✗| THE ONE ( carson lueders. )

☆《 chapter 36 》☆

last chapter:

The one thing that bothered me the most was..

My father.

☆☆☆

~Carson's POV~ ( ikr, about time )

I was walking out of homeroom, and decided to go outside and get some fresh air.

Once I got closer to the front doors, I saw someone at the tree with their head in their hands.

I went over to them, to obviously ask them what's wrong.

When I got closer to the person, I asked, "Hey, what's wron-..."

I trailed off, because as the person lifted their head, I realized it was Madison.

Her face was full of tears and drained from all of its color. I hated seeing her like this, so I sat down next to her.

"I thought you hated me," She said in a faint voice, tears still coming out of her eyes.

"I could never," I whispered in reply. I put my arm around her and held her close to me.

She seemed to grow tense, and break into even more tears. I fully hugged her, allowing her to cry into my chest.

"What happened?" I asked after a while of silence, except for her sobs.

She looked up at me, tears flowing everywhere onto her face.

"Everything," She said, looking around and moving closer to me.

"Like..?" I questioned, wanting her to be a bit more specific about it.

"Kenzie, the fight, hate, you.." She said, trailing off.

I looked at her beautiful brown eyes, watching then wander, until meeting with mine.

"My dad," She said in the quietest voice I've ever heard her in.

As realization hit me, I hugged her tight. I know that we weren't in the best place with our relationship right now, but I still want to comfort her as much as I can.

I'm guessing something that had to do with her father happened, and I didn't really wanna ask and hurt her feelings.

I sighed, and played with her hair. I could feel her slowly get off of me, and we make eye contact.

Then, in a quiet and cautious voice, I ask her, "Do you wanna talk about it?"

She took a shaky deep breath, as more tears made their way down her face, then nodded.

"When I went into the office.. she got the call that our homeroom teacher promised, explaining what I did," She started.

She gulped, and continued. "She told me I could do better, and I honestly can do a lot better. I just.. don't,"

I nod, letting her know that I'm listening. "So, she asked me why.. and I said I didn't know. It was really because of what happened two years ago,"

"She knew about it, too. She just wanted me to admit it, but I didn't. I refused to admit it, just because I miss him so much and he would be so ashamed of me for acting up because of him," She says.

She broke into more tears as she went on.

"She made me a deal," She said, voice still shaky and now cracking. "If I fixed my act, she would get me help with it,"

I could tell how close she was to breaking down completely, so I held her even closer to me.

"He died," She said, tears starting to fall. "It was my fault, I didn't know what I was doing,"

She fully broke down, and cried into my chest again. I hugged her and rubbed her back, showing her I cared.

We pulled away from the hug, and I wiped her tears.

"That's okay, you're allowed to feel guilty about it, but that doesn't always mean it was all your fault," I say to her.

"Yes it was, he's all dead because of me," She sobbed.

"You obviously love him, you would never do anything to hurt him. People make mistakes, it's okay, Madison,"

"No it's not, he'll never forgive me," She cried even harder.

I rubbed her back more, wanting her to know that I'm always here for her.

"He already forgave you, whatever you think you did, he knows you didn't do intentionally," I reassured her.

"Thank you," She sobbed into my chest.

"Anytime," I say, playing with her hair again.

We pulled away again, and she looked down. I lifted her head up and wiped her tears.

"Not everything is always your fault," I told her.

I then brought her closer to me, and kissed her.

This tree has fixed many of our problems and held all of our kisses, which is why I come out here often to just sit here.

This tree is truly just magical or something.

Madison smiled up at me. "I love you, so much,"

I hugged her again for the hundredth time this past hour. "I love you too,"

☆☆☆

end of chapter

( yay another done, I posted this chapter and last chapter today, but that meant that this chapter had to be a bit shorter than usual. sorry, I was riding with my parents a bunch of places and it took a whole two hours, so I didn't have much time to write a regular full chapter and this chapter, so sorry. hope you enjoyed, bye! )

word count: 865 words