Page 62 of Love is Angry

“I’m sure it wasn’t,” Laura mumbles, giving me a worried frown.

Unfortunately, I can’t find it in me to lie to her and say that everything is going to be okay. It is not a promise I’m sure I can fulfil. But I can try to make it better.

“I’ll find her. She probably went home, anyway. Just stay out till six, okay? Don’t let the old man bully you into a corner. You hold your ground and listen to me, and I promise you’ll have him by the balls before he’s retired.”

The statement makes Steve laugh in a mocking fashion, but the glare I respond with makes him choke on it. He clears his throat and offers a polite bow. “I’ll look after Miss Laura, as always.”

“You’d better. And don’t forget. No sooner than six.”

“Roger that,” he replies.

Laura seems less anxious, so I have a tiny silver lining to hold on to. “Just find her and make sure she’s okay. You two really need to get over that––thing. I mean, look at what it’s done to Dad.”

Yeah, I can see. I would hate to end up like that. Ironically, I wasn’t too far from this nightmarish version of his. It is so easy to focus one’s energy on loathing a person, on wishing them ill and on doing everything in one’s power to do harm.

This is my chance to put an end to a past that has done nothing but hurt us for so long.

The first thingI do is check the café’s surrounding area. Madison left without her bag and phone, and she was a mess. I doubt she got too far, so I take my time combing the alleys and side streets, first. A rapid pulse pounds through my veins. Every moment that I don’t see her adds to my unrest as I struggle to keep a clear head. What comes next in my life amounts to a pivotal moment.

For me, for Madison, but also for Laura and my dad.

After another twenty minutes of searching, I find Madison sitting on a bench in a bus stop, two blocks from the café. She’s alone, a bus having just left. Without any money, she couldn’t have gotten on it, to begin with. I imagine the thought crossed her mind, as well. I stare at her profile for a short while.

She’s sad. So deeply sad, it almost breaks me.

She wipes sweat from her brow and gets up, ready to face what’s left of the day, including the challenge of getting home. I imagine she knows where her bag and phone are, but it would be insane for her to go back to the café, now. Not after what happened there. I’d leave the city in an instant if I experienced even a fraction of the horror I saw on her face earlier.

Unaware of my presence, Madison gets up and walks toward me. As soon as our eyes meet, she freezes. Time itself stops flowing, expanding into something excruciatingly slow and heavy, as if the whole world is pressing down on our shoulders, mercilessly crushing our existence. We can’t look away from one another, either. An eternity forms as we stare, motionless and breathless, with just ten feet of air between us, of unoccupied space that I need out of the way.

“What are you doing here?”Madison asks, her voice scratchy.

I hand over the bag. “Your phone’s inside. Figured you might need it.”

“Yeah, thanks. Sorry for leaving the way I—”

“You have absolutely nothing to apologize for, Madison. What Dad did, it shouldn’t have happened. Neither Laura nor I told him what we were doing. And neither of us needs his permission to do anything, anyway.”

She smiles bitterly. “We both know that’s not exactly true. Not when your father is basically the king of Rochester. That city council position he’s running for is symbolic, at best.”

“I don’t give a shit about what my father does. Before anything else, I need to apologize for his behavior. It was rude and vicious, and completely uncalled for.”

“So you say,” Madison whispers and tries to walk past me.

I catch her arm and force her to turn around and face me. “Are you okay?”

Only now, as I lose myself in the deep blue holes of her eyes do I realize that she is anything but okay. Raw pain radiates from her like heatwaves from a burning stove. Hot enough to melt my skin, so I can only imagine how it must feel rolling around inside of her. Tears well up in her eyes, and there is so much that she would like to tell me, yet she cannot bring herself to speak up. Has she always been like this?

I shake my head slowly. “What happened between you and my father, Madison?”

“I fell for the wrong guy, I made every wrong decision possible, and now… Well, now, I am paying the price. Everything I am right now is the result of my choices.” Her voice trembles as she speaks. So much so that it’s as though I can feel her pain inside me. For a moment, I think I might just let her sell me this lie because that’s what it is, a lie. I can feel it. See it etched in the corners of her face.

I cup her cheek in my hands. “Talk to me, Madison.”

She seems tired. I’m betting this is the last place she wants to be right now. Annoyingly enough, it’s hard for me to look at her without remembering the darkness in her eyes when I found her with my father. That moment still haunts me, even now. It stabs me in the chest, the blade twisting to cause maximum damage, every time my mind wanders back to it. I liked her, and she liked me, and the reason why she chose my father over me is still a mystery. As awful as it might sound, I think I need to hear her tell me why. I need closure.

“Madison.” I wait for her to raise her gaze. Time resumes its flow, somehow. Neither of us moves, neither of us says a word, yet we both seem to know what’s going on. Peace. Peace is being brokered between our souls, while our bodies inch closer, the few inches left between us vanishing one by one. I’m holdingher, now. I’m holding her, my arms wrapped around her waspy waist.

Her breath tickles my chin as she tilts her head back to look at me.

---