by S. J. Sylvis
I was leery of men.
I was afraid of the ones my mother brought home.
I was afraid of my own father.
And I was afraid of Eric.
I wasn’t afraid because I thought he’d hurt me, but because I knew there would be a time in the future where I’d have to let my guard down and trust someone enough to be this vulnerable with, and deep down, I wanted it to be him.
Eric growled as he spun around, and my crossed arms fell as I pulled myself out of my panic-inducing thoughts. My heart skipped a beat when he picked the clothes up off the bed and threw them in my direction again. “You’re not going home. Put these on and come downstairs. There’s Chinese...and brownies.”
No. No. No.
“Eric—"
He gave me a stern look, his jaw ticking back and forth. “You’re not going home.”
“Why?” Why was he being like this? Why did he care so much?
“Because what if he comes back tonight?”
My shoulders dropped. Oh. I didn’t think of that.
“I’ll just watch out the window, and if he happens to come back again, which I don’t think he will, I’ll just jump out my window and shimmy down the drainpipe again.”
“No,” he snapped. “If he comes back, I will rip his fucking arms off his body to teach him that he shouldn’t touch things that don’t belong to him.”
Whoa. My face flamed as desire wrapped herself around my body. Eric didn’t waste any time barking at me to get dressed before he left the room, and for once, I listened.
The second I stepped out of Eric’s room and into the hallway, my muscles grew tight. I felt like a small child getting ready to tell her parents that she’d done something bad. Like I was awaiting some form of punishment.
I remembered Eric’s mom being the nicest adult I’d ever met. My mom wasn’t “mean” by any means, but she was selfish—just like me. Eric’s mom wasn’t. Heather was the type of woman who made homemade cookies for the bake sales at English Prep Middle, and who yelled for Eric in the stands of a football game, wearing war paint on her face to match his. She was genuinely nice. Which was why it made me feel even worse when I’d found out that her own husband was cheating on her. I couldn’t even look her in the eye after I’d found Eric’s father leaving my mom’s bedroom the first time. Even at age twelve, I wasn't naive enough to believe he came over to fix a leaky sink or something. It was right after my father had disappeared for a few months, which was right around the time things became very real in my life.
I stood on the second stair up after taking my sweet time descending the steps, wearing Heather’s clothes: a black pair of comfy joggers and an English Prep shirt that had “Eric’s Mom” on the back. Did she hate me? She probably hated me. I looked just like my mother, too. Both with golden, salon-like hair. Bright-blue eyes. Slender bodies. Would she even be able to look me in the eye? All signs pointed to yes, because of how nice she’d always been, but I was still worried.
No. I tightened my ponytail harshly in the form of discipline. Being worried that she hated me was beyond selfish. She was allowed to hate me. After all, I could have told Eric and put a stop to the entire thing years ago.
But of course, my selfishness got in the way.
Pick a side, Madeline. Mean or nice? What’ll it be?
Sometimes I wished I could just go back to being a selfish bitch who cared about nothing other than herself. But now I was a little jaded. Split in two right down the middle. I was knocked off my high horse, and I was having a hard time climbing back up. Everyone at English Prep thought Christian’s very public break-up with me was the reason I was a recluse now, but they were wrong.
Someone else ruined me.
And it wasn’t him.
“I told you,” Heather sang. “You are protective.”
Eric’s voice was gruff. “What are you talking about?”
“Did you know, when you were little, you used to check under my bed for monsters?” I heard some shuffling around as I took another step down to hear better.
“What?”
Heather’s soft laugh moved up the stairs to where I was eavesdropping. “Yep. Instead of being worried monsters were under your bed to get you in the middle of the night, you would check under my bed. You used to say, ‘Mom, I’m just making sure you’ll be protected from monsters at night.’” She laughed again. “It was so cute. And further proves my point that you are fiercely protective.”
“Whatever,” Eric said nonchalantly, as if he weren’t even paying attention.
