18. Madeleine
MADELEINE
Campfire Night
Heavy snowfall
Supper: Meatball subs · Homemade potato chips
The sky had been ugly all day, low and gray and heavy.
Finley told us at supper that there was a storm coming in the next few days and it was expected to be bad.
I could feel the air dropping and that waiting feeling, like the whole valley was holding its breath.
Not that I cared one way or another. I was too blissed out to notice the weather.
Knox and I had spent most of the day in bed.
I wondered during supper if everyone could read it on our faces. I flushed just thinking about it.
After supper, we all headed out to the fire pit. We all took seats around the circle, bundled up, drinks in hands. Jack and Knox had brought their guitars, but they remained in their cases near their feet. I had no doubt they’d come out before long.
I sat next to Knox with Ivy on my other side. She gave me a knowing look like she knew exactly where I’d spent my day.
“You better?” Ivy whispered in my ear.
“Do you need to ask?” I whispered back.
Ivy’s brothers appeared. They’d arrived a few days back, the three of them, big and loud and lovely, but I hadn’t properly met them because I’d spent the tail end of that week hiding in a dark room. Ivy lit up at the sight of them and started making introductions around the circle.
“Madeleine, this is Beau, and Caleb, and Waylon. Known in our hometown of Juniper Creek, Tennessee, as trouble with a capital T.”
I stood to greet them.
Beau, who looked permanently sun-kissed, with streaks of blond in his hair and tanned skin, stuck out a hand, and grinned. “Beau James, nice to meet you.”
I smiled. “I’m Mindy. Real nice to meet you.” I’m Mindy. Real nice to meetcha. It had come out easy, like it had just been lying dormant under my polish waiting for the worst moment to come out again.
And that moment was now. Because Blake was across the fire with the camera up on her shoulder, and the little red light was on, the lens pointed at me.
She got it. She got all of it. On a hard drive, forever.
Mindy. On tape.
“—sorry, Madeleine.” My voice snapped back into place, low and even, the accent gone like it had never been, a little laugh laid over the top of it, smooth as anything.
“Madeleine Price. Mindy’s an old nickname.
Nobody but my Mama and sister call me that.
I don’t know where that came from.” I shook Beau’s hand, firm, warm, professional.
“It’s lovely to meet you, Beau. Ivy’s told me so much about all of you. ”
Beau said something back, easy, none the wiser, and the conversation rolled on. I sat back down beside Knox. His warm hand had covered mine for a split second before I snatched it away.
I glanced over at Blake. Her camera was still fixed on me. She’d seen his hand take mine and my rejection, which meant the camera had seen.
For one unguarded half-second, warm and laughing and happy, I’d let Mindy out. The poison that did it? I’d been happy. Knox made me happy. Why did that make me feel so uneasy?
We headed to Knox’s cabin after the fire, walking back through the cold with his arm around me. It felt way too delicious to be next to him, his scent in my nose, his strong body pressed against mine. Yet, the niggling worry wouldn’t let go.
When we were back in his cabin, teeth brushed and pajamas on, he drew me down into his bed and pulled the quilt up over the both of us, tucking me against his chest.
“You want to talk?” Knox asked. “About what happened at the bonfire?”
“Not really.”
“It was just a slip of the tongue. No one thought anything about it,” Knox said.
“She got it on film.”
“Oh.” He was quiet a moment, stroking my hair. “Ask her to leave it out. She’ll respect your wishes.”
I couldn’t help but hear the sadness in his voice.
“It’s nothing to do with you,” I said. “I just don’t want my personal life in the documentary about the band.”
“Makes perfect sense.”
“But?” I asked.
“I’m sorry I tried to hold your hand. I guess I want to know how long you think we should keep this thing between us a secret.”
“When we get back to Nashville and it gets out that we’re together, the tabloids will eat it up. Whatever this is between us will be fodder for gossip. You’re a big deal in country music. I don’t want our personal life plastered all over town.”
I felt him nod, his arm tightening around me. His heart thumped against my ear. “Are we going to hide forever?”
I didn’t answer for a moment, playing it all out in my mind. Was this wrong? This instinct I had to keep it between us? What message did that give to Knox about how I felt about him?
“Not forever,” I said at last. “But I need time to figure out what all this means in my life before the press gets hold of it.”
“I think you may be exaggerating how much anyone would care about my love life,” Knox said. “But I’ll commit to whatever timeline you want.”
