M A D I E

November Twenty-Third

Five

I think you were taught to hate

the parts of you that felt the most real.

So you hid those parts.

And no one missed them.

No one missed you.

Until him.

—

The kitchen was a mess. Flour coated the granite countertops, a fine dusting that displayed my cooking ineptitude.

I was a mess, too. I needed to shower, but I had woken up too hungry to care. Curling myself into one of Bren's sweatshirts, I'd thrown the hood over my frizzy hair and padded downstairs to make some food—and a mess.

The heaping spoonful of chocolate chips scattered into the pancake batter as I dumped it in.  Then I threw a scoop of batter into a pan, listening to the faint sizzle as it hit the cooking spray. It was five o'clock in the evening, but I'd only been awake for about a half-hour. The obvious decision was to make breakfast for dinner. And to add chocolate—because chocolate.

I didn't think I'd ever taken a six-hour nap before, but apparently, that was what really good sex did to you. I never knew before.

Bren had been propped next to me in bed when I woke, typing away on his MacBook. He had an essay due tomorrow on the Cold War. He also had a quiz he had to finish, which he was doing now on the patio while I made pancakes.

It was problematic, though, because I could see him through the kitchen windows. And he was distracting. I'd thrown away like four burnt pancakes already. I had to whip up more batter. Find more chocolate chips.

He was just so...I didn't know how to describe it. Everything. Bren was everything. Sometimes his face would scrunch up, presumably on questions he didn't know. Or he would tense his jaw and run a hand through his hair, obviously flustered. When he was thinking about something, he'd lift his arms above his head, resting them there. His muscles would flex against the long sleeve shirt he was wearing. He'd bite his lip. Let it go. Bite it again. And even though I felt bad for him, because he was clearly a little stressed, I loved all of it. Every tiny expression, every movement, had me staring.

God, there must be something wrong with me.

I wanted to smooth the worry from his face. I wanted to go out there and kiss him until he carried me back upstairs, back to bed. I wanted to sit on his lap and wrap my arms around his neck. I wanted him to wrap his arms around me, too.

But he told me he was going to work on the patio so he could focus better, and I didn't want to bother him.

The unfortunate smell of burning pancake batter that I'd come to know so well filled my nose. With a start, I flipped the pancake to find it blackened and crisp. I groaned and poked at it with the spatula. "Shit, not another one."

"Smells great in here."

I jumped at the sound of Bren's laughing voice. He slid through the door and began walking toward me with quick, purposeful steps. I opened my mouth to say something about my failure of a dinner, but Bren interrupted me. He seized my face between his hands before pushing me back against the kitchen wall and slamming his lips against mine.

I gasped, and Bren took the opportunity to deepen the kiss, exploring my mouth with his tongue. One of his hands dropped to my waist as his whole body pressed into mine, flooding me with his heat. It instantly consumed me. Lips slid over lips in a relentless, continual caress.

And then he abruptly pulled away, leaving me breathless.

Bren leaned back against the kitchen counter, a grin stretching across his face. I blinked up at him, partly wondering what that was about and partly yearning to simply jump him like he'd done to me.

"I've just always wanted to do that," he said, shrugging. "Pretty much every time I've ever seen you."

"I—" I didn't know what to say. I longed to reach across the space between us and kiss him again. Maybe more than kiss him.

Definitely more than kiss him.

"Besides," Bren went on, his voice lowering. "You kept staring at me through the window, and it was very distracting."

"I was not staring," I tried to protest.

Bren raised a brow.

"You just looked a little stressed," I said. It wasn't a lie. "How was the quiz?"

He shrugged again. "It's over now. That's all that really matters."

"Maybe I can help you study for the next—"

"Madie, I don't really want to talk about school." Exhaustion and exasperation dripped from his words, and so I decided not to push it tonight. Sometimes Bren was willing to open up to me about his struggles with classwork, and other times, he'd shut the conversation down. Apparently, tonight was the latter.

