Chase and Madelyn: A love story

Chapter 75

⚠️TW: Mentions of panic attack, self harm, suicide, overmedicating, and eating disorders 

Chase's POV:

Today was Sunday. Madelyn was doing the podcast interview tomorrow. Instead of going to LA, which would be difficult, Alex was going to come to Charleston with a few of her crew members. Madelyn wasn't really talking about it, I didn't know if she was feeling nervous or hesitant or anything. 

I woke up that morning to an empty bed. I got up and walked to the twins room because I assumed Madelyn was probably feeding them. I entered their room and saw Madelyn laying on the floor asleep between the two cribs. She had both of her arms extended and was holding both Juliet's and James' hands in each hand. It was adorable, I couldn't stop smiling. I pulled out my phone and took a picture. I decided to post it on Instagram. I knew Maddie wouldn't mind because we had already announced the twins arrival last week. Plus their faces weren't showing in the picture, you could only see their little hands. 

I captioned it "Mother is mothering" which I thought was hilarious so I laughed to myself for a good 5 minutes. The post quickly got thousands of likes and comments. I smiled knowing how excited and happy everyone was for us.

I went downstairs to start making breakfast and heard footsteps. Madelyn approached me from behind and hugged me.

"Good morning baby." I said while turning around to face her. "How long were you asleep like that?" I asked with a giggle, wondering if she had been on the floor for long.

"What do you mean?" She asked.

I laughed. "Look on instagram..."

Her face dropped. "Oh no." Madelyn joked.

She saw the post and smiled subtly. 

"I had no idea I fell asleep in that position. I woke up just sprawled out on the floor." Madelyn said.

I bent down to kiss her forehead.

"How are you feeling about tomorrow?" I asked, referring to the podcast interview.

"Good." She replied confidently.

"Yeah?" I confirmed.

Madelyn nodded. Usually I could tell when she was lying, she would bite her lip and not make eye contact, but she wasn't doing that. She appeared genuine. I was very surprised, usually Maddie hated these kinds of things and would have a lot of anxiety about it beforehand. Either she was actually confident and ready to share her story, or she became a very good liar overnight. 

"Do you want to talk about it?" I added.

"Chase, I said I'm feeling good." Madelyn replied.

Even though I believed her at this point, I was worried. I knew Alex would ask some really deep and personal questions, things Maddie had never talked about with anyone, sometimes not even me. I was concerned that it would bring up all sorts of emotions that she hadn't felt in a while.

"Ok, good. I'm proud of you Mads." I said. 

She smiled and hugged me. I held her in my arms until James began crying.

"I got him." I said.

Madelyn's POV: 

It was Monday morning. Alex would be arriving soon. I was feeling a little more nervous than I did yesterday, but there was a completely different reason for that. I didn't want to tell Chase, I definitely did something wrong and felt terrible.

Yesterday morning, I woke up at 4 AM in a panic. It was one of the worst panic attacks I've had in a while. I ended up outside walking around the dark streets because it felt like I couldn't breathe inside the house. That lasted for about an hour until I eventually was able to calm my breathing. I didn't have any urges to cut though. I would've called my therapist Carrie or woken up Chase, but I wasn't thinking straight. I could only focus on how fast my heart was beating and how small my lungs felt. I went back inside afterwards and took three of my anxiety pills...a huge no no. I wasn't trying to do anything bad, I just needed to relax. I wound up in the twins room feeling delirious, until I fell asleep on the floor, which was the context of the picture Chase posted.