Victoria closed her eyes as two single drops of tears flowed freely down her pale face. She took a deep breath but before she could have gathered some air into her lungs, Amanda's words shot through everyone in proximity to the room ears. "Love!" She spat. She turned from her daughter's gaze to the woman that she hated more than anything in the world. "You!" She yelled and walked towards Victoria. "You have poisoned her bloody mind with your sins!" She continued screaming. "I swear I will kill you myself if you don't stop corrupting my daughter's mind."
Victoria's voice was hitched. She couldn't speak. She didn't know what to say. Was she corrupting Madison's mind? Even though she knew it wasn't true she still felt like someone stabbed a knife into her already aching heart. "Mother!" Now, Madison was the one that yelled. Something that she regretted right after because she started coughing up blood.
Amanda switched her gaze from stabbing Victoria with her thoughts to her daughter who seemed weaker each moment. She didn't say anything. She knew she was already warned not to create any conflict and she had done it again resulting in more pain for Madison.
"I... I think I should leave." Victoria choked out before exiting the room without another word. Madison stretched out her hand and called weakly to her, but she was already gone.
Dr. Hanes helped Madison to clean up while Melody rubbed her back for comfort. Melody knew that saying anything to their mother was useless. She couldn't have even chosen the flowers for her own wedding much less tell her mother what was right and wrong for Madison. She wouldn't have even tried since she knew she could never succeed.
Madison calmly opened and closed her eyes while her mother walked towards her. "Madison." She was about to touch her daughter's cheek before Madison flinched away. Amanda frowned but said nothing and just stood at the side by Madison's head.
"I think you should all leave," Madison said calmly without looking at any of them. She bit down on her lip and stared at her torso waiting for them to leave but it is never that easy to get her mother to do something.
"I am not leaving." Madison took a deep breath and looked at her mother. She wasn't crying but she was mad. Sadness could not describe what she was feeling at the moment, but she knew she had to be careful if she wanted to make it for her big sister's wedding day,
"Haven't you done enough?" Madison spat and dropped eye contact with her mother again. She looked forward to seeing Dr. Hanes writing something down on a board pad.
"All that I did was to protect you," Amanda said boldly and Madison shook her head in disagreement.
"What you just did was to protect your reputation. None of this is about how much you care and love me. It is about how much you are afraid that I am going to taint just a little bit of your stupid reputation. If you did love me, you would never stop me from being happy." Madison drew in a breath to fill her lungs. She needed to calm down.
"Do you think I want people to look at you in disgust? What do you think people will say if they find out about your shenanigans?"
"That's the thing mother, I don't care what anyone has to say about me, but you seem to."
Well, that was a lie since she cared what her mother thought about her. Amanda was Madison's only weakness in the world. She could have done great things if her mother's expectations were not in the way.
"You don't know the consequences of your actions. I am your mother and I know what is best for you."
"I am dying so there is no point in thinking what is best for me." Madison spat closing her eyes and clenching her fists. Even her own words stung like a bitch.
The room became silent and Courtney looked at Madison in a strange kind of sincerity. Maybe pity or understanding, whatever it was she seemed to care for Madison even in the little time she had known her.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Madison sat silently as the nurse wrapped the fresh bandage around her head. She made sure not to move since her head was still bruised and was hurting like a bitch.
Amanda also stayed quietly in a chair with a close proximity to Madison's bed. The women did not talk to each other. Only the movements of the nurse were heard.
Melody had gone home since it was unhealthy for a pregnant woman not to take care of herself properly. Surely, she would have rushed back to the hospital as soon as she took her vitamins and such.
Madison's father was nowhere to be seen. He hadn't visited her or called to see how she was doing, but that was the least of her worries. The man seemed out of touch with reality and didn't seem to care for his youngest child. Even Amanda would have cared less if her husband was there or not. She was more focused on trying to make Madison turn into someone who obeyed society norms. But what was the point when the time was limited, and Madison should have been living her last days at her happiest. If only Amanda could have comprehended that in her mind. She didn't seem to get it straight that her daughter was dying.
Everything happened so fast that when the truth came out everything seemed like a blur. Soon there would have been the tears and sadness but at that moment there was just denial. But when the denial was over then maybe she might have realized that she should have let her daughter live her life how she wanted.
The nurse was finished bandaging the wound and then left, Madison touched the spot that was bruised and remembered the reason it was there in the first place.
