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“Someone’s calling again,” Riley said, next to me.
“I don’t recognize the number.”
Five consecutive calls later, I started to grow uneasy. Anxiety tugged at the muscles in my chest, and a heavy weight settled there. At the sixth call, from the same number, I finally picked up.
“Hello?”
“Oh, Lila. Finally.” A familiar voice came through, and I frowned.
“Savannah?” Why was Maddox’s mother calling me?
Maddox. Oh God. Maddox!
I bounced off the couch, my heart feeling constricted, as if something heavy had wrapped itself around the fragile organ, squeezing the life out of me. “Is he okay? What happened? What’s wrong? Is it Maddox?”
“What? No – I mean, I’ve been trying to reach him for the last five days, but he won’t pick up my calls anymore.”
Okay, that wasn’t alarming. Maddox never picked up his mother’s calls or his father’s, for that matter. He rarely wanted to listen to what they had to say.
“I don’t understand. You sound worried,” I said, still frowning.
“The last time I spoke to him, he hung up on me,” she whispered, and then, I heard sniffling.
I rubbed my forehead, feeling another headache quickly approaching. “Savannah, what are you trying to say? If you’re calling me this many time, then it must be important. Is this about another gala or dinner party? I’m not coming, and neither is Maddox. Save it. Don’t even bother asking.”
Savannah was silent for a second, before she burst into tears and choked out her words, half mumbling and half not making any sense. “No. Not…another… gala. This… Brad… Maddox… won’t pick up my… call. His… father…”
I paced the floor, feeling so confused, so lost. Savannah Coulter was crying to me on the phone. For the four years that I have known her, she’s never lost her cool, maintaining her calm, plastic façade.
She was…crying. CRYING! The world was officially ending, this was proof enough. “What about Brad?”
“He’s in the hospital.” She hiccupped back a sob.
My feet came to a halt, and I paused, my breathing stuttering. “What?”
“He’s sick, Lila. Very sick,” Savannah whispered, barely audible. “Maddox needs to be here… but he won’t pick up my calls.”
Oh God. No! “Did you tell him?”
“I did, but he didn’t say anything and then hung up on me. This was five days ago. Brad is… He wants to see his son.”
His son – the same one he didn’t give a shit about before. But now that he was bedridden in a hospital bed, he needed to see his… son.
“I don’t know, Savannah. I haven’t seen Maddox in weeks. We broke up.”
“Please,” she begged, her voice cracking. “Please. He needs to be here. You don’t understand. Brad… I don’t know how long he has. Please, Lila.”
I glanced at Riley, and she gave me a questioning look. “I’m sorry, Savannah. I’ll see what I can do, but I can’t guarantee he’ll listen to me. If you want Maddox there and I can’t bring him to you, you’ll need to find another way.”
Savannah inhaled a shaky breath. “Okay. Thank you, Lila.”
We hung up, and I fell on the couch beside Riley. “What’s up? What did Savannah want?”
“Brad is… sick.”
Her mouth rounded with a shocked ‘o’. “She wants you to convince Maddox to go see his dad?”
“Bingo.”
“How sick is he?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. It sounded serious, because she was crying.”
Riley nodded slowly. “I was on Colton’s Instagram two hours ago. They apparently have a party going on at his house, right now. I saw Maddox in one of the videos in his story.”
“Another party?” During Exams? What the hell?
“Last I heard, it was Maddox who decided to throw the party. Again. Which, by the way, the last one ended with a fight.”
This reminded me of four years ago. Back in high school, when Maddox didn’t give a shit about anything or… anyone. He was all about partying, drugs and alcohol… and letting his fists do the talking.
He was spiraling. Once again. Oh God.
My head fell into my hands, and I took a deep breath. Maybe it was my fault… An overwhelming sense of guilt filled my chest, and I almost choked on the taste of bitterness on my tongue.
“Do you want to wait until tomorrow?” Riley questioned, rubbing my back.
“No. I have to do this tonight. Maddox might be stubborn, but I am more stubborn than he could ever be.”
Riley and I parked three houses away and stared at Colton’s corner townhouse. After a few minutes of silence, we walked up to his porch and blinked. “Holy shit,” Riley breathed.
The party was loud and crowded. I cringed, as a couple stumbled out, practically mauling each other. He pushed her against the house, and they were practically humping over their clothes, too drunk to care that they had an audience.
It was in that moment when I realized how bad this situation was. I shouldn’t have come here tonight. If I found Maddox’s in the arms of another woman…
