Letters to Matt (Part 8)
SOS Matt x Bestfriend f!Reader Mature | Smut | MDNI After Matt discovers your hidden love letters and panics, you send him a final note through Nick, begging to forget everything and save the friendship. Part 7
The first thing you register is the cold.
Not the temperature of the room—the lamp is still glowing, the air still heavy with the scent of vanilla and sex and him—but the cold of the space beside you. The mattress where his body had been. The sheets that had tangled around both of you hours ago, damp with sweat and tears and other things, now stretched flat and empty where he once lay.
You shift.
The rustle of fabric against skin. Your body protests, muscles sore in places you'd forgotten could ache. The lamp on your nightstand is still on, its amber glow carving the room into soft shadows and darker corners. The curtains are still half-drawn. The window is still a black mirror reflecting the bed, the rumpled blankets, the shape of you propped on one elbow.
And the shape of Matt on the floor.
He's exactly where he was when you first opened your eyes. Back against the closet door. Knees pulled up. The box. The one you've kept hidden under the old blanket for years. It sits open beside him, its worn cardboard corners catching the lamplight. Letters are scattered around his bare feet. The pages curl at the edges, some yellowed with age, some still crisp and new. His name stares up from every envelope.
He doesn't look at you.
He doesn't move.
The silence in the room is suffocating. Heavy enough to press against your eardrums. The only sound is your own breathing, shallow and uneven, and the far-off hum of the AC. And then—
Matt's voice.
Rough. Hollow. A sound pulled from somewhere deep in his chest, scraped raw by hours of reading and years of revelation.
"The way she looked at you tonight made me want to scream."
You freeze.
He's reading. His eyes move across the page of the letter in his hands, crumpled notebook paper, the ink slightly smeared where your hand dragged through it years ago, and his voice carries the words into the dark like a confession.
"You didn't even notice me across the room. You were too busy watching her. And I was too busy watching you watch her, memorizing the way your smile crinkled your eyes, the way your thumb rubbed the edge of your glass, the way you leaned into her space like gravity had shifted and she was the new center of your universe."
The letter. You know which one it is. The night of Chris's birthday party, two years ago, when Matt spent the whole evening with a girl with jet black hair and a laugh like wind chimes. You'd worn a blue dress, the only nice thing you owned at the time, and he'd said "You look nice" without ever really looking. You went home and wrote seven pages. Seven. Front and back. The ink had bled through to the other side.
Matt reads the last line aloud, his voice cracking on the final syllable.
"I keep telling myself that someday you'll see the girl in front of you. But I've been saying that for years, and I'm starting to think I'm invisible."
The letter drops.
His fingers release the page like it's burned him. It flutters to the floor, landing among the others, and his hands come up to cover his face. His shoulders hitch. The amber light catches the tear tracks glittering on his cheeks, the wetness in his beard, the way his jaw clenches and unclenches like he's trying to chew through something too big for his mouth.
He doesn't look angry.
That's the worst part. Anger you could handle. You could deflect anger, match it, throw it back at him like a weapon. But this, the devastation carved into every line of his face, the guilt that seems to be physically crushing him into the floorboards, this you don't know what to do with.
"I was just looking for a blanket."
His voice is barely a whisper. His hands drop from his face, and his eyes finally lift to meet yours. The contact is a physical blow. Your stomach knots.
"You were shivering." He says it like an apology. Like an explanation. Like a defense he's already given up on. "In your sleep. You were shivering, and I didn't want to wake you, so I got up to find another blanket. In the closet. The top shelf. I wasn't—" His voice breaks. He swallows. "I wasn't snooping. I wasn't trying to find anything. My hand just caught on the corner of the box when I reached for the shelf and it all came down and I saw my name and I—"
He stops. Breathes. His hands are trembling again.
"I'm sorry."
The words hang in the air. Small. Inadequate. A pebble thrown into an ocean.