Amanda caught Madison touching the wound and her eyes closed as if she really felt hurt, which she was, and felt guilt form in her stomach. She never intentionally meant to hurt her daughter. Well, physically that is. But the anger inside of her by seeing the two of them together, and also in a compromising position, had just set her on the edge of insanity
She knew she had to hold her temper, she had never hit anyone of her two children ever before. Abuse was never something she involved herself with but there was always a first for something. She got up and walked over to her daughter's bedside and placed her hand over Madison's where the wound was. Both didn't say a word as Madison opened her eyes and looked as tears fell from her mother's eyes.
She knew her mother was ashamed of what she had done. "Mom," Amanda retracted her hand, "I know you didn't do it intentionally." Her mother moved back to the chair and sat not saying a word. Madison sighed and bit down on her lip staring off into blank space. She didn't bother to question why her mother was not answering her and to be honest, she didn't care. She didn't care for anything, but Victoria and it was killing her that the woman she loved was so far away from her reach.
As much as she wanted to be angry at her mother for saying such words to Victoria, Madison's kind and gentle heart would not have allowed her to. She was too forgiving, and she hated that trait of herself. Her thoughts were just jumbled inside her mind and all she wanted to do was shout at something. Deep inside of her, there was a voice that wanted to reveal itself and scream all the hurtful words she swallowed down her throat all those years.
She wanted to tell her mother the pain she had caused and what she had been through because of it. No one knew what Madison really went through. Her depression made her do things that she regretted after. All the nights of pain and tear-stained cheeks. The unwillingness to ever want to be loved or to give love. But it was impossible not to love even though she tried so hard not to. How was it even possible not to love a woman as exquisite as Victoria? Victoria was everything Madison ever wanted in a woman. Everything was perfect about her.
"Hello, Maddy." She looked towards where the sound came from but had already recognized the voice from before. It was Courtney.
Courtney walked over to Madison and asked the standard questions for a person with heart failure. Madison was so used to being asked those questions that it slightly annoyed her. Not that she would complain. She was stronger than that. She never complained about her problems to anyone even though it may have been a good thing if she had.
"So, how are you really feeling?" She placed emphasis on the ‘really’ and side-eyed Madison's mother who was looking intently at the
door where no one stood.
"Minus the chance of me having a major heart attack and dying, I am fine." Madison tried for humor but jokes like that were never meant to be funny, it was more of her trying to accept that she was dying.
Courtney just smiled and said nothing while she took a seat next to Madison's bed. Her only obligation left to do that day was to check up on her patients until further notice. Something she more than loved doing. Luckily Madison was her only patient awake at the moment which was odd since it was only the peak hours of the afternoon. Well, there was the old man who was having a sponge bath from one of the nurses, but she decided he needed to have some privacy.
"Why is everyone so quiet?" Madison mumbled annoyed. She felt the silence killing her, so she closed her eyes while she began to sing.
Amanda listened as her daughter expressed words that seemed to be from her heart.
She then stopped singing as the tears ran freely down her cheeks. "I would go anywhere with her if I could."
She looked at Courtney and she didn't expect her to know the lyrics to the song as well as she continued from where Madison left off.
Madison smiled and wiped away the drops of tears from her cheeks. "Didn't expect you to know the song." Courtney shrugged. "I like the song. Never realized how much it related to my life until now." Madison bit down on her lip as her mother looked at her.
"I never knew you could sing," Amanda said not looking directly at Madison.
"You don't know a lot about me," Madison said bluntly. "Everything that makes me who I am you don't know about." She spat and shook her head. "I lived my life with the weight of your rejection on my shoulders. Those two years I was away, I still was not able to live how I wanted. Your taunts were always at the back of my mind." She turned to face the window next to her bed. "Writing is my only escape, it is the only reason I allowed my scars to heal, or I would have continued to cut them." She closed her eyes, realizing she had said too much yet so little.
"What scars?" Amanda furrowed her eyebrows and got up. "You cut yourself?"
Madison just looked at the Courtney who was just listening to the conversation. "Used to." She said blatantly before looking back at her mother.
"When?" The woman asked, and Madison took a deep breath.
"What does it matter anyway?" She closed her eyes. "No use talking about old wounds."
"Tell me!" Amanda shouted feeling as if her heart had sunk a few meters below the ground. She never knew that her daughter did such things to herself and as a mother, she did not even know or realized that Madison was feeling that way, still feeling that way actually.
"None of your business," Madison said calmly and crossed her arms. She knew that she didn't have to scream for her words to be clear.
"It is my business. Why would you do those things to yourself? How have I never seen the marks? I didn't even know you felt that way." Amanda blabbed and crossed her arms over her head. If she wasn't a wreck before, she was then. Tears once again flowed down her face, but that time like rain. For once in Madison's life, she saw her mother actually have an emotional breakdown. It wasn't something Amanda often did, at least not in front of her children. She always held that cold exterior that made everyone including her own self-think she was heartless. But in the right situations the true colors of how a person feels show and after all that came out in not more than twenty-four hours, who wouldn't break down?