It was hard to be irritated at his dismissal, though, because Bren crossed the distance between us and gently tucked a hair behind my ear. His voice was quiet when he spoke.

"How are you feeling? You slept for so long." He paused. "I worried it was all...too much."

When he was about to pull his hand away, I grabbed it, holding it against my cheek. "I'm good, Bren." I found his eyes, so he'd know I was telling the truth. "It wasn't too much at all."

The relief on his face was visible. He worried so deeply about everything when he just didn't need to. But even so, it felt good to be cared for. 

He sighed, still cupping my face, rubbing a thumb across my skin. "This morning was..." He looked at the high ceiling, possibly searching for the right words or maybe replaying the scenes in his head. I knew I'd been replaying things in my head. I'd been doing it between the glimpses I'd catch of him out the window while I was cooking.

It probably explained the burnt pancakes.

When Bren didn't continue, I whispered to him. "I think we both know what this morning was."

It was everything—just like him.

Bren glanced back at me, a brief smile flitting across his face. Then he dipped his forehead against mine, resting it there. "I think you're right," he murmured. "But you're wearing my hoodie. So I just wanted to make sure you're okay."

I glanced down at the faded black sweatshirt I'd grabbed off the floor of our bedroom. What did the hoodie have to do with anything?

"Huh?"

Leaning back again, Bren searched my face with brown roaming eyes. "Pretty much all I ever saw you wear when we were on campus was a sweatshirt, usually one of Quinton's. It always seemed to me like you hid inside those things. But when things started to...change, you stopped wearing them."

I stared at him, wondering how he always saw so much more than I did. Bren must have seen the confusion, the curiosity in my eyes. Because then, he sighed.

"Caroline always got in my head when I first started living with her," he went on to say, startling me a bit with the change in conversation. "I was moody as hell, more than a little depressed. And it drove me crazy because she seemed to know what I was thinking even when I barely said a word. I'd yell at her to leave me alone and stop trying to psychoanalyze me."

I tilted my head, so he knew I was listening. He never told me enough about his past, and I was always reluctant to ask because it seemed so painful for him to talk about.

"Well, she didn't stop bugging me. And eventually, I opened up." Bren shrugged. "But Caroline told me she'd already figured me out by paying attention to all the little things I did when I refused to say anything. And...well, since you'd never tell me anything about what I knew was really going, Madie, I started to pay attention to the things you did. Like covering yourself up in giant sweatshirts." He grimaced. "That sounds creepy, doesn't it?"

I shook my head, simply amazed that he cared enough to notice anything at all.

Bren smiled. "Good."

There was a slight pause, a hesitation before he dropped his voice.

"But now you're standing in the kitchen, and you look like you're hiding from me again. And after this morning..." He pursed his lips, raising his hand so he could slip beneath my hood and slid it off. Meanwhile, I uncurled my fingers from inside the sweatshirt and pushed the sleeves up. Because hiding wasn't what I had intended to do, and I didn't want him to think that.

"Bren," I began, but I hadn't found the words yet. So I filled the silence by pressing my lips to his for a brief kiss. His lips were soft, and I just wanted to get lost in them, in him. But instead, I pulled back and tried to start again. "Bren, I'm wearing your hoodie because I was cold and..."

"And?" He looked uncertain.

"And it smells like you, okay?" I admitted, laughing to myself. "It's like a Bren hug. It's cozy." I kissed him once more. "After this morning, all I want is to be close to you. Not hide from you."

Bren blinked a few times before laughing, too. A ridiculous smile curved from one ear to the other. "Baby, if you want a hug, I'll give you a hug."

And then he wrapped his arms around me, enveloping my body in the warmest, tightest hug I'd ever received. And he didn't dare let go.

"Bren?" I mumbled into his shoulder.

"Yeah?" He refused to release me. Not that I wanted him to.

"I wore Quinton's sweatshirts because he always asked me to. He wanted me to support him and his football team," I muttered. "I wasn't really trying to hide."

I felt him nod. "Okay. I guess I was wrong." He began to rub my back, but there was a tautness to his strokes.

