Wholly Apart

Chapter 16

LOREN KENSIGTON

It had taken me about two whole weeks to decide to text Madelyn from when I'd gotten her number at the little barbecue I'd done. I had kept trying to convince myself that it had been enough time and that one text wouldn't change anything, but then I remembered that something had obviously happened last time, and it scared me. So I didn't text her, I just stared at her name on my phone and the empty chat, when in fact it should be fucking full of my texts.

If I'd texted her every time I'd wanted to so far, she'd have about a million texts in her inbox. And I still wasn't sure she'd have opened a single one.

But now it had been two whole weeks, and in my mind that was more than enough time to stop myself from reaching out to her. Any longer, and it was unreasonable. Not even Connor could expect me to not talk to her for two whole weeks.

I had given her some space and some time, but I couldn't keep myself from at least trying to talk to her now. Not when she was all I thought about every single day.

How is school going, Mads? ~ Lo

It was lame as fuck, I knew that. And somehow during two whole weeks of thinking this through, I hadn't come up with a single better first text. I had no idea what to write to not make her panic, and so I'd settled on something easy. Something that she could respond to in as many or as little words as she wanted. Something that didn't address anything that was going on between us.

But at least she'd know that I hadn't forgotten about her and that I wanted her contact. I wanted to text with her again, and I never would have stopped if she hadn't gotten a new number.

I put my phone down on the counter, thinking about a drink. It would be fucking nice to have a sip or two right now. But I wouldn't do that.

I'd only had that one drink, and that was it. I'd only had it because I'd been so angry at my father. And I was still angry now, but not angry enough to drink.

These past few days somehow had been even worse than usual. Probably because I'd had a drink and my body had tasted how good it was and how good it'd made me feel.

But I wasn't going to do that again. No way.

I was better than that, and my father wasn't going to be the reason that I started drinking again. One little drink didn't change that.

I spent about half an hour making myself an elaborate dinner because I had taken that up as a new hobby. I had too much free time and I was alone too much, so I was doing something new. And surprisingly, it was very relaxing and it was always very worth it.

I was halfway through eating my food, when my phone rang.

I grabbed it from the counter, frowning when I saw Connor's name on my screen. He never called me. If anything, he texted and didn't call.

I picked up the phone and pressed it to my ear, "Yeah?"

"You need to come," he spoke and I could sense that something was wrong. He wasn't speaking nearly as calmly as he did usually and there was some kind of undertone to his voice.

"What happened?" I asked, already getting up.

"I do not know," he admitted and let out a heavy breath, "But I can't—"

There was a crash that interrupted him and my heart rate started picking up a lot. What if that crash involved Madelyn?

And when he called her name, I started seriously panicking. Because when Connor was panicked, then that didn't mean anything good.

"Who are you talking to?" I heard her voice in the distance, sounding so unlike her.

"Lo," he said and before it had even come out of his mouth completely, she interrupted him, "No. He can't come here"