"Would you stop crying already?" Madison grumbled as a few seconds went by and Amanda's sobbing into her hands was getting too overbearing. "It's not like you cared before, why are you crying now?"
"Madison." She was getting tired of people calling her name. She looked to see that it was her father entering the room. She frowned as the man walked beside her bed. "What happened honey?" He said panting for breath. He ran into the hospital with such a speed that the nurses almost thought that he was a patient on the psychological floor of the hospital.
"Why do you care?" She questioned since the man took so long to finally visit her. He didn't even have the decency to call her.
"Why wouldn't I care? Melody told me that you have to tell me something." He then looked at Amanda who was still pacing and not looking at them.
Courtney excused herself to give Gregory and his daughter some privacy to talk since it seemed that he did not know about the situation yet. She wasn't one to be nosy.
"If you cared you wouldn't have taken so long to come." She said bluntly.
The man shook his head still looking at Amanda. "Why didn't you call me? Melody said that you said you would." He accused Amanda. The two had some drama of their own.
"I am not obligated to tell you anything." She said rolling her eyes in the process.
"Just because of our situation doesn't mean that you don't tell me about my daughter being in the hospital." He said then looking back at Madison and staring at her wound. "How did you get hurt?" He asked the sincerity and concern evident in his eyes.
She didn't know if to tell him the truth or not. "I fell and hit my head." She touched the wound once again. "And what situation are the two of you in?" She asked looking at the two.
Amanda didn't answer nor did Gregory. "What's going on?" Melody walked into the room along with Troy by her side.
"That is, what I want to know." Madison and Gregory said at the same time. Both referring to different situations.
"Jinx," Troy said and regretted it right after as four pairs of eyes looked at him annoyed. He decided to just shut his mouth and stay out of their family matters.
"Did you tell him, Maddy?" Melody asked and looked at her father who looked confused. "I take that as a no." She sighed and looked at her mother who was still lost in thought.
"Can someone explain what is going on here? Obviously, something is up with you two." Madison said while Melody nodded her head in agreement. It was more to avoid the topic of explaining her situation.
The middle-aged man rubbed his temples and looked at Amanda once again, but the woman looked hesitant about something. "Amanda, I think it is time for them to know." He said with sincerity.
She walked in front of the window next to Madison's bed. "There is nothing to discuss, Gregory." She said looking through the window.
"Don't you think it is time?" Amanda shook her head in disagreement.
"It's not time because it is not happening." The man frowned and looked at his daughters’ one after the other.
"Amanda, we have talked about this before and I have made up my mind. You may try to change Madison and I foolishly allowed you to do so but you cannot control me anymore." He said and paced the room trying to build up the courage to explain to his daughters the situation.
"You won't dare tell them." Amanda turned her attention from the window and looked at him.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Gregory shook his head and walked over to Madison. He touched his daughter's cheeks with his hand and rubbed it with his thumb.
Madison sighed and closed her eyes as she took in the warmth of her father's touch. A touch she missed so much. "I always loved you." He said then placed his hand on Madison's own. "Never did I judge you or criticize," he took a heavy breath. "But yet I never stood up for you." He turned to Amanda. "When your mother poured her venom." Madison opened her eyes and looked at her father's calmness and sincerity. "We are much alike, you, and me," Then, Amanda butted in.
"Dare tell her and I will take everything you own." She threatened. The man knew that she couldn't even if she wanted to. He wasn't stupid, but Amanda felt like he was. He just had a low voice and didn't argue or fight, but he was more knowledgeable than anyone would have believed.
He ignored Amanda and continued to look at his daughter. "Melody, come over here." He said calmly, and Melody walked towards him and stood on the opposite side of Madison's bed. "You two are everything I wanted as daughters. Both smart and confident. But I haven't been a true father to both of you." He closed his eyes and stretched his free hand for Melody to take.
>
Amanda was standing, and her arms were folded. She didn't know how to stop him. "Gregory, we have lived with this for so many years. Why do this now?" She pleaded. The man shook his head in disagreement.
"Amanda, you have lived with it, but I have suffered through it. I cannot hide who I truly am anymore. It would be wrong to keep hiding this from our daughters, especially Madison." Melody was confused and was curious to know what their father wanted to tell them. Seemingly it was something that their mother did not approve of.
"Ugh, I know," Madison said and took a deep breath.
Gregory was confused and doubted she knew anything about what he was going to say. "I don't think you do honey."
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