I squeezed Bren even tighter. "Well, I think he was trying to hide me. And my body, the things he did to it. To me. And I let him."

Bren's hand stilled. Then it wound around my back, holding me as close as physically possible. We stayed that way for a long time. Eventually, he breathed a few words that I felt so deeply inside me. "I still saw you."

Bren lessened his grip and cleared his throat. "Did you need help with these pancakes, Madeline?" he asked teasingly.

I flushed. He couldn't see it, and hopefully he wouldn't feel the burn in my cheeks. Pulling away from Bren, I turned toward the stove. "I've got it."

I heard him snort, his feet brushing against the tiled floor. I felt his chest rest against my back, the piney, musky smell of his cologne overcoming the powerful scent of burnt pancakes. I leaned back, tipping my head up so I could kiss his jawline, tasting the stubble on his chin. His fingers trailed down my arms, making my heart beat just a little louder.

All of my senses were tuned into Bren.

"Can we do it together?" he asked, tossing the burnt remains in the trash.

"Okay," I relented. I didn't want him to walk away, not when everything felt so perfect.

Bren started over by plopping a scoop of pancake batter in the pan, arms still caged around me while he worked.

And then we stayed that way, making pancakes. It was probably good that Bren was there, because I still couldn't concentrate—not with him so close to me. Somehow he managed to remember to flip the pancakes on time, none of them burning.

And then we sat down to eat, and I remembered something that completely popped my bubble of pancake-Bren bliss.

He must have seen it on my face because he frowned. "What?" He speared his fork in my pancake, lifting it up to inspect it. "Did you get a burnt one?"

I shook my head. No, I wished that was it.

"It's November twenty-third."

He stared at me, not comprehending what I was saying.

"Thanksgiving, Bren. It's Thanksgiving in less than a week. My parents will be expecting me to go home."

He set his fork down and folded his hands in front of him, peering at them for a moment. He paused, frozen momentarily. Cleared his throat. Looked back at me. His gaze was unreadable. "Did you want to go home?"

I made a face.  Why would I want to go home? Quinton was there, in the house just down the block from my parents. "Of course I don't want to go home, Bren."

He breathed out. "Thank fucking god."

"But I'll need to call and tell them I'm not coming," I said, shaking a bit as I put my fork down, too.

It wasn't that I thought my parents would be upset about me deciding to stay away from home for Thanksgiving. But the idea of calling and lying about where I was and what I'd be doing filled me with nerves.

Bren nodded. "Okay, when do you want to call?"

I sighed. "Probably after dinner." I picked my fork back up again, stabbing the pancake. "I'll just tell them that I'm staying on campus. I think they'll understand why I'm not ready to be anywhere near South Lake Tahoe."

"That's good," Bren said with a nod, taking a sip of water.

Dinner was pretty quiet after that. Bren said that he'd take care of the dishes so I could call home.

And then I did, pacing back and forth on the patio, listening to the waves to try to calm myself. There wasn't much of a breeze tonight. The air was still and haunting as I dialed my mom.

The conversation did not go how I was planning.

At all.

My nerves were even worse when I stepped back into the beach house to find Bren waiting expectantly.

"What?" he asked, taking a few careful steps toward me. "What did they say?"

"It's just..." I hesitated, not knowing how to say it. "My mom insisted that she could come to campus and spend Thanksgiving with me, so I wasn't alone. I tried to lie that Nessa would be there, too. But she just kept pressing it, and..."

Bren shifted on his feet. He was leaning on the couch, but he kept repositioning. "Madie, you're making me nervous," he said.

I gritted my teeth before blurting the truth. "They're coming here."

The whites of Bren's eyes exploded. "What?"

"I told them everything, Bren." I swallowed. "And now my parents are coming to LA for Thanksgiving."

—

November Twenty-Third

Three

Those that taught you to hide

are coming for a big

surprise.

🖤
Hi! How are you?
Thanks so much for being here!
Any guesses what Madie's parents will do?
xoxo amelie