B R E N

I woke up, and Madie was gone. It was surprising and annoying. When we'd fallen asleep, she was naked except for the towel wrapped loosely around her. Nestled next to me, her wet hair soaked the pillow, smelling like lavender bubble bath. Soft skin beneath my chin. The ocean whirring like my heart. I'd really been looking forward to waking up to the same thing.

But the banging of pots and pans reverberated through the hollow house, telling me exactly where my girl was.

I stopped myself from flying down the stairs to find her, knowing I should use the moment to fucking think. I'd already relived last night a thousand times in my dreams. To be honest, it was the first time in a long time that I had allowed myself to dream at all.

But what the hell was wrong with me? I lost all control in that cavernous club. Shit, I didn't just lose control; I lost my mind, touching her like that. I rolled over and groaned into the pillow. Trying so hard to hold back from Madie only made it that much more dangerous in those moments when I broke down and caved to the way she made me feel.

And there was what had happened in the bathroom when she—

I should just go downstairs.

Thinking really wasn't helping anything at the moment.

Sitting up, I searched the floor for that one T-shirt of mine Madie always wore. I'd hauled the rest of my clothes to the laundry room yesterday when Madie went shopping, and the load still sat in the dryer.

The shirt was on top of Madie's suitcase, half stuffed into the front pocket like she was planning on stowing it away and keeping it forever. Shaking my head with a smile, I crossed the room and snatched it. The shirt popped right out and brought a bunch of papers tumbling with it. I hesitated, knowing I shouldn't look at them. Who knows what they were, what they said—if they said anything at all.

But as most of my control had been stripped away last night, I bent down and grabbed them.

And they definitely said something. They were her discharge papers from the hospital. And the further I read down the page, the further my stomach dropped. My toes curled into the rich carpet, trying to grip into something real. Because this couldn't be true.

Control, restraint, whatever you wanted to call it...it was all gone. On every front. With the papers still in my hand, I flung myself down the stairs, not really thinking clearly and not really caring.

Madie was in the kitchen, a blue checkered apron tied around her waist, a spatula in one hand. She was bent over what looked like a cookbook, her nose only an inch away from the page. If I wasn't so focused, I would have told her to put her goddamn glasses on. 

At my footsteps, she peered up. She flashed me a shy smile that honestly confounded me because shy hadn't seemed to be a part of her personality last night. But none of that mattered at the moment.

I held up the papers, and her face dropping told me everything.

"Were you going to tell me about this?"

Her movements were slow as she placed the spatula on the counter and turned off each burner on the stove, leaving the bacon and eggs to sit.

"Bren—"

"Were you going to tell me that..." I glanced down at the paper, reading off of it, "you're at high risk for seizures or strokes. Or that even after your surgery there's still a chance of—"

I broke off, forcing my mouth closed with a shaky hand. Madie's face had drained, white and pallid, but she didn't say anything. She stared at me, her expression stony.

I swallowed hard, and when I thought I could manage to talk, I asked the question I really wanted to know. "Why the hell were we in that club last night? That dance floor was like a playground for seizure activity, and I pulled you right out onto it."

She blinked at me. "We were there because I wanted to be there."

Scoffing, I opened my mouth to tell her how ridiculous that sounded, but she cut me off.

"This is exactly why I didn't tell you. If you knew, you wouldn't let me do anything—"

"Because—because seizures!"

"No, because you think I'm broken, Bren! You think I'm weak, and I can't handle myself. Or anything!" she yelled, throwing her hands in the air. 

I jerked back. "I don't think you're broken, Madie." I tried to keep my voice low and soft, knowing that another outburst was threatening to break through my lips. "I think you've been through a lot, and things like that take time to think about and heal completely. But I don't think you're weak. I don't think you're broken."

"Well, I don't want to think about those things, okay?" she retorted, her tone anything but low and soft. "I just want to be okay for once in my life. I want to forget. And when I was out with you last night, I felt that. When I was in your arms, I felt that."

To some, the words might be welcome—the knowledge that they were that person for someone else. But not me. Something twisted in my chest.

"I knew it. I fucking knew it." I tossed the papers on the countertop, and they went flying. "I don't want to be your distraction, Madie," I yelled. Hell, I screamed that shit. "I've had that with other girls—it's all I've ever had with other girls. And I thought it was different with you. I can't fucking do that with you."

She opened her mouth, but I wasn't done.

"And what?" I choked. "You thought if you talked dirty enough and sucked my dick and made me lose my goddamn mind, I wouldn't even realize any of it? I wouldn't realize that you were just using me? I can't—you can't just use me to get over Quinton, Madie!"

My shirt was still hanging limply between my fingers, and I threw it on. It smelled like her, and I just couldn't. I couldn't do this. I should have kept my distance from her.

I spun on my heel, not knowing where I was going but knowing I needed to go.

Madie's trembling whisper stopped me. "You're not a distraction."

"What?" I turned—but only halfway. I only turned so far that I could see a sliver of her somber expression.

"You're not a distraction," she repeated. "It's different with me. I promise it's different with me."

I raised a wary brow. Everything in me wanted that to be true.

"I want to be with you."

I turned all the way around. Madie seized my eyes with her watery ones, and I couldn't look away.

"But you wouldn't kiss me the other night, Bren. And when I asked you why, you asked if I was okay. So...so I thought I had to be okay. And I had to show you I was okay. I thought I had to show you I was ready and that I wanted you. So maybe you'd want me back. I thought if you saw me as normal, like I was any other girl who—"

"Oh god, Madie. You're not like any other girl." The words fell out of my mouth before I could think about them.  She bit her lip, which was wobbling, and I knew it wasn't the right thing to say. She didn't understand. "Fuck," I swore, "Come here." 

