come through on a Tuesday: a fat, iridescent bird on a fire escape, one beady eye fixed on the camera. He’s judging my life choices. Harshly.
Matt, who hadn’t sketched for fun in years, spent twenty minutes with a pen and a napkin. He’d sent a photo of his drawing: the pigeon, impeccably rendered, with a tiny monocle and a top hat. Sir Reginald Coo disagrees. He finds your choices… bold.
Dee had replied with a string of laughing emojis. Okay, that’s terrifyingly good. New fear unlocked: anonymously chatting with a secret artistic genius.
The laughter felt like a reprieve, a gauze over the raw wound of his secret. They argued about music with the fervor of scholars, dissected terrible movies, traded lines from novels the other hadn’t read. It was easy. It was the best part of his day. And with every exchanged joke, every shared sunset photo from their respective windows, the lie in his chest calcified, growing heavier and more permanent.
One evening, the city noise settling into a distant rumble, he typed a question before he could stop himself.
Matt: Hypothetical. If we ever met, and you took one look at me and hated me on sight, what would you do?
He held his breath. The three dots appeared, lingered.
Dee: That’s morbid. But fine. I’d write a scathing review of your personality. Pulitzer-worthy stuff. ‘A study in profound disappointment. One star.’
A smile tugged at his lips.
Dee: Then I’d buy you a drink to apologize for being so judgmental. Because I’d feel guilty. And because I’d want to know why I was wrong.
His smile faded. The kindness in her reply was worse than anger. It was an open door he was too cowardly to walk through.
Matt: The drink might fix it. Or make it worse.
Dee: That’s the risk you take. Life’s not a brick wall, Matt. ‘That won’t be possible’ doesn’t really work with people you care about.
He read the line twice. People you care about. The words vibrated in the quiet room. She’d taken his advice, the sterile, professional armor he’d given her for dealing with ‘pricks,’ and thrown it right back at him, applying it to them. To this. It was a deft, unintentional slice right through his facade.
He had no rehearsed answer for that.
The silence stretched. He could feel her waiting on the other end, patient, perceptive. He typed three different responses and deleted them.
Matt: No. It doesn’t.
Too simple. Too final.
He added more, his fingers clumsy.
Matt: Sometimes the brick wall is just to keep yourself from saying the wrong thing.
Dee: Or the right thing at the wrong time.
She was circling it now. He could feel her mind working, the investigative instinct poking at the inconsistency. His advice had been too practiced. His hesitation now was too palpable. He was leaving a trail of breadcrumbs made of his own anxiety.
He changed the subject, a clumsy, obvious pivot. He asked about the book she’d mentioned, the one by the Finnish poet. She let him. She followed his lead, discussing the melancholic beauty of the prose, but the texture of the conversation had changed. A new quiet hummed beneath the words, a frequency of unspoken questions.
Later, as true dark settled and the laptop’s glow was the only light in the room, she sent a final message.
Dee: Heading to bed. Big day tomorrow. Another round of celebrity wrangling. I’ll let you know if Sir Reginald’s cousin shows up for moral support.
Matt: Sleep well, Dee. Wield the brick wall wisely.
Dee: I’ll try. Goodnight, Matt.
He closed the laptop. The room plunged into darkness. The phantom glow of the screen lingered on his retinas.
He walked to the window, pressing his forehead against the cool glass. His reflection ghosted over the nighttime street—a familiar, handsome face that felt like a stranger’s mask. She was buying hypothetical drinks for a man she might hate. She was fighting off advances with lines he’d given her. She was, with every honest, sharp, funny message, building a connection with a phantom.
And he was letting her.
The momentum was no longer a gathering avalanche. It was the quiet, inevitable slide of the ground beneath his feet. He was already falling. The only question left was when the impact would come, and what would be left of either of them when it did.