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ChapterFifteen
Asher
It’s been two days and she won’t answer my calls or texts.
I fucked up. I know I did.
Getting caught up in the moment is an understatement. I have no idea what I was thinking or how I thought that would help anything.
So besides reaching out through the phone, I don’t go looking for her.
Until I can no longer stand it and Ihaveto see her.
The next morning, I wake up early and make my way over to the football field. I know she’ll be running any time now and should either run past me here or she’ll run on the track.
I park my car and wait. Sure enough, she comes running along the sidewalk and turns to enter the football field. Following behind her as she walks towards the track, I call out her name.
She stops dead in her tracks. When she turns to look at me, her expression is blank. She’s keeping her feelings hidden from me and that’s fine. I deserve it.
But I still wish she would talk to me. I wish she wouldn’t run away all the time.
“What exactly are you running from, Mads?” I don’t know where the question comes from but I blurt it out anyway, hoping she’ll talk to me and let me in.
Love is the last thing I want. It makes you vulnerable, it hurts, it causes pain. But it also heals all of those things too. And I can’t help but love her. I always have.
I watch as Madison’s expression changes into one of confusion and then sadness and then anger.
She clicks her tongue against the roof of her mouth and puts her hands on her hips. “What am I running from? Hmmm…” She taps her chin with one finger. “I’m running from Mason, from school, from my parents. I’m running from all this shit in my head and this empty space in my heart and mostly I’m running from you.” She throws her hands up in the air before slamming them back down on her hips.
“I don’t understand, Madison. Why are you running from me?” I ask.
“Why? Why Asher? Because you are the one man I have always loved in one way or another since we were kids. But you are also the one man I just can’t have. And as much as I need you right now... what I need the most is space.”She says as tears stream down her face.
Her words are like daggers straight to my heart. And she doesn’t stop.
“Being around you right now- it’s painful. Too painful. And I thought I would be able to just deal with it because I know we need each other right now, but when I see you, I see Mason. I see the whole other half of me gone. It hurts. It hurts so bad that I can’t breathe sometimes.”
My heart leaps out of my chest and lands on the ground in front of me, left to bleed out. I say nothing because what can I say? She has every right to feel the way she does.
Madison is weeping now, her cries soft but I still hear them and wish I could take her in my arms. But I don’t move nor do I speak.
“The last conversation I had with Mason was him saying he didn’t approve of us. I can’t and won’t go against his wishes, especially now that he’s not here.”
And then she turns and runs off, stomping on my heart as she goes.
* * *
A few days later, I check out of my motel room.
I’ve decided it’s time to head back to Sierra Cove. Madison wants her space and I respect that. So it makes sense to pick up where I left off.
All I did the past few days was apartment hunt and finally I found a cheap studio. I have an appointment to see it later today. If that doesn’t work out, hopefully I can crash on a couch until I find something. All of my shit is waiting in storage and I’m tired of paying for it every month.
The semester ends in a few weeks and it’s too late to jump back into my classes. But my job said I could come back whenever I wanted so I took them up on the offer and start my first shift this weekend.
Before I get on the road, I stop by the Blackwells and place two letters in the mailbox.
I look up at their house and at mine. My heart aches in my chest. When I look back to the Blackwell’s house, I swear the curtain moves in Madison’s bedroom. Is she watching me?
