One Temptation

Grief (Chapter 83)

You guys deserve a reason to why I disappeared for months. 

My mental health took a huge toll, and I was stuck in this depressive, not motivated to do anything state. 

I had issues with my past relationships, friendships, my family at home and couldn't take it anymore and basically lost all motivation to write. 

And I know that is not a valid reason to leave you all hanging for months without any explanation to where I went. 

I do have some writing for this chapter done. So I will publish what I have. It's not proofread and certainly not my best writing but I tried my very best to get it out onto my laptop so you guys could have something to read.

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Madison's POV:

I don't realise I've started walking until the noise behind me fades just enough that it doesn't sound real anymore.

Not gone just... distant, like it belongs to a different place, a different version of tonight that I'm no longer part of, even though I know, deep down, that if I turned around right now it would all still be there exactly how I left it.

Exactly how he was.

So I don't turn around.

I keep walking, even though my legs feel strange.

I don't stop because stopping would mean thinking and thinking would mean replaying it and I don't think I can survive seeing it again.

The air feels wrong. It feels too thick, too heavy, like I'm trying to breathe through something I can't see. 

I blink, hard, and that's when I realise I'm crying.

Messy tears slipping down faster than I can even process them, blurring everything into streaks of light. I swipe at my face, frustrated, almost angry at it, like I can force myself to stop, like I can physically shut it off.

It doesn't work.

Because the second I try to focus the image comes back, sharp and brutal and completely unforgiving.

West.

His hands.

The sound.

God, the sound.

My stomach twists so hard it feels like something inside me just flipped, like my body is rejecting the memory even as my brain forces me to relive it, over and over and over again.

How can someone look like that?

How can someone be that?

Because I know him.

Or at least I thought I did.

I thought I knew the way his voice softened when he spoke to me, the way his hands were always careful, like he knew exactly how much pressure to use and never crossed the line, not once, not ever —

And now all I can see is blood on those same hands, knuckles split open, skin torn, like whatever control he had just... disappeared.

My breath stutters.

It's small at first, barely noticeable, just a slight hitch that I would've ignored any other day, but right now it feels louder.

I inhale again, deeper this time, trying to push past it, trying to ground myself in something real.

But the air doesn't go in properly.

It stops halfway, catching somewhere in my chest like there's no space left for it to fill, like something is physically blocking it from going any further.