Page 34

Rhue

Everything about Madison Willis makes my heart turn and twist in the most painful ways, yet I cannot get enough of her.

I have spent the past year working so hard to hate her.

Convincing myself that I do, in fact, hate her.

I almost succeeded in making her life hell, too, upon our unexpected reunion.

And, for a while, I was convinced that I was doing the right thing.

Or rather, the righteous thing.

But her pain finally reached me. It awakened the soul I put to sleep when I saw Madison with my father.

It brought back the suffering. The bitterness.

The disappointment. That acrid feeling of rejection.

The anger of her betrayal blinded me. I am not entitled to her.

I never was, yet I treated her as though she owed her misery to me, somehow.

“Sorry, Maddie, I didn’t mean to startle you,” I say, then quickly realize I called her Maddie. She was always so strict about who gets to call her that. She’s going to give me an earful, now, but I deserve it.

Good grief, she felt amazing in my arms last night. Like sin on a stick, sweetly glazed in honey and crushed almonds and everything else that is good and wonderful in this life, yet it comes at a price—a steep price, my soul in hell for an eternity.

Somehow, paying it doesn’t feel like that much of a disaster.

“Calling those two Romeo and Juliet is like inviting tragedy,” Madison mutters, moving away from me.

The scent of her fades, and I have a hard time letting it go.

I’ve been thinking about this, more through the last night than the past year.

I hate to use the word “epiphany,” but I may have had one.

“And they’re fine,” she adds. “They’re light drinkers and still sleeping the night off. ”

“Did they not freeze to death?” I chuckle, secretly thankful that she somehow let me call her Maddie. It makes our dynamic all the more intimate, despite her clear animosity towards me.

She’s doing it on purpose, though, trying to push me away. To keep me at arm’s length. It’s a defense mechanism. I learned that from Mom. I am a danger to Madison, and she knows it. It’s why she’s trying to protect herself like this, though she had no trouble finding ecstasy in my hands last night.

Damn, the memory alone is enough to get my cock pumping again. It’s been a rough night. A rough year. A rough life.

“Nah, I just saw them stirring under the covers,” Madison replies. “We should wait for them to leave before we get out.”

“Why?”

“We pretended to be other students last night,” she says, frowning. “If we reveal ourselves now, they’ll know we have something to hide.”

I move closer—close enough to feel her breath on my lips. Her heart stops beating at the same time as mine, and the silence that follow is exquisite.

“Do we have something to hide?” I ask, raising an eyebrow as I gently brush her cheek with my fingertips.

Madison shudders under my touch, but she pulls back again. She’s scared. “No.”

“You’re scared of me,” I sigh, feeling rather disappointed.

She hesitates, staring at me for a while. Her blue eyes say so much, while her lips press into a thin, sad line. “I’m not scared. Just wary. You’ve given me no reason to trust you whatsoever.”

“Last night should count.”

“It doesn’t. It was a moment of weakness, and it will not happen again,” Madison replies, choosing to gaze out the window rather than face me. “Let’s just wait until they leave and pretend we tolerate each other’s company in the meantime.”

I don’t know why I expected this to go any better, considering the hell I put her through from the moment we met in Ithaca.

Perhaps it’s my entitlement. Laura likes to point that out a lot, even though she is also a recipient of the same said privilege.

At least she’s aware of it. I seem to have been walking around thinking I’m owed whatever I want without considering that I might have to give something in return, as well.

Outside, it’s a rather chilly morning, the mist trickling through the woods and covering the dead leaves with a milky blanket.

The corners of the cabin windows are steamed, drops of water forming before they slip down along the wooden walls.

There’s still a faint scent of burnt logs in the fireplace, where only a handful of coals remain, basking in a mound of ashes.

This is a nice place, once you dust it all off and clear out the cobwebs.

Again, I find myself thinking that I wouldn’t mind sticking around for a while longer. Maybe it would even be a bonus if Madison stays, too. I doubt I could keep myself good company, considering I don’t really like being left alone with my thoughts these days.

“I hurt you a lot,” I say, settling on the sofa. If Madison wants us to wait, I’ll wait. I’m in no position to demand anything of her. “But you hurt me first, Madison.”

I pause to look at her. She’s gazing out the window, her shoulder pressed into the frame.

There’s a pink bloom persisting in her cheeks, and I am reminded of how beautiful she truly is.

She’s wearing her hair longer these days, either loose in lazy curls that drape down her back or pulled up in a tight bun.

I imagine twisting one lock around my finger while we lay in bed, the morning sun bathing us both in gold—this needs to stop.

“What I don’t understand is what triggered this change in mindset,” Madison mutters, her gaze fixed on something outside.

