Madeline glanced away quickly, her bright-blue eyes shying away. There was a slight pull in my chest, and I honestly wanted to split my own rib cage open to make my heart stop skipping beats with her near. It usually thumped with hidden rage when she was close, but now it was skipping beats and fluttering like I had some type of heart murmur.
“Can we talk upstairs? I don’t want your mom to hear.”
Madeline began folding the blanket and draped it over the couch.
“Lead the way.” I ushered, nodding my head to the stairs.
I pulled the blanket up to my mom’s chin and flipped the lights off before going after Madeline. I wanted to give her some time to get upstairs so I didn’t have to pretend like I wasn’t going to stare at her ass the entire time she climbed the steps.
As soon as I shut the door of my room, the latch echoing, I watched Madeline jump. Her eyes went directly to the doorknob before she turned around to stare out the window that sat across from hers.
“Tell me,” I intoned, striding over to sit in my computer chair. Madeline turned around slowly with her pink bottom lip tucked in between her white teeth.
“No.”
I dropped my head, the weight of it stretching the knots in my neck. A deep, sarcastic chuckle rumbled out of my chest before I sat back and hiked an ankle over my knee.
“How’s your hand?” she a
sked.
I shifted my gaze to her and tilted my head. My mouth twitched as I held back a smirk. “What are you talking about?”
Her dark lashes fluttered against her skin as she shook her head. “So, was it before or after you said being my hero was the last thing you ever wanted to do that you broke Atticus’ jaw?”
I brought my hand up to my chin. “Mmmm. Ya know, I just can’t remember.”
Madeline’s arms dropped to her sides. She stomped her foot, and I had to fight the urge to laugh. “Is this some game you're playing? What? Is it a form of retaliation? Fucking with my head?”
“Oh, you mean how you fucked with mine?”
She scoffed. “How have I fucked with yours?”
I suddenly sat forward, resting my elbows on the top of my black jeans, glaring at her. The hardening of my jaw made my teeth hurt. “One day you were my best friend, and the next you weren’t. One day you were flirting with me, and the next you were dating my best friend. One day you rubbed it in my face that my dad was fucking your mom, and the next you were apologizing.” I scoffed right back at her, crossing my arms over my expanding chest. “Excuse the fuck out of me if I don’t feel like explaining myself.”
Madeline’s pouty mouth opened and then closed, only to do the same thing again. She huffed and turned around quickly, putting her back to me.
I didn’t have to answer to Madeline, and she had no right asking me to explain myself. I wasn’t sure why I was going against everything I stood for when it came to her, but that was what I was doing.
Of course I didn’t threaten Atticus as a form of retaliation. Of course I wasn’t playing a fucking game. That was the last thing she needed. Madeline had been put through enough. Did she deserve the hiatus she was getting from everyone at English Prep? Probably. But I knew there was much more to her behavior over the last several years than she was letting on. Which reminded me…
“When did it happen?” I questioned, relaxing my arms back down to my knees. I hoped she knew what I was referring to.
Madeline glanced over her shoulder for a second before answering, “Right after Christian and I broke up.”
That proved my point that something else made her into the callous girl that she was. She pushed people away. She was in control of every relationship she’d ever had. Madeline craved that control. But why? She had shallow relationships with everyone, and I just couldn’t understand why.
“You should tell your mom,” I finally said, pulling myself out of an internal war of unanswered questions about Madeline. They were dropping like atomic bombs all around me.
“I can’t,” she answered quickly.
“You can. You just won’t.”
Madeline turned around slowly, and I swore I saw the conflict presenting itself right behind her eyes, like she was trying to justify not telling her mom, but we both knew she should. She should have told her right after it happened. She should have told someone.
My windpipe felt like it was being crushed as I thought about how alone and scared she must have felt afterwards. If it was shortly after Christian broke up with her, she had no one in her corner. But did she ever truly have anyone in her corner? I could guarantee no one knew the real Madeline; they only knew the one on the surface.
“You can take the bed,” I said, flicking my chin over to it. It was an abrupt shift of whatever the hell she and I were doing at the moment, but I needed it to pass before I said or did something I regretted in the morning.