~Chapter 26~

Maddie was awake.

That still didn't feel real but it was. She had pulled through. She had done it. She was awake.

Utter joy couldn't even begin to describe my feelings as I had rushed to the hospital that day, tears of relief in my eyes. All the negative thoughts had left my mind at the news, leaving room for happiness only.

When I had gone to see her, Maddie was weak as was to be expected but she was fine; she was joking with me; she was talking and most importantly she was still breathing.

I had let myself break down when I saw her, giving her the best hug I could despite her being bedridden and just cried as I'd held her for a good hour.

She was released two days later, doctors trying to get people to be home for the holidays seeing as it was now only a few sleeps until Christmas.

Maddie's therapy had continued as soon as she left the hospital, now a mandatory part of her week and it didn't seem like she minded that fact much, yet I couldn't help but feel like something was missing. The light that used to shine in her brown eyes had dimmed and her usually bright personality had dulled.

Unfortunately, as much as I wanted to, I couldn't stay with her for the holidays. I had promised my family I would come home — because Zack had asked me to all those months ago — and once you agreed to something with my mother there was no escaping it. So, the best I could do was to delay my trip home by a few days much to mother's annoyance.

Luckily, Maddie's family was more than happy to spend as much time with her as possible after the incident, though I didn't think she was very pleased with that. Her relationship with her family could be slightly tense at times and, especially now, that was probably hard for her to deal with.

I had offered for her to come to London with me but she declined, deciding it was best to stay with her family, even if it was more for their benefit than hers.

So, to say bye, we were having brunch at our favourite cafe in Brooklyn.

Our food had just arrived and Maddison and I were talking about trivial things, mainly I was just catching her up on all that she had missed over the past few weeks — thankfully, it wasn't any longer than that. However, I couldn't help but notice how off she was acting.

I'd tried to ignore it, pinning it as simply being the aftermath of her alcohol-induced coma but I just knew it was something more and the slight sigh of distaste that escaped her lips as she put her glass of orange juice down was the final straw. Maddie loved orange juice. It was a small thing yet so out of place and alien to see her so distant and quiet, especially while eating brunch, her favourite.

Normally, I was a very blunt person and right now I wished I wasn't. I didn't want to suddenly bombard her with accusations and questions but I was worried and very unsure about how to broach the subject. I had been deliberating it in my mind all morning and after much inner debate decided it was best to just come out and say it but in a more gentle and soft tone than I tended to use.

"Maddie," I said so tenderly that I wasn't sure it was even me who was speaking as she wordlessly picked at her food, a stark contrast from her usually bubbly self who would never shut up no matter what you did. "What's wrong?"

Her eyes flashed to mine before returning to her food and she shrugged. "What'd you mean?"

I gave her a soft smile even though she wasn't looking at me. "You're acting a bit off. What's wrong?"

She sighed, readjusting her black-rimmed glasses, finally looking up from her plate long enough to actually take in the worry on my face. "It's nothing, Harps. Don't worry about it," she said nonchalantly.

"Maddie, please talk to me. We're best friends so I'm here for you, always."

Maddie still didn't speak but this time kept her eyes focused on mine as if asking me to work out the answer myself. The closer I looked, the more I realised.

Maddie usually made her bubbly nature the only thing you could notice about her. She usually kept hidden behind her newer found happiness from recent years but, now, her deep brown eyes were full of despair and sorrow from long ago. It almost seemed like since her relapse her happiness was gone. All that was left were the scars of her past, invading the forefront of her mind.

That was when I realised and gasped softly. "Maddie," I started very carefully. "Did... did you see him again?"

She gulped but shook her head. "Not exactly but we spoke a bit," she admitted guilty.

I didn't have it in me to chide her at the foolishness. All I could do was ask so quietly I was surprised she heard me, "Why?"

Maddison chipped at the black nail polish on her fingers as she tried to work out how to reply. "Well, he messaged me. Can you believe it? After all this fucking time the bastard has the audacity to message me. Even worse, I thought that maybe he'd changed and we could at least be on friendly terms again."

My fists were clenching the white table cloth as she spoke. No. No. No. This couldn't have happened.

"He was being so sweet and I thought we could get over the past. I thought he'd finally accepted me but I was wrong. I guess a leopard doesn't change its spots after all..." she trailed off with a bittersweet smile, shaking her head to herself.

"What happened? Was he the reason for your," I paused, trying to find the right words, "for your relapse?"

Maddie didn't even flinch at the question as she looked me in the eye, her confidence building as she realised that I was here for her to confide to. "Well, turns out he's still not over the breakup. Apparently, me being gay isn't enough of a deterrent," she scoffed resentfully.

"He hid it well though. I almost met up with him for coffee before he accidentally let his agenda slip and then... that's when everything got all fucked. I'd been feeling more anxious since we started speaking but that was my fault, not his, so I brushed it aside. But then, Harper, he showed his true colours and I started getting flashbacks to when we were together and I got so... so scared and I didn't know what to do."