I held out my arms, and Madie swerved around the marble island in the kitchen and flew straight into me.

It was a crushing hug that I probably didn't deserve to get from her. I whispered into her hair. 

"Madie, I want you so much. You don't need to prove anything to me for that. I just do, and I can't help it. But I was so worried that I would take advantage of you when you were still feeling vulnerable, and I was going to ruin everything before we even had a chance. That's why I didn't kiss you."

"I'm sorry," was all she muttered.

I blew out a breath, my heart slowing after the cardiac marathon of the last few minutes. "I need to communicate better. We need to communicate for this to work."

She nodded against my chest. But for the longest time, she didn't say anything, so I gave her a small nudge, a squeeze around her shoulders.

"I've never...seen you get like that before, Bren," she breathed after a short pause.

I closed my eyes, knowing I'd lost it. It was all I had done in the last few days. My control just slipped away whenever Madie was concerned. Something needed to change.

"I'm sorry," I whispered. She'd never heard me so much as raise my voice. I hated yelling, exploding like that. I usually tried to bury the impulse to unload on other people. My dad always used to holler at me. It was amazing and horrifying how one loud voice could make a person feel so small.

The only person who'd seen—truly seen—the depth of my anger was Nessa. And Quinton, I suppose. But fuck him.

Madie didn't need to be included in that number.

She broke away from me. "So you didn't read the second page of this, did you?" She picked up the hospital pages that had scattered across the counter.

"No." I saw the word seizures, and I'd lost interest in anything else.

Her hands shook as she brought it over to me.

"I think—I think you should. I think you should know, Bren. If we are going to be honest with each other."

My brows furrowed as I accepted it. She moved away from me, then, stepping over to the couch and sinking into it. I followed her, that string attached between us pulling me into the cushions beside Madie. But then that wasn't good enough, and I lifted her onto my lap. Her weight was like the blanket I needed to stay calm and warm and comforted.

She blinked up at me, and her blue eyes were clear. "Something else happened to me while I was in the hospital. And it's the reason why I was finally able to put Quinton so far behind me."

She wiggled a bit in my lap, staring down at her hands while they fiddled with a strand of her blonde hair. "Bren, I know now that my body has been used and abused in so many ways. And last night...I guess I was just trying to take back control of it, control of myself."

Glancing up, Madie gave me a small smile, and I noticed tears were forming in her eyes. And it terrified me that they'd been clear a minute ago. And now, when she thought of last night, she couldn't help but cry. And I'd done that.

"I wanted to use my body to feel good," she continued. "Like I had some small ounce of power in it and in what I could use it for."

I watched her eyes carefully, hoping those tears wouldn't fall. "Baby, you packed all the power last night," I said, trying to encourage her. God, it was true, though.

She chuckled. It was a sad chuckle, and a tear slipped down her cheek at the same time. It broke me. She shook her head, glancing back at her fingers, still spinning hair.

"I wasn't trying to use you, Bren," she whispered. "But maybe I did in the way that I wanted to feel good, and I wanted to feel good with you. But only you. I just wanted to share that with you." She wiped at the tear. "You're not a distraction."

"Okay," I murmured, pressing my lips against her hair, wishing I could take back everything I had yelled at her. "Okay, Madie."

Slipping off my lap, she tiptoed over to the enormous windows, looking out. The sea was unruly today. Whitecaps formed in a line atop the waves, like an angry army storming the shores. Darkening clouds told me the sky would pour, and the gods would yell. They would thunder down like I had this morning. The air was electric, and I was afraid of the shock.

Without her in my arms, I was left staring at the hospital papers, not knowing what to expect. Too impatient to read each word, I scanned across the document until I found what Madie was undoubtedly talking about. My stomach sank; it sank so very low.

I glanced back to see Madie, rocking a bit as she looked out over the ocean. She still wore the apron, a bit of cheery fabric that wasn't reflected in anything else.

Maybe I was wrong. Maybe Madie didn't need to talk about everything that had happened to her to heal. Maybe she really did just need to feel something good for once in her fucking life. And I could give that to her.

The only thing I risked was breaking completely if she was wrong about the way she felt toward me—if she took what she needed from me and then left. But she had put so much faith in me by jumping in that car to come here. I could do the same. It was my turn to do the same.

"Madie."

She spun around. Her face was shiny, wet.

"If what you need is to feel, I'll make you feel. You can use me, dance on me, dance with me." I paused. "But don't worry about convincing me of anything. I need to trust that you know yourself better than I do. I'm sorry I yelled, Madie. I didn't...I didn't understand. Just please, no more clubs. Not with that pretty head of yours."

I would take her upstairs right now and make her feel a million things if that was what she asked of me. It wasn't about control anymore. Control had nothing to do with this. This was trust, plain and simple.

But she simply blinked at me. "Did you read what it said?"

I nodded. "I'm just done forcing you to talk about things if you're not ready or willing to. I can't decide how you need to deal with this."

"I want to talk about it, Bren."

I let out a breath, thankful. Because as much as I wanted her up in that bed with me, there were other things I wanted so much more. And if that wasn't the scariest thing to happen to me, I didn't know what was.

"Come here, baby," I murmured, wanting her in my arms.

She did, settling in.

And then everything came spilling out.

🖤
I wouldn't say the last chapter was the *calm* before the storm, but I think we knew something was coming.
What happened to Madie in the hospital?

This chapter (and the next two) brought to you by listening to folklore on repeat, ngl.
Do you like listening to music while reading or writing?
xoxo amelie