“Thank you,” I whispered.
“You’re welcome,” he said sleepily into my hair. “I love you. I’ll do anything for you.”
He was asleep in the next moment, his breath going long, his arm heavy and warm across my waist.
I lay there in the dark of his cabin, wide awake.
Was this it? Three weeks of bliss and now I was gearing up to ruin it all?
My walls rebuilding, brick by brick? I felt this sudden need to memorize him, the weight of his arm, the smell of his skin, the little catch in his breath, the way his hand had curled loose and open against my back.
The memory of him might be all that remained once I did my leaving.
Somewhere out past the window the wind was starting to change. I could hear it against the eaves as I fell into a fitful sleep, dreaming.
I was in the old house. My mother’s house.
I shivered. It was cold and dark; rain fell in sheets outside the windows.
Our one heater had stopped working. I knew it from the chill in my bones.
There was a girl asleep on the couch under a thin blanket.
Twelve years old. Bowl-cut hair, chapped hands, that nose.
Mindy. Fast asleep, without any knowledge of what was to come.
I stood over her, and looking down I realized I held a knife.
I knew what I had to do. I’d done it before, a long time ago, and I had to do it again, because she kept coming back. She wouldn’t stay gone, and I couldn’t build the life I wanted with her still breathing. She was too soft. She’d ruin everything. She had to go.
I raised the knife.
And the girl opened her eyes. She wasn’t afraid. She simply looked up at me standing over her, the gleam of the knife catching whatever light was in the room. “It’s you.”
“Why are you here?” I asked.
“You keep doing this.” Her voice was my voice, the old one, the hill-country one. “I keep coming back because you need me. And you keep killing me anyway.”
“I have to. You know I have to. There’s no room for you. There’s never been any room.”
“I’m not the one you have to get rid of to be okay.
” She pulled the thin blanket up under her chin, the way she used to.
The way I used to. “I’m the one who kept us alive.
I did all the hard parts. And the second it stopped being hard—the second somebody was finally kind to us—you decided I was the problem.
” Her eyes filled. “I’m not the problem.
I never was. But you’re going to do it anyway, aren’t you? ”
“Yes,” I said, and my hands were shaking. “I’m sorry. Yes.”
And she nodded, like she’d known, and closed her eyes. Not even bracing herself for what was to come, knowing it was impossible to fight the inevitable. I had to kill her. Even though I loved her.
I came awake with my whole body jerking, a sound half out of my throat, my heart slamming so hard it hurt. The cabin was dark. The fire had burned down to almost nothing.
Knox stirred. “Hey, you okay?”
“Bad dream.”
“It’s all right.” He pulled me close. “I’m right here. Nothing can get you.”
I lay in the dark, heart pounding. I could still see her face. But you’re going to do it anyway, aren’t you? I could still feel my own hands coming down.
Wind rose into a howl outside. Or was it the coyotes?
Something heavy pressed against my chest. I was too hot next to Knox.
His bulk took way too much of the bed. There was no place for me to lie.
I had to get out of here. I couldn’t stay another moment.
He deserved better than a woman so at war with herself because of the way he made her feel.
Seriously, what was wrong with me? Yes, it was only a dream, but I knew how true it was.
I slid out from under his arm and got dressed in the dark, quiet and quick, letting myself out into the night.
Wind whipped through the trees, stinging my face.
Was it bringing the storm Finley had mentioned?
I carefully shut his door behind me, peeking inside one last time to see the man I loved peacefully asleep, without any knowledge of the cowardly way I left. Until he woke to an empty bed.
But I couldn’t stay. I had to get out. Be alone.
Sort out what to do next. But even as I had the thought, I knew I’d already decided.
This was all too messy. I was too broken.
Knox had fallen for a version of me that no longer existed.
Mindy had fooled him the last three weeks into thinking she would survive against Madeleine and her ambition.
No, not ambition, a voice whispered in my ear.
You’re afraid. Afraid to be seen for who you really are.
Afraid to be talked about. Afraid to be left and everyone will see it.
Because eventually he would leave. I had no doubt about that.
Once we were back to real life, and he realized being with me only made him feel more alone, he’d walk away.
Mindy. It was her, telling me who I was when she was the one who wasn’t even supposed to exist any longer.
Leave me alone.
She went quiet, leaving me alone with Knox.
I’m sorry, I said silently to him. I’m so sorry.