"Hey... um Corey? Can I talk to you for a moment love?"
Madison leans through the doorway into the study, where her boyfriend is sitting at his laptop making a few final tweaks to his paper . He looks up into her eyes with a gentle smile, but shrugs and quickly resumes his editing. She repeats the question, slightly hurt that her own boyfriend refuses to talk to her after all that's been going on between them recently. She says his name again, her voice too weak to be much more insistent than the first time.
"What! What is it babe can't you see I'm busy?"
She sighs violently, so loud that when her voice falters he jerks his head up suddenly from his work. He sees tear after tear spill over her eyelashes. He sees when she stops trying to hold them back and drops her head into her hands as she spasms with sob after sob.
The girl who has spent the past few months happier than she has ever been before suddenly feels her world crashing down on her. She looks up at her boyfriend with bloodshot eyes, and sees that he is still staring at her in shock.
"What are you gonna do, just stare at me?"
Corey laughs, as if to suggest that that is ridiculous. He stands up, and starts towards her, looking as if he is about to envelop her in a hug.
Except he brushes straight past her, heading into the kitchen to make himself a coffee. He turns back to his weeping girlfriend.
"Stop being such a baby Mads."
YOU ARE READING
Corey Mulligan, The Heart Thief - A Short Story
RomansaMadison Hayford grows up learning to love a world which left her living in poverty until she was well into her teens. And for the most part, she succeeds in spreading love and joy in every place she can reach. But Corey Mulligan, from the moment she...
