Chapter 24
Twenty-Four
MADDEN
I had three tabs open for missing persons databases, two more for regional boards where people posted everything from “lost dog” to “my neighbor’s cousin saw a UFO,” and one spreadsheet that was rapidly becoming the only thing in my life that seemed like it obeyed any form of logic.
The spreadsheet was winning.
I copied the wording from my last post, tweaked two lines to fit the rules of this forum—no last names unless public record, no personal contact info, no “call me,” only “message me here”—and hit submit.
The page refreshed. My post dropped into the thread like a stone into a lake. No splash. Just a quiet, stubborn presence.
I stared at it for a second longer than necessary, waiting for that tiny dopamine ping my brain insisted should come with doing the right thing.
It didn’t. It hadn’t in days. It was like my system had burned through whatever “reward” chemical it used to keep me functioning and decided we were on our own.
My stomach reminded me it existed with a hollow, reproachful twist.
Right. Food. Humans required food. Ideally, before they turned into brittle, irritable monsters.
I dragged myself up from the little table in the cabin and stepped into the narrow galley.
The boat shifted under me with that subtle rock that was just enough movement to remind me I wasn’t on land.
I opened the small fridge, stared at the contents, and made a decision that was both deeply practical and, if my father had his way, a prosecutable offense.
Bread. Cheese. Butter.
Grilled cheese.
I pulled out what I needed, set a pan on the stove, and turned the knob.
The click-click-click of ignition sounded too loud in the quiet cabin.
The pan warmed. The butter hissed. I laid the sandwich down and watched it sizzle, the scent of browning fat and bread doing more for my mood than it had any business doing.
While it cooked, I reached into the cabinet above the sink and pulled out the box of MoonPies I’d bought at the island market earlier that week. Chocolate. Because if I was going to do this, I was going to commit.
I set it on the counter like a bribe to my future self.
The grilled cheese browned on one side. I flipped it and watched the edge of cheese start to melt into a glossy line when my phone lit up on the counter beside me.
Dad.
For a second I stared at the screen. There were a lot of ways to interpret a call from him. None of them were “checking in because he missed me.”
I turned the stove down out of reflex, wiped my fingers on a dish towel, and picked up the phone.
“Hello?” Because that was what you said, even when you knew who was on the other end.
“Madden.” My name, as always from him, sounded like a title. As if he were addressing someone he expected to perform.
I braced without moving. “Hi, Dad.”
“I have a few minutes,” he said. “I wanted to speak with you.”
Not how are you? Not are you okay? Not even do you have time?
I stared at the grilled cheese, at the edge of bread darkening too quickly now that my attention had shifted. I turned the heat off this time and slid the pan off the burner. “Okay.”
His pause was less like silence and more like the moment a man took before he began a speech he’d rehearsed. “I saw your name come up.”
My spine tightened. “Where?”
“In a piece. Online.” He said it like the internet was a distasteful neighborhood he only visited when he had to. “A mention, not an article. But your name was there.”
I kept my voice even. “There are a lot of mentions.”
“You know what I mean.”
The scandal. The resignation. The narrative that had grown around it because the public loved nothing more than a clean story where someone fell from a height.
“I’m not doing interviews.”
“I’m aware. That’s part of the problem.”
I turned from the stove and leaned my hip against the counter, gripping the edge with my free hand hard enough to anchor my body while my mind did the mental acrobatics a conversation with my father required.
“I’m not interested in being managed,” I said.
“You’re not in a position to be interested or not. You’re in a position to be strategic.”
There it was. The word that covered everything for him. Strategy. Optics. Positioning. Performance.
I swallowed and kept my voice neutral. “I am being strategic.”
“You’re being stubborn,” he insisted. “There’s a difference.”
I listened to myself breathe. In. Out. I felt the pull—the old urge to smooth, to soothe, to make my tone softer so he wouldn’t think I was being “difficult.” The old calculus that said if I adjusted correctly, maybe I’d get the smallest flicker of approval.
I didn’t adjust this time. “I’m not going back into that environment.”
“You don’t get to decide what environments you go back into.”
I didn’t miss the flash of real irritation.
“You earned your degree. You clerked. You worked. You built a résumé that people would kill for. Harvard Law, for God’s sake. And now you’re letting a moment define you.”
A moment.
That’s what he called it. Not months. Not years. Not a set of choices. Not a moral injury. Not the kind of pressure that bent a person until the only way to stop breaking was to step away.
I stared at the MoonPie on the counter. Chocolate. Cheap. Comforting. A thing he’d never buy because it didn’t signify the right kind of taste.
“I’m not letting a moment define me. I’m choosing what I’m willing to do.”
“What you’re willing to do appears to be… nothing.”
The edge of my control prickled. Heat bloomed behind my eyes—anger, frustration, the old shame trying to slip in.
“I’m working.” I said.
“At what? Madden, you can’t simply vanish and expect this to resolve itself. The world does not work that way. Reputations do not recover on their own.”
I closed my eyes for a fraction of a second, because I couldn’t afford to roll them and still claim adulthood. “I’m not trying to recover a reputation. I’m trying to live with myself.”
