Page 61 of I Hear You

I smile into her hair, breathing her scent.

“Ender,” she whispers against my chest.

Grunting to let her know I’m listening is all I can muster the strength for.

“Do you want me to call you Ender?”

“Always,” I tell her, “Because with you, it’s who I’ve always been.”

“I’m glad.”

She kisses my chest softly and I smile bigger than I have in years.

We fell asleep with her lying on top of me, naked. She’s still asleep when I open my eyes. I stare at her, her hair splayed across my chest, her lips gently parted. I want to stay like this forever–her soft breaths prickling my skin.

Mustering all my will power, I gently roll her off me, kiss the side of her head and go to the bathroom. I decide to shower before she wakes up. If I try to do it after she wakes up, I’ll ask her to join me, and I don’t think we have time for how long of a shower that would be. Great. Now I’m getting hard because I’m thinking of her in the shower. I almost yell at my dick to calm the hell down. I haven’t been this horny or uncontrollable in years. Mads does something to me. She sets every part of me on fire. She makes me want to do things I’ve never done before. I want to experience everything with her, all at once. All the ways we could touch, or kiss, or–.

My mind trails off again, imagining all the hot sex I want to have with her. The water gets cold, so I force myself to shut it off and get out of the shower. I wrap a towel around my waist. Should I have brought clothes in here with me? I know we had a night of mind blowing sex but we didn’t talk about where we stand with each other. I don’t exactly know the protocols here.

When I come out of the bathroom, Madison is sitting on the floor in my t-shirt and nothing else and I almost go back into the shower to stand under cold water. It’s that or picking her up and throwing her on the bed and making her come again. She’s sitting in front of the box of journals, several of them open and spread out around her.

“I wasn’t sure if you’d want those,” I say sheepishly.

She looks up at me and gives me a smile, which doesn’t quite make it to her golden eyes.

“I do. Thank you. Will you help me?”

“Anything. Always,” I tell her.

“I’m trying to sort them by date. I’m hoping I can find something in them about who my—what do I even call him? Bio-dad? Sperm donor? Random dude that knocked up my mom who isn't the Dad I know and love—”

"You don't have to call him anything. Let me get dressed and we will do this together."

I put on a pair of fresh underwear and some jeans and drop to the floor with her. I start opening journals to the first entry with a date and laying them out in the timeline she’s creating on the floor. Madison’s stomach growls loudly and she giggles.

“Shit. We haven’t eaten since the diner yesterday. I’m ordering you room service. Anything in particular?”

“One of everything, I am starving,” she jokes.

I order one of everything on the breakfast menu. When it arrives, we set up a picnic on the floor and share our feast sitting across from each other. We take bites of omelets, pancakes, waffles, and fresh fruit until we’re both full. Madison has a bit of powdered sugar on the corner of her lip. I want to lean over and lick it off, but I just reach over and gently wipe it away with my thumb. Somehow, it’s sexier than licking it off. Her lips parted just a little, and she leaned into my hand slightly.

“We should probably finish sorting these,” she says.

I want to keep touching her, but I know she’s right. What we’re doing is important. Hopefully, I have a lot more time in the future to be able to touch her. Right now, I need to help her find answers.

When we’re done sorting the journals, she skims through the ones around the time her mom should have found out she was pregnant. I read the ones from a few years after Madison was born, so we can meet somewhere in the middle. From what we’ve assembled on the floor, it looks as if the journals ended only six months ago. I’m surprised her mom kept writing in them for so long. Maybe Madison has a small thing to thank her mother for, a love of writing.

We read for an hour and I don’t find much. In the journals I read, her mom goes back and forth between being a proud, doting mother, and wife–to being resentful for having to handle it all at such a young age. Even though I don’t want to, I sympathize with her. I know she had Madison right out of highschool and it couldn’t have been easy. Not telling Madison who her biological dad was–even after the dad she loved, her real dad, passed away–that may be unforgivable though. My anger toward her mother doesn’t stop me from worrying about Madison reading these, worried she’ll lose what love she may still have left for her. I know the feeling of hating a parent and it’s difficult. It’s confusing and heart breaking. It can be all consuming, trying to reconcile the two warring emotions.

I finally stumble across an entry when Madison was about three years old that looks like it’s what we’ve been looking for. But, it’s not what I wanted to find. I clear my throat.

“Mads,” I say.

She looks at me and her eyes are hopeful. I’m about to crush her. This is so much worse than I expected.

“I’m so sorry Madison, but I think he passed away,” I say, handing her the journal.

Chapter twenty-nine

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