Written In The Stars: Book Two

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR: LAVENDER DREAMS

By the time Mary finished the play-by-play of what Elijah missed, Mitch returned, only for the story to be told yet again.

Apparently 'Johnathan the Third' had spent a few days at a friend's place, only to come back to their shared apartment with all of Madeline's belonging's gone and her ring sitting on the kitchen table. He tracked her down, apparently with an app, thinking she'd be at her parents and finding out she wasn't. Then he found out who exactly she was staying with and lost his shit.

He tried to play it cool, but that only lasted until Madeline refused to open the door for him. As soon as his fist pounded against the door and his voice grew in volume, Jay called the cops while Mary stayed with her daughter. He pleaded, then screamed, then threatened, then started calling her a whore.

Elijah couldn't listen to the story a second time. He walked out of the kitchen, where they were having their discussion, and Madeline raised her arms to be lifted. She couldn't hear it anymore, either. She'd already lived it. Elijah obliged her, lifting her body and carrying her up the steps.

"I wish you'd been there, but I'm also sort of relieved you weren't," Madeline muttered against his chest. "You would have ended up in the back of the other cop car."

Elijah wasn't about to deny that one. "I absolutely would have."

"So where did you go?" Madeline asked.

When he reached the top of the steps, Elijah turned into the bedroom. "It's a long story, and one I'll tell you tomorrow. Tonight, I'm honestly just worn the fuck out. My brain refuses to function anymore."

After he laid her body on the mattress, Madeline looked up at him. "Do you think your brain can handle a movie?"

Elijah didn't hold back his smile. "If I keep getting caught leaving your bedroom in the wee hours of the morning, people will talk. And I guarantee you that if I lay down in that bed next to you, I'm going to fall asleep."

"Please, they're already talking," Madeline shrugged off.

"That they are," Elijah answered, remembering the conversation with her dad earlier that morning. "But I'm being serious. If I lay down, I'm falling asleep."

Madeline smiled up at him, looking like she was moments away from sleep as well. "I need sleep to help me get better, and you need sleep to help me get better. We sleep better next to each other."

Any trace of a smile from Elijah faded. A memory from four years ago flashed into his mind. He was laying there staring at the ceiling on Jay's couch when his phone lit up.

'I don't sleep well without you, either. The bed just feels cold and empty. I wish you were next to me.'

He'd received that reply from her after an hour of silence from when he'd sent the last message. He remembered reading those words. Then again. Then again, his body warming up a full ten degrees each time. It was all the confirmation he needed that they both felt something before he'd left the apartment that night. That electric energy passing between their bodies was real. She'd felt it.

Elijah grabbed his wallet from his back pocket and tossed it on the dresser. Then his hands tugged at his belt until it broke free of the loops and tossed it on the chair in the room's corner. "Are you sure we should make this a habit? Sleeping next to each other?"

Madeline bit her lip briefly, releasing it once she remembered it was split and bruised. "Can we read into this tomorrow?"

It was true, they both seemed to have reached their limits today, and as much as Elijah wanted to know what was going on in Madeline's mind, he needed rest, and so did she. So he stepped over to the other side of the bed and pulled the blanket over them both.

Madeline turned on the television, then turned off the lamp beside her.

Before she could pick out a movie to watch, Elijah spoke up. "I want to ask you a question, and you don't have to answer if you don't want to."

Madeline didn't so much look in his direction. Instead, she continued to scroll through the options on the screen, sucked in a long breath through her nose, and released it through her mouth. "Ask."

For all he knew, Madeline would tell him to get fucked. But he just needed to ask, if only just to study her reaction to the question. "Were you in love with him?"

Her scrolling seized, and Madeline risked the slightest glance over in his direction before her eyes focused on the remote in her hand. "Yes, I loved him." There was a long pause, to where Elijah assumed that would be her only response, before she continued. "It wasn't the sort of love I felt for you. It was real, but it was about survival. I knew if our relationship ended, it wouldn't wreck me completely. I wouldn't need years just to piece myself back together again. That's what I needed in my life after you.

"I knew it wasn't fair to him. I knew it when we started getting serious, and I was painfully aware of it when he proposed. If someone loves you enough to want to marry you, they deserve to be loved back whole-heartedly. Instead, I gave him pieces, and that wasn't right. When I was still in the hospital, and he was giving me grief about you, I knew I had to end it. Not just because it felt like he was turning into someone else, but because he was showing all this desperation at the idea of losing me to you. He was trying everything in the book to keep me, and I knew in his position I wouldn't feel that same desperation, so I backed out."

Looking over at her, Elijah removed the object of her concentration from her hand, placing it to her side. Then he lifted his fingers and dragged them across the open palm that once held the remote. His fingers danced across the skin for a moment, and Madeline closed her eyes and sucked in a breath. He slid them down and left gentle tickles against her wrist, remembering the night that occasionally plagued his dreams. The night of the kiss, when he touched her just like this.

"When you lent me Jiffy the Giraffe, it smelled like you. Vanilla and lavender," Elijah spoke, albeit randomly, fully aware Madeline was in a trance at that moment. "I remember sitting on the floor of the bathroom in rehab, holding onto that thing, and the smell just hit me. It didn't just smell like you, but smelled like my mom. She loved lavender and used to make all these concoctions out of it. You were both with me the whole time, and you helped me get through it.

"I could tell you used that giraffe for comfort. The lavender and vanilla were so strong, it felt like you'd been holding it for two years straight. You needed something of me to help get you through that sort of pain, just like I needed something of you to get me through rehab. That sort of love doesn't just wreck you, it helps put the pieces back together. That's the sort of love you deserve, Madeline. The kind that moves stars and creates a legacy."

Elijah's fingers moved back up to her palm, and Madeline's fingers curled around his own. She still couldn't meet his gaze, which told him more than if she had. "I had that sort of love before, and I lost it."

"It was never lost," Elijah explained to her. "All you have to do is follow the North Star, and it'll lead you right back to it."

Madeline's eyes pinched shut, and the breath she exhaled shuttered out. It was a solid minute before she could open her eyes again and speak. "I'm in a wheelchair. Not sure I could follow anything right now."

Whether there was a double meaning, or it was simply just a joke, Elijah wasn't certain. It didn't matter. "It's closer than you think." Elijah reached for the remote with his free hand and turned off the television. "Goodnight, M&M."