Mom found me first thing the next morning. I'd slipped from under Mateo's arm in bed before sunrise so I could slip out onto the deck to watch it with a cup of coffee. It was something I'd done every morning when I'd visit this place back in high school. Mom must have heard me or possibly peeked into my room to find that I wasn't with Mateo, because she found me as the sun peeked over the horizon and reflected across the water. She sat in the fold up chair on my right and sipped on a coffee that I'd have to hope wasn't spiked with alcohol.

"Morning." I whispered, well aware of why she'd joined me. "How'd you sleep?"

She made a face. "Horribly. Even with your father on that futon his snoring keeps me up into the earliest hours of the morning."

I laughed. "I'm glad Mateo doesn't snore. Though, he does talk in his sleep sometimes. And he's very touchy. Wakes me up pulling me closer to him."

Mom touched a hand to her chest and swooned. "That's so sweet. Young love."

She stared off into the distance dreamily for a few minutes. I took the opportunity to finish my coffee and curled up on the chair, resting my head on the small throw pillow as I stared at her.

"Mom—"

"Why didn't you tell me?" she must have heard the tone in my voice, because she interrupted before I could even begin. "Sweetheart, you shouldn't have had to internalize this the last two years."

I shrugged a shoulder. "I didn't want to cause more problems. When I was finally ready to talk about it, you told us about the divorce. I didn't want to give you even more emotional baggage to carry."

"But your my daughter, Madison Rae." she extended an arm and took my hand in hers. "I will gladly carry all of your pain, heartache, and hurt if it means that it doesn't suffocate you."

I didn't fight the tears that fell hearing the words.

"I can't believe you're here right now, Madison." she whispered, shaking her head. "I don't know all of what happened, but I don't need to know. They hurt you, they did something disgusting and unforgivable. But you're here. To attend her wedding. Why?"

"I hadn't seen Bren, Zoe, or you and Dad in months, Mom. I wanted to see you, and I knew that you already had so much going on. I didn't want to ruin this trip for you."

She frowned. "Maddy, baby, don't ever think like that. I'm your mother. You can tell me anything. Regardless of what may be going on in my life, I will always be your mother first."

"It hurts." the two words left me in a whimper. "Even now, years later, it hurts seeing them. Seeing him. Seeing her. I hate them, Mom. But even worse, I still hate myself for allowing it all to happen under my nose, behind my back, right in front of me."

My mom stood then and crossed the small distance between the two chairs and lowered herself into a crouch. "Look at me, Madison. Don't ever hate yourself for the actions of someone else. Your sister chose to do what she did. She chose a man over her own flesh and blood. A very disgusting decision. And Ashton, if he did such a thing, he never deserved you in the first place."

"Why do they just get to move on, Mom? Why do I still have to feel all these emotions while they live like it never happened?"

"Because you're healing, baby." she caressed my damp cheek with her knuckle. "You may feel all of this now, and it may feel like it'll never end. But it will. You'll get over it."

I leaned into her touch and closed my eyes as tears continued to fall silently.

"They may be unaffected now, but one day karma will bite them in the ass, Maddy. They'll get what's coming to them. And when that day comes, you'll be so far ahead in life that they'll be nothing but a faint memory. I promise you that they will try to crawl back into your life too, and you have to be strong and love yourself enough to not fall victim to it."

Hearing the words stirred a question inside me.

"What about you, Mom? You can't just cut your daughter out of your life because—"

"I won't cut Sarah out of my life. She is my daughter. As disappointed and disgusted as I am by her actions, she will still remain in my life, just from a distance. I cannot speak for your father or brother, but after the wedding I think it'd be best that the both of us separate ourselves from this situation for a while."

I hadn't even considered how close to home this would hit for Mom. Even after our conversation on the beach. Mom had been in my shoes once upon a time. She likely understood every single emotion ravaging through me.

"Mateo?" she breathed in curiosity. "Is that real? Or did you just drag him along to try and play pretend?"

I opened my mouth, ready to come clean, but found myself whispering something a bit different instead. "I ran into Mateo on the plane. By some crazy, one in a million chance, he ended up being seated on the plane beside me. I hadn't seen him since his graduation years ago. I told him what happened and we did come up with a plan. To lie about a relationship to keep all of you off our backs since we're getting older and still aren't in relationships."

Mom brushed my hair out of my eyes with a knowing smile.

"But you realized you actually did love him?"

"Yeah." I huffed. "Apparently the idiot has been lusting after me for years and it took this entire mess to realize it."

Her smile grew. "Your grandfather used to live by the ideology that everything in life happens for a reason. He didn't believe in coincidences. I think he'd tell you that Mateo was meant to sit next to you on that plane, that you were supposed to reconnect."

"Then he'd probably think Ashton was supposed to cheat on me too."

"Sometimes lessons are hard to learn, baby girl. Ashton was a hard one for you to learn." she kissed my temple and stood. "But the best part about mistakes is you learn from them."

*

Mateo was lounged across our bed watching TV when I headed back into the house. He snuck a quick glance my way, smiled, then returned his attention to the TV before he asked, "How'd the convo with your mom go?"

"Good." When he shot me a shocked look, I added, "Seriously. I didn't realize how much I needed my mom."

"I'm glad it went well." he swung his legs over the side of the bed as I approached. "Are we going to talk or we just going to pretend the last week never happened?"

I positioned myself between his legs and touched the back of my hand against his jaw. "How about we finish what Ashton so rudely interrupted?"

Surprised entered his warm brown eyes. "Oh, is that the plan?"

"Mhm." I leaned so our foreheads were pressed together. "Unless you have other plans for the night?"

He smiled and moved the half an inch that separated our lips.

I wasn't sure what exactly I'd expected kissing Mateo, but it wasn't the surge of warmth that ignited in my chest and spread through my entire body. Maybe it was because it'd been two years since I'd been intimate with someone-or maybe it was because it was him. Because Mateo had always been my home, in a sense. Even with my constant badgering and dodging of his comments and snide remarks, he'd always been overprotective and comforting. He'd always been there when needed.

"No." he whispered against my mouth the second I reached up to pull my shirt over my head. "No, Mads."

There was strain in his words, and when I shifted I was greeted with his length.

"Why?"

"I want to." he stood and took my face between his hands. "Fuck, Mads, it's taking every ounce of willpower I have not to, but you're not ready."

I shook my head. "You don't get to decide that."

"Madison, you're still trying to get over him. Over what happened." he stated. "You didn't even have these feelings for me a week ago."

"What if I did? What if I just didn't accept them?"

He kissed me gently. "You're not ready, Mads."

"Whatever." I tried to ignore the hurt over the rejection, but it must have seeped through in my response, because he pulled me back into him and held me in place so I was forced to listen.

"Madison I've wanted to have sex with you since high school." he said it without hesitation. "I've dreamt of the very moment for years. As horrible as it is to admit, even when you were with that piece of crap. But I love you, Madison, and I'm not going to screw all this shit up because you can't get ahold of your emotions. I want all of you. Not just the hormonal Madison, or the guilty Madsion, hell. I want all of you, Maddy."

I hadn't expected to cry again walking into this room. "Mateo."

"I want you to love yourself again, Maddy." he whispered. "And I sure as hell don't want it to happen in this house."

I fell forward into his arms and buried my face against his chest. He pressed his lips to the top of my head, but didn't speak further. He'd gotten his point across.

"I love you." he whispered again. "You might not need those words now, but I know you will in a couple days."

I lifted my head and tilted it to look up at him. "Well, I hate you."

His lips twitched at the comment. "I know you do, babe. I know."