Crush

Twenty-Nine

Tess spent the few minutes she had to wait swapping between being nervous and being excited. To get a text out of the blue from Maddie, and to realise that text meant she was back in town was one thing, but to still be wondering whether it was her fault Maddie left was another. Tyres crunched on the gravel outside the tree house, and Tess took a few deep breaths to calm herself. In reality, it had only been one day, sixteen hours and around forty-six minutes since she'd last seen Maddie (but who was counting). Tess wiped her sweaty palms on her shorts, and found it hard not to fidget. The more she fidgeted, the more her palms sweated and the more she had to wipe them on her shorts. When she heard footsteps on the tree house ladder, she turned to face the door.

Her heart almost exploded with excitement when Maddie appeared in the doorway, smiling at her. She strode over to Tess and wrapped her in a tight hug.

"I missed you," Maddie whispered against Tess's neck. It sent shivers down Tess's spine.

"Me too," Tess said. "I'm sorry."

Maddie pulled back, holding Tess at arm's length. "You? What are you sorry for?"

"The picture. Of us in the paper."

Maddie shook her head. "That's nothing. Last month they were saying Andy had gotten some girl pregnant."

"Wow."

Maddie shrugged and said, "It comes with the territory unfortunately."

"I think it sucks," Tess said.

"It does sometimes," Maddie replied. "But the free stuff you get given makes up for it."

"Really?" Tess asked.

Maddie laughed and said, "No, not really." She took Tess's hand and gave it a squeeze. "I want to apologise to you, Tess. For leaving without telling you what was going on."

"That's okay," Tess said. "It's not like we're together or anything."

"Is that what you think?" Maddie asked.

Tess looked down at her feet. They hadn't discussed their relationship and where they stood with each other before Maddie left.

Maddie took both of Tess's hands in hers and said, "Well I don't know about you, Tess Copeland, but I don't just go around kissing random girls you know."

Tess laughed. "Me neither."

Maddie stepped closer and when she spoke, Tess could feel the heat between them. "I really like you, Tess. And I really, really hope you like me too."

Tess's throat was suddenly dry, so she just nodded.

"Good," Maddie smiled. "I don't know about how things work in Chesterfield, but in Sydney, when one girl likes another girl enough to kiss her, and only her, that means they're, you know, girlfriends."

Tess swallowed. "Okay," she said.

"And girlfriends don't just leave without telling each other why," Maddie said.

"I'm sure it was something important," Tess said, finally able to talk.

Maddie nodded solemnly. "It was," she replied. "But I still should have called you to let you know I was okay."

"So, what was it? Did you get it sorted?"

"I hope so," Maddie said. "The record company wanted us to go in a direction we didn't want to go in. So did my dad. So we quit instead."

"You quit? Can you even do that?"

Maddie shrugged. "We thought about how we were in the beginning, before we had a record deal. When we were having fun. It was all our own stuff. Just me and Freya and Andy. So, we decided to just do it all ourselves."