You can't speak. Your throat is locked. Your tongue is a dead weight in your mouth. You're frozen in the bed, the sheets pulled up to your chest, your bare shoulders exposed to the cool air, and all you can do is stare at him—at the wreckage of him—and try to remember how to form words.
He doesn't wait for your response.
His hands move. Slow at first, then faster. He gathers the scattered letters, stacking them with a care that seems almost reverent. The one he dropped—the one with seven pages and smeared ink—gets folded along its original creases. Another, the angry scrawl from the night he left your room after the flu, gets tucked into its own creased folds. One by one, he places them back into the box.
You watch.
You can't do anything else.
"This." His voice comes out strangled. "All of this. All these years. You were—" He can't finish. His hands pause over the box, trembling. "You helped me. Every time. Every girl. You proofread my messages. You told me what to say. You smiled and hyped me up while I was—" A sound tears from his throat. Not quite a sob. Something sharper. "While I was destroying you."
Your lips part. Nothing comes out.
"I don't—" He shakes his head. His hands resume their work, placing the last of the letters into the box, closing the lid with careful, deliberate pressure. "I don't know how to fix this. I don't know if I can."
He stands.
The movement is shaky, unsteady, his legs clearly stiff from being sat on the floor. He's still wearing only his boxers, his chest bare, the skin you'd clawed hours ago now marked with faint red lines. The lamplight catches the curve of his shoulder, the dip of his waist, the vulnerability he never shows anyone.
He crosses to the nightstand.
The heavy metal spare key. The one your mom gave the triplets years ago. It's been sitting there since he let himself in, a silent accusation. He picks it up. The metal clinks against the wood.
And then he sets it down. Deliberately. Carefully. Right beside the lamp, so you'll see it the moment you wake.
So you'll know.
"I'm sorry," he says again, his voice scraping through the quiet room as he bends down to scoop his shirt from the floor. He jerks it over his head, the movement tight and stiff. "For everything. For tonight. For what we—for what I—"
Another swallow. Another crack. He reaches for his pants, shoving his legs into it with a rough, defensive finality.
"You were vulnerable. You were upset," he continues, his voice steadier now. Emptier. He doesn’t look at you as he picks up his jacket, his fingers trembling against the sleeves. "And I just—I came in here and I—"
He can't say it. Can't put words to what happened hours ago—the confrontation, the confession, the frantic sex that followed. He hooks the heavy metal spare key from the nightstand and sets it down flat with a soft, definitive click, relinquishing his access to your space.
"I shouldn't have," he whispers, grabbing his sneakers and backing toward the door. "Not after reading those. Not after knowing. I should've just left."
He stops. His hand drops from the key. He doesn't look at you.
"Take the key. It's yours. I don't deserve it."
And then he leaves.
The door doesn't slam. It clicks shut, soft and final, and then there's just the sound of his footsteps in the hallway. The front door opening. Closing. The distant rumble of an engine turning over.
Then silence.
Pure, absolute silence.
You don't sleep.
You don't move. For hours, you don't move. You lie in the tangled sheets, staring at the ceiling, your body a foreign thing that someone else inhabited hours ago. The letters. The box. The key on the nightstand, gleaming in the lamplight like a dare.
He knows. He knows everything. Every thought, every fantasy, every pathetic, desperate admission you've ever scribbled onto paper. The anger, the want, the jealousy, the hope. The letter from the night after the rainstorm, the one that ended with I'm done, the tear that smeared the ink. The letter from the night of the villa, I hope my face is the only thing you see in the dark. All of it.
He knows.
And he left.
The sun rises pale and gray through the half-drawn curtains. You watch the light change, watch the shadows shift across the floor, watch the empty space beside you remain stubbornly, impossibly empty. Your phone lies on the nightstand, face-down. You don't check it. You can't.
When you finally drag yourself out of bed, it's nearly noon.
The box is still there. On the floor by the closet. Closed now, the lid pressed down, everything neatly tucked away. Matt did that. Even in his devastation, he was careful with your secrets. He put them back exactly where they belonged.
