Sandbox Love Never Dies

The morning after

The next morning, Zoe awoke to a pounding in her temples and the sound of very persistent knocking. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes as she trailed to the door, throwing it open to see her headmistress, Cordelia, standing there.

"You missed your lessons today and I just wanted to check on you." Her voice was soft and her smile warm, but something was bothering her, she could tell just by the way she was carrying herself. Her shoulders were slumped forward and her eyes were tired but she still looked strong, undefeatable. She was afraid to speak, fearing that she would smell the vodka on her breath so she forged a smile and nodded once, hoping that would be enough answer for her.

"Well, I'm going out today with the other girls so you're free to join us if you like but you look a tad bit under the weather." Her face showed concern and she reached out to touch the side of her face, making the assumption that she was either checking for signs of a fever or another perfectly reasonable explanation.

"No, I'm okay, just a bit tired. I think I'll stay in today and do double in lessons tomorrow to catch up. I hope you have a good day out today Cordelia, see you when you get back." She shut the door and locked it once more, flopping back onto her bed and closing her eyes with a sigh. She heard movement from across the room and she didn't even bother to look up, already knowing that Madison was coming over to pester her. Soon enough, she felt the edge of her bed sink in and she opened one eye to look towards the direction of the bottom of the bed, a little uncomfortable with the way the blonde was staring her down.

"Um.." She slid up on her elbows and sat against the wall, propping her chin on her knees, choosing to avoid eye contact with the rageful older witch sitting inches away from her. They didn't speak for a long time, they just snuck glances at one another when the other wasn't looking and it wasn't until the sound of the front door closing echoing through the house that she finally decided to break the silence.

"Are you um okay? You look kind of out of it.. And it's not because of the insane amount of alcohol you consumed last night, I know it isn't. There's pain in your eyes, deep pain, and I would like to try to help you to process it, get it out of your system you know?" She wanted to help her simply because she knew what deep pain felt like, and she didn't want the already emotionally fragile girl to have more pain added on to her. She saw what it did to her aunt Sabrina, and she didn't want the same thing for Madison.

"Oh like you give a shit Zoe. You didn't seem to care about my pain the day you left me did you?" Those words sucked the air out of the room and she found it hard to do basic involuntary actions such as the blood pumping to her heart to keep it beating or air getting to her lungs. She knew that she wasn't crazy, she knew it. She knew that she had some connection to the older witch, but she failed to understand just how deep that connection ran, and now that she finally knew that this was the Madison she had loved for so long, she desperately wished she didn't.

"I loved you so much Zoe, so so so much. I loved you more than anyone or anything in this world and everyone knew it, we knew it, our parents knew it, our fucking classmates knew it. The difference between the love we shared was that mine never went away, while yours did. The year after you left was the hardest year of my whole life and I was afraid I wouldn't even be able to survive without you, and in a way, I guess I didn't. The old Madison is gone, the pieces of her heart scattered in whatever shitty town you relocated to, but you didn't try to piece it back together, you just left it buried in the dirt. You're so cruel for that, so so cruel." Tears were welling up in her eyes, and she was utterly speechless. She knew that the way she was being treated was unfair but she couldn't help but feel that she deserved it, that she deserved every toxic word that she spit from her tongue but she couldn't deny that the words hurt her nonetheless.

"Okay, I know you're still upset with me, I don't blame you, but you have to know that losing contact with you was out of my control. My parents banned me from talking to you because they thought that we were too attached and that it wasn't healthy for either one of us. I wrote you letters but mom always placed them back in my room the next night, I still carry all of them with me just in case something like this came up. I tried to continue to love you, to be there for you, but I was physically unable to do so. So don't you dare ever try to tell me that my love for you evaporated, because it didn't. I don't think anything could ever make it go away." The room fell silent once again, and before the both of them knew it, their lips were pressed together. She was warm and safe and certain, just as she had remembered her to be the nights they would lie together in her bed and talk about things that were meaningless now. Madison's fingers found their way into Zoe's hair and they kissed each other as if their lives depended on it, touching and becoming reacquainted with one another after all the years that they were apart. By the time they pulled away from each other, their lips were swollen and their cheeks flushed bright red. They didn't speak, they just found their way under Zoe's blanket, holding each other just as they did when they were young teens, promising themselves to only each other.

Night had fallen, and Madison was fast asleep against her shoulder, a sliver of skin peeking out from her t-shirt dress, which she had worn to sleep the previous night. She ran her fingers over the crown of her head and through the soft blonde locks that she had loved so much when they were younger. She had woken from a fitful nightmare an hour earlier and she didn't have the heart to wake up the girl next to her so she laid her head back on her pillow and observed the facial features that were in such close proximity she could reach out and touch them. The small practically invisible smattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose that she tried to hard to cover up with makeup, the arch of her perfect dark eyebrow, the tip of her nose, the way her eyelashes rested across her skin as she slept, her lips that she couldn't forget the taste of no matter what she did. In her eyes, Madison Montgomery was the epitome of imperfectly beautiful; While she definitely didn't lack beauty in the physical department, she certainly did in the emotional/mental sense. She couldn't blame the girl for trying so hard to paint this perfect picture of herself- wealth, endless amount of suitors, makeup crafted to perfection everyday, because she felt that if people knew what she was hiding inside, she would lose that admiration that people automatically gave to her because of how beautiful she was. 

But Zoe knew her, all sides there were to know of her, and she was certainly an enigma sometimes, but she loved her just the same and then some. That's what love was to her, being there for someone even when you saw the ugly parts, because then it would just be superficial and plastic love, and no one ever really wanted something like that, no matter how many people claimed to be fine with it. She knew that one day, she wouldn't have the love that she had with the girl sleeping next to her any longer, but she hoped that day was very far in the future. She had such a bad feeling that one of them was going to lose their lives when this was all said and done, and she prayed that it would be her rather than the blonde who had too much pain to stretch out across a century. As she listened to the soft breathing next to her, she made a vow to herself that no matter what happened, she would do absolutely anything for Madison Montgomery, even if it took her life in the process.

Umm yeah I'm probably going to end this book in maybe 4 or so more chapters i'm not sure yet though. Thanks for all the support, your feedback is highly appreciated. x

also i apologize that this is shorter and more rushed than the previous chapters, i'm just trying to finish this fic asap so I can transition my attention solely to the one shots book,, hope y'all aren't too upset with me!