I released the silver cutlery in my hands. They clattered onto my plate, drawing more attention than had already been drawn. Anxiety rippled through my every nerve, blurring my vision as it threatened to take over.

"What's he doing here?"

My mother pursed her lips matter-of-factly. "I invited him."

"I got that." I tried to take a steady breath, tried to ball my hands into fists to stop them from trembling. "Why? Did you invite Lola, too?" 

"Of course, dear." Her tone was alight with innocent bewilderment. "Regretfully, she and her family are out of town."

"You have got to be kidding me—"

"Madi ..." Eli stepped forward, his hands raised in front of him as though he was trying to surrender. His hazel eyes sparkled in the low light, pooling with a mixture of urgency and regret.

"No." I raised a finger warningly, tearing my gaze from his. "Not you."

"I told her that we needed to talk—"

"Is that all you told her?"

I wasn't looking at him, but I could feel his eyes on mine. Searing me so desperately. Begging me not to say any more than I already had.

After all, he had a reputation to uphold.

But maybe he should have thought about that before he crashed my birthday. Maybe he should have thought about it when he was screwing my best friend.

My mother placed the flowers down on the buffet, wringing her hands nervously as every eye in the room flickered between us. "Madison, we can discuss this in private."

"Jeez, can you stay out of this?" My anxiety compounded into anger, ricocheting through every part of me at the realization that this wasn't merely a birthday party. It wasn't even a mere surprise party.

It was an ambush.

They thought if they cornered me in front of a house full of guests that I'd be forced to talk to them. To listen to them. That I wouldn't make a scene.

They thought so, so wrong.

I jerked to my feet, my chair screeching on the marble tiles as it flew out behind me. "Can you stay out of my life for one second?"

My mother winced. She knew that her plan was backfiring, that I wouldn't back down because I had nothing left to lose. She saw that I didn't care about what the people in that room thought of me anymore, that I knew they were all hiding just as much as we were. But fear clouded her vision as she was hit with another realization—the realization that I knew she did care.

And that was my advantage.

"No, I can't." Her voice was shaky, her hands still fidgeting with the diamond rings on her dainty fingers. "You're my daughter, Madison, and I'm worried about you. You're not answering anyone's calls, you weren't on campus when I came to visit. Eli tells me that you had some strange boy in your room—"

"He's my friend."

"He almost broke Eli's nose!"

My mouth floundered between words while hers registered in my brain. I closed it slowly, finally turning to acknowledge Eli with a look of incredulity. With a look of utter disgust.

His eyes meet mine, brimming with desperation. With shame. And then they fell to the floor, obscured under the hair he'd tried to slick back with too much gel.

He was a liar. He always was.

I shook my head to myself, the chill cascading down my spine replaced by a comforting warmth. I leaned into the flame, grabbing my phone from the table and pushing myself away.

"I'm not doing this." My voice had shed its shrill edge. It was low and dry, devoid of anything but exhaustion. "Stop calling me," I uttered to Eli, still refusing to look at him. "Stop texting me. Stop disrupting my life. Let me go. You owe me that much."

From the corner of my eye, I saw his chest shudder with broken breath.

"I love you," he whispered.

The words didn't sting.

I slipped right by him, slipped through the scent of salt and sea and home. I didn't need comfort. I needed freedom. If he wouldn't give it to me, I had to claim it for myself.

"Madison," my mother pleaded, watching me race to the door. "You can't ..."

But I did.

I rounded the corner to the lounge and stormed through the corridor, my hair bouncing around me as I headed back toward the entryway. Footsteps were shadowing me, but a hushed voice called them back.

"Let her go," my stepfather instructed sternly.

I dug my keys out from my back pocket, practically sprinting from the porch to my car before the tears pricking my eyes dared to stream down my face. No doubt Capri would be abuzz with chatter about that dinner party for weeks to come; I didn't want them to see my pain as well. I needed to be alone. Needed to be far, far away from that pretentious seaside town and everyone who lived there. From everyone who thought they knew me.

But when I got to my car, a violent onslaught of curse words bubbled in my mouth. I'd parked in the driveway—like a normal person would—and Eli's stupid truck was blocking me in from behind.

My right foot tingled with the urge to kick a hole through the door, to beat in the windows of the car that had driven us to so many places, that held so many private conversations. So many intimate moments.

But I'd already bruised my hand trying to hurt him like he did me. All I ended up doing was hurting myself more.

