“Oh, I know what she means. Let her talk. Let her get it off her chest. Since this is the most important thing in her life right now.”
“It is,” Eva said. “Because I love you. You’re my best friend. And a lot of stuff I can handle and watch. But this is too much. You’re in love with Maverick and you’re going to let him walk away. You’re going to hurt him and hurt yourself just to get away from him.”
“That’s my business,” I said.
“Eva’s not wrong,” Zoe said.
“Hell yeah!” Eva cried. “You’re finally on my side!”
“There are no sides,” Zoe said.
“Yes, there is,” I said.
“Madison, look where you are right now,” Zoe said. “You have the chance to do what you’ve always wanted to do. You can be the photographer you want to be. But you won’t take that chance. You’re going to forget about it, then just move on and act like nothing happened. Same thing with Maverick. What are you going to do? Sleep with some random guy at a bar so it crushes both you and Maverick? Then what happens?”
“She’ll expect us to pick up the pieces,” Eva said.
“Thanks for that,” I said.
Eva grabbed for my hand. “The crazy part is? We’ll do it. We’ll always be there for you. But right now…”
I ripped my hand away. “You don’t want to be there for me.”
“We are here for you,” Zoe said. “Just no more agreeing with it all. You have something happening here. Don’t be afraid of it. Commitment scares you. I get it. You’ve been through a lot, right?”
“Don’t talk down to me,” I said. “I don’t need my butt patted by you two.”
“You’re right,” Eva said. “You need your ass played with by Maverick. Go enjoy him!”
“Just go tell Maverick everything,” Zoe said. “Beginning to end.”
“It’s not that simple for me,” I said.
“Of course not,” Eva said. “You need ten thousand excuses.”
“Why don’t you two just go then?” I asked. “Honestly. I’m not doing this with you.”
“That’s what you want,” Zoe said with a nod. “That’s what we’re going to do then. We love you, Madison. But, seriously, what the fuck?”
I shrugged my shoulders.
I knew how dumb and defiant I was being.
So much so that when my two best friends began to walk away, I didn’t look back.
I walked forward.
I went into my apartment building and walked to my apartment.
I went inside, shut the door, and locked it.
In my mind, I fought to just treat everything like normal.
My eyes looked at the walls.
The bare walls.
I refused to talk about how many times I had thought about hanging stuff up on the walls but just never did.