Ebony & Ivory

Touché

Ivory

Autumn POV:
My head hurts. I groan. I hope the pounding I hear is the construction in progress next door and not the throbbing aftermath of the wine that was consumed last night. Sadly it was my second of probably many hangover games.

I can still remember my first hangover with Madison, when she screamed the hunger games catch phrase into my ear and I vowed never to drink again. Madison, I wonder what time she got home. I glanced at the clock at my bedside, 7:30. Oh hell, I am going to be late for class!

I slowly, and unsteadily sit upright. Once the room steadied and my eyes could stand to be open in the harsh morning sunlight I glanced around the room. Her bed was made up with her class bag still on it like she left it yesterday. Oh gosh no.

"Mads?" I called out, my voice sounding like a that of a pubescent boy. I hope she was up before me and not still with Harry.

"Fuck." I heard her curse softly outside the door.

I opened the door and it revealed a tired looking Madison, wearing last nights' clothing. Bile rose and I swallowed a lump.

"I have to get ready for class. So do you." I resisted the urge to yell at her, but I wasn't fully awake yet.

We got dressed and ready for the day in a quick, but awkward manner. The tension in the room was so thick it couldn't even be cut with a chainsaw.

The memories of last night, how ever blurred they were, swirled around in my mind as I tried to piece together what happened.

I remember walking out the bathroom and finding Harry with a broken bottle and Liam bleeding. Madison took Harry away from the apartment and I patched Liam up.

"You didn't tell me that Harry was dating your roommate." Liam said, looking down at me from on-top of his kitchen counter.

"You didn't tell me that you liked Madison." He winched as I cleaned his wound with surgical spirits.

"Touché." Liam chuckled.

"All this was about my pretty roommate?" I questioned the obvious.

"Aren't all fights over a girl?"

"Touché." We both laughed.

"You know Harry is lucky to have a great friend like you. Madison too." Liam said to me.

"I would not exactly call Madison and I friends." I sighed and numbed his arm before starting the stitches.

"Probably not yet, but you guys are going to be besties. You might not get along now, but it's inevitably going to happen. They don't say opposites attract for no reason." He smiled sympathetically and placed his unharmed arm on my shoulder.

"There is also a saying that goes 'birds of a feather flock together'." I smiled at my comeback.

"Touché."

"It's ten to eight. I'll drive you to class. You're going to be late otherwise." I said to Madison without even looking up from packing my books.

"Thanks." She said quietly.

We walked down the stairs and out of the building, barely acknowledging each other. By now I was able to fully process my thoughts and started forming what I wanted to say to Madison.

I got into the car and threw my bag onto the backseat not even bothering to care, Madison did the same. I pulled out of the parking lot and turned the radio up.

We drove in deafeningly loud music, but after a minute Madison turned the radio off and it became a deafeningly loud silence.

"Unbelievable." I groaned, more to myself than to her.

"It's not what it looked like!" Madison defended.

"Just when I was starting to tolerate you, just when I thought we could be friends, that's when you go fuck everything up by sleeping with my bloody best friend. Gosh Madison. Why would you do something as intimate as that with a boy you barely know! Does it mean nothing to you?" Once I finished half screaming at her I realized that a curse word had slipped out so smoothly without my mind taking notice. I am not even sorry I swore at her. She flinched at my words.

"I didn't. We didn't." She said quietly, defeated.

"Then what happened after you left with Harry last night that resulted in you coming home only this morning? You guys couldn't have had the most captivating conversations seeing as you were both pretty bloody smashed."

She stayed quiet for a moment and then I spoke up again, "Exactly."

"I didn't sleep with Harry for fuck's sake!" Madison threw her hands into the air.

"Why does everyone always think this of me. It's like I never left home." She whispered with her face in her hands.

My heart dropped. Maybe I had wrongly accused her of sleeping with Harry.

I pulled over and turned to face her. I carefully placed a hand on her shoulder.

"Madison speak to me. Open up to me!"

"I can't." She said with a quiet exasperated sigh.

"Maybe you didn't sleep with him, but bloody hell, tell me what happened then. I want to help, I am trying to care."

"You don't care. No one truly cares about anything, but themselves."

"That's not true. Madison, tell me what happened before, tell me why everyone thought that of you."

I was growing increasingly more frustrated with Madison. I understand that she, much like myself, does not open up easily. But what I can not understand, is that even after I have opened up to her more than once, sharing my most troubling demons, she refuses to do the same.

I was slowly beginning to realize that there was more to Madison than just a carefree party girl. Maybe she was not as happy go lucky as she came across. She had her demons, her family drama and her fair share of insecurities, like us all.

Ebony

Madison POV:
Back home I had built myself quite the reputation- yes most of the things I had notoriously done I truly had done, but that girl back home was not me. I'm a good girl who's lost in the world without parental guidance, making poor choices and craving stability. My parents raised me well, with good moral and taught me right from wrong, but like any teenager I began pushing boundaries. I challenged what they taught me. My parents didn't support the things I did, but they were too carefree not to accept it- it was almost as if they didn't care. I decided to go to university here to get away, to start over, to find myself. I decided that I could be anyone I wanted to be here, I chose to live a fresh life. But Autumn was starting to see the old me through the cracks of the imperfect new me.

"It's nothing. I'm just emotional. You know PMS and all that." I decided to avoid the topic for two reasons. One: it was way too early in the morning to have such a deep conversation (especially because I was hungover) and two: because it was too early in our relationship for this conversation.

"I know it's not nothing, and I know it's not PMS. You had your period last week. You still asked me if I had learnt any remedies for pains." Autumn didn't buy my excuse, but did I really expect her to?

"Touché. You and your damn good memory." I sighed. I know I'm not getting out of this one.

"Maybe we can go out for drinks and dinner tonight to talk? You know, like a girls night. We can even gossip about boys." Autumn winked as she said the last part. We had arrived at my lecture hall.

"Only if I get to pick the place." I retorted as I climbed out the car.

"Deal." Autumn said through the open window as she pulled away.

What did my roommate think of me? I thought I would be able to escape my past. I thought that I could just move on from the countless stupid mistakes I had made. Did she really think the worst of me because I'm still that girl? Or did she think the worst of me because she didn't know I'm not that girl...anymore?

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