Page 48 of False Start

She’d stopped answering my texts. She’d stopped picking up my calls. At school, she avoided me in every way she could.

When I found out about the party my parents were hosting, that’s when the first bit of wind blew. That’s when the storm announced its impending arrival.

I didn’t know why I felt that way, only that my gut was telling me something and I wanted to listen. I called and texted Madelyn repeatedly, begging her to be there.

But she didn’t come.

Not until the next morning, when everything had blown up.

I’d been staring out my window in a daze after the longest night of my life, my lip split and starting to scab from trying to control my father. He’d shown his ass in the worst possible ways, in ways that I knew couldn’t be erased with a simple apology.

But then I saw her.

Madelyn parked her car in front of our house, and I swallowed, watching as she walked toward the door with her arms crossed hard in front of her chest. She didn’t look up at my bedroom window the way she usually did. She just kept her eyes on the door.

I waited.

I waited for my parents to call me downstairs, to say that Madelyn was there to see me.

I waited for Madelyn herself to bound up the stairs and into my room, to throw herself into my arms and say she was sorry she hadn’t been there.

I waited for mercy, and it never came.

Instead, I heard voices downstairs, and thought it was just her being polite to my parents before she came up.

Then, I saw her leave.

She was only a couple steps across our lawn when I barreled downstairs, wild-eyed and panicking. I’d sprinted for the door, but my parents had stopped me — Dad with a hard hand on my chest, Mom with her eyes flooded with tears as she shook her head.

I’d looked between them and knew before they said a word that Madelyn had turned her back on us.

On me.

“I’m sorry, son,” Dad had said, and the way his eyes stuck on my split lip, I wondered if he was apologizing for more than one thing. “She doesn’t want to see you.”

Mom had folded in on herself, crying even more, until Dad gently nudged her and she nodded, her eyes finding mine.

“She’s asked us to tell you…” She shook her head, more tears spilling. “She’s asked that you stay away from her.”

My entire world had crashed down with those words.

I pushed past my parents, one of them spitting apologies while the other one tried to stop me. I didn’t know which was which. I pushed until I reached the door and yanked it open, but Madelyn was already gone.

My father took my phone then — as punishment for my behavior the night before, but also as a mercy.

He knew as well as I did that I wouldn’t have been able to leave Madelyn alone, not even when she asked me to.

It was the longest weekend of my life.

And on Monday, my dad took me to school long enough to get my shit.

And we moved.

A distant laugh from check in snapped me back to the moment, and I glanced over to find Braden working his charm on the attendant handing him his room key. I swallowed, trying to erase the memory of the past as well as Madelyn’s question from the plane.

Why did you leave?

She knew. Sheknewwhy. She’d told me to stay away, and then my parents had put states between us, robbing me of any choice after.