Page 18 of The Love We Make

So instead of marching forward, toward them, I turned around and walked right out of 678 and right into a waiting taxi. I gave the driver my address, sent another text to my friends, and then hit Ethan’s name on my contact list.

Chase and Ty may have escaped my wrath, but Ethan was about to get an earful.

Chapter 7

Ethan

Eddie and I had headed out for another round after the game Friday. I was hoping to distract myself from worrying about Madison’s girls’ night. But I was doing a shit job.

I kept checking my phone every second and Eddie had already decided he was flying solo to hook up with someone.Fine by me.I was still having some moral dilemma where hooking up was concerned. I was hoping to God that Madison didn’t “hook up” with anyone and doing a random chick felt wrong.

Like cheating, somehow.

I was at the bar about to order another beer when my phone rang. I expected to see Chase’s name pop up, but to my surprise, it was Madison.

“Maddy?” I answered quickly and frantically.

“I. hate. you.” Her voice was dark and deep. If I didn’t know everything there was to know about Madison, I wouldn’t even have known it was her.

“What?” I asked, confused.

She sniffed and took a deep breath. Something she did when she was trying not to cry. “You and Chase and your stupid bullshit.”

I looked at the phone, just to double-check it was actually Madison. As far as I knew, Chase hadn’t texted or called me to tell me anything. I knew nothing.

“What happened?”

“You know what happened!! I am going to die a single, old cat lady with no friends and a hairy, dusty vagina.” I cringed hearing her words. “It’s all because of you. Because you can’t just let me be. So how about this? I take back what I said. I take it all back. I don’t even want to lose my virginity. I don’t even want to be with someone that might love me one day. I don’t want to get married. I don’t want kids. I don’t want anything. So now you can be happy and sleep better at night…. In your own stupid bed.” She yelled the last word and hung up.

I instantly paid my tab and ran from the bar. I tried calling her back but she didn’t answer. I tried seven more times but eventually, it started going straight to voicemail.

What the fuck?

I finally decided to call Chase.

“Hello?” He answered.

“Have you seen Madison?” I asked. “She just called me frantic.”

“I didn’t see her,” he sighed. “I asked her friends where she was and they said she texted them that she went home. So I am just now leaving.”

From the quiet in the background of Madison’s phone call, I didn’t think she was at 678 when she called. She must have actually gone home.

“You didn’t see her at all? She just told me how much she hated you and hated me. And while I don’t totally mind her hating me right now. I would at least like to know what happened. This was different. She was crying.”

“Man, I have no idea. Let her chill for a bit. Maybe she just finally snapped. I have spent almost two weeks driving her nuts. She has probably reached a breaking point.”

He may have been right. I let him go and thanked him for helping me. I also told him to lay off for the next few days. I would be home on Monday and would apologize and talk to her.

In the meantime, I was going to keep calling her and trying to talk to her. Maybe not tonight, but by morning, I was sure she would answer or return my calls.

But that didn’t happen.

Silence was all I heard Saturday and Sunday. I must have called a hundred times, voicemail being the only thing I heard. The hundred phone calls were in addition to the hundreds of unanswered texts I had sent.

This wasn’t the first time Madison had gotten upset with me. You don’t go a whole lifetime knowing someone without pissing them off a time or two. But we always talked it out or forgot about it.

Not this time.

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