Exes and O's

by Joy Argento

  “I will. You okay now?”

  “Absolutely.” She meant it. If the anger seeped back in, she would just shake it off. She could manage that. Couldn’t she?

  “Good. I’ll see you tomorrow.” Jenny turned the OPEN/CLOSED sign around on her way out the door.

  The day was pretty much like any other day, except for back twinges here and there. Thoughts of Ali came and went without much emotion attached to it. Of course, every time someone walked in the door Madison looked up with a sudden flood of acid in her stomach, and each time she was relieved it wasn’t Ali. Madison assumed she would be on her way back to wherever it was she had come from.

  * * *

  Ali gave Madison a couple of days to calm down before she attempted to speak to her again. She had no idea where Madison lived, and her online searches didn’t prove helpful. She drove by her old house but had heard that both of Madison’s parents had passed away. It had been the only time she had the urge to reach out to her since that fateful day. She hadn’t of course, but how she wished now that she had. The name on the mailbox was Tina and Bruce Timberland, so that was a dead end.

  That left her two choices. She could hang out on the trail she had seen Madison running down while she was parked in front of the donut shop a few days ago or go back to the donut shop. She had no idea how often Madison went running and was sure Madison could easily outrun her if she wanted to get away. So, the donut shop it was.

  Going to her place of business again wasn’t ideal. But there didn’t seem to be any other options. She parked a block away, not that she thought anyone would recognize her car, but she didn’t want to take any chances. Each step she took increased the tight feeling in her chest as she walked to O’s. She half expected to have a heart attack before she got there. She wondered if she did and Madison came across her, would she just walk over her and leave her there, dying on the sidewalk. The old Madison wouldn’t have. But this one—this one probably would. That hurt Ali’s heart because she knew she was to blame for Madison hating her.

  A few deep breaths outside the door helped loosen her chest. Slightly. Once inside, she spotted Madison at the counter having an animated conversation with two older gentlemen. One of them had his hand on the other’s knee. Much too intimate a gesture for them to be just friends. Ali figured they must be partners. There were no other customers in the place. Coming between the breakfast and lunch lull had been a good idea.

  The smile on Madison’s face disappeared as soon as she spotted Ali. The men at the counter obviously noticed because they both turned and looked at her and then back at Madison.

  Madison whispered something to them. Ali couldn’t make it out.

  “You’ve got this,” one of them said to her. She must have told them who Ali was. With that, they got up and went to the door. Ali stepped out of their way. The taller man nodded at her as way of a greeting.

  “I know you probably don’t want to see me,” Ali started as soon as the door closed behind the men. “But if you could just give me a few minutes, I would really appreciate it.”

  Madison wiped her hands on the apron wrapped around her waist. “You’re right. I don’t want to see you. I’ll give you a chance to say your piece. But only because my friends said I should. I’m hoping you will leave town after I do.”

  Leaving wasn’t part of the plan. At least she hoped it wasn’t. “Would you…I mean—”

  “Ali, just spit it out.”

  “Would you consider having dinner with me? Or a drink? I don’t even know if you drink. I mean, if you drink.” She knew she was rambling but had trouble reeling it back in.

  “Why would I want to do that? I said everything I had to say.”

  “There is still more I would like to say, and I would like to get to know you again. I never stopped caring. We’ve missed so much.”

  “We missed it because of you.”

  Ali didn’t expect this to be easy and it certainly wasn’t. She should have prepared better. “I know that now. I take full responsibility. But I’m asking for a chance. I don’t expect forgiveness.”

  Forgiveness. That was an interesting word. Madison knew that she had to forgive Ali, not for Ali’s sake but for her own. She just wasn’t ready to do it yet. Both Tom and Joe had noticed the look on Madison’s face when Ali walked in and immediately asked her what was wrong. She could only guess that she had turned ash white. They had suggested she hear Ali out. That was the only reason she was listening to her now. She wondered what they would say about her agreeing to dinner. She was sure they would be all for it. They were always trying to push her to date. Not that this would be a date. Maybe a compromise would work and get her some peace back in her life. “If I agree to have a drink with you—one drink—will you leave town?”

  She could almost see the wheels turning in Ali’s head as she thought about it. “Two drinks and you have to give me time to say my piece and be willing to answer questions.”

  “I reserve the right to refuse any questions that I don’t want to answer.”

  “Deal. When and where?”

  Oh shit. Had she really just agreed to have a drink—correction, two drinks—with the woman who had ripped her heart to shreds? If it meant Ali would go home and leave her alone it would be worth it. She could put up with her for an hour or two if that was her reward.

  “Tomorrow at seven.” The sooner the better. Where was what she wasn’t sure of. This was such a small town. Everyone knew everyone, and she didn’t want anyone asking her questions if they happened to see her out with Ali. Hell, there were still more than a handful of people in town that they had gone to high school with. She only knew one bar that wasn’t right in town. She’d had a few bad internet dates there. They’d soured her on those dating apps.

  “There is a bar on Highway Eight. It’s called the Butterfly Bar.” Madison pulled an order pad from under the counter, wrote down the directions, and handed it to Ali.

  “I’ve never heard of this place.”

