Chapter 22
Cooper
When we reached my car, Madeline searched for and found directions to the closest twenty-four-hour animal hospital. We headed that direction.
Over the cat’s distressed meowing, Madeline thanked me multiple times for helping her. “I’m sorry about how things ended with Dahlia,” she added.
“Are you?” I doubted she’d changed her mind about Dahlia.
Madeline hesitated, deciding on her words. “Okay, not really. Dahlia is a typical mean girl, and you’re a nice guy. You never would have been happy with her.”
Well, I hadn’t been tonight. Although that wasn’t Dahlia’s fault, exactly.
She’d been friendly and flirty, but talking to her had been so uninteresting, so surface level.
I’d realized that the entire time I’d spoken to Dahlia, she’d never said something that indicated she thought deeply about anything.
She never made me laugh. And she had an unending list of criticisms about teachers and students alike.
Mostly I felt relieved I didn’t have to worry about spending the rest of the evening with her.
“How was your date with TC?” I asked.
“Uneventful until he offered to kill Mascot. That totally ruined the mood.”
Had she wanted there to be a mood, or was that just Madeline’s tongue-in-cheek review of a bad date?
I would’ve asked her more, but talking became hard after that.
The cat came out of its shock, or maybe it decided that people wrapped creatures in suit coats before eating them.
It started freaking out, clawing at my jacket while chorusing at us with loud, grave-sounding meows.
Madeline kept trying to reassure him. In a soothing voice, she told Mascot that vets went to school for years in order to take care of animals and certainly wouldn’t have spent that much money on student loans, interest rates being what they were, if they didn’t love animals.
“He doesn’t understand English,” I said. “You could be repeating NFL statistics, and it would have the same effect.”
“I don’t know any NFL statistics.”
I told her a few. While I did, the cat escaped the suit coat. Madeline had to recapture him and got scratched on the wrist in the process.
She yelped and shook her hand. “I think this proves he’s not an NFL fan.”
“I think it just proves he’s ungrateful. There’s a first aid kit in the glove compartment. You should put something on that.” I shot the cat a glance. “I hope TC wasn’t right about it having rabies.”
“I doubt he was.” Her shoulders slumped in dejection. “What if he’s right about vets refusing to treat him? Even if one can fix him, what will I do with him afterward? My dad is allergic.”
Madeline clearly had the power to wrap me around her little finger. I found myself saying, “I’ll help you find him a home. The cat can stay at my house until then.”
Madeline perked up. “You don’t think your mom will mind?”
“Not while she’s dating your dad. She was willing to go to the symphony tonight—and this is from someone who’s never listened to classical music in her life.”
“I guess that’s one good thing about their relationship.”
“Yeah,” I said. “There are some good things.” I hadn’t minded spending time with Madeline, and the truth was, I liked seeing my mother cheerful again. Tonight as she’d ironed her dress, she sang along to a song on her phone. I hadn’t heard her belting out tunes since before my dad left.
The memory of her singing grew in my mind along with a dozen other things I’d seen her do differently lately but hadn’t paid much attention to. She laughed more. Had more energy. She’d started cooking new recipes.
For nine months, she’d been trudging through the motions of everyday life with no emotion except resigned resolve and borrowed patience. I’d thought she needed to get back together with my father, that if the two of them fixed their relationship, she’d be happy again.
Maybe these last few weeks proved that a reconciliation wasn’t the only way for that to happen.
I’d been so focused on the solution I wanted that I hadn’t cared what she wanted.
When I thought of it that way, I’d been nothing but selfish.
I let out a long sigh, one laced with recrimination.
“Maybe we need to stop trying to keep our parents apart and let them make their own choices.”
Madeline’s head whipped to mine. “Are you breaking up with me?”
“No.” I hadn’t thought about the situation that way, but she was right. If we weren’t trying to keep them apart, we wouldn’t have a reason to fake date anymore.
“Then what do you mean?” she asked.
I still wanted to spend time with Madeline. I just didn’t want to keep wondering what part of our relationship was real and what part was pretend. But if things ended up turning real between us, it would have the same effect on our parents as when we were fake dating.
Madeline read her own meaning into my silence and groaned. “This has got to be some sort of record. You’re breaking up with two girls in one night.”
“It’s not an actual breakup.” Because I still wanted to see her. I couldn’t imagine going back to the way we were before.
“Yeah,” she said in a clipped tone. “It can’t be an actual breakup when we were only fake dating, but calling it a fake breakup is confusing.”
Maybe a fake breakup was exactly what we needed. We could tell our parents we weren’t seeing each other—and then see each other.
Madeline might not go for that. To her, I might only be a nemesis with benefits.
“I’m not breaking anything off,” I said. “I’m only saying we should talk about our parents later.” We should talk about us later.
A bit of strain left her at those words. “Okay.”
There wasn’t time to talk about more now.
I’d reached the parking lot for the animal hospital.
We got out of the car and headed to the door.
The cat made another concerted attempt to escape the confines of my coat.
Madeline was able to contain him until we arrived at the check-in desk and the perky receptionist greeted us.
Mascot took one look around, changed his strategy, and hid in the coat.
Madeline cradled the bundle, her words tumbling out like a breathless apology. “This cat ran out in front of my date’s car and we hit him. He’s dragging his back paws and he’s bleeding a little.”
The receptionist took the cat from Madeline, looked him over, and turned to me. “Could you tell whether you ran over him or just hit him?”
“Oh, Cooper isn’t my date,” Madeline clarified. “He stopped to help afterward. I don’t think we ran over the cat, but I’m not certain.”
The receptionist considered us again, noting Madeline’s dress and corsage, noting that the suit jacket wrapped around the cat matched my pants.
“The homecoming dance is tonight,” Madeline said by way of explanation.
The receptionist’s gaze still flicked between us in confusion.
“I’m sorry this put a damper on your evening.
” She didn’t ask where our dates were, and I wasn’t about to volunteer that information.
She handed Madeline a clipboard with a form to fill out, told us the vet would do an evaluation, and then someone would speak to us about treatment options.
“Where are your restrooms?” Madeline asked. “I need to rinse out . . .” She gestured at the blood and grass stains on her dress. “. . . Stuff.”
The receptionist pointed down the hallway. “First door on the right.”
Madeline gave me the clipboard. “Can you fill this out while I take care of my dress?”
I nodded. Madeline took a step toward the hallway, then turned back to me. She retrieved my phone from her purse and handed it to me. “Here. You’ll want this. I might be a while.”
She disappeared down the hallway, her gown and high heels looking out of place in the bright, sterile environment. I sat in the waiting room and glanced at my phone screen. I’d gotten two new messages. The first was from Dahlia and had pictures of us together.
I deleted them. I didn’t need any more reminders of our date.
The other was a link from Madeline. I figured it was a link to a photo album of our pictures and was actually looking forward to seeing them.
Instead, it was a video reel of me playing football, this time a compilation of completed passes and touchdowns I’d run in.
A note at the end said I can’t undo the first video, so I made a second. Here’s proof of your hard work and awesomeness! It’s still early in the season so it’s a work in progress. More is yet to come.
I knew she meant more footage from football games, but I couldn’t help read other meanings into it.
More was yet to come.