Chapter Nineteen
The next fortnight was wretched. Maddie was sick of herself.
Her head pounded constantly from crying so often, and she could tell from the way her jaw ached that she’d started grinding her teeth in her sleep again.
She was constantly restless and exhausted.
She longed for the days when she had considered being obsessed with James and unable to have him torturous.
Compared to the torment she was feeling now, those feelings had been a walk in the park.
This thing they were doing now, this was real torture.
The closer they got to James’ departure date — which was, according to Emma, the day after Autumn’s and Marley’s wedding — the more disconnected they became.
They barely spoke, could hardly look at each other, and yet Maddie found herself falling deeper and deeper in love.
The mere prospect of his absence was enough to grow her feelings for him.
She felt constantly terrible. She yearned for him every second of the day, for the warmth and strength of his embrace, for the heat of his breath against her neck.
“Are you sure you’re doing the right thing?
” Bluebell asked one morning, handing Maddie a coffee.
Maddie felt her eyes fill with tears. She swallowed hard and nodded, rubbing her hands across her face, looking for some way to adequately describe the pain she was in to her sister, a woman who had never really been in love. Nothing came to mind.
“I haven’t seen you this sad since Bowie,” Bluebell said.
Maddie nodded. That was an accurate assessment.
The unhappiness was different, of course, but it was just as putrid.
It consumed her every waking moment in the same way.
“Maddie, are you sure you are doing the right thing?” Bluebell asked again.
Maddie nodded. “Honestly, I really do think it will be better for James if he sticks to his original plan and goes travelling.”
Bluebell eyed her sceptically. “What about what’s best for you?”
Maddie shrugged. “That doesn’t matter.”
“Madison Whittle!” Bluebell gasped. Maddie winced.
In her entire life, she could count on one hand the number of times someone had called her by her full name.
The words hit her like a slap in the face, largely because they brought her biological mother crashing into her brain, along with the qualities she knew Julianne had possessed.
Stubbornness, dismissiveness, an avoidant attachment style.
Maddie wasn’t comfortable being reminded of her, and the realisation she might have inherited some of her mother’s worst traits made her feel a little bit sick.
For her entire life, Maddie had been consistently compared to her father, but if there was one thing her father would never do, it was abandon a person he loved, or push them away, or dismiss their sadness — all things she had been doing to James for this last week.
She decided then and there she needed to get herself back into therapy.
For her own sake, as well as everyone else’s.
“You, of all people, absolutely deserve to be happy,” Bluebell said.
Maddie dared to look at her sister, despite the fact she was pretty sure her gaze would cause her tears to spill over. She was right. “I love him,” Maddie admitted. “And I want him to be the happiest he can be, whatever that means for me.”
Bluebell’s face softened. She reached for Maddie’s hand, squeezing it tightly. “Sissy, you are so unbelievably selfless, and I wish I was more like you, honestly, I do. But you have a life to live, too.”
Maddie nodded thoughtfully, though she wasn’t really thinking.
She already knew there was nothing Bluebell could say that would make her change her mind.
She loved James too much to tie him to a life he never wanted for himself.
As hard as it was, she had to let him go, even if that meant they couldn’t make things work between them — which was the conclusion she was coming to as time wore on.
They could barely stand to be in the same room together, so it was looking increasingly unlikely he’d bother flying home from Italy to visit her.
Maddie’s heart, which felt like it had been sitting low in her chest since that day it had been shattered in the café, sank lower still. She felt so sorry for herself.
“I can’t tell you what to do, but I do wish you’d listen — I know I’m right,” Bluebell said, topping up Maddie’s mug.
“I’ve never been in love, as you know, but I’ve met a lot of men in my time, and hardly any men are like James.
If you let that bisexual, guitar-playing vegetarian with a cute dog and a talent for handiwork, who also happens to be madly in love with you, leave and go to Italy, you will regret it for the rest of your life. ”
Maddie didn’t say anything, she just stared straight ahead.
Bluebell stared right back, as though challenging her sister to disagree with her.
Maddie couldn’t, she wouldn’t. She already knew sending James away would probably end their relationship, and that she would miss him for ever.
But if he met another woman in the future, made a family and found happiness, which she was sure he would, she’d have done the right thing for him and that would help her through.
She felt a little more like her biological mother than she’d ever hoped to feel, but fuck it.
Everything she had now besides her father, including the woman in front of her, she owed to Julianne making a decision as difficult as the one she was making now.
Her biological mother had concluded she was not the best thing for Ben and Maddie, and she had probably been right.
Maddie couldn’t imagine having a better life than the one she’d had.
The decision must have been difficult — at least Maddie hoped it had been, as it was far too painful to consider the alternative — but Julianne had made it regardless because she had known her partner and baby daughter would be happier in different circumstances.
That was what Maddie was trying to do for James.
This situation had given her a new perspective on a very painful part of her past.
Eventually, Bluebell sighed. “You know me, Mads, I’m not one to simp over any man, but you have a really good one there. I’ll drop it after this, I swear, but I am begging you, from the bottom of my heart, please don’t throw it all away.”
* * *
Maddie spent the morning locked in her bedroom thinking about what Bluebell had said.
Because Bluebell was usually so unserious, any frank conversations she chose to have with her siblings were usually important and therefore should be heeded.
This one was no exception. Bluebell was staunchly feminist and extremely unforgiving when it came to men acting shitty, so if Bluebell thought she was making a mistake by letting James go, there was a good chance she was.
Still, she was struggling to get out of her own way.
Every time she convinced herself that perhaps she should set aside her concerns and be selfish for once, she’d envision a day in the future when James would come to her and accuse her of holding him back, of tying him to a life of normalcy instead of one bursting with adventure.
Around lunchtime, she forced herself to stop crying, doused her face with water, and left her room to head for the kitchen, before anyone found her once more in a state.
She was frustrating her family, she knew that they all wanted her to relent.
She’d done so much to hide her issues from them over the past six years — bearing the burden of her sadness alone to prevent causing them any stress or harm.
They didn’t realise this situation had been the final straw, tipping her over the edge into full-blown sadness again — to them it looked like she was being unnecessarily dramatic and difficult.
Those were not words anyone typically associated with Maddie.
She was not expecting to find anyone upstairs, but she ran into James in the hallway.
His jeans, typically big on him anyway, were baggier than ever.
His sweatshirt hung loose. He’d been avoiding eating at the house and Maddie had assumed it was because he didn’t want to be around her, but it looked like he’d lost his appetite completely.
He was tired and consumed, and it was written all over every part of him.
“Hey,” he said, stepping as far to one side as he possibly could. He was carrying a book and headed for his bedroom. He did not stop.
“James!” Maddie heard herself say. She wasn’t sure where it came from.
She’d had absolutely no intention of saying his name, but there it was, echoing around the hallway and stopping him in his tracks.
He sighed and turned to face her, planting his eyes on hers.
Maddie made her way towards him, bidding herself not to touch him.
She didn’t want to give him false hope. They stared at each other and she saw his expression change briefly from sadness to hope, then to resignation, then land right back on sadness. All in a few seconds.
She didn’t know where to start, so she gestured to the book. “You’ve taken up reading?” He turned it around so that she could see the cover: Rome — The Unforgettable City.
“Your dad gave it to me,” he explained. She didn’t know what to say, so she nodded. He let the awkwardness linger for a moment, then continued, “I’ve never been to Italy, but I’ve heard it’s quite refined. I need to brush up on my general etiquette.”
“You’re English, James — you’ll be fine. Nobody expects any better from us,” Maddie joked. He chuckled half-heartedly.