  The comment pissed Madison off. “Ali, you haven’t been back here for twenty years. How the hell would you have heard of it?”

  “Touché. I deserve that.”

  Madison refused to feel bad for her statement or for the tone of her voice. Ali did deserve that and much more. “If there is nothing else, I need to get ready for the lunch crowd.”

  “There is one more thing.”

  Of course, there was. “What?” she asked, less than patient.

  “Can I get a chocolate cream donut? The one I had here the other day was even better than the ones I used to get when I hung out here after school.”

  The statement threatened to ping Madison’s heart, but she pushed the memory away before it could weasel its way in. She boxed up a donut, handed it to Ali, and waved away the money she attempted to hand her.

  Valerie came in through the back door for her afternoon shift. She looked from Madison to Ali. “Everything okay here, boss?”

  “Yep. Fine. Ali was just leaving,” Madison told her.

  “Yes. I was just leaving. Thanks for this.” Ali held up the donut box, took a couple of steps backward, then turned and made her way out of the shop.

  “You sure you’re okay?” Valerie asked once Ali was gone. “You seemed pretty upset the last time she was here.”

  “Yes. I’m fine.”

  “Can I ask you who that is?”

  “My ex,” Madison said without emotion. “Long story.” She hoped Valerie would drop it and was glad when she didn’t ask any more questions. But it wasn’t Valerie’s possible questions that were bothering her. It was that she had agreed to meet Ali at Butterfly’s. Why in the hell had she done that?

  Chapter Eight

  Madison got to the Butterfly Bar a half hour early. She wanted to have a drink before Ali got there to calm her nerves. She wasn’t sure what she was nervous about. Ali shou
ld be the one who was nervous. She was about to state her case and then be sent on her way. Madison refused to be sucked in by her. Sure, they had a past. A past that was wonderful up until the time Ali disappeared. There was no going back now. No making up for lost time.

  She ordered her whiskey sour at the bar and made her way to a table in the corner with her drink in hand. She wanted to be sure she could see the door. The last thing she needed was to have Ali sneaking up on her.

  It occurred to her that she and Ali had never had a drink in a bar together. Sure, they drank a bottle of beer or two at parties, but they were too young to legally get into bars. Ali, always the more adventurous one, wanted to get fake IDs and go out drinking. But Madison was too chicken, and Ali said she wouldn’t go without her. That was one thing Ali always was—loyal. It would have been nice if she realized that Madison was equally as loyal and never would have done anything to hurt her.

  Madison watched two women across the bar slow dancing to a song on the jukebox. This was the only gay bar within a hundred miles, and she liked the fact that they didn’t play ear-splittingly loud music. You could hear if you wanted to have a conversation. Not that she wanted to have a conversation with Ali. But at least it would go quicker if they weren’t constantly asking each other to repeat themselves.

  She was surprised to see Ali arrive twenty minutes early. Madison had barely started her drink. She took a large gulp before waving Ali over. “You’re early.”

  Ali laughed. “Look who’s talking.”

  Madison couldn’t help but smile and then was mad at herself for doing it. “Grab yourself a drink at the bar. They take forever here if you wait for someone to come to the table.”

  “Can I get you another one?” Ali pointed to Madison’s glass.

  “I’m fine.”

  Ali made her way to the bar and returned in short order with a beer in her hand from one of the local microbreweries. Just like old times, although back then their beer was usually the cheapest one available. “Thank you for agreeing to meet me. I have to say I’m surprised it’s a gay bar. I didn’t know they had such things around here.”

  “You mean in these here back wood hills. We ain’t nearly as uncultured as you remember,” Madison said, trying to do a hillbilly accent and failing at it.

  “You ain’t?” Ali asked.

  “We ain’t. Besides,” Madison said. “If you noticed, we aren’t in the small town of Clyde anymore.”

  “Not too far out though. It’s good. I’m glad.” Ali pulled out the chair across from Madison and sat down. “Madison, I didn’t leave because we lived in a small town. I left because I couldn’t face being here without you. I thought we were over. I couldn’t bear the thought of seeing you with someone else.”

  “But—”

  Ali put up her hand to stop her. “I know I was wrong, but I didn’t know that then. My intention was never to hurt you. It was to try to put the pieces of my broken heart back together somewhere else. Somewhere far away.”

  “How come you never bothered to tell me you were leaving? Tell me what you thought you saw? Gave me a chance to tell you what happened?” Madison had had no intention of asking these or any other questions. Maybe it was the alcohol, but suddenly she needed to know. Ali’s heart hadn’t been the only one shattered.

  Ali took a swig of her beer and shook her head. “I should have. I thought I knew everything I needed to know when I saw you kissing Howard.”

  “When you saw Howard kissing me,” Madison said a little more harshly than she intended to.

  “I didn’t know that. I thought you didn’t care about me anymore. I was a stupid teenager.”

  “You didn’t give even one thought about what that would do to me? To have you disappear and never talk to me again?”

  “If you want an honest answer, in that moment I didn’t care.”

  “Gee, thanks.” It might have been honest, but that didn’t stop it from hurting.

