Confiding in You ϟ a.i.

Chapter 71

==Maddie's POV==

The car ride home from the hospital with my family is silent. My parents are in the front, and of course they wouldn't speak to each other. Cooper and I sit in the back seat, his head pressed against the window and my hands fiddling with a loose thread on my jacket. Cooper has headphones in and, inside, I'm going over and over in my head exactly what I could say to Ashton.

I keep trying to tell myself that I don't have to know exactly what to say right away. It's not like I'm going to be talking to him the second that I get home. It would simply help ease the stress of it if I knew ahead of time.

I love him, I really do. But my therapist is right -- what our relationship is at this point is causing me more pain than anything else at this point. We both need time to grow.

I keep telling myself that, but it never feels like it is completely the right decision. I have no clue what I'll do without him in my life as much as he has been. I'm afraid I'll just spend every moment wishing we were together instead of actually growing.

But I have to take that chance, and I have to focus on things other than him.

I just don't know how to say that to him, at all. I know that with anything I say, he is going to continue to beg for my forgiveness. I don't even know if I don't forgive him!

I sigh, leaning my own head against the window and looking over at Cooper. I can hear the rock music blaring from his headphones, but his face is stoic, not phased by the volume. It's more angry than anything.

Maybe, if I asked, he'd help me come up with what to say to Ashton that would make him stop begging me and give me a chance to breathe.

As we pull into our snow-covered driveway, Cooper sits up in his seat and clenches his jaw. My dad groans from the driver's seat, and my mom stays silent. I lean over to look past my dad's seat, but deep down I already know.

It's Ashton, sitting on my doorstep and awaiting my return. He's in a navy blue pea coat that I've never seen him wear before and has his hands stuffed in it's pockets. As soon as our car comes to a halt, he jumps up from the stairs.

I guess I don't have that much time to contemplate what to say after all.

As we each get out of the car, no one says a word to Ashton. There's nothing Cooper or my father can do now that I'm out of the hospital. Apparently, they promised him he could talk to me after I was discharged, and he doesn't waste any time.

Snow crunches too loudly beneath my feet as I anxiously near him. Everyone else walks ahead of me and past him to get inside the house, Cooper obnoxiously bumping him as he passes. It doesn't phase Ashton as he just as anxiously watches me approach him.

"What are you doing here?" I ask, biting my lip. Suddenly, anything I've thought to say to him has left my brain.

"Every second for the past few days, I've thought about how I can fix this," he says quietly, rocking back and forth on his heels. I can see his breath shake as he breathes out. "I didn't know how to prove to you how much I have always loved you, and will always love you. And then it finally hit me."

"Ashton," I say, stopping him before he can go any further. If I hear anymore, I might not be able to stand my ground. "We just need to--"

Before I can gather the right words that are slowly coming back to me, he gets down on one knee and they're gone again. My eyes widen and my cold hand flies over my mouth. I think I might start crying.

When he pulls out the box from his pocket and opens it, I actually do cry. In the box is not a diamond ring, but instead a ring with a dinosaur where the diamond would be. I bite my lip even harder than before.