Please, Remember Me

Chapter Twenty-Three - Damage

My next order of business in fixing the few things I could fix in my fucked up life was trying to figure out what had happened between me and Adam. It was a damn clusterfuck of a problem because neither Lizzie, Madeline nor I had any answers as to why he'd become so angry with me after our one night. At least no legitimate reasons he would break off from a relationship that had been as close as ours.

And few days after my night at the girls' place Maddie came into the bar to watch Adam and I working.

We were both behind the bar and he was colder than ever. He didn't answer when spoken to and spent most of his time standing at his end of the bar, chatting up a few extremely rough-looking girls. They weren't even they type he usually went for, they were way too far down on the broken scale, but apparently flirting with them was way better than having to breathe the same air as me.

It hurt that he hated me so much for no obvious reason. It hurt to lose him, of all people, because no matter the relationship we had, we had a deep connection that settled in the fact that we were orphaned people who had a very small family, mainly consisting of each other.

I couldn't let him throw it away, I couldn't let him break us up and kill Lizzie's relationship with him in the process.

Maddie studied him closely, not with her usually lust filled eyes but with actual scrutiny, and kept shaking her blonde head at his back while he chatted away.

He hadn't even greeted her when she came in, which in itself was a dick-move on his part. He could be pissed at me but being rude to a girl who'd had nothing to do with it was just plain wrong.

I served a customer while shooting small glances at my former friend. I handed the customer his lager and walked over to where Maddie was sat on a stool.

"So, what do you think?" I leaned my forearms down on the bar top so she could hear me over the music and the murmur of the customers without me having to raise my voice.

"Babe, I still can't believe you slept with him. I mean look at him, he's gorgeous, even when mad." She flipped her too-blonde locks over her shoulder and grinned at me.

"Not the point, Maddie."

"I know, but still."

I rolled my eyes and grabbed her glass. I refilled it with Pinot Grigio and set it on a fresh napkin. "Any idea about how I should get him to come around? This shit is getting ridiculous, I didn't kill his hamster or anything."

She widened her blue eyes at me, weighed down by the fake lashes. "He has a hamster?"

"It was a joke, love."

"Oh," she scrunched her nose a little and took a sip of her wine. "I think you should just confront him. Make him talk to you and give him no other option. I think you've been too easy on him because you're embarrassed."

She had a point.

I was embarrassed, I was ashamed of what I'd done and the reasons behind it. But I didn't think it was enough to break a friendship, but then again I didn't know exactly what I'd done wrong.

What I did know was that I was sick and tired of the people I loved most leaving me in the dust, whether it was from dying or simply cutting me off. I fucking hated it, I had so few of them to begin with that I was not prepared to let another one go without a fight.

I straightened from my lean and looked over at Adam. He was still chatting with the trashy girls and the sight of it pissed me off. The Adam I knew wouldn't disrespect Maddie, a girl who'd done nothing to him, and he wouldn't be this cold and distant thing he'd become over the last three weeks.