Chapter 25
Twenty-Five
Madison
The ceiling of my bedroom is a blank gray canvas, and I’ve been staring at it for exactly three hours.
Usually, I treat the silence of my apartment like a luxury. It’s a reward for a day spent drowning in other people’s noise. Tonight, it just feels heavy. I toss from my left side to my right, but the sheets are too cool, the pillows are too smooth, and everything feels fundamentally wrong.
I honestly can’t remember the last time I let myself cry. I’ve built a career out of being the person who doesn’t bleed. Yet here I am, having leaked tears in front of Beckett Lawson.
Twice. In the same damn day.
God, Madison. Why don’t you just hand him a roadmap to your insecurities while you’re at it?
I’m mortified, but beneath the layers of humiliation is a truth I’ve spent a decade burying under high-waisted power suits and cold-blooded negotiations.
I’m lonely.
It’s a pathetic word. It’s a word for people who don’t have a successful career, or a Wine Night with friends they’d die for, or a family—even if mine is dysfunctional.
But in the dark, in a mind that never stops calculating the next move, the truth is unavoidable.
For too long, I thought affection was something reserved for movies with swelling soundtracks and soft lighting.
I didn’t grow up with “good love.” I grew up in the trenches of fight-or-flight. Love in the Callahan house was a whispered apology after an episode or a suffocating, desperate hug when the walls were already falling down. It was there, sure, but it felt transactional.
I’ve watched Celeste and Emmy find that easy, breathing kind of love—the kind that makes you a better version of yourself.
And I tell myself I’m just too hard, too jagged, too emotionless to be loved like that.
I’m the girl you call to bury a scandal, not the girl you bring home to meet your mother.
The scariest part? I don’t know what to do with the way he touched me.
It was five seconds of kindness, but my internal wiring is already trying to figure out how to repay the balance.
In my world, kindness is just an invoice in a prettier envelope.
If he’s nice to me, I owe him. And I hate owing anyone.
Buzz.
The vibration of my phone on the nightstand makes my heart do a somersault against my ribs. I swallow hard and swipe the screen.
Beckett: What do you call a fake noodle?
I blink, reading it twice. Is this a medical thing?
Me: I don’t know.
Beckett: You’re supposed to say, “I don’t know, what?”
Me: I don’t know what you call a fake noodle, Beckett. It’s two in the morning.
Beckett: An impasta.
I stare at the screen, waiting for the punchline to get better. It doesn’t.
A bubble of air hitches in my chest, and then, before my dignity can protest, I’m laughing. It’s a ridiculous, breathless sound that echoes off the walls.
It was a terrible joke, but he’s breaking the ice. He’s reaching through the floorboards to tell me it’s okay that I fell apart.
A genuine smile tugs at my mouth as I type back.
Me: Thanks for that, but I’m still the woman who had a breakdown earlier.
Beckett: But did the joke make you smile?
Me: I’m ashamed to say it did.
Beckett: Well, now you’re the woman who laughs at my stupid jokes. Progress. Goodnight, neighbor.
I stare at the last message until the screen dims. He isn’t asking for an explanation. He isn’t demanding a deep-dive into my trauma or an itemized list of why I was crying.
He’s just there.
And I have absolutely no idea what to do with that.
Me: Night, Doc.
I set the phone back down. The ceiling doesn’t look quite so gray anymore. I pull the duvet up to my chin, and for the first time tonight, the silence doesn’t feel like it’s trying to crush me.