Page 20 of The Hate We Breathe
Good friends will comfort you when you’ve been stupid. Best friends will smack you upside the head and tell you what a dumbass you are. For some reason, I’d thought Mads was the first kind of friend. I was wrong.
“You didn’t even call to tell me you were all right.” She glares at me even as she huddles into her sweater on the cold-ass bleachers overlooking the football field. It’s kind of cute, like an angry kitten hissing.
“I couldn’t,” I confess. “But I saw Roquel—I figured she would tell you that I was… well, that I was alive.” Not exactly all right, but surely Roquel would have told Mads what was going on?
Mads’ glare softens and then she casts her eyes downward to the curled hands resting in her lap. I frown and pull the sleeves of Nolan’s hoodie that I stole from the benches on the football field before we came up here down over my hands.
“Hey,” I say, leaning towards her. “What’s up? What’s with the face?”
Mads presses her lips together and shakes her head. “Nothing,” she replies, but it’s pretty clear from the pucker of her forehead that she doesn’t mean it. She’s a shit liar. Insteadof pressuring her, though, I sit back again and turn my attention out to the football field.
The Scorpion Kings are all out in fine form today, their coach directing their actions as they dodge and duck and weave across a ground littered with obstacles. Despite the chill in the air, none of them seem fazed by the temperature. In fact, a couple of the players have already stripped off their shirts as sweat glides down their shoulders and backs. I’m only interested in three of them.Mythree.
“Are you going to try to come back to work?” Mads asks, breaking into my thoughts once more.
“I’m not sure,” I say. “I don’t want a handout and Ma-Ri let me go for a reason.”
“That was Darrio Vargas!” Mads says quickly. “She didn’t want to let you go.”
My head whips towards her. I’d figured as much and knew from what I’d discovered from the guys, but… “How do you know that?”
Mads’ cheeks flush and she grimaces. “I… uh…” She blows out a defeated sigh. “I’ve been picking up a few more shifts,” she finally admits. “And Ma-Ri has been asking about you when I’m there.”
“She has?” To say I’m surprised would be an understatement.
“Well, she’s subtle about it, but she’s been coming out of her office more when I get to work. You know she doesn’t normally come out unless she’s needed. She asks how things are at school and… if you’re still withthem.” Mads nods her head to the field.
“Have you told her anything?” I ask, curious rather than offended.
Mads shrugs. “I told her when you went to stay with Mr. Calloway and weren’t coming to school anymore. She seemed pretty worried about you when I mentioned him.”
A wind breezes through the stands and I shiver, burrowing deeper into Nolan’s hoodie and then reaching up to lift the hood over my head and ears. Mads reaches for her backpack and pulls out a thicker coat and shrugs into it. As she does, I catch sight of a ring of bruises around one of her wrists.
Without a word, I snap my hand out and catch hers. She stiffens, eyes going wide like a startled deer.
“Wha—”
I grip her sleeve and yank it back before she can stop me. It's not just a bruise. It’s the ghost of someone’s hand—five distinct, angry smudges pressed into her skin in molted purple and yellow.
Mads jerks her arm back as if my hand on her skin burns. She drags her sleeve down in one swift, practiced motion. But the damage is done. I’ve already seen it.
Silence stretches between us like a wire pulled too tight. One of us is going to snap and I’m sure it’s going to be me.
“Whodid that, Madison?” Despite the rage swarming my insides, the question comes out quiet. Controlled.
She swallows hard, throat bobbing as she turns her face away, avoiding my gaze. The wind catches strands of her soft blonde hair, flinging them across her cheek.
“It’s not what you think,” she finally says.
“That’s not an answer.” I lean forward, trying to catch her attention, but she keeps her chin stubbornly turned away. She’s staring at the field like the truth might be buried beneath the forty-yard line.
I exhale through my nose, the cold biting at the edges of it. I’m still watching her when she forces a laugh—dry and brittle. It’s not a sound I’ve ever heard her make and it hurts my ears.
“Anyway…” Mads drags out the word like it’s a bridge between her and the rest of the world. “Let’s talk about you.” Her voice is too high-pitched to be natural. “Is it official now?You and the Scorpion Kings? I heard they were protective of you when you came back this morning.”
I stare at her, but she’s already slipping away, emotionally detaching in real time and redirecting attention. A part of me doesn’t want to let her, but another part of me understands. When you can’t fix it in an instant, sometimes ignoring it is the best thing for you. Now that I know there’s more going on with her, I’m not going to look the other way forever.
Someday soon, she’ll have to tell someone the truth. Until then, I wonder if I can ask Lex to bug her phone or something to keep an eye on her.
