Temptation 2

17 - madden

Tom helped Madden onto the couch when we first arrived at home. Hailey wanted me to throw her a party when she got home. I know Madden though and I figured a house full of people saying "OMG, we're glad you're not dead," wouldn't be much of a welcome home for her, it'd be more like a burden. Instead, I set up a cozy spot on the couch, with some of her favourite candies, chocolate, regular chips and a few cans of soda. I ask Tom if he wants to stick around and chat, but he says that he'll come back in a few days when I'm supposed to go back to work.

I guess along the way, Tom and I became on the same team. I don't trust him not to try to make a move on her, but I trust her enough to know she won't pull on Bella Swam on me and kiss him and I sure as hell don't have to worry about her breaking her hand after punching him because Tom is no werewolf, more like a bunny. I am glad I have someone close by who I know for a fact will keep her safe, so I guess there's that.

* * *

After watching Andrew Garfield's Amazing Spiderman, Madden grabs her crotches and makes her way to the kitchen with a bowl of candy. She's trying to clean up all the food, when her fourth trip with the glass bowl of chips falls out of her hands and shatters on the floor. I want to let her do it on her own, I know she feels like she's got to do it on her own, but I can see she's struggling. "Fuck," she tries to bend down to clean up the mess, but she winces and grabs her side. I walk over to her and place my hands on her shoulders, "I'll clean it up after why we don't get you a bath started?" I suggest. "I can do it." She grits through her teeth. She slowly lowers herself to the ground and places the crotches at her side. Each time she stretches to pick up broken glass or chips, she winces and tries to hide it from me. I just watch her because this is clearly something I shouldn't intervene with.

She has a handful of shards of glass when she goes to reach over for the last piece. It's further away from her, so when she reaches for it, she loses her balance, and both her hands go out to the floor to balance herself. The hand with all the glass is pressed up against the white tiled floor with shards underneath it and now her palm is dripping in blood. I go down beside her and take her hand in mine, pulling out the larger pieces of glass now sticking out of her palm. When I look into her eyes, all I can see is anger and frustration. "That's enough Madden. I will clean it." She shakes her head and looks like she wants to argue with me but gives up. She tries to get herself back onto her feet and fails so I help her and give her crotches to her. She leaves me there without a word and start climbing the stairs using the railing and one crotch. When she reaches the top of the stairs and disappears down the hall and into our bedroom, I start to clean up the glass and chips. I take some vinegar and wash the blood off the tile and then continue to clean up the living room.

Madden is in the shower when I get to our room, and I see her head between her knees while she sits on the shower floor. I can tell by her breathing that she's crying but she's not making a sound. I undress myself and join her in the shower, the water is freezing cold, but I push through it and sit in front of her on the shower floor.

Vulnerability is weird. Before Madden, I was so fucking vulnerable, but it took a long for people to notice. My mum took advantage of me, used me for her drug money and then when I grew up, I became accustomed to her habit because it was all I knew in my life. It started off slowly and then my vulnerability to alcohol seeped through and everyone knew about it. I was vulnerable until she came along. I stopped caring about my fears and worries and I put all my energy into being what she needed me to be until my vulnerabilities took over again and I lost her. I never knew how to control myself, I thought being vulnerable meant being weak, but I learned that it's okay to show weakness, especially around those who need to see that they aren't alone.

I place my hands on her knees, she's shaking from the cold water. I tap the side of her head gently, "What's going on up there?" She continues sobbing silently until she can catch her breath and looks up at me. "It's frustrating, I can't do a simple thing like clean up after myself. It's embarrassing." "Madds, you have got to give yourself some time. You need to heal and until then, I got it." She shakes her head. "I want it to be over Hero." Then she puts her head back between her knees and hides from me. Why is she hiding from me? I tap her head again and she looks up at me, but not meeting my eyes. I sigh, knowing exactly what we both need. "Tell me." That's when she meets my eyes. I turn the shower knob to a warm temperature and start washing her body. When I am finishing washing her hair, I quickly wash myself and then help her out of the shower. Madden throws on my t-shirt and I help her put on a pair of granny panties and get myself into a pair of my boxers. She sits on the bed, using the back board as a support and I sit at the end of the bed. "I want to know." I say it, barely a whisper but she hears me. "Don't look at me." She tells me. I hesitate but I do as I'm asked and face the TV in front of our bed. "They just took me from the airport and brought me to their home. I didn't know or see where I was, I just knew I was in the basement of their home. The basement had a supporting pole which they used to keep m handcuffed to. They stripped me down and—" She gulps. "—and they touched me." I turn around to look at her, I try to move to her so I can hold her, but she just tells me not to look at her. When I face the TV again, she continues. "They didn't rape me, although Trey tried on multiple occasions. He licked, sucked, and touched me in places I'd never let anyone touch me other than you. It was so dark and cold." As she tells me every detail of what happened, I go through so many emotions, rage, pain, anger, despair, worry and guilt. When she's done talking, I turn to look at her and reach for her hand. She doesn't take it, instead asks me to come hold her and that's exactly what I do. I hold my Babygirl in my arms, as tightly as I can and I repeatedly tell her as she cries into my chest, "I'm never letting you go. I promise."

"I didn't know if you'd come home to me. I didn't know if I'd be able to hold you again." She looks up from my chest and into my eyes. I want her to know I didn't stop trying and I never stopped thinking about her. "I was a mess. I was panicking and I didn't know what to do with how I felt. Madden, I was so angry at them but also at myself. The police told me to just be on standby, to be there if you called but I couldn't just sit around and wait. Tom, he helped me babe. If he didn't help me, then I would never have gotten you back. But, when you would facetime me, it was the hardest. You didn't want me to look at you which hurt me so fucking bad because if you didn't want me to see you, I knew it was bad. We had a plan, and it was a good plan, but we needed to wait, and waiting was just not an option for me. I was ready to do this shit on my own but then you called back, and things changed." I take a deep breath and hold her just a little tighter in my arms, "Adam's still out there Madden." We both knew it, but neither of us have said it. I let him go, told the cops what he was driving and now we're just waiting again.

* * *

Madden fell asleep in my arms that night, and she has every night since, but the nurse was right. Madden wakes up after only a few hours of sleep every night, screaming. Each time, I jump awake and try to sooth her back to sleep but it never comes. She's too scared to close her eyes again, so tonight like every night when she screams herself awake from the nightmare, I rub her back and make her a tea then we turn on some Netflix and watch a movie. I try to stay awake tonight, but I haven't had a full night's sleep in days and I'm so exhausted that when it hit me, I couldn't stop it.