A Love Like Ours

Chapter 19

It felt like everything was moving too quickly and not quickly enough. All my thoughts, all my feelings—they were swirling around inside of me like a whirlpool, going faster and faster until there was a dark, deep hole right in the middle.

And I couldn't see down it to know how to respond.

So after several moments, maybe minutes of silence, I cleared my throat. "Do you love him?"

It was the one thing she hadn't said outright.

Madelyn didn't react to the fact that I didn't answer her question, just looked down at her fingers in her lap. "Over the past year, he became one of my best friends. So, of course I love him, but..." My heart pounded in my throat. "But I've been realizing these past few weeks—after seeing you—I think that's where my love for him begins and ends. As a friend."

"A friend," I repeated, still angry, still hurt, still wondering why all of this had to happen. "A friend you're not in love with."

"A friend I love very dearly," she clarified, "but no. I'm - I'm not in love with him, no."

It was like she was saying it for the first time. Admitting to herself for the first time what she was really feeling. And it was a relief to me. Because it was one less thing hanging over my head. The anger I was feeling quickly dissipated as that relief filled me up. But it didn't wipe away the confusion. Didn't put an end to the endless stream of questions I still had. Didn't change the fact that everything she'd just told me was something that could've been avoided, for any number of reasons.

"Why'd you say yes, then?" I asked. "Why did you agree to marry him?"

Mads sighed. "I - I thought I did. Love him, I mean. It was different from the way I felt for you—quieter, more... unassuming. But it was there." She looked at me. "And then I saw you again, for the first time since my mind had cleared itself of the darkness... and I realized just how wrong I was. About you, about us, about everything I'd been doing to keep myself away from you because of what I'd done. And... seeing you... it just made me realize how much more love really is."

Love. I knew it already. But she was saying the word. She was using it in reference to me. And I was absolutely reeling from hearing it.

I nodded, pursed my lips. "So, that's why you came here then. Because you realized you didn't love him."

She shook her head. "Because I realized I still love you."

There it was again. But it was real now. She'd said it. She was still looking at me, but not in a way that made me think she expected me to say it back. Just in a way that made me think she was relieved to be saying it.

"Why didn't you end it