Your body moves on autopilot. Shower. Clothes—an old hoodie, the softest one you own, the one that smells like nothing but laundry detergent and loneliness. You don't brush your hair. You don't look in the mirror. You shuffle to the kitchen, pour a glass of water you don't drink, and stand at the counter staring at nothing.
Your phone stays face-down.
The first text comes at 1:07 PM.
Chelsea: You alive? Gus said you were radio silent. Brunch was epic tho. Call me when you're conscious.
You stare at the screen. The words blur. You type back something brief, something meaningless—I'm fine, just tired, talk later—and then you turn the phone over again.
The second text comes at 2:43 PM.
August: Hey. Just checking in. Chelsea's worried. I'm worried. You good?
You don't answer.
The third text comes at 3:15 PM. It's not from Chelsea or August.
Chris: yo you alive?? matt's been a nightmare all morning. locked himself in his room. won't talk to anyone. we were supposed to film today. did something happen at the party??
The phone slips from your fingers. Lands on the couch cushion. You stare at the screen until it goes dark.
He's locked himself in his room. Refusing to talk. Being a nightmare.
The words circle your brain like vultures. He's not ignoring you out of anger. He's not pretending nothing happened. He's hiding. Just like you. Just like you've both always hidden, from each other, from yourselves, from whatever this thing is that's been burning between you for years.
You think about calling him. You think about texting. Your thumb hovers over his name—Matt—and you can see the last messages from before all of this, before the rainstorm and the villa and the letters, when you were still his safe, comfortable friend who gave him advice about other girls.
You can't do it.
The day stretches on. Gray afternoon light bleeds into gray evening light. Your mom comes home from her weekly grocery run, calls out a greeting, and you respond with something automatic. She doesn't notice the cracks. She never does.
You eat dinner. Or you sit at the table while food is in front of you. Same thing.
The phone stays silent. No texts from Matt. No calls. Nothing.
You go to bed. The sheets are cold. The pillow still smells faintly of him.
You don't sleep.
Monday morning. Sunlight. The ceiling. Dust motes floating in the golden beam cutting through the curtains. Your body feels like it's been hollowed out and filled with lead. Every movement takes deliberate effort. Every thought is a weight you have to drag behind you.
The key is still on the nightstand.
Your phone is still empty of him.
Another text from Chris. Seriously what is going ON. Matt's like a zombie. Nick won't tell me anything. Are you guys fighting???
You type back: I don't know.
It's the most honest thing you've said in days.
Tuesday passes in the same gray haze. You don't leave the house. You don't answer calls. Chelsea leaves a voicemail—"Okay, seriously, you're scaring me. Call me back or I'm sending August over there with snacks and questions"—and you text her some excuse about a migraine. August sends a string of emojis that you assume are meant to be supportive.
Nothing from Matt.
Nothing from Nick, either, which is almost worse. Nick always knows. Nick notices everything. The fact that he's been silent means he's either respecting your privacy or completely in the dark about what happened, and you're not sure which option is more terrifying.
Wednesday morning.
You wake up and something has shifted. The numbness has curdled into something sharper. Not anger, not yet, but a desperate, clawing need to fix this. To bridge the gap before it becomes a canyon. To salvage whatever scraps of your friendship might still be intact.
You reach for your phone. For a long moment, you stare at his name. Matt.
Your thumb presses the call button before you can stop yourself. It rings. Once. Twice. Three times.
Voicemail.
You hang up.
The terror that floods your system is immediate and paralyzing. He's avoiding you. He saw your name on the screen and let it ring. He doesn't want to talk to you. He's done. He's completely done. You've lost him. You've lost everything.
Your fingers are shaking as you scroll through your contacts. You need to talk to someone. You need to tell someone. You can't carry this alone anymore, can't keep it locked in your chest like another unsent letter, another secret burning a hole through your ribs.