“I’m just saying. You’re protective by nature, sweetie. And you just proved my point by what just happened upstairs.”
She was right. Eric was protective, even if he pretended not to be. I felt my heart awaken with his words, “If he comes back, I will rip his fucking arms off his body to teach him that he shouldn’t touch things that don’t belong to him.” I knew I had absolutely no right liking it, but I did.
“Should we go check on her? You gave her the clothes, right?”
I glanced down at the white English Prep shirt. Maybe his mom didn’t hate me? She didn’t sound hateful at all, but again, that wasn’t surprising. Heather was simply nice. She was the type of woman who was still able to smile even after her husband fucked the next-door neighbor.
“She’s fine,” Eric sighed.
I gulped up the last of the oxygen on the stairs and leveled my shoulders, preparing to be swimming in my guilty conscience as I took the final step down.
“Hi,” I whispered as I walked into the living room.
Eric and his mom both glanced up at me, and I froze. My stomach fell to the floor with a clunk. I was jittery and filled to the brim with nerves.
“Hi, sweetie.” Heather’s face split in two with the warmest smile I'd ever been graced with. “Are you feeling better?”
Heat coated my cheeks, and I fluttered my eyes away. “Yes. I’m fine. I’m sorr—"
“Nope!” Her voice was cheerful. “I won’t hear of it. No apology necessary. We all have bad dreams sometimes.”
Not like this.
“Eric used to have them too. I can’t tell you how many times I found him standing in my room, asking if he could sleep in there.”
Eric’s dark brows crowded. “Mom. Stop.”
My lips twitched when she smiled innocently and rolled her eyes. “Well, come on in here. Would you like some warm tea? Or we have brownies and Chinese.”
Why was she so nice? And welcoming?
It only made me feel worse.
I took a step further into the living room, my bare feet sinking into the comfy rug. “Oh, no,” I answered softly. “I don’t want to be a bother.” My arms went directly to my torso as I pulled into myself. Eric gave me a weird look, like he couldn’t believe that I was acting this way. I couldn’t believe it either. Snap out of it, Madeline! Every word I said so far nearly trembled coming out of my mouth. My guilty conscience was whispering uncertainties in my ear to the point that I almost just walked out the front door.
I have to apologize. My mom was selfish and was too busy chasing after her own happiness to care about anyone else’s—even mine. I didn’t fault her for it. I understood. But just because I understood something didn’t mean that I thought it was the right choice. She made bad choices all the time.
“You are not a bother! I’ll go get you some tea.”
I went to protest again, but Eric spoke up. “I’ll make it. You two can pick something to watch.” His voice was relaxed and smooth, but when he glanced my way, his eyes told a different story. There was a lot going on in his head. He was probably getting whiplash with my behavior just like I was with his.
I wasn’t acting like the Madeline of English Prep. Eric was seeing more and more of the girl who was ruined instead of the girl who did the ruining.
“Will you make me some too?” his mom asked, smiling over at him.
“Of course, Mom.” My heart stuttered to a complete stop when I watch
ed Eric’s rock-hard jaw soften into a relaxed smile. His lips showcased a glimpse of his white teeth, and his dark eyes somehow turned light.
“Thanks, sweetie.”
When he cut his gaze back to me, his smile disappeared just as fast. He turned around and walked into the kitchen, leaving me and my stuttering heart alone with his mom.
“Here.” Heather handed me a gray knit blanket as she pulled me over to sit on the love seat. Their living room was large but still cozy. A flatscreen TV hung above a fireplace mantle with a ridiculous number of pictures of Eric on top, showing just how much he had grown over the years.
“Thank you.”
Once I sat on the couch and curled my legs up underneath my butt, I draped the warm blanket over my body and bit my lip. Being alone with Heather had me panicking. It was almost as bad as being in my house at night, fighting off sleep because another man was in bed with my mom. My entire body was tensed up to the point that my muscles ached.
“What would you like to watch, Madeline? What do you like?”