  “No. It’s not that I didn’t care about you. I’ve always cared about you. It’s that my pain outweighed anything I thought you might be going through. I thought you had moved on. I didn’t think you would miss me.”

  “Miss you? Miss you? You’ve got to be kidding me. We did everything together. Everything. And then suddenly you’re gone. No explanation. No good-bye. Just gone. I cried myself to sleep for months.” That was so much more than she had intended to share, but it felt good to get it out.

  “I’m so sorry for that. If it helps any, I cried for months too.”

  “It doesn’t.”

  “Am I going to be punished for the rest of my life for something I did when I was eighteen?”

  Madison was silent. If everyone got punished forever for things they did as teenagers, we would all be in a world of trouble. Most teenagers didn’t think about consequences, didn’t think about the damage they could be doing. She wasn’t sitting across from a teenager now. She was sitting across from an adult. An adult who honestly seemed to be sorry. It left her confused, as if her younger, hurt self was warring with her grown-up self who had moved on.

  “I’ve done a lot of stupid things in my life, but that was by far the worse. We both ended up hurt because I didn’t give you a chance to explain.”

  “And there’s the difference. I am giving you a chance for just that.”

  “Don’t you think I know that? I appreciate it. After our conversation in the donut shop, I thought for sure you would rather shoot me than listen to anything I had to say.”

  “I haven’t ruled that out yet.” Madison laughed. She did her best to suppress it, but it bubbled out anyway.

  “Madison, if I thought it would take away any of the hurt, I would load the gun and hand it to you.”

  “Don’t try to cheer me up.”

  This time it was Ali who laughed. The lines around her eyes crinkled, showing her age, but looking good on her all the same.

  This wasn’t the way Madison had expected the evening to go. She had imagined sitting across from Ali, stone-faced, while Ali said what she had to say, and that would be it. Over and done and Ali would leave. A big part of her still wanted Ali to leave, but another part, a confusing part, didn’t.

  “Can I ask you about your life?” Ali took a long swig of her beer, her eyes never leaving Madison while she waited for her answer.

  “That depends on the question.”

  “You said you told your parents you were gay. How did they react?”

  Madison had been scared to death to tell them, but she did in order to live her truth as well as to please Ali. A lot of good it did for that. “Both of them said they just wanted me to be happy. They worried but took it well.”

  “When you told them did you also tell them we had been together?”

  “No.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I thought you should have the chance to tell your parents first. Then you were gone.”

  It all came back to that. Ali left when she should have stayed. Ali had no way to undo the past. All she could do was try to make it up to Madison now. “What about after I was gone?” she asked.

  “What about it?” Madison sighed. “You mean did I tell them then?”

  Ali nodded. She lifted her beer to her lips and realized the bottle was empty. How had she drained it so fast?

  “They thought I was sad because my best friend left town. And I was. You were my best friend as well as the love of my life,” Madison said.

  Love of my life. Ali rolled those words around in her head. That was why she was never happy or fully committed to anyone else. Because Madison had been the love of her life too. Maybe she still was. How did you replace something like that? Yes, they were young, but the feelings were real. “Do you still feel that way?”

  Madison looked confused. “What way?”

  “That I was the love of your life?�
�

  “At the time I did.”

  “That’s not what I asked. I asked if you still feel like I was the love of your life. Has there been anyone else you’ve been with who has compared to what we had?”

  “What difference does that make now?”

  “Madison, I have had failed relationship after failed relationship. I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s because I never stopped caring about you.”

  “Ali, that was a long time ago. You need to let it go and get on with your life.”

  Madison wasn’t making this easy, but Ali was determined to find out if she had a chance, even a tiny one, of getting Madison back. “Are you with anyone now?” That would definitely throw a monkey wrench in the plan.

  “That doesn’t matter. My feelings for you changed a long time ago.”

  That one hurt. Knife planted directly to her heart and twisted. “But we have now. Maybe you can get the feelings back. Can’t we at least try?”

  “No.”

  One simple answer. One word. The worst word Ali had ever heard. Was it worth begging? As much as she wanted to, she knew it would send Madison further away.

  “You said you would leave after a drink and conversation. I still expect you to do that,” Madison said.

  “Two drinks.”

  “What?”

  “You agreed to two drinks.”

  “Are you really going to push this?”

  As much as Ali wanted to stay longer, say more, she knew it was useless. “You win. I’ll go.” She pushed her chair away from the table. “It was good seeing you, Madison. I hope you’re happy. That’s all I ever wanted for you. I was just hoping it would be with me.” She turned and left before Madison had a chance to respond.

  She knew she had to get over Madison. She just didn’t know how she was going to do it.

  Chapter Nine

  The donut shop was busier than usual at four o’clock, and Madison stayed a half hour longer than she usually did on a Friday even though Valerie had arrived on time to relieve her. She didn’t mind. She didn’t have anyone at home waiting for her or anything special planned for the evening. The sun was still bright in the sky as she slipped out the back door. One more reason she loved where she lived. The sunny days far outnumbered the overcast ones. She briefly considered a quick run before dinner time and changed her mind because her back was bothering her again. Just as she opened the door to her car, she heard a voice behind her that made her jump.