Nick.
He picks up on the first ring.
"Hey." His voice is cautious. Curious. Not surprised, exactly, but guarded. "Everything okay?"
"No." The word cracks down the middle. "No, Nick. Everything is not okay. I need—can you—are you busy? Can you come over? Please? I need to—I have to tell someone—"
"Whoa. Hey. Slow down." The caution in his voice shifts to something firmer. Something protective. "I'm not busy. I'll be there in ten minutes. Just breathe."
He hangs up before you can thank him.
Nine minutes later—you count—the doorbell rings.
Nick is standing on your porch in his usual effortless uniform: dark jeans, a crisp t-shirt, his hair perfectly tousled like he just rolled out of bed looking like a magazine spread. But his eyes are serious. Focused. The way they get when something actually matters.
"Hey," he says again. Softer this time.
"Hey." You step aside to let him in.
The room is a mess. Blankets draped over the floor. Empty water glasses on the bedside table. The remnants of three days of barely functioning. Nick doesn't comment on it. He just sits on the bed, rests his elbows on his knees, and waits.
You sit opposite him. For a long moment, neither of you speaks.
"He found the letters."
The words fall out of you. Simple. Direct. No preamble.
Nick's eyebrows lift. "Letters?"
"The box." Your voice is steadier than you expected. "The box on my closet. The one with—" A breath. "With years of letters. To him. Unsent. Every thought, every feeling, every pathetic fantasy I've ever had about him. All of it. He found it."
Nick doesn't say anything. His expression doesn't change. But his eyes—those sharp, calculating eyes—are working overtime.
"When?" he asks.
"After the party. After I came home with August. He was here." You swallow. "He'd let himself in with the spare key. He saw me with August and he—he lost it. We fought. We yelled. He said—" You can't repeat it. You're mine. It feels too raw, too private, too precious. "And then we—"
"Okay." Nick holds up a hand. "I don't need the details of that part."
"Nothing happened." The lie is automatic. "I mean—nothing that—we just—" You stop. Take a breath. "He found the box while I was asleep. He read them. All of them maybe, I'm not really sure. And then he left. He hasn't spoken to me since. He won't answer my calls. Chris says he's locked himself in his room and won't talk to anyone."
The silence stretches.
Nick leans back against the headboard of your bed. His gaze drifts toward the window, toward the gray morning light filtering through the curtains. When he speaks again, his voice is quieter.
"God, that explains why he's been so incredibly cranky the past few days. He's been locked in his room since the party. Refusing to talk. Refusing to eat. Chris tried to drag him out for a video shoot and he just—" Nick shakes his head. "Nothing. Wouldn't even open the door."
"He hates me."
"He doesn't hate you." Nick's response is immediate. Certain. "He's terrified. There's a difference."
"Terrified of what?"
"Of losing you. Of what he did. Of what you wrote in those letters, probably." Nick's eyes find yours again. "How long?"
You blink. "How long what?"
"How long have you been in love with him?"
The question lands somewhere in your chest. It's the first time anyone has said it out loud. The first time the word love has been spoken in relation to you and Matt by anyone other than yourself, scribbled frantically onto paper in the dark.
"Years," you whisper. "Since the beginning. I liked him since I can remember. I don't even know when it started. It just—was. It's always been there."
Nick nods. Slow. Thoughtful. "And you never told him."
"Every time I tried, he'd show me someone new. Some girl he was into. Some dream girl he was too scared to DM. And I'd look at them—polished, confident, everything I'm not—and I'd think, what's the point? He doesn't see me like that. I'm just—" Your voice catches. "I'm just the safe one. The comfortable one. The best friend who helps him write messages to other girls."
"Until the villa."
"Until the villa."
Nick is quiet for a moment. Then he leans forward, elbows on his knees, and fixes you with a look that's softer than his usual sharp assessment.
"For what it's worth," he says, "I've never seen him look at anyone the way he looks at you. Not ever. Not even close."
