Page 62 of I Hear You

Madison

Ireadtheentryin the journal Ender hands me. When I’m finished, I read it again.

October 7th

Susan from high school called today. Clint overdosed. They couldn’t save him. He was my first love… but part of me is glad that now he can’t ever try to take Madison from me. He’ll never find out she’s his. I wonder if I wouldn’t have gotten pregnant if I would have stayed with Clint. Would I have kept letting him convince me to try this drug and that drug until I was as strung out as him?

But, I got pregnant. If Eric hadn’t been there, who knows what my life would have been like. Eric thinks we should tell Madison, now that the risk of him taking her is gone. I won’t let him though.

I’m crying, not the big, loud, messy sobs like I have been the past few days. Tears are just falling from my eyes without my control. Ender comes from behind me and positions me between his outstretched legs. Wrapping his arms around me. I lean into him, letting him take some of the weight of everything I’m feeling.

“Madison, what can I do?” he asks.

“Just keep doing this,” I say.

He tightens his arms around me a little, and I close my eyes.

“Mads. We need to check out of the hotel room soon.”

How long have we been sitting here like this? I check the clock on the desk. We’ve been sitting here in silence for over an hour. Ender never once let go of me. I kiss his arm and move to get up. I start packing up the journals, but he stops me, putting a hand over mine.

“Why don’t I do this and you pack up our bags and order an Uber?”

I nod my head and release the journal.

The car picks us up twenty minutes later outside the hotel. I almost begged Ender to rent the room another night so we could lie in the bed naked all day. I know I need to finish taking care of business, though, and we need to go home.

Home.

It’s the first time I’ve ever thought of Easton as home. It’s true though. Easton is my home now. Taylor, Jesse, everyone at the diner, even Emmett who I don’t even know very well, are my family. And Ender–especially Ender. He makes Easton feel like home most of all. It was easy to fall into the habit of calling him Ender instead of Henry. It feels right for us, it feels natural. I don’t exactly know where he and I stand right now, between all the kissing and licking and fucking–we never discussed what this means. Are we a couple now? I guess it’s a conversation we’ll have to have, eventually. And we will have it because I am done running away from the tough conversations. My parents refused to have the tough conversations with me, and now look where things have landed.

We decide to stop by the storage unit again to do a quick check for anything else I might want, and to put the journals back. I don’t want to read them anymore. I’ve learned more than I ever wanted to from them. We’re almost about to call it quits when I hear my mother’s voice coming closer. Great.

“Hey baby!” she says when she sees me.

How carefree she’s acting makes my skin crawl.

“We were just finishing up. We’re heading home now.”

“Who's your friend?” she asks, eyeing Ender up and down.

You’ve got to be kidding me.

“This is Ender. Here’s your key back.”

I hand her the key and walk away, not wanting to have any more discussion with her right now. Everything is too raw, too fresh.

“Madison, wait,” she says, grabbing my arm as I pass her.

She looks at me and I think I see a hint of sadness, maybe even remorse, in her expression.

“Can I borrow some money?” she asks.

Holy fuck. I want to scream and pull my hair out.

“Why, so you can buy drugs for you and your boyfriend?” I bite out.

I have never, not once, acknowledged her problem out loud in front of her. She gasps and tries to feign innocence, mumbling out excuses and denials. I barely hear her.

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