Rich chocolate sauce drizzled from my raised spoon, landing on an untouched scoop of vanilla ice cream. I sought it out again, dipping my silverware into the brown and white mixture, raising it an inch or so before watching it fall once more.

I pushed the half-eaten dessert away guiltily. It really wasn't a meal for one.

I hadn't meant to end up at the parlor. I'd wandered aimlessly about town as the sun continued to set, until only a strip of gold remained on the horizon, avoiding familiar houses and streets and somehow ending up at the pier. It was a popular attraction at all times of the day, still alive that Saturday night with teenagers and young families checking out the rickety rides or sprinkling of restaurants. Still, it was a cool evening, and the cozy corner ice cream shop seemed like my best chance of finding a slice of solitude amongst the commotion.

As for ordering a banana split—there was nothing but birthday nostalgia to blame for that.

I hadn't told my mother about Elijah and Lola. Some part of me thought that Capri gossip would do that for me. But maybe the two of them had kept their word. Maybe they hadn't told anyone what they'd done to me after all. They kept it between themselves for all that time, the least they could do was spare me the humiliation after the fact.

Still, my mother should have known better than to invite him. She knew that Elijah and I broke up. She knew that I would react poorly to seeing him. And on my birthday, of all days. A day that she knew was painful enough as it was.

The embarrassment she would face in the coming weeks was a web of her own making. At least, that's what I kept telling myself.

Muffled laughter stole my attention. Aside from me and the staff, there were only two other people in the parlor; a young, giggling couple were sitting arm-to-arm, sharing a strawberry sundae. It was the quietest I'd ever seen the place on a Saturday night, although I had heard it'd gone downhill since my mother sold it.

My dad's ice cream shop was always my solace. I'd spent almost every afternoon there during elementary school, doing my homework at the counter while he worked beside me. It was the place I'd run to after walking in on Eli and Lola together the night before I left for Camden, the place she'd followed me to before tearfully explaining that she'd spent the last three years in love with the same boy that I was.

I shouldn't have gone there on my birthday. Not while my heart was still so raw. Then again, maybe I was more of a creature of habit than I cared to admit. Maybe there was some Madi left in me, after all.

The bell on the door rang as the latter opened, signaling that there was more than just the loved-up couple imposing on my pity party. My eyes were still trailing my bowl, now a sad cocktail of melted sauce and cream, when the newcomer took the place in the booth opposite me.

I didn't bother raising my eyes. I couldn't even find the energy to stand. Even if I could, there was nowhere to run.

"Can I get you something?" the waitress asked as she buzzed by.

"Decaf, please."

"I'm sorry, ma'am, we don't serve—"

"Coffee. I forgot."

"How about a hot chocolate?"

Reluctantly, the newcomer nodded, and the young waitress moved back towards the counter. My eyes flittered upwards.

My mother was staring down at my dessert, a fossilized smile twisting her perfect pout.

"I've never been a fan of ice cream," she explained.

Irritation pricked at my insides, but my voice came out as tired as it had back at the house. "You never complained."

"No. Because your father loved it." Her gaze drifted up from watching me fiddle with my spoon, meeting mine hesitantly. My mother always had the most beautiful eyes. Wolf eyes, my father called them, sleek and long and turned up in the outer corners. No doubt they were what she used to capture his heart the way she had. "And then it became your birthday tradition, and you loved it, too."

"So ... what? You put up with it to appease us?"

"Yes." Her tone was cryptic now, complementing the enigmatic edge that radiated from her expression.

The inference hit me in the face.

A dark laugh devoid of humor broke free from my throat. "You're not talking about ice cream."

My mother and I might have drifted in the years since my father's passing, but I still knew her. I knew how she thought, how she spoke. She never gave information freely. She had to be nudged.

She confirmed my conclusion with a soft smirk. "You know that I despised Elijah."

I snorted. That was an understatement. Everyone in town could likely recall my mother's intolerance of Eli once upon a time. Most other parents couldn't understand why; who wouldn't want their daughter dating someone so handsome, so charming, so respected? He was the town prince, and we were the golden couple.

She broke my stare, casting it out the window and over the bay. "From the moment that he batted those big brown eyes at me, extended his hand and told me he knew where you got your looks from, I knew exactly what he was. A charmer. But your father ... he trusted you. And he saw that Eli adored you. He told me to give him a chance. You both did."