I slowly turned my head and looked at Heather. Her chestnut hair was tied in a low pony, and her warm eyes were pouring into mine so intently that I couldn’t stop the words from cutting through the air. “I’m so sorry.”
Her perfectly sculpted brows knitted together as she witnessed me breaking. I bit my lip even harder to keep it from shaking. I knew Eric’s dad and my mom were the ones at fault. The first time he’d come over to our house was when he’d made his mistake. But I could have told Eric. I had the power to stop it before it went on for too long, but I didn’t.
“No,” Heather said softly. Her features fell, her lips forming a frown. “You have nothing to be sorry for.”
Yes, I do.
I gulped back the tight lump squeezing my neck. I knew why I hadn’t told anyone, and I knew why I had stopped talking to Eric—why I’d cut him out of my life. But again, just because I understood why I did it, that didn’t necessarily mean it was the right choice.
It was just hard to know what the right choice was when you weren’t sure of which consequences were worse.
Was it worth my guilt? Was it worth losing Eric? Because from where I was currently sitting, it wasn’t.
Even more so when Eric came walking into the living room, balancing two cups of tea in his large hand and a container full of homemade brownies in the other.
He appeared so nonchalant at school, so lazily cool and unperturbed by much. The only expression change I’d ever seen from his relaxed features was a glare in my direction or he wouldn’t look at me at all. But here, in his house, he was relaxed in a harmonious way, shining his heart-stopping smile toward his mom, giving her a blanket, and laughing freely at something she said as he handed her the brownies. It all seemed so normal.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” he whispered as he sat down in the seat beside me. There was a large fold-down cup holder in between us, blocking us from touching. Thank God.
I shrugged shyly, taking the cup of warm tea from him. “It’s just weird. Seeing you so… nice.”
He sat further back into the couch cushions but not before speaking low enough that his mom wouldn’t hear. “Nice people deserve nice treatment. Why do you think I’ve been mean to you for the last few years?”
I took a sip of my tea before I put it down and turned toward the TV. I was hoping Eric’s mom didn’t hear me when I said, “It’s okay to hate me, Eric. I hate me too.”
Especially now. Heather didn’t deserve what Eric’s father did to her. And Eric didn’t deserve what I did to him.
I had shut him out, and I was regretting it.
Chapter Twenty
Eric
Denial was a beautiful, beautiful thing. I loved how easily I could deny everything my brain was telling me.
Madeline needs you. No, she doesn’t.
You need her. Absolutely not.
You should help her. She could help herself.
As soon as my mom fell asleep on the couch, I turned the TV off and glanced at Madeline, trying to remember that she and I were nothing more than passing enemies.
I still felt the slight simmer of rage inside, knowing the man who made her into this weak, breakable girl was just a house over from me hours ago. If I would have known from the start why she was in my bedroom, I would have walked right over to her house and into her mother’s room—again—and punched the fucker—mid-thrust or not—over and over again until he admitted what he’d done. Then, I’d drive him right to the hospital so they could reconstruct his face, only for me to fuck it up again.
If I truly hated Madeline as much as I told her I did, I would have made her leave when we were sparring off in my bedroom. He was gone, no longer upstairs, fucking her mom, so it wasn’t necessarily unsafe for her to go back home. But the truth was, I felt better knowing she was with me, over here in the safety of my house.
Which only proved I was in way over my head with her.
I hated her. But I didn’t hate her.
Maybe I hated her because I couldn’t hate her.
I groaned, rubbing my hand over my face. What a fucked-up thing to say. It didn’t even make sense. None of this did.
Madeline shifted beside me, the blanket falling into her lap. Her slender arms were wrapped tightly around her stomach, and the shirt my mom lent her was pulled up just enough so I could see the soft skin gracing her hip bone. Her lips were shaped like a pretty little bow, her eyelashes fluttering like the wings of an angel.
She was the furthest thing from an angel.
