Chapter 23
CHAPTER
TWENTY-THREE
MADDEN
After Lainey successfully gave me the cold shoulder all week, I am happy to see a message from her saying we need to talk.
We do need to talk, and I need to let her know that I’m not sure how to share her. I’ve never had to before, so I don’t know how to act.
If Drayton Lewis is going to be around, I will have to find a way to deal with it.
Homecoming is just three weeks away, and if Lainey is bringing him, she must be serious about him. Even if I don’t like it.
I pull out my phone, scrolling through Instagram. I can’t help but pull up Avery’s profile, which has been pretty quiet for a couple weeks. I stare at her pictures, wondering what it would be like to have her, to really know her.
It’s stupid when I know for sure she doesn’t want me like that. How could she? I’m not stupid enough to believe that I could fit anywhere in her life.
I pull up our texts from a week ago, my thumb flirting with the keypad to message her again.
“Hey Mad,” Mom sticks her head through my door. “Someone is here to see you.”
I sit my phone down on the nightstand and move my guitar from my lap. Mom opens my door, and Avery herself steps in. The last person I ever expected to just show up.
Mom’s expression on her face is curious, but she closes the door behind her.
“What are you doing here? How did you know where I live?”
She sets her designer purse down on my bed, “I asked around.”
I take her in. Her long black hair, her tiny body con dress and boots that make her look like she just stepped off a runway somewhere significant. A complete one-eighty from when I saw her at the playground, where I got to see what was underneath the makeup.
“Where have you been?” I ask, her arms wrapping around her torso nervously.
“A photoshoot,” she huffs.
“No, I mean, where have you been all week? You ditched school.”
“That’s actually why I’m here. I wanted to thank you for being there for me. The night at my party with Nash, and then at the playground. You didn’t have to do that.”
“Why does it sound like you are leaving?”
“I’m going to therapy, an inpatient program, for a while. My dad is threatening to shut down my social media accounts if I don’t go.”
“Would that be so terrible?”
She stalls, “No Instagram means no posts, no posts mean no sponsors. The brands are what make my career successful, Madden.”
“Do you really need a career? You just turned seventeen.”
“I love it. I just don’t love the pressure. When I come clean about the breakup, all hell is going to break loose for Carson and me.”
“Wait? You broke up?”
“Well, not in those exact words, but yeah.”
“Carson told everyone you were sick…”
She sits down on my bed, “Because he’s too good to me. He’ll protect me, even when he knows he can’t do it forever.”
“What happened then?” I ask, remembering the rumors floating around the school. Were they really covering up a pregnancy?
“It’s stupid. It was really stupid.”
“Avery, just tell me what happened, look at me,” I demand. “Do I really look like someone who is going to judge you? Or turn around and tell Perez Hilton?”
She laughs at my reference. It's sad, but still, even a little giggle makes me happy, “I’ve learned not to underestimate who can have connections.”
“I’m not like that, and you know it.”
“I can’t sleep. I haven’t really slept since my mom died. I don’t eat, and I don’t even like to look at myself in the mirror. For just a couple minutes, it was too much, and I messed up. All I wanted to do was go to sleep.”
She continues explaining, “I wasn’t trying to die, not really. I just wanted to feel at peace.”
Rehab. Her dad wants to send her to a recovery program. Alone.
“Is that the best thing for you? To go to therapy alone?”
She shrugs, “They’re going to take my phone. I came here to give you my address, and I was hoping maybe you’d write to me, but now that I’m here, I realize that might be weird.”
I can feel her slipping away when she picks up her purse, rummaging through it for a piece of paper. I can sense how anxious she is by how frantically she is digging. I stop her, placing my hands over hers.
“Avery,” I whisper, and she pauses, her gaze focused on our hands. “Avery, look at me, please. You need to breathe. You’re having an anxiety attack.”
“I’m sorry,” she rushes out, her breathing labored.
“Sit down,” I instruct, pointing to the futon at the edge of my room. “Just calm down for a minute.”
She does as I say, finally pulling the paper from her purse she was searching for, followed by lip gloss that she opens right in front of me to put on. She paints her lips like her life depends on it, and I’ve had just about all I can take.
I jerk her up by her arm, pulling her into my bathroom and situating her in front of the mirror. The way she looks at herself nearly guts me.
I open the cabinet and pull out a washcloth, wetting it under the faucet, “Take it off.”
She looks at me completely horrified, scared even, but I know that without someone to show her that she doesn’t need the makeup she hides behind, she’ll continue to use it as a mask, so I push her. Maybe even a little too hard, “Avery, take it off.”
She pulls the fake lashes from her eyes, trusting me, little by little, “Madden…”
“No,” I snap. “You don’t need makeup. You never have. Take it off.”
She hesitates, her hand trembling as she makes the first swipe, the makeup melting onto the white washcloth.
Her tears are hidden by the water she’s using to clean her face, but I know they’re there, and they’re necessary, so I hand her some soap.
She continues to wipe her face, the black mascara flaking and streaking down her perfect cheekbones.
“You don’t need any of it. You don’t need the clothes,” I pull my hand to her zipper, undoing it, watching the dress fall around her ankles, her black lingerie fully on display.
“You don’t need the shoes,” she kicks out of the dress, pulling her boots off too. “You are beautiful, without any of it.”
She sobs, slamming the washcloth into the sink, every ounce of makeup gone from her face. She covers herself with her arms and I can sense that she feels exposed.
Naked.
Insecure.
I hand her one of my legacy T-shirts and a pair of sweatpants, which she slips on. They’re big and swallow her, but she sinks into them.
She can’t even look me in the eye, so I tilt her chin up. “This,” I brush her tears from under her eyes, “is the girl I want to write to.”
I place my rough hand, scarred from my guitar strings, into her perfectly manicured one, pulling her closer. “Stop hiding and just be yourself.”
From the outside looking in, I’m sure we don’t fit, but right now, I’ve never felt like I’ve belonged to anyone like I do with her. I dream about what her body would look like intertwined with my inked skin. Perfect and imperfect. Every inch of each other.
It takes a few minutes before she speaks, “No one has ever pushed me like that. No one ever cared to try.”
“Because I’m not afraid to, I’m not afraid to tell you how I feel.”
“How do you feel?” she asks.
“I feel like I might die if I don’t kiss you right now.”
My heart pinches, waiting for rejection, but she slips her hand from mine, “Then what are you waiting for?”
Her words make my heart slam into my ribcage, and I pull her into me, pressing my lips against hers. The same lips I’ve wanted to kiss for the past two years, finally on mine. My stomach flips.
Our tongues clash, and her hands trail up my back, pulling my shirt over my head.
The interference separates us for a split second, but her eyes burn so fiercely into mine that we both are desperate for each other.
Her grip around the back of my neck tightens as we fall into my bed.
The soft whimper that escapes her lips makes me grow beneath my jeans, and her hair swinging around my red t-shirt makes me lose my damn mind.
“Avery,” I whisper, pushing her back a little. “I don’t want to take advantage of this. You’re upset, and I don’t want to make things worse.”
Her fingers trail down toward the button on my jeans, “Madden, you are the only thing holding me together.”
I can’t stop it.
I don’t even try.
I lose myself in her.
In us.