Haunted

After You, Part 2

He knew it was wrong but Maddox ignored Josh's calls for two more days. At first all of Josh's messages were calm but by the second day it was obvious Josh was starting to worry. Maddox hadn't meant to keep ignoring him so long but the more he waited the more he felt like he had to know what he was doing before he could see Josh again.

On the morning of the fourth day, Maddox woke up feeling like he was going to lose his mind. He didn't feel any closer to knowing if he should stay with Josh and see where they ended up or if he should just go ahead and walk away. As he'd gotten used to, he had a voicemail from Josh waiting from the night before.

Most of it was exactly what he'd expected. Josh was worried, didn't know if Maddox was mad at him or if there was something else going on. He said he missed him, hoped he was okay and would call soon, but because he wasn't sure he'd ever get to say it in person-

"I love you, Maddox," Josh's voicemail went on but Maddox played the same section of it over and over again for the past 20 minutes. Each time he heard the words he felt sick. He went back to play it again.

"I wish I could tell you this in person, Dax, but I'm starting to think the worst so in case I never get to see you again I want you to know something. I love you, Maddox."

"Ugh," Maddox stopped the message and tossed his phone aside. Why couldn't he just have done what Justin said and told Josh the truth? Why did he let himself hurt Josh like this?

But the more he thought about how bad he was making Josh feel, the more guilty he felt about the way he'd treated Brent. And he knew he shouldn't keep thinking about Brent when he was supposed to be thinking of Josh but he couldn't stop himself. It was starting to make him crazy.

Maddox picked up his phone again and opened Instagram. He felt like he was doing something he shouldn't as he started to scroll through the list of people he followed to find Brent. It was pretty obvious from Brent's most recent pictures that he was in L.A. enjoying some time off.

"Dax?" Scarlett had opened his door a tiny bit and pushed her little face into the crack. "Can come in?"

"Not right now," Maddox sighed.

"Okay," Scarlett closed the door again but he never heard her little footsteps going down the hall and he knew that she was standing right outside. Eventually she would sit down and wait for him to come out or Clara would make her move. Maddox turned over so he couldn't see her shadow.

Before he could let himself think it over too much he wrote a text to Brent and sent it. It would be agony waiting for an answer but he couldn't get the idea out of his head and he knew the only way to stop thinking about it would be to just ask.

Maddox: Is there any chance you'd take me back?

He held his breath as the message sent and then tried to keep from panicking as he realized what he'd done. Maddox stared at his phone, almost wishing he'd get some kind of error message or that Brent had changed his phone number or even just deleted Maddox's number from his phone.

But nothing like that happened and Maddox had to set his phone down, his hands shaking. He didn't know what to do with himself while he waited. At first he kept looking to see if Brent was writing a response but that was like torture. He couldn't think of a single way to distract himself so he lay there, staring up at the ceiling and waiting.

Hours passed. He had to eat but he went straight back to his room, knowing there was no way he could handle being around his family as nervous as he was. The minutes got longer and longer and Maddox finally made himself delete the message from Josh. There was no reason to keep listening.