Chapter 3
Madeleine
Britt was all over me the second I got back inside, tripping over herself getting up from the couch and pausing her show.
“Finally, you decided to stop checking out the mysterious stranger and come home,” she said, and I sighed a deep, weary sigh, shrugging off my backpack and setting it on the table by the door. The apartment was a small space, immaculately decorated—between an architecture student and a freelance interior designer, there was no place the two of us would live that wasn’t beautifully designed. Britt’s signature bright pops of color—the same ones she wore in all her outfits, including today’s bubblegum-pink suspenders—contrasted with my sleek, darker, more muted touches with contrasting textures, clay pots and a fake stone wall, but it worked. Even though we each fussed with at least one thing and swapped something around in the apartment once a day. Kept things fresh.
“Britt, get a girlfriend yourself and stop trying to do it vicariously through me.”
She put her hands on her hips. She was a taller woman, curvy, with long blonde hair and dark roots, brown eyes and the biggest dimples, and a big gap-toothed smile she was wearing any time it wasn’t a scrunched-faced scowl. Right now, I was getting the scowl. “You think I’m not trying? I tried to hit on this girl Hals played a gig with and found out this rock-drummer woman with a buzzcut and an eyebrow slit was straight. I’ve gotten ghosted by two girls on Hinge this week alone. I’ve been having a rough go of it.”
I knelt to unlace my boots. “Hmm. And how many people have you ghosted this week?”
“Oh, uh… one. But he was asking for it.”
“I’m telling you, the dating apps suck. You need more self-respect.”
“Girl, I abandoned that a long time ago. Also, did you forget your jacket? You were wearing your hoodie when you went out.”
I looked away. “Left it with Sapphire. She—”
“Oh my god.”
“No—it’s not like that. Cool your jets.”
She bit her lip, smiling so wide I thought her face would split. I focused on pulling my tablet from my backpack.
“The guy looking—”
“Girl, not in a million years could I come up with something as romantic as—”
“The guy looking for her,” I said, punctuating every word, “was mostly asking people based on the description of her pink top. And she didn’t have any changes of clothes on her.”
“I’m sure she’s cherishing that jacket.”
“Britt. I know you don’t like my boyfriend, but can we save that conversation for another time? Cherry pancakes?”
She sighed. She’d have gone on that warpath for hours if I hadn’t invoked our conversational safe word. “So, she’s safe for tonight, then?” she said, and I dropped down on the stool at the breakfast bar, under the moody glow of the spot lighting, my tablet in hand.
“Yep. Checked into the Hilton Chicago for fourteen nights using the money she’d squirreled up in a secret account before she bailed.”
She sat with me, legs crossed in the stool, which to this day I still didn’t know how she pulled it off, especially since she had mile-long legs. “You got more deets on her situ?”
“More or less. Rich family had her sequestered in the ivory tower. She wanted out, especially once she went to university—she’d been homeschooled, so it was really her first taste of the outside world. No one around her but her sister who was more focused on sucking up to the parents, so she doesn’t know how to talk to people either.”
She winced. “Ouch.”
“Ouch is right. Explains the clueless demeanor. Something pushed her over the edge—she didn’t want to talk about what—so she bailed. Nothing but the clothes on her back and the money in her secret account. Her family’s butler was out looking for her—the second night. She’d already been wandering the city alone one night.”
“Damn. I’m glad she made it through that in one piece.”
“Yeah, me too. Girl’s a bit weird, a little loopy on sleep deprivation, but she’s got balls of steel.”
She laughed. “So… did you say goodbye and wish her well, or did your nurturing side come out?”
I looked away, suddenly weirdly bashful. “Ah… give it a rest. I’d feel like an asshole if I saw her in that state and just said toodles. Girl didn’t have a phone, no idea how to get a job, rent an apartment…”
“So what’s the gameplan with her, then?”
“Heading back before my shift tomorrow to help her get a phone and some clothes, and then I’ll set her up to go hunt down a job, with me on call-a-friend lifeline if she gets lost.”
“That’s really sweet,” she said, turning back to her snack tray, which she slid over between the two of us. I hadn’t even realized I was famished—I pinched up a few pistachios and popped them in my mouth as she went on. “I’m glad you were there. And that you helped her. I told Hals about the whole deal and she can’t wait to meet her, so she’s in on this too.”
“Let’s… hold off a bit before Sapphire meets Haley. I don’t want to scare her.” I shook my head with a dry smile, picking up my tablet pen. “I am glad I found her, but I also made zero progress on my sketch. As much as my mind is more on Sapphire’s whole deal right now… I’ve got a long shift tomorrow and then my professor wants the concept drawing done by the next morning.”
She stood up. “Midnight oil?”
“Told Sapphire I’d be there at eight, so I can’t have too much caffeine. Let’s do tea?”