"The joke's on us, then."

"No, Madison." Her head snapped towards me again. Gone was the harsh edge I'd grown so used to seeing in her expression, her tight scowl replaced with a small, sad smile. Her mask of apathy appeared to have ruptured, my stomach twisting at the semblance of familiarity that lurked underneath. "You were always your father's daughter. And you inherited a lot from him, the best thing being your heart. You have the biggest, most beautiful heart. The love that you hold for others—your compassion, your desire to help everyone who needs it—those are rare qualities. Rare, incredible qualities." She shook her head sadly, tilting it to the side. "Don't let a man take them from you. Don't give him that power."

I wanted to be strong. To be steel-faced, and to set my heart in stone. But every word she spoke was fracturing my veneer bit by bit, chiseling away the new identity I'd constructed myself since moving away to Camden.

It was so easy to pretend that I wasn't Madi when I was away. That I wasn't the girl nominated as social chair every year, that I didn't organize our food drives at school and trips to the shelter to care for the stray animals. That I'd volunteered at the aged care home every summer with Eli since ninth grade. It was so easy to pretend that I was what I felt I needed to be to survive—cold, reclusive, closed-off to everyone who threatened to claim a piece of my aching heart.

But Madi was still there. Her compassion seeped through my indifference when I was at my most vulnerable. Her pain cracked my voice when I uttered, "It's ... hard."

"I know."

I looked up. I met my mother's eye line. And I saw it.

A tingle shot up my spine, a hazy realization swirling in my head.

Playing house and putting on events was to my mother what makeup was to me. A front. A way of signaling to the world that she was okay. I'd always found it pretentious, but it was merely her way of coping.  

Because it wasn't only me who lost something when my dad died.

My mother reached her hand across the table, hovering it above mine as if debating whether to place it there. She decided against it, clasping it in her other one instead. "I'm sorry."

My spine stiffened. It was in moments of weakness that I had to be cautious. "Are you?" I asked.

"Yes."

"Why?"

I watched her take in a deep breath. It wasn't like Dianna Watson to admit when she was wrong, and the realist side of me still doubted her intentions very much. But it also wasn't like her to be in that ice cream parlor on the pier at nine o'clock on a Saturday evening. Not since dad left us.

"You're my daughter," she finally spoke. Her tone was light, but firm. "I don't know what happened between you and Elijah. But you're my child. And that's all that matters."

I swallowed, my throat still cold from the dessert I'd forced myself to swallow for tradition's sake. I was still appraising her, trying to peer beneath her immaculately painted face. Trust was a hard thing for me to extend. It was even harder when the person asking for it had already broken it time and time again.

"I can't—" My voice cracked once more, and I shook my head to gather my composure. I needed to be firm. "I can't have you having a relationship with him."

She cocked her head, her drop earrings swaying beneath her earlobes. "And if you reconcile?"

I threw my eyes across the booth, piercing her with a look that was as good as a warning.

She acknowledged it with a nod, but a tight smile was tugging at her crimson mouth.

"You forget. I know how you feel. I once thought that your father left me for another woman. I was so angry with him, Madison. I forced myself to hate him just to make the pain go away. But when I found out the truth ..." She dropped her gaze, shielding a single tear behind her soft caramel bangs.

That time, it was her voice that cracked.

"I would do anything," she said, more to herself than to me. "Anything to get him back."

Her lone tear glimmered as it trailed down her cheek. I'd never seen my mother cry. Not even after dad died. She was always as strong as a sea swell. As proud and magnificent as a queen. But slumping in the parlor, a stark contrast to the blue-and-white walls in her glittering evening dress and expensive gold trinkets, my mother almost looked human.

I relaxed my scowl, leaning across the table. "Elijah isn't dad."

The moment cloaked us like a heavy winter coat. It was tense. Heavy.

And then it lifted. 

Slowly, my mother nodded. And, at that moment, a nod was good enough.

Is anyone else a little emotional? Just me?

I'm not going to pretend like most of you aren't here for Jadison (ship name courtesy of jlou_723 💓) but do we enjoy these snippets of Madi's personal life? Do they help you to understand her a little more?

Thoughts on mommy Watson?

Shoutout goes to Datrandopersonal for your incredible ninja skills in the last chapter!  💓

See you soon!*
- Danielle

* Actually, though. You guys are going to hate me by the time I'm done spamming you with updates 😂