Your throat tightens. "Then why did he leave?"
"Because he's an idiot. Because he feels guilty. Because he just found out that the person he cares about most in the world has been silently breaking her own heart for years because of him." Nick's voice is gentle but firm. "That's a lot to process."
"Or maybe he's just done. Maybe he realized this isn't worth it. The drama. The letters. Whatever this is." You gesture vaguely between yourself and the empty air where Matt should be. "Maybe he decided the friendship isn't worth saving."
Nick doesn't answer right away. He looks at you. Studies you. Then he says, quietly, "Do you want to save it?"
"Yes." The word is immediate. Raw. "More than anything. That's all I want. I don't care if he never—if we never—I just want my best friend back. I can't do this. I can't live in this silence. It's killing me."
"Then tell him that."
"I tried. He won't answer."
"Then try differently."
The words hang in the air. Try differently. You think about the box. The years of letters. The secrets you've been keeping. Every confession you've ever made has been on paper. Every truth you've ever told him has been with ink instead of your voice.
Maybe that's the problem.
You stand up.
"Where are you going?" Nick asks.
"I need to write something."
The desk in your room is exactly as you left it. The notebook. The pen. The vanilla candle burned down to nothing. You sit. You pull out a fresh sheet of paper. For a long moment, you just stare at the blank white space.
This isn't like the other letters. The other letters were secrets. Confessions meant for no one but yourself. This one—this one has to be different. This one has to bridge the gap.
The pen touches paper.
Matt,
I'm sorry. I'm so incredibly sorry for being a coward.
The words come slowly at first, then faster. The pen scratches across the page, and you don't stop to think, don't stop to edit, don't stop to second-guess.
I should have spoken the words aloud years ago instead of hiding behind ink and paper, leaving you to piece together a puzzle you didn't even know you were playing. I locked those letters away because I knew the truth: I am so very far away from your type. I watched the girls you chose, the girls you fell for, and I knew I could never compete with that. So I stayed in the dark, choosing to be your safe, comfortable backup rather than risking losing you entirely.
But please, if you can find it in yourself, just forget about the letters. Pretend you never found the box. Pretend you never read a single line. And please... let's just forget about everything else that happened in my room. The things we did, the lines we crossed—the things best friends should never have done. Let's push it all away.
I don't want to destroy what we have. More than anything, I just want to save our friendship. Please don't let my cowardice cost me my best friend.
You don't sign it. You don't need to. He'll know.
The pen clatters to the desk. Your hands are shaking. But this time, the shaking isn't from fear. It's from something else. Something that feels almost like hope.
You fold the paper. Once. Twice. Your fingers are steady now. Deliberate.
When you turn back toward the bed, Nick is still leaning against the headboard. He looks up as you step closer, his eyes dropping immediately to the folded paper in your hand.
"This one you're sending," he says. Not a question.
"This one I'm sending." You hold it out to him. "Can you—will you give it to him? Please? I can't—he won't—"
Nick takes the letter. His fingers brush yours. "Of course."
"Don't read it."
"I wouldn't." He tucks it carefully into his jacket pocket. "I'll make sure he gets it. Today."
"Thank you."
He stands. Crosses to where you're standing. For a moment, he just looks at you, those sharp eyes softening into something gentler than you've ever seen from him. Then he pulls you into a hug. Quick. Firm. Brotherly.
"Whatever happens," he murmurs, "you're family. You know that, right? No matter what."
The tears you've been holding back for three days finally spill over. You bury your face in his shoulder, just for a moment, just long enough to let yourself break. Then you pull back, wipe your eyes, and nod.
"Go," you say. "Before I lose my nerve."
Nick squeezes your shoulder once. Then he's gone, the front door clicking shut behind him, the letter tucked safely against his chest.
You stand in the living room. In the silence. In the gray morning light.
And you wait.
-----
taglist: @2muchofaslvt @raekelly13