She put on the tea kettle. I pulled up my sketch, scowling at it—I’d been stumped on it since I started almost a week ago, when I knew I could knock out a simple concept drawing like this in a day. Just… nothing had been speaking to me.
Although—that recessed alcove with the custom mottled paneling in Sapphire’s hotel room had really hit all the right notes for me. Maybe if I did something like that—designed a space around that idea? The bold design of that winged armchair had been working for me, too, so—maybe with a stark, sweeping flair to really elevate the feeling?
Britt had tea down in front of me before long, and she took her own mug and sat down on the couch, turning her show back on. The L Word, obviously. I was surprised she didn’t just watch porn, the way she only ever wanted to see girls make out, but it wasn’t like I wanted her to watch porn on the living room TV.
It was a good thirty minutes before I set down the pen with a distant realization. “Forgot to ask,” I said. “Do you want to go with? Tomorrow morning. Obviously you don’t—”
“Thank god, you finally asked,” she blurted. “Yes, I’m going. I have to see the mystery woman for myself. Make sure she’s real, you know? I’m concerned you’re losing it.”
I laughed drily. “Thanks. That’s exactly why I wanted you to come with. I’m concerned I’m losing it, too.”
“Hilton Chicago’s not far, right? I can drag myself out of bed before ten o’clock for the right reasons.”
“Just please don’t say anything weird about me and her. I mean it. You’d scare her.”
“Psh. She’s got balls of steel, right?”
“Britt.”
“All right, all right. I’ll be good.”
No way in hell was she being good. But the more I insisted, the more she’d be resolved to cause trouble. I turned back to my tablet. “Better be,” I said.
∞∞∞
Sapphire
It wasn’t even the one I should have been scared of—not Andrew, not my parents, not my sister—it was the face of the nameless creep who’d followed me last night. I hadn’t even seen it properly then, too clouded by darkness and by the adrenaline and the fear of the moment, and even here it seemed streaked with darkness when it shouldn’t have been.
“Please,” I whimpered, not even sure what it was I was pleading for. I felt his hand cold and clammy on my wrist, dragging me after him, like pins and needles over my whole body, and I thought I’d scream but I couldn’t find it in my body—everything felt strangled as I was overpowered. “Wait,” I gasped, “please—wait—”
Something shifted under me, and I jerked back into the light, jolting into awareness—lying in bed, sunlight warm on my face through the sheer white curtains. I breathed hard, shifting to move, roll out of bed, get away, but it was a soft, sweet voice that caught me.
“Sapphire. Hey. It’s okay. It was just a dream. You’re safe.”
I blinked into the light, clearing away the haziness—Madeleine, sitting there on the bed next to me, smiling softly at me. She stroked my hair back out of my face, and it eased the panic that had my heart racing a million miles an hour.
“It’s just me,” she whispered.
“M-Madeleine?”
“The one and only.”
The fear slipped away, exhaustion taking its place, and I collapsed into the bed. “Oh, god… um… thank you. How did you… it’s morning.”
“We each got a card. Remember? When I checked in under my name? I got to the door and heard you inside sounding like you were having a bad dream…”
“Oh, god.” I hugged the blanket closer to myself, huddling up tighter. How many times now was Madeleine going to save me from myself?
She was so gorgeous… it was honestly really embarrassing how nervous she made me. I couldn’t have one conversation with a girl without having a crush on her. But—how was I supposed to not? I was pretty sure there was a psychological phenomenon at play, falling for someone who protected and cared for you. I was only human.
“Did I oversleep?” I squinted in the light, looking for the clock, and Madeleine gave me a little smile.
“Ah… just a bit. It’s okay. You’re catching up after an all-nighter, too. And probably a really exhausting twenty-four hours.”
“God, I’m sorry. I have an alarm for seven. I don’t know why it didn’t go off.”
She raised her eyebrows. “An alarm on…?”
“On my phone.” I paused. “Oh. You know… that’s probably why it didn’t wake me up.”
She laughed. “It’s all right. My shift doesn’t start until two, so I’ve got time. My friend’s here too, but I sent her off to go get some breakfast.”
This woman was such an angel… if I’d known I’d run into someone like her, I’d have left my family ages ago.
“Thank you so much,” I said, sitting up. “You’re—”
Madeleine went wide-eyed, making a noise in her throat before turning away. I looked down, realizing distantly in my sleepy haze that I was completely stark naked—blanket falling away as I’d sat up had just flashed her my breasts. I snatched the blanket up to cover up again, my face burning.
“Sorry,” I said, speaking too quickly. “I’m so sorry. I forgot I went to bed naked—”
“No, I could see your clothes drying in the bathroom and I know you only have one set, so I probably could have figured—”
“I can—get dressed,” I laughed nervously.