“What?” she asked, groggily sitting up. “Why are you looking at me like that?” She suddenly went stiff. “Was I dreaming again? Did I say something in my sleep?” Her shiny blonde hair wisped in between us as she searched the room for my mom. Her shoulders fell in relief when she saw that she was asleep.
“No, you weren’t dreaming.”
“Oh, good. Then why were you looking at me like that?” Her look was quizzical, if I had to describe it, but also a little hopeful.
If I allowed the truth to come out, I would have said, “I’m looking at you like that because I want to kiss you.” Because I did. I really fucking did. I was crazy attracted to her, my blood spiking when she was near. I had a hard time keeping my hands to myself, which was why every single time we were alone in a room together, I found myself crowding her space, wrapping my hands around her lithe waist. But I was exceptional at evading one truth with another. “I’m wondering why you haven’t told your mom.”
That was not precisely why I was looking at her, but the question was in the back of my head.
Madeline glanced away quickly, her bright-blue eyes shying away. There was a slight pull in my chest, and I honestly wanted to split my own rib cage open to make my heart stop skipping beats with her near. It usually thumped with hidden rage when she was close, but now it was skipping beats and fluttering like I had some type of heart murmur.
“Can we talk upstairs? I don’t want your mom to hear.”
Madeline began folding the blanket and draped it over the couch.
“Lead the way.” I ushered, nodding my head to the stairs.
I pulled the blanket up to my mom’s chin and flipped the lights off before going after Madeline. I wanted to give her some time to get upstairs so I didn’t have to pretend like I wasn’t going to stare at her ass the entire time she climbed the steps.
As soon as I shut the door of my room, the latch echoing, I watched Madeline jump. Her eyes went directly to the doorknob before she turned around to stare out the window that sat across from hers.
“Tell me,” I intoned, striding over to sit in my computer chair. Madeline turned around slowly with her pink bottom lip tucked in between her white teeth.
“No.”
I dropped my head, the weight of it stretching the knots in my neck. A deep, sarcastic chuckle rumbled out of my chest before I sat back and hiked an ankle over my knee.
“How’s your hand?” she a
sked.
I shifted my gaze to her and tilted my head. My mouth twitched as I held back a smirk. “What are you talking about?”
Her dark lashes fluttered against her skin as she shook her head. “So, was it before or after you said being my hero was the last thing you ever wanted to do that you broke Atticus’ jaw?”
I brought my hand up to my chin. “Mmmm. Ya know, I just can’t remember.”
Madeline’s arms dropped to her sides. She stomped her foot, and I had to fight the urge to laugh. “Is this some game you're playing? What? Is it a form of retaliation? Fucking with my head?”
“Oh, you mean how you fucked with mine?”
She scoffed. “How have I fucked with yours?”
I suddenly sat forward, resting my elbows on the top of my black jeans, glaring at her. The hardening of my jaw made my teeth hurt. “One day you were my best friend, and the next you weren’t. One day you were flirting with me, and the next you were dating my best friend. One day you rubbed it in my face that my dad was fucking your mom, and the next you were apologizing.” I scoffed right back at her, crossing my arms over my expanding chest. “Excuse the fuck out of me if I don’t feel like explaining myself.”
Madeline’s pouty mouth opened and then closed, only to do the same thing again. She huffed and turned around quickly, putting her back to me.
I didn’t have to answer to Madeline, and she had no right asking me to explain myself. I wasn’t sure why I was going against everything I stood for when it came to her, but that was what I was doing.
Of course I didn’t threaten Atticus as a form of retaliation. Of course I wasn’t playing a fucking game. That was the last thing she needed. Madeline had been put through enough. Did she deserve the hiatus she was getting from everyone at English Prep? Probably. But I knew there was much more to her behavior over the last several years than she was letting on. Which reminded me…
“When did it happen?” I questioned, relaxing my arms back down to my knees. I hoped she knew what I was referring to.
Madeline glanced over her shoulder for a second before answering, “Right after Christian and I broke up.”