Chapter 11
Sapphire
To think I’d asked to call this woman because I could tell something with Tristan was still bothering her, and it ended up with her here, bringing me a chocolate croissant and sitting on the edge of my bed. I’d be embarrassed at being so helpless if I weren’t too busy being emotionally overwhelmed at how good she was to me.
“Thanks for the croissant,” I said, wiping away the crumbs from my first bite of warm, flaky pastry and just-slightly melty chocolate. Madeleine shrugged, looking away like she’d never done one thing deserving of thanks.
“The café was on the way.”
I rolled my eyes. “Okay, well, I’m glad the croissant incidentally flew into your hands while you walked past.”
She laughed. “Hey… food’s important. And I figured you probably hadn’t eaten since Andrew ran into you.”
I hunched my shoulders, looking down. “Oh. Um. How’d you know?”
“Ah, I just pick up things about people.” She folded her hands in her lap, looking down, her expression serious. “I… wanted to tell you this… in person. I felt like it was one of those things I had to say directly.”
“Oh… all right.” Because that wasn’t terrifying. I put on a smile. She gave me a much realer smile.
“I want to emphasize, from the very bottom of my heart, that I do not care if your butler is going to harass me to get to you.”
I blinked, my thoughts scattering like a dropped deck of cards. “What… what do you mean?”
“I mean what I said. They can try to use me as a bargaining chip and threaten to go after me instead, but I’m not afraid. I can take a butler.”
“Y-you can’t fight him.”
She laughed, giving me a light nudge. “I know how to handle myself a bit in a fight, you know. I did martial arts for a while.”
“Oh.” That was kind of hot. I wasn’t sure where to go with that thought. “I would still really much rather you don’t fight him.”
“I’m kidding. I’m not fighting anyone. I’m just saying, I’m not scared of whatever they might try. I’m a grownup.”
“God, I wish I were, too.” I sank against her side. “I really appreciate that… I just would hate to make things more difficult for you after you’ve already done so much for me, gone so far—”
“I wouldn’t do a thing differently,” she said lightly. “You’d do the same, wouldn’t you? If you were the one comfortable and stable and I came along needing help.”
I pursed my lips.
“And you wouldn’t mind if it got you into a situation. Or if I couldn’t do anything to pay you back. Sometimes you just want to engage because you care, and that’s all there has to be to it.”
I was suddenly so tired… it kept coming in waves, this all-consuming exhaustion that then turned into thick, anxious stress and then everything catching up with me again, back into exhaustion. I let my head droop against her shoulder without even thinking about it, kind of wanting to just slump into her lap and fall asleep there.
“You okay?” she said softly, putting an arm around my back. I hated, hated, hated how easily and neatly we fit together… how natural and comfortable it felt to slot in next to her, head on her shoulder and her arm around me. Torturing me. I was torturing myself, more like.
“Thank you,” I murmured. “I… I’m worried about Britt too…”
“If the butler goes after Britt, I’d be worried about the butler,” she deadpanned. “Britt and I already agreed. We ride at dawn for you.”
I giggled. “You two are so cute…”
“I don’t think cute is the word for me. And if you think Britt is cute, I question your judgment.”
“You so are cute.” I nudged her. “You know that thing you do where you scrunch up that spot between your eyebrows when you’re trying to understand something—”
“God,” she said, putting a hand to her face. “Are you developing an encyclopedia of things I do and I don’t know about?”
I laughed. “We all have millions of them, I think. People close to us notice them, but we don’t. I’m sure Britt notices them all too, she just doesn’t say anything because she’s, like… she’s not as weird as I am.”
“You think you’re weirder than Britt? ”
I let my eyes flutter shut. “The point is, it’s cute when you do that.”
She was quiet for a while, and once it got to be too long, I cracked my eyelids, looking up at her. That sad, wistful look into the distance—it tied me up in knots, and I sat up, away from her.
“Um—sorry. Did I say something wrong?”
“No. Sorry.” She shook her head, putting on a smile. “I didn’t realize you could see me… I got lost in thought.”
“About what?”