“I’ll just be… over here,” she said, standing up and turning to face the window. I took my useless self and stood up, a little hazy and a little dizzy, but I made my way into the bathroom and pulled on my clothes—I’d washed them as best I could in the sink last night, minus the jeans, and they were still a bit humid to the touch, but it was probably better than going around naked. Madeleine had looked like she’d have a heart attack.
I wasn’t very good at this whole thing. This whole thing being… I don’t know, life.
I took a second to clean my face and everything too, brushing my hair as well as I could with just my hands, and I tried to tell myself it was just about common decency—as if common decency hadn’t left the building when I’d flashed her—and not that I wanted to look nice for her. Not that it made a lot of difference. I wasn’t making myself look much better… I looked sleep-deprived and raggedy, because I was sleep-deprived and raggedy.
I stepped out of the bathroom, and I almost said something before I saw the way Madeleine looked out the window—something so intense about it, almost reverent. I found myself stopped there, just… taking her in.
She was really gorgeous, enough that I was glad it had been dark last night or I would have been too intimidated to approach her for help. She dressed so nicely, wearing a loose scarf over a knit sweater, tucked into a simple skirt with dark tights and ankle boots, her chic dark bob cut covered with a different hat today, a maroon beret instead of yesterday’s goldenrod newsboy cap. She looked like she should have been posing on the cover of a clothes magazine for the autumn collection. And I was over here wearing the same clothes I’d worn the last two days, washed in a hotel sink and still slightly damp, no makeup on and my hair looking like I’d just gotten in a fight with a squirrel.
Quietly, slowly, I stepped up next to her, speaking softly. “It’s a beautiful view from here, isn’t it?”
“Ah.” She looked over at me. I laughed awkwardly.
“I’m dressed now.”
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to drop in on you naked.”
“Oh, it’s fine. We’re both girls, you know?”
“Yeah, I guess…” She turned back to the window, something unsaid in her voice. I was not in my lifetime coming out to her after this.
I took a second there, looking out the window with her but really looking at her out of the corner of my eye, before I said, “It’s the way you look at things.”
“What?” She glanced over at me, and I tucked my hair back shyly.
“You look at things around you—things I wouldn’t even think to notice—like you’re committing every detail to memory. Like you’ll never see it again and you can’t bear to ever forget it. I think it’s a wonderful thing.”
I probably shouldn’t have said it—Madeleine flushed, looking away, making an awkward noise in her throat. She probably didn’t like compliments. “I’m looking at the buildings,” she said. “I’m an architecture student. IIT.”
“Really?” I wondered if that was an interesting thing on its own or if I’d have thought anything was interesting if Madeleine were doing it—probably both—but whatever it was, my heart jumped, a big smile finding my face. “That’s amazing.”
“It’s nothing that special…” She leaned against the window. “I’m not the interesting one here.”
I laughed. “Does that make me the interesting one?”
“Uh—I’m saying yes. How many people do you know hiding out in a hotel room with a butler chasing them?”
“Interesting is one word for it…” I felt like helpless was a better word, maybe embarrassing, clueless, or weird, but I wasn’t getting into it. Madeleine smiled softly at me.
“It’s all right. We’ll make sure you’re safe.”
I ducked my head. “Thank you…”
“So, what kind of food do you like? I asked Britt to get three different things we both like just so there’s a good chance of you being able to eat something.”
“Um… frankly, if it’s food, I like it. I don’t think I’ve ever met food I didn’t like.”
“Woman after my own heart.” She glanced at her phone. “Britt will be up in a minute, then, and you can take your pick.”
“That’s your roommate?”
“Yep. I’m… curious what you think of her. She’s a character and a half.” She scowled at her phone. “Oh, there we go. Sorry, my boyfriend finally just returned my good-morning text, so I’m going to go… make a call and explain why I keep trying to see him.”
Ah… and there it was. I knew I wasn’t supposed to be disappointed—deeply embarrassed at the fact that I did feel disappointed, like I would have had a chance with her even if she were gay and single. “Do you want to do this another day?” I said, and she shook her head.
“Absolutely not. I’d worry about you. I’ll be downstairs for a second, all right?”
And—just how was I supposed to not have feelings for her if she said things like that? I smiled softly. “Take your time,” I said. “Tell him I said hi.”
She laughed, heading for the door. “Will do. You can let in Britt once she’s here, just… don’t take anything she says to heart. She says things just to say them.”
I fell into the bed, kicking my feet at the side as she pushed out through the door, and I heard her picking up the phone before it shut.
“Hey, Tristan. Driving to work?”
The door shut, cutting off whatever else she might have been saying, leaving me to the silence of the room alone.
Tristan had a job. And knew how to drive, because he hadn’t grown up with a chauffeur taking him everywhere. I had to be more like him.
But I’d taken an important first step, I thought, as I stretched my arms out, staring out the window—the tall shapes of buildings at the edges of view, the lake sprawling out before us.
I was a free woman now. Unless I screwed something up.