Total pages in book: 133
Estimated words: 125866 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 629(@200wpm)___ 503(@250wpm)___ 420(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 125866 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 629(@200wpm)___ 503(@250wpm)___ 420(@300wpm)
I sat down beside her on the bed, giving her enough space to make her feel comfortable while also being close enough to give myself the courage to speak. I folded my hands between my legs, staring at them as I spoke.
“I was upset with you,” I admitted. “Something was wrong that week. I knew it, and you wouldn’t talk to me. I think I knew you were going to break up with me, and I…” I cleared my throat. “I felt so out of control. All I wanted was for you to be there with me that night at my parents’ party. I wanted you to let me in. I wanted a chance to fix whatever I’d done wrong.”
Madelyn didn’t blink, but two tears slid down her cheeks and hit her dress.
“In hindsight, I’m glad you weren’t there,” I said on a sigh. “Because you would have had to witness what my father did — to your mother, to your father…” I swallowed. “To me.”
She did close her eyes then, and I watched the way her chest rose and fell in a slow, steadying breath.
“The next morning, when all the dust was settling, I didn’t realize how bad it really was. Not until you showed up.”
My throat was thick with emotion that I could barely contain.
“I saw you from my window. And, fuck, Mads,” I said, shaking my head and looking right at her. “I can’t explain what I felt when I did. I was relieved, happy, hopeful, and yet shaking like a fucking leaf, too, because I didn’t know if you’d ever be able to love me again after what had happened. The way my father had treated your mother, the things he’d said, and then…”
Madelyn looked like a zombie beside me, like she was listening but was incapable of any reaction.
“I just… I thought you and I could make it through anything,” I confessed. “I waited in my room just thinking of how you’d open the door, how you’d see me and your face would crumple, and I’d run to you and you’d hug me and we’d hold each other and whatever you’d been angry at me for that week would just disappear. It wouldn’t matter. It…”
Goddamnit.
I scrubbed a hand over my mouth and looked away from her, my eyes on the ceiling as I tried to regain my composure.
“When you didn’t come, I ran downstairs. And my parents told me what you’d said to them, what you’d asked of me.”
“They said I wanted you to stay away from me,” she whispered, the first words she’d said since I started speaking.
I nodded.
“It fucking killed me,” I said through the thickness in my throat. “My parents knew it would. They said we were going to move, that I wouldn’t have to live in the hurt. They told me to pack my things. And when I saw you on Monday, when I showed up to get my stuff from school… I thought maybe you’d run to me. I thought maybe they were wrong, that you’d change your mind, that you wouldn’t let your parents control you. But I saw it in your eyes. I saw how…”
I cursed, nostrils flaring as the memory resurfaced.
“I saw how fucking scared you were of me. It was like you saw my father when you looked at me, and that gutted me more than anything.”
Madelyn covered her mouth with her hand and shook her head, her eyes squeezing shut.
“I hated you,” I whispered. “I did, Mads. I hated you with everything that I was for years. Until I saw you again.” I laughed then, the sound just a huff of air leaving my chest. “And then I realized that the only reason I could hate you was because I couldn’t see you, couldn’t touch you, couldn’t remember what it was like to be in your presence. And the moment I was around you again, all that was eviscerated. Because the truth is I can’t do anything but love you.”
Those words broke her, and I hated it — the way her shoulders shook, her hands covering her face as little sobs left her. But it was the truth, and she needed to hear those words as much as I needed to say them.
“I’m about to prove you wrong,” she said after a moment, dropping her hands into her lap. Her red, blotchy eyes met mine. “You’re going to hate me after what I tell you.”
My chest hollowed out.
“I never could—”
“You will,” she argued. “Because I didn’t tell your parents that I wanted you to stay away from me, Kyle. I told them I was pregnant.”
A blink.
A heartbeat.
And then my stomach bottomed out.
The room turned upside down. My entire world turned upside down.
My pulse kicked loud and heavy in my chest, in my ears, and I stared at Madelyn willing myself to comprehend what she’d just said.