Spades and Angels

Fallen?

Maddox

Lo A: Hey M, I need to talk about keeping a distance and cooling it a little. Almost got found by my best friend who asked about where I was Friday. Had to lie and say I was sick. We need to be careful before we're found. Before we start a war we won't walk away from.

Lo's last message on Monday makes me nervous. Nervous and confused since I thought we'd been careful enough to avoid being spotted by people but it seems we're wrong. More wrong than I anticipated since if we weren't even being careful with a look what if we'd done something more? If she'd got hurt and it had been my fault? I-I couldn't live with that when all I'd been trying to do was save her from what Riv had told me happened to girls in the Spades. Even though I wasn't telling her, or my friends. I still wanted to help her, even with her sassiness and bold opinions managing to stick with me even when we were apart. Worming deeper and deeper until I was confused all the time around her. Loving her sharp tongue, she cussed me out since it meant she was okay. I hated it when she cried since it tore at me in a way that only my friends or kid sister could.

Just confused. Confused with no answers.

I'd responded to her on Monday but we hadn't had a chance to meet since she and I kept apart. Wanted to keep whatever suspicions had arisen after Homecoming to stay that way. Just suspicions that would hopefully die down over time. Something we could do since we'd swapped numbers over that weekend so could still text to talk. A favourite way of hers to argue for a movie or band she loved but I disagreed with. A comfortable middle ground we could reach without making people more suspicious than they already are. Something we needed to avoid if we were to avoid the war she mentioned before.

But it's hard. It's hard keeping apart since I could see when she'd watch me. A longing in her eyes that I'm not sure she understood but I knew in part. Simply because I could feel it too. Our playful jesting seemed to hide something deeper. Something we'd fallen into when we'd 'fallen off the ledge' as she called it last week. That made the distance harder to maintain. The lies are harder to vocalise and swallow. My boundaries and tact were harder to keep since I missed her anger as much as her presence when she left my sight. Even if just for a moment. Leaving me wondering if we're doomed to something bigger than us.

"Hey Mads, are you okay over there?" Hali's voice to my left snapped me out of my head on Wednesday where I'd been sitting with my eyes on a tree I know Lo sits under sometimes when she's alone. "Mads?" Now my friend taps my shoulder and I look away from the tree to where she watches me with a worried expression. "You ok?" I smile and try to reassure her but I must not have been convincing given her frown. "I only ask since you seem more preoccupied than you have in weeks. Ever since Homecoming, it's like you're looking for something. Someone. Are you doing okay or did something happen with whoever your mystery date was?" She gives me a kind look and I hate lying to her but I know if I spilled what happened between me and Lo to anyone it wouldn't end well. "Mads?"

"I'm ok Hails. Just a little tired. That's all." She sighs but looks both unconvinced and preoccupied herself. Her eyes seem to be far away in a way I can guess the meaning behind. "Thinking about her again? Because I'm sure Crimson's fine," I whisper, using our group code name for her sister when on Spade soil. Something I know Hali hears when she sighs, eyes losing some of the lost look but with a more calculated one coming back. "You ok Hails?"

"Something isn't adding up. That's all." She sounds frustrated then and I wonder if she's mentioned to Ash whatever is bothering her since the two were close. "Stuff with my dad and mine and my siblings' mother. What she did with the company last year. It all makes less and less sense the more I think about it. The more I look at it and analyse it." Now she sighs again and fixes me with a look that has her and Riv almost identical. "Do you get what I mean?"