#(eep)

you don’t have an answer for that. something like hatred is starting to bubble up in your sternum, too. matt murdock, of all people, scolding you? matt murdock, who forgets to eat, forgets to sleep unless you and foggy forcibly intervene? matt murdock, equally broke, clawing his way through every day just as you are?

it’s irritating, that’s for sure. the same way it irritated you seeing him at the donation center with his cheeks red from the cold and his scarf wrapped twice around his neck, breathing hard like he’d run there.

“i would’ve been fine.”

“sure. unconscious in a snowbank.”

“please, there’s barely any snow.”

“there’s enough.” another grimace. he rubs his nose, agitated, then exhales and faces you again. “why didn’t you call your boyfriend?”

and there it is.

the question you’ve been dreading at the center of everything like a stone in a peach. it’s always a trump card when matt brings up your boyfriend, the very word seeming so sour, so contemptuous on his tongue. in a way—a shameful, horrible way you don’t like thinking about and admitting to anyone else—it’s the kind of contempt you start to understand when you think about your boyfriend’s apartment, the heated floors, the stocked refrigerator, the effortless forty-dollar dinners. the summers in the hamptons. the snide commentary on the merits of hard work from someone who’s never been hungry a day in his life. 

a world away from donating plasma more than twice a week because textbooks cost money and rent costs money and eating costs money. living costs money. 

“he’s busy,” you say mildly.

“he doesn’t know, does he?”

you can’t bring yourself to look at matt. “no.”

“about any of it? the money stuff?”

how would he look at you then, if he knew? with pity? confusion?

“no, matt. listen, can we just—”

a blaring bus horn cuts you off, rude and indignant as it rumbles through the slush. when the noise fades, you notice the storefronts you’re passing are already studded with tacky valentine’s decor: paper hearts in windows, pink garlands, a sign advertising two-for-one champagne cocktails. valentine’s day eve. you remind yourself you still have the night to recover and look presentable for your date tomorrow: reservations somewhere with white tablecloths and a wine list and a dress with the tag still tucked into the back so you can return it monday.

matt will probably study. foggy will probably eat candy hearts alone and make jokes about it.

“you should eat something,” matt says, stopping short.

“what, now?”

“yeah.” 

“they gave me juice and crackers back at the center.”

“real food.” he angles you gently toward the corner where the cheap thai place glows gold and emerald against the winter night. “come on, it’s my treat.”

“oh, because you’re made of money?”

“i had a good week at the library, a freshman paid me twenty bucks to find some eroti—”

“matt!”

“come on, i’m hungry, too.”

“matt.”

you stop walking. he stops with you, head tilted, waiting. the february wind lifts his dark hair and ruffles it gently. 

“you didn’t have to come, you know.” your voice sounds weak in your own ears, childish and needy. “i just put your name down ‘cause i didn’t have anyone else, and foggy would wig out.”

“i know. i wasn’t going to leave you there.”

“should’ve.”

matt’s breath blooms white under the streetlight. “why wouldn’t i come when you call?” he asks, almost annoyed, as if you’ve said something so trite. “that’s how we are. i’m always going to come. that’s just how it is.”

the cold isn’t so biting anymore, you notice. so needless then to trouble yourself over worrying. scraps and pennies and scrounged-up dollar bills—you and matt understand each other at the cost of nothing.

“fine. thai sounds good.” 

tomorrow, you’ll sit dutifully on that white-tablecloth date, and matt will be somewhere far away from you. will either place will feel as real as this? standing on a frozen sidewalk, with his hand burning through your coat?

“thai it is, then.”

he takes your arm again, properly this time. the cane resumes its rhythm.