I hear murmurs. A muffled conversation. Cameron and Lindsey are slowly coming to, descending from the drunken steamy sex madness of last night and into the crisp and chilling morning in the middle of a forest. “I mean, less than a week ago you were promising me more hell to pay. And I doubt you’re dumb enough to try and play me twice like you did after the game.

I’m obviously not gonna fall for that again. ”

“Wondering what my mom would think of me if she saw me now,” I say, more to myself than to her.

“Don’t say that,” Madison says.

I shake my head. I’m telling the truth, and as nice as Madison thinks she’s being right now, she’s also wrong.

Saying it out loud is exactly what I need to do.

I’m fucking tired of being angry, tired of being vengeful.

If I keep this up, I’ll become a monster, just like my father – filled with enough hate to drown the world.

“So, you’ve had a change of heart?” Madison says, breaking the silence we’ve fallen into.

“Maybe? I don’t know. I don’t know what to think of you or how to move forward.

I don’t know how to make things right, if that is even possible.

I only know that I don’t like this conflict between us.

It’s draining the energy out of me,” I tell her.

“It’s making me jaded and tired. We’re both too young to dry out like this. ”

Madison scoffs, crossing her arms before she gives me a contemptuous sideways glance. “You’re the most selfish person I have ever met. And you’ll remember I met your father.”

“That’s a low kick, even for you,” I say, hoping the anger that flashes in my eyes as she mentions my father isn’t all too noticeable.

“It’s the truth. You are selfish,” she says.

“But Rhue, I––” She pauses upon hearing a soft thud on the porch and then her thought hops on a whole different train.

“Oh, they’re leaving,” she continues, her focus now on Cameron and Lindsey.

I never get to hear the rest of whatever confession Madison was about to make.

Madison moves away from the window and into a dark spot where she can’t be seen from the outside. Cameron almost spots me when he tries to peek through, but I drop on the floor behind the sofa and breathe calmly, waiting for him to grow tired and leave.

“Anyone there?” Lindsey calls out. She’s trying the door, but it’s still locked. “Fuckers.”

“Selfish dicks!” Cameron adds, then Madison and I sit in utter silence while listening to the sound of their footsteps receding.

They’re going back to the road, now, and we’re in the clear.

They passed the hazing ritual, too, though I do wonder if Mackenzie gave them a pass.

Given how determined she was to piss me off, I would have expected her to come around a few more times throughout the night.

Maybe she did. Maybe she saw those two on the rattan loveseat outside and decided to spare them the monstrous humiliation of an airsoft massacre.

The more I think about last night, the higher my temperature goes as I remember what almost happened between Madison and me.

She is genuinely fearful of me, and we’re clearly in a belligerent dynamic, here; but the way she moved in my arms, the deliciously gruff sound of her orgasm, the feel of her slickness against the palm of my hand…

“I reckon things are gonna be awkward in class tomorrow,” I chuckle as I get up.

Madison scowls. There’s a change in her from just moments ago.

“We should have told them it was us from the very beginning. You’ve made this needlessly complicated.

And why? Because you didn’t want anyone to think we were doing anything.

It would be such a shame if anyone so much as implied a sexual relationship between you and the whore who ruined your family, wouldn’t it? ”

“Whoa. Being a little too harsh, there.”

“Am I, though? It’s what you like to call me, isn’t it?” she replies, increasingly angry. And she is absolutely right.

Trying to stem this flow is a bad idea. Madison has been holding this stuff in for a while. She deserves a release. I should be on the receiving end of a lot of punches and kicks. Yet she stands before me, calm and composed, though her voice does betray her emotions.

“You hurt my family, Madison,” I admit, trying to keep my voice calm. Trying to say the words without diving into what they actually mean because as tired as I am, I do have every right in the world to hate Madison.

“Did you even think to ask how I ended up in your father’s bed? All the accusations, all the insults, but that one simple question was just too much for you?”

“How did you and my father end up together, Madison?”

She shakes her head. “It’s too late for explanations now, Rhue.”

Madison dry-swallows and grabs her jacket, briefly checking her phone. The battery is obviously dead. Mine has also been off since earlier this morning.

“We need to go. I’m getting hungry, and we’ve got a long walk through the woods ahead of us.”

She doesn’t wait for me before heading out, and I am compelled to follow.

Madison walks through the woods, and I tag along, gradually realizing that there is so much about her and about that day that I don’t know.

I spin her words around in my head. The more I think, the more questions I’m presented with.

Like how long had she been seeing my father?

Was that their first time together? Second?

Tenth? Too many to count? Did she do it for money? Was she in love with him?

I shake my head. This is not the direction I wanted to go in. And asking questions in my head that I can’t answer will only lead me back to the road of hatred where Madison is concerned.

So I drop it.

I survived hazing weekend, coming out with nothing more than a few bruises and a slight headache. That’ll have to be enough for now. One accomplishment at a time, even if those accomplishments don’t mean shit.