Chapter 8
Blair
Waking up in Madison’s guest room didn’t feel temporary anymore. Her home was cozy, walls covered in framed quotes and black-and-white photos of her travels. The baby’s room was almost ready, with pale yellow walls and a hand-painted name sign still blank.
She let me help her paint the nursery on Saturday. “What’s the name?” I asked while we taped off the trim.
She hesitated, chewing her lip. “Olive. Hope, peace, second chances.”
Tears pricked my eyes before I could stop them. “That’s… beautiful.”
Madison looked up from the paint tray. “I know we weren’t close back then. But I see you now, Blair. And I’m glad you came back.”
We talked more that day than in our whole high school years combined. She told me about the father and how they met at a bar, how she thought it might be something more, and how he vanished before she even took a pregnancy test.
“I thought about not keeping it,” she admitted. “But then I saw the ultrasound and just… couldn’t walk away.”
“You’re brave,” I said.
She snorted. “I’m hormonal and stubborn. Brave is what you did. Coming home.”
The baby kicked hard enough to make Madison groan and reach for her side.
“She’s gonna be a soccer player,” she muttered.
“Or a kickboxer.”
She laughed, then winced again and muttered something that sounded suspiciously like a curse. A moment passed before she spoke again, voice quieter this time. “Do you remember that one summer… I basically lived at your place?”
I smiled. “You mean the summer you came over once and just never left?”
“Yeah. That one.”
We both laughed, but the sound held a little more weight than humor.
I remembered it too well, long days in the sun, grilled cheese sandwiches on the stovetop, movie marathons that stretched until dawn.
Madison had stayed for three weeks straight that summer.
My mom always said it was fine, that we were just “inseparable.” But we both knew why she hadn’t gone home.
“Your house always felt so safe,” Madison said softly.
I turned toward her. She wasn’t looking at me, just at the half painted wall of the nursery.
“My dad was drinking a lot back then,” she continued. “And my mom, she just… checked out. It felt like I didn’t exist half the time. But at your place, your mom made waffles and asked me how school was and made me feel like I mattered.”
I swallowed, suddenly fighting off the sting behind my eyes. “You do matter.”
Madison shrugged. “It wasn’t your job to take care of me. But you did. You always found ways to make things feel normal, like letting me rearrange your bookshelves, or playing music loud enough to drown out the silence.”
I nudged her shoulder. “You were the sister I picked. You belonged there as much as I did.”
She smiled, but it was wobbly. “I never told you how much that meant. That house, those nights, you… I think they saved me.”
My throat tightened. “You saved me too, you know. In your own way.”
We sat in the quiet for a while, the thunder softening into a steady hum.
“Promise me something?” she said.
“Anything.”
“When this baby’s old enough, if she ever needs a place to run to, I want her to have a house that feels like yours did.”
I reached over and linked our pinkies, just like we used to when we were fifteen. “She will. Because she has you.”
And in that moment, with rain tapping the roof and the past folding gently into the present, I realized our friendship hadn’t just survived the years. It had built something beautiful in spite of them.
I wake up the next morning to beeping and something burning.
I ran downstairs, the air inside Madison’s kitchen smelled like cinnamon and something burnt.
I find out the smell was toast she’d forgotten in the oven while trying to balance a prenatal vitamin, a phone call, and whatever urgent email had just popped up on her laptop.
“Don’t judge me,” she said, fanning the smoke alarm with a dish towel. “I swear I can usually feed myself without setting the house on fire.”
I laughed, settling onto the barstool by the counter. “It’s kind of comforting. You used to be the one who color-coded her closet. Now you’re one broken toaster away from calling for backup.”
“I’m calling it character development.”
She tossed the charred bread into the garbage and joined me at the counter, a hand resting instinctively over the slight swell of her belly.
“I made cider,” she said after a beat. “The good kind. No caffeine. I double-checked.”
“Look at you, being all responsible.”
“Don’t get used to it.”
We sipped in silence for a while; the kind of silence that only comes from being around someone who’s known you long enough to understand when you’re not quite ready to talk, but close.
“You okay?” I asked gently.
She didn’t answer right away.
Instead, she stared at her mug and blew across the surface before saying, “I wasn’t going to tell anyone. Not at first.”
I waited.
“I went back to the hotel alone the next day,” she said. “Something felt off so I took a pregnancy test a few weeks later. I reached out to let him know and the father clarified that he wanted nothing to do with either of us.”
“Madison…”
“I’m not heartbroken about him,” she said quickly. “It’s not that. I’m okay with raising her alone. I am. But..” Her voice broke. “The pregnancy’s been hard. I’m considered high risk. Some blood pressure complications and they’re monitoring for preeclampsia.”
The word hit the air like a weight.
“I didn’t want to say anything until I knew more,” she admitted. “Until I could say it without crying. But I’m scared. And tired. And trying to act like I’ve got everything under control when half the time I don’t even know where I put my car keys.”
“You don’t have to do it alone,” I said, squeezing her hand.
She looked at me, eyes glossy. “I didn’t want to be a burden.”
“You’re not. You’re never a burden. You’ve been my anchor, Mads. Let me be yours now.”
A tear slipped down her cheek. “I don’t even know what I need.”
“Let’s figure it out together, however long it takes.”
We stayed like that for a while, hands clasped between two mugs of apple cider, the smoke alarm long forgotten.
At that moment, I realized something: coming home wasn’t just about healing my past. It was about showing up for someone else. For the person who always showed up for me.
And for the first time, I didn’t just feel like I was back.
I felt like I was starting to belong.