Maddie was looking into the distance now, a sad smile on her face as she recounted what had happened to me.

"You know how bad things were, Harps. The memories still keep me up sometimes and I haven't been handling myself well since the breakup, as you know.

"Drinking seemed like the easiest way to take away the pain. The buzz took the memories away and let me finally feel free. I could finally be me, just Maddie without him or anyone else there to bring me down. It was my escape and that's when the addiction started," she confessed and I did my best to keep my face neutral as she spoke.

That was why she drank? It was all starting to make sense, like slotting one of the final puzzle pieces into a jigsaw. How did I not realise sooner? How? It was all so obvious now that she explained it.

"It took years but I was finally starting to mend my life and all the damage he'd done. Hell, I'd been sober for months, Harps. Months. But then he messaged me and it all went to shit. When we spoke, all the memories came rushing back and I couldn't hide from them. I couldn't escape. All that pain. All that fear. It overwhelmed me and I cracked. I wanted it all to go away, forever.

"Now, even though I'm still here I almost wish I wasn't, Harps," she whispered so lowly that my ears strained to hear her. "I don't know how to deal with everything. It's not even just him and what he did but my family too. I know they won't accept me but I'm tired of hiding myself. What am I going to do when I actually get a girlfriend and want to bring her home? They'll never accept her, accept me. Hell, they don't know what he did and still want me to get back together with him."

Tears were starting to pool in her eyes and before my brain could even register what I was doing, I had stood up and walked over to her, embracing her in a tight hug, refusing to let go as she let her tears fall. Luckily, our booth at the cafe was in the corner, mostly hidden behind a screen so no one could see us or what was happening. We did not need the paparazzi showing up right now.

We sat like that for a long time, Maddie silently sobbing and me just holding her, not caring about the mascara staining my blouse as I did.

Maddie had had it rough for the last few years. She'd been dating this guy who was — on the outside — picture-perfect, so much so that even Maddie hadn't noticed his true nature beneath it all. She was nineteen and they'd been dating for a little under a year when she had finally come to terms with the fact she wasn't into guys, after rejecting that part of her for so long.

Her family were more traditional and weren't the most supportive of that type of lifestyle so Maddie had shoved that part of her away from a young age, probably just hoping it would disappear but, of course, that was not how it worked. Besides, talking about sex and relationships wasn't a done thing in her household. Maddie said it was an 'Asian parent thing' and that's just how it was. However, that never really seemed to bother her much, she loved her family all the same despite it.

She had decided to not come out to them but still live her life — which meant accepting and embracing her sexuality — and to cross that bridge with her family when she came to it. So, it took a lot of courage but she finally told her boyfriend and hoped he'd be supportive and understanding. Unfortunately, he was anything but.

He went absolutely ballistic when he found out and that was when their relationship took a turn for the worst and became abusive. It was the first — and definitely not the last — time he'd hit her, at the tender age of just nineteen. He refused to let her go and used fear to make her stay with him. The man was absolutely psycho.

So, Maddie continued to stay with him for months. Too many months. I'd met her while they were still together but at the time I'd thought their relationship was like any other. He'd always acted so normal when I was around and was so charming that I hadn't noticed the pure terror in Maddie's eyes, something I still hadn't forgiven myself for entirely.

It wasn't until she came into one of our shoots with sunglasses on in the middle of winter that I'd realised something was wrong. She'd been hiding a black eye and told me she'd tripped and hurt herself. Maddie was a shit liar and she also wasn't clumsy in the slightest.

I still remembered her hands shaking as she tried to pass off the lie as casually as she could. Maddie had the steadiest hands I knew, one of the things that made her such a good photographer. Her hands never shook like that.

It took some coercing but she eventually told me the truth and I convinced her — after a lot of very heated arguments — to finally go to the police. She'd managed to get a restraining order and hadn't heard from the bastard since, or so I'd thought.

Even now, three years later, he was still trying to worm his way back into her life and the thought made me sick to my stomach. If I ever saw that bastard again I was going to punch the living daylights out of—

Maddie's sniffling brought me out of my thoughts and made me instinctively hold her tighter.

Eventually, after her complaining for ten minutes about me cutting off her air supply, I let go and we finished our meal in peace just smiling and laughing with one another. I may have imagined it but I swore I could see that glint starting to return to her eyes as if just talking about what had happened made her feel slightly better.

In that moment, as she drank her orange juice, snorting at one of her own jokes, I couldn't help but marvel at how strong she was.

She had been through hell and back and yet here she was still smiling, still laughing, still fighting.

I had always known it but damn, Maddison Aarti Varma was a force to be reckoned with indeed.

~*~*~

So that's some much needed background about Maddie. What do you think of it all?

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