34. Maddie
34
MADDIE
“Jesus, sis.” The water shuts off over my head. “What are you doin’?”
I’ve been asking myself the same question, and all I can do is summarize this as some kind of trauma response. "I don't know." The second the shouting started in the main hall, I froze. No matter how hot the water cascading over my body was, I shivered until I collapsed to the shower floor and hugged my knees tight, attempting to regulate my haywire nerves.
I’m at home. There is no danger here. Although… maybe there is? How do I know Sweetie was the only one? Perhaps there are more—people biding their time until they can make their move.
“Out of the way.” Jamie shoulders Harvey aside, offering me a towel. “I know she’s your sister and all, but I’m relatively sure she still doesn’t want you seeing her starkers.”
I rise to my feet and take the soft cloth from her, wrapping it around my body twice before I tuck the corner in. "I'm okay. Honestly." My gaze shifts to the open door. "What was going on out there?"
“Don’t know,” Harvey supplies. “But I’m about to go find out.”
"Hey." I catch him before he darts out of the room. "Is my stuff back here? Like, my bike and all that?"
His gaze softens, and he nods, wayward hair sliding over one eye. “Yeah. It is.”
“Can you find my phone for me?”
"Sure." He ducks back into the bathroom in two quick steps and wraps a hand around my head, kissing my forehead. "It's good to have you home."
He doesn’t wait for an answer, seemingly satisfied he’s said his piece.
I’m fucking glad for the reprieve—I don’t know how much more of this emotional fuckery I can take.
“You sure you’re okay?” Jamie says quietly, rubbing the ends of my hair dry with another, smaller towel.
“Yeah.” I fixate on the faucet over the basin, avoiding my fractured appearance in the mirror at all costs. “The shouting just triggered me, is all.”
“You’ve been through it, hon. Don’t be too hard on yourself.”
“I shouldn’t be like this,” I confess.
“Like what?” She leans around from behind me, hands paused on my hair.
“Weak.”
“Fuck’s sake, Mads.” Jamie finishes drying my hair with a few brisk rubs, then tosses the towel at the laundry hamper. “Don’t start this shit.”
“What do you mean?”
“I went through this crap with my goddamn daddy,” she snaps. “It’s not weak to be affected by things that hurt you, girl. It’s strange if you’re not.”
I tell Rae the same things, and yet here I am with the shoe on the other foot, and I struggle to find compassion for myself.
"He'd get upset after Momma passed," she says, taking my silence as a sign to continue. Jamie takes a seat on the closed toilet. "I'd hear him cry at night, but when I'd ask him what's wrong, he'd say 'Nothin', sugar bear. Go back to bed.'" She sighs. "I'd lie there and listen to him cry again night after night until one day I'd had enough."
“What did you do?”
“Stopped asking him what was wrong—I knew—and just crawled into bed and cried with him.” She offers a small smile. “He stopped not long after that. It was like we both got out what we had in us.”
“I suppose.”
"My point is," she says, sighing. "Is that the pressure builds the longer you hold it in. Give your pain voice, Maddie, and set it free. We're all here for you. We don't judge."
"I know you don't." I toe my dirty clothes on the floor. "I judge myself the harshest. Hey, could you grab me some clean clothes from my room? Saves me needing to walk through the clubhouse half-naked."
“Sure.” She rises to her feet, then frowns. “You be okay?”
“Yeah. Harvey should be back soon.”
"Yeah, okay." I catch it—the softness in her gaze just for him, and it warms me. We all need somebody in this world. And he'll be good for her, as she will for him. Way to judge Rae from the outset, there, asshole.
Why did I jump down her throat when she told me about Dad and Digger? Is it so different if it's my brother? They're all family, yet I wouldn't have batted an eyelid if she'd told me she'd got together with Kane.
It's just my father that I have an issue with. Because she takes my protector from me. My issue with her relationship with them is about nothing other than selfish need.
Fuck. I've got some serious repairs to do.
And therapy.
Lots of therapy.
I pass the time while I wait on Harvey by surveying the marks on my body. There are bruises along one leg, a rich bruise down my ribs where I collided with the doorframe after Sweetie deflected. A few scratches and a handful of strange areas where it hurts to touch, but there's no surface mark.
“Okay. You could have warned me this time.”
I spin around and find Harvey at the door, my phone shielding his eyes.
“Wuss.” I drop the towel back over my ass and reach for the device. “Thanks.”
“You need anything else?”
“Find out what the yelling was about?”
He snorts. “Kane bein’ the fuckin’ asshole he is.”
“What’d he do this time?” I roll my eyes as I unlock the phone.
“Had Rae by the throat.”
“The fuck?” I drop the device to my side and frown at my brother.
"Exactly what Dad said." He raises an eyebrow. Kane's upstairs, sulking. He probably thinks he's in the right, as usual."
“They gonna do anything about it?”
He nods. “Later.” Harvey jerks his chin toward the phone in my hand. “It doesn’t have a lot of charge. I plugged it in, but Hammer took it out to put his on.”
“All good.” I glance back at the home screen. “I won’t need it for much anyway.”
“No?” He leans his shoulder against the doorframe, only to move again when Jamie nudges him in the back. “Sorry.”
“Got you something comfortable,” she says, weaving past my brother to hand me a pair of sweats and a loose T-shirt. “Let me know if you need anything else.”
I glance at the phone—at the numerous missed calls and texts—and set it aside. Not yet . I don't have the energy to get past the wall of reminders of what happened to me.
To us.
“Either of you heard anything about Deo?” I stare at the counter as I ask the question, shame strong as I deal the closest card to my heart.
"It's okay," Harvey says softly. "We all know by now that you went on a date with him, sis." He glances at Jamie by his side. "None of us care."
Fuck these tears. I’m over it. But at the same time, it feels good to cry for something good .
"Hey." Jamie rushes forward and pulls me against her, one arm wrapped around the back of my shoulders. I stiffen, resisting her offer of comfort at first, and glance at my baby brother.
It's his gentle smile that lessens my resolve to guard my weakest organ. I lift my arms and accept the compassion freely given, holding Jamie to me. She draws a deep breath, shoulders rising with the movement, and then releases me to take a step back.
“I heard Dad was callin’ Marco about Deo, but that was hours ago.” Harvey shrugs. “I can go ask if you like?”
“No.” I swipe my phone from the counter and hand it to him. “Can you delete all this, though?”
He glances down at the notifications, confusion apparent in the twist of his brow.
“I can’t deal with it,” I confess. “I don’t want to hear how scared or hurt everyone was.”
“That’s fair.” Jamie reaches across Harvey and swipes the screen open for him.
He levels a flat-lipped smile and nods. "You want me to tell you any of it? I mean…" He hesitates, opening a message and reading the words. His lips move slightly as he does. "You don't want to know if anyone left you a message about anythin' else?"
"I doubt they would have." The soft interior of the sweats feel like heaven against my skin as I tug them on beneath the towel. "I just need it clear so I can message Deo." I pause, T-shirt in my fist. "Tell him I'm okay."
And then hope that we are, too.