She winced. “Don’t… don’t worry about it,” she said, but that small, vulnerable voice, the way she wouldn’t look directly at me, seemed more like she just thought she was supposed to say that. I pursed my lips, studying her for a second, before I put a hand on her knee.
“You just caught me with no pants on,” I said. “We’re clearly past the point of embarrassing things.”
She laughed, a small sound in her throat. “Which was entirely my fault…”
“I’m happy you showed up.”
“Have I mentioned I’m a little jealous of your legs?”
My brain shorted out. “Um… should I walk around in my underwear more often?” I scratched my head, looking away. “I don’t know why I just said that.”
“Ah… you’d probably get too much attention.”
“I like attention. Not that I’m going to start walking around in my underwear. I mean, I just did, but…” I pinched the bridge of my nose, going back for another bite of croissant and talking with my mouth full. “I’m going to stop talking. See, you can’t embarrass yourself more than I’m doing right now.”
She laughed, and then, slowly, it turned into a sigh, dropping onto her back on the bed, her hands folded behind her head, and I looked back at where she stared out the window, clouds snaking past overhead. “I’m just… thinking about what you said. The little things we do that we don’t even know about, but the people close to us do.”
I swallowed the nervous lump in my throat. “Um… should I not have said it? I’m not very good at talking about my feelings.”
“You really are.” She smiled sadly, gaze still fixed away. “If anything, you just have fewer inhibitions than other people. I kind of admire it…”
Was all social interaction like flying by the seat of your pants feeling like you’d say something dumb and screw it all up at any minute? I smiled nervously. “Um… thanks. Maybe I’ll lean into being clueless.”
“But no. It’s not that you shouldn’t have said it. You’re right. It just… made me think a little.”
“About what?”
She sighed. “I don’t… know if I know what those things are.”
“For… for who?”
She pursed her lips. “Tristan.”
“Oh.” My current mortal enemy, who was about 20-0 against me so far. As if I wasn’t embarrassed enough tonight.
She raked her fingers back through her hair. “I… feel like I’m doing it wrong no matter which direction I try.”
I stared at her for a minute longer before I set down the brown paper bag with my pastry and lay down next to her, offering her a pillow. She gave me a funny smile, but she took it, sliding it under her head and letting out a long sigh.
“How so?” I said, after a second, my voice low. She shrugged.
“It’s nonsense. We don’t need to—”
I put a shushing finger up towards her lips. “I really want to know,” I whispered. “If that’s okay.”
She swallowed, eyes nervously searching my face, before she turned away again.
“Tell me… whenever you want me to stop,” she breathed.
“Okay.”
“I just… know I’ve been—you know. Demanding too much from him. I’ve been unreasonable, and needy, and insensitive to his constraints, his boundaries. But then when I try to go in the opposite direction… when I try to fix myself, be more of what I’m supposed to be, then there’s things like that.”
I took a second just taking it all in, my mind spinning, just a little, before I said, “There’s things like… what?”
She shrugged. “Like what you said. How you notice even the little things about the people close to you. And just this whole…” She put a hand in the air above us, gesturing vaguely. “This whole… cultural narrative. About what it’s like to love someone. About spending all this time together, becoming two halves of a whole, knowing each other better than you know yourselves… quality time. Doing nothing together. Long walks on the beach. That’s what the world tells us. But it’s not like that, is it?”
I swallowed. “Um… if I’m being honest… I don’t know a lot about what it’s really like.”
She laughed, thin and dry. “Touché. Well, here’s what I’ve picked up. Media tells us that—that you love someone and they become your whole world. The happily-ever-after. Books and movies and TV are all about the soulmate. But nobody’s actually like that… it’s just a fun idea that we like in theory. In practice, nobody actually wants that,” she said, her voice getting smaller, shaky—almost defensive, like she was expecting me to criticize her. “Obviously, people have their things they need to do. People have already decided how they want to spend their time, and it involves… work. The work they’ve chosen or the work they have to do. Hobbies, interests, or just resting. If you look around… you see it, don’t you? The world is so insular… so closed off. Everyone’s in little bubbles, and you’re not allowed in unless you have a damn good reason. It feels like I’ve been… trained to want someone I can spend all my time around, someone I know better than I know myself, only to get out into the world and find out I’m not supposed to want that. And then what?” She shrugged. “And then everything I do is wrong. I can’t be following both of those at the same time. And so…”
She sighed, dragging her hand over her face.
“I told you to say when you want me to stop.”
“I don’t want you to stop.”
“You could be doing any number of better things with your time right now—”
“I want to be doing this one.”
She dropped her arm back above her head with a sad little smile my way. “Well, that’s about it, then. I just get tired of being pulled in two opposite directions, knowing that they’re both wrong.”
I studied her for a minute, searching for words, before I ventured, “So… you really think it’s like that? That nobody actually wants to spend time with people?”
“I don’t like it. And it’s an… oversimplification.” She gestured vaguely in the air, frustration on her face. “I’m sure there’s some people who are different. But the norm is this… closed-off life.”
“Is the norm important to you?”
She scoffed, dropping her arm and rolling onto her side to face me. Up this close, in the low lights of the hotel room, I could see every speck of lighter color in her eyes, and I got a nervous tangle in my throat.
“I march to the beat of my own drum,” she said. “I don’t worry about not fitting in. But some things necessarily require other people.”
“So…” I couldn’t work out if I was supposed to look her in the eye or not. It felt like it would give me a heart attack if I did. “If you didn’t have to worry about what other people thought, what would you want?”
“Ugh…” She looked away. “It’s silly.”
“Again, I’ve already embarrassed myself more than you possibly can. And what? You think I’m going to judge you with social norms? I don’t even know the social norms.”
“Okay, fair.” She put a hand over her face. “I… it’s dumb, but I’ve always liked the idea of someone you spend all your time with, someone you share every little experience with. Just… your partner in this thing called life. That there’s no sense trying to figure things out on your own, because you… you’ve got your person, and they’re right there, doing it all alongside you.”
“Me too.”
She stopped, giving me an odd look. “Er… yeah?”
“Yeah.” I looked away. “I mean, it just sounds so… romantic. And beautiful. And like… why would you be with someone if you don’t like spending time with them?”
“It’s not that I think people don’t like spending time with their partners, just that people don’t… prioritize…?”
“As much as you like to. Yeah. I get that.” I laughed. “What does it matter what other people think? You’ve got at least one person in your life who thinks the same way you do.”
She stared at me, anxious, searching, and it got to the point where I was convinced I’d said something wrong—enough I was tempted to jump up and run away out of the hotel—before she said, “You’re not just saying that?”
“No. Of course not. I guess that’s just being a hopeless romantic.”
She winced. “There’s a reason there’s hopeless in the name. It’s not intended to flatter.”
“Oh.” I blinked. “I don’t mind being a hopeless romantic.”
She scratched her head, looking away. “Right. Sorry. I don’t mean to insult you.”
I fought back a smile. “Madeleine’s calling me hopeless… here I thought we were friends.”
“Okay, okay!” she laughed, swatting playfully in my direction. “I just… I guess… thanks.”
“No problem. I don’t know a lot about social norms, but I guess… if you ever want someone to talk past all the norms, I’m custom-made for it.”
She closed her eyes, sinking deeper into the pillow. “You’d better find the absolute best girlfriend ever. If she doesn’t deserve you, I’ll fight her.”
“Oh… um.” I felt my soul leave my body, which it seemed to do a lot around Madeleine. “I, uh… didn’t know you, uh…”
“Oh. Yeah.” She opened her eyes again. “Britt told me. I guess you didn’t tell her she could, and she just made an executive decision for herself again.”
“I-I don’t mind, I just didn’t know she… that you… yeah.” I laughed nervously. “Um… I don’t think I’m that special.”
“Yeah, bullshit,” she said through the softest, sweetest little smile, her eyes fluttering shut again and settling into the pillow. “You’d be an incredible girlfriend, and any girl would be lucky to have you.”
I was actually going to die here. Small miracle I didn’t just pass out or start crying, both of which felt distinctly possible. “I mean… you’re every bit as amazing…”
She scoffed, her expression darkening, and she turned away. “I’ve got a dodgy record as a girlfriend.”
Then if we’re the only two who feel this way, can’t you be with me? It ached in my mind, wishing I could say the forbidden words, but… it was so wrong for so many reasons. I took a second trying to settle myself back into—being a normal human, I guess—before I ventured with, “Isn’t it all… relative?”
“Yeah, I guess I’m probably doing better than someone out there.”
“No, not that. I mean… the same person could be a terrible girlfriend for one person and the perfect girlfriend for another.”
She was quiet for a long time before she said—just a whisper—“So you’re also telling me I should leave Tristan.”
Was I being a terrible friend? I couldn’t back down now, so if I was, then I was continuing to be terrible. “Obviously, I don’t know your relationship well enough to say. I, uh, I only just got here. But… if he left, would you be unhappy about it?”
She let out a long, slow breath that really, I think, said everything there was to say. I rolled onto my back, looking up at the ceiling—somehow so much easier to say these things when I could pretend I was saying them to an empty room.
“I would support you with whatever decision you make,” I said.
“ He’s happy, though,” she said, finally, her voice small.
“Is he?”
She paused. “You think he’s not?”
“I don’t know. I’m asking.”
She was quiet. I rolled over to face her again, and found she’d turned to face me too.
“Have you asked him? Or… are you assuming? I would probably assume too, in your situation, so it’s not like I’d blame you…”
“No. I’m assuming.” She rolled onto her back, a hand to her forehead. “I’m assuming… that because I’m making myself miserable for his sake, that means he’s happy.”
My stomach tightened. “Is that… tenable?”
“No. It’s not.” She shifted, sitting up sharply, and she grabbed her phone from the dresser, an air around her that I didn’t think I’d ever seen from her before. “I’m going to break up with him.”
“Oh—my god.” I sat up with her, my thoughts spinning. “Madeleine—oh my god. Are you sure?”
“Yeah. Dammit. He should probably go be with someone who likes space. They’d be really happy together.”
I wondered if I’d said too much and just ruined her life. “Oh—wow—okay. Um. That’s really huge. You’re—you’re texting. Are you breaking up with him over text?”
“I’m not that mean,” she said. She sounded too calm for the situation. “I’m asking to see him. I’m at least doing it properly.”
“You’re… you’re really sure about this.”
“Yeah.” She hit the send button, and she let out a sigh, turning off her phone and dropping it on the bed. “What do I even say once I see him?”
She was actually doing this. Britt was going to hail me as the hero of the world. “Um… you could practice on me.”
She gave me a smile with a million different emotions in it at once, but most of them gratitude. “That would actually be really, really helpful. Can we try a couple different scenarios?”
“Um. Yeah. Like, what, at work, at home, at the ice cream parlor…”
“No, ma’am. I’m not taking him for ice cream to break up with him there.”
“Okay, yeah, that would be mean.”
“I mean, act out different reactions. One where he’s eager to break up too, one where he argues and gets mad, one where he begs and pleads me to stay, one where he doesn’t care.”
I’d never seen someone so emotionally ready to break up. If anything, she looked like she’d let go of a huge weight already. “We can go as many takes as you like. Where should we start?”
She winced. “We’ll start with the worst options and work our way to better. Be a douchebag and argue I should stay because I’d never be able to find someone else anyway.”
That was… genuine. She was actually worried about that.
Her? I couldn’t imagine someone who wouldn’t want her. I could certainly think of one person who would give anything for a chance with her.
Still… this wasn’t the moment. “I’m going to feel like a horrible person.”
“You don’t have to, of course,” she said, speaking too quickly, and I shook my head.
“No, um… I-I will. Just, uh, if either of us needs to stop…”
“Cherry pancakes.”
I blinked. “Um… that sounds delicious, but…”
“Safe word. Either of us says that, we stop it.”
“Ohh.” I paused. “And then I can give you a hug? Because I’ll need it.”
She laughed, a rough and scratchy sound. “I will, too. Sounds great.”
“Okay.” I took a long breath, sitting up straighter. “Yeah, I’m, uh, I’m ready. So—”
“Sapphire?”
I lost my train of thought. “Yeah?”
She took my hand in hers, and she squeezed, giving me the sweetest smile I’d seen in my life. “Thank you.”
God, I had a crush on her. “Anytime, Madeleine. We’re in this thing together.”