Silence. The kind of quiet that meant I’d stepped outside the script.
When he spoke again, his tone had cooled. “Living with yourself is easier when you’re employed.”
A humorless laugh threatened. I swallowed it down. “I’m fine.”
“You’re not. You are wasting time. You should be applying.
You should be putting your name in front of the right people.
You should be speaking to firms who understand that these situations are survivable if you handle them properly.
You are—” He paused, and I heard him choosing a word he believed would land as motivation, not cruelty. “—You are capable of better than this.”
Better than this.
As if “better” was always upward. Always visible. Always impressive.
I let my gaze drift to the window, to Rios’s boat in the slip next door. He’d gone to see Ford and Sawyer for a couple of hours of normal. Of human.
Something twisted in my chest—a brief, irrational wish that he’d step out onto the dock right then, like he could hear the tone of my father’s voice from across the water and decide to intervene.
He wouldn’t. He couldn’t.
But the thought of him—of his blunt, unsentimental steadiness—did something to me anyway. It reminded me there were other definitions of “better.”
“I’m not applying to those jobs,” I announced.
“And why not?” My father’s voice sharpened. “Because you want to prove a point? Because you want to punish yourself? Because you’ve decided to be… principled?” He said principled like it was a youthful phase people outgrew.
“Because I don’t want that life. And I’m not going to chase it just to look like I’m doing what I’m supposed to.”
“You were raised to have options,” he snapped. “You were raised to use them.”
There was the crux. Not love. Not understanding.
Investment. He had invested in me. Time, money, expectation. I was supposed to yield returns.
I could perform right now. I could soften my voice, give him a palatable version. I could promise I was “exploring options.” I could say I had meetings. I could feed him the kind of language he recognized as progress.
And perhaps if I did it correctly, I’d get that thin slice of approval. Not love. Never love. Approval. That was what had always mattered in our household.
I didn’t feed him. “I am using them.” I stayed calm because calm was armor. “Just not the way you want. Now, I have to go.”
His breath hissed, quiet but audible. “Madden—”
“I have something on the stove,” I lied, because it was easier than saying, If I stay on this call, I’m going to say something we can’t unsay.
A tight pause. “We’ll speak again,” he said. Like it was a decision he got to make alone.
“Okay.” I ended the call.
For a few seconds, the boat was too quiet. My skin, my throat, both seemed too tight. Not in a panic way—more like my body remembered what it was like to live under constant evaluation, and it was bracing for the next critique.
Carefully, I set the phone down on the table and turned back to the stove.
The grilled cheese was darker than I’d intended. Not ruined, just… overdone on the edges. Story of my life.
I slid it onto a plate anyway and carried it to the table. I sat down and took a bite.
The crunch was satisfying. The cheese was molten. The salt hit my tongue, and for a second my brain went blank in the way it only did with simple pleasures. I let the flavor ground me until my shoulders dropped from around my ears.
A ding from my computer indicated something new hitting my inbox. Compulsively, I toggled over, and my pulse jumped as I spotted a reply. Not from email, but from the forum messaging system tied to one of the posts I’d made earlier. The subject line was generic: RE: Your post.
I opened it.
The message was short. Casual, almost careless. And it made my scalp prickle.
I might have info. Not posting it here. If you’re serious, we can talk. In person.
I read it again, slower.
I might have info.
Not I saw her. Not I know her. Not I’m sure.
But still—information. Something. A thread that wasn’t frayed to dust.
My body reacted before my mind could discipline it. I sat up straighter. For a second I was already moving through next steps: where, when, how fast, what questions.
The impulse was immediate and absolute: now.
And then, just as fast, another voice cut in. Rios. Flat and certain.
Don’t run at the first thing that looks like a door. Make sure it’s not a trap.
I exhaled through my nose.
I didn’t want to admit he was right, but—he was right.
I flexed my fingers and put them on the keyboard.
I’m serious. I’m not discussing details here. Name a public place and a time. I won’t come alone.
I read it once to make sure it said what it needed to say and nothing it didn’t.
Then I hit send.
The message whooshed away into the void.
My hands were steady. My heart was not.
I reached for my phone and tapped out a text to Rios.
Madden:
Swing by on your way back from hanging with Ford and Sawyer. I’ve got something to show you. Not an emergency.
Once the message sent, I finished the grilled cheese and grabbed one of the MoonPies.
The first bite was sweet, soft, and utterly ridiculous.
Perfect. I ate it too fast and went back for another in a small show of defiance.
I’d eaten little enough lately that it wasn’t as if the extra sugar was going to do any harm.
I carried my second dessert back to the berth along with my laptop. I closed down my email, my browser, and everything else work related. I was too tired, angry, and raw to chase more leads tonight. That was how mistakes got made.
And I was done making mistakes for the sake of momentum.
I kicked my shoes off, curled into the berth and queued up the Great British Bake Off, because watching strangers care intensely about pastry was the safest possible way to let my brain uncoil without falling into a pit.
As the familiar theme music washed over me, some of the tension unraveled, leaving my eyes heavy.
They slid closed before a single word could be said about soggy bottoms.