TWENTY-FOUR
TWO WEEKS HAD PASSED SINCE MADDIE’S return to LA.
She had spent the first seven days in a fog of disbelief, trying to make sense of what had happened to her that summer.
No one in California knew she had come home early, and she used it as an excuse to barricade herself inside her own house.
The rush of her brief, intense romance had collapsed under its own weight, and she was left reeling in the fallout.
Heartbreak settled into her like a full-body bruise, and tears fell in hot, silent waves.
Then the sadness curdled into bitter anger. More than once, she found herself pacing her living room, hands clenched into fists at her sides, cursing her own naivety.
Maddie spent the second week forcing herself out of isolation, determined to leave her four months in New York behind. LA was in the middle of an abnormally hot October, and she jumped at the excuse to host her friends for a few late-summer “Sun and Seltzer” pool days.
She leaned into her acting skills, smiling through stories about her trip to the East Coast and gushing over how beautiful Caitlin had looked as a bride.
She did her best to let her friends carry the rest of the conversations, preferring silence to the exhaustion of masking her emotions.
She focused on each of their updates from the summer, using their words to fill the space where her own thoughts threatened to spill over.
But every time night came, the performance slipped away. Her wide smile and bright laughter would fade, leaving Maddie alone with the unbearable weight of a broken heart.
Her second Friday back in LA, Maddie’s phone rang right on schedule, the incoming FaceTime filling her screen.
“Cait, you really don’t have to keep checking on me,” Maddie answered the call. She appreciated it—she really did—but part of her just wanted to move forward.
“I’m not!” Caitlin protested. “This time,” she added with a smile. “Did you see the email from Sandy?”
“Hang on, let me look.” Maddie set the phone down and opened her laptop. Her email was already pulled up, and the latest message from Sandy sat at the top. The subject line read—ESMéE OFFER. Her eyes skimmed the message before she clicked on the attached contract.
“Wow.”
Maddie didn’t realize she’d said the word out loud until she heard Caitlin respond from the other end of the call.
“I know, right? It feels like a no-brainer, but I wanted to see where your head was at.”
Co-lead. A seven-figure salary with backend royalties. Nine weeks in Europe with her best friends. A multi-Academy-Award-winning director who had written the script herself. Even in the mental state she’d been in, Maddie knew opportunities like this didn’t happen twice.
And still, something wilted inside her. The only person she wanted to celebrate this win with was Hayley.
“My fingers can’t type yes fast enough.” She let out a small giggle, hoping it would hide her underlying sadness. “I’m in if you are.”
“Ab-so-lutely,” Caitlin chirped.
“Me too!” Gemma shouted from somewhere in the background.
Ding-dong.
“Hold on, Cait, sorry, someone’s at my door.” Maddie grabbed the phone and brought the camera to eye level as she rose to her feet. “I’ll call you back.”
She walked through the foyer and turned the lock.
“Kim,” Maddie uttered, blinking in surprise. “What are you doing here?”
“Well, I would have called, but you made that kinda hard when you blocked me,” Kim quipped, raising a brow. “I heard you were back in town, and I wanted to see you.” When Maddie didn’t respond, Kim asked, “So, are you going to invite me in?”
Maddie hesitated, then stepped aside. She knew letting Kim in wasn’t smart, but even Kim’s presence softened the edge of her loneliness.
“Can I get you something to drink?” Maddie asked, unsure why she was opening the door wider—literally and otherwise.
“I’d love one.” Kim dropped onto Maddie’s couch, characteristically making herself at home. “So, how was New York? It’s too bad we never got to FaceTime again. Why did you block me, by the way?”
“It was great.” Maddie gathered the ingredients for martinis.
She combined them in a stainless-steel shaker before pouring the mixture into two V-shaped glasses.
“And I was just busy with wedding stuff.” It wasn’t a total lie.
Plus, it felt too humiliating to tell Kim that she’d fallen in love, especially now that she had nothing to show for it.
Kim let the liquor slide down her throat in one long swallow, then set the empty glass on the coffee table.
She turned toward Maddie on the couch, moving closer until she could ease one knee over Maddie’s lap, straddling her.
Kim quietly took the other martini from her fingers, lifting the glass to Maddie’s lips until she had swallowed the last mouthful.
Kim reached behind herself to place the second glass aside, nothing now separating them.
Kim leaned in, grazing her tongue up the side of Maddie’s neck. “I missed you,” she whispered, but Maddie didn’t reply. Her head was spinning.
Kim cupped Maddie’s face, kissing her with the urgency of lost time. Yet when their tongues met, she felt… nothing. No pricks of electricity traveling across her skin, no heat rushing to pool between her legs. Where there should have been a spark, there was only a hollow stillness.
Maddie gripped Kim’s waist and pushed her back, far enough to break the kiss.
“What’s wrong?” Kim asked, searching her face.
“I don’t want to do this anymore.” Maddie wiggled out from under Kim.
“I don’t think I heard you right.” Kim’s eyebrows knitted together, her mouth parting slightly.
“You did. I’m done. All we ever do is fuck to cover up the fact that we don’t even like each other.” Maddie was done being used and discarded. “I think you should go.”
Kim huffed in annoyance. “Call me whenever you’re done with…” She gestured vaguely. “Whatever this is.” She marched out, and when the front door slammed, the reverberating silence told Maddie she was alone once again.
She drew in a deep breath and poured another martini into her glass, proud to have finally gotten out from under Kim’s thumb. With a slow exhale, Maddie felt herself start to return, piece by piece.
A new lightness settled over her as she hit shuffle on her Spotify playlist. Music drifted through her speakers, filling her house with sound.
She froze mid-sip.
Céline Dion’s voice echoed throughout the room, the opening lines of “My Heart Will Go On” wrapping around Maddie like a cruel joke.
“Every night in my dreams
I see you, I feel you
That is how I know you go on.
Far across the distance
And spaces between us
You have come to show you go on.”
Maddie sank into the cushions, feeling sucker punched. Of all the songs in the world that could have played in that moment, right when she was just beginning to stand on her own two feet again, it had to be this one.
Titanic was one of the few movies that she and Hayley both loved, one of the rare places where their tastes had actually aligned.
They had belted it out together at the top of their lungs on the drive to the Hamptons, alternating choruses and laughing between breaths.
Hayley had told her then that Céline Dion had been her mother’s favorite artist, a voice she still listened to whenever she wanted to feel close to her.
Maddie closed her eyes, letting the memory envelop her.
She could hear Hayley’s voice now, rising over the music.
She could smell the salty ocean air, sweeping over her like a ghost’s touch.
She could feel the way Hayley’s fingers entwined with her own, and the soft brush of Hayley’s lips against her knuckles, just as the song faded.
Maddie’s eyes snapped open. She forced the vision of the Hamptons from her mind and skipped to the next song.
She may have left New York behind her, but it was obvious she couldn’t say the same about Hayley—not yet, at least. Cured or not, Maddie didn’t want to spend another minute wallowing in her own misery.
She steadied herself with a deep breath and made a silent, private vow to finish the night without a single tear. It wasn’t much—a small victory—but for the first time, a bitter trace of hope lingered on her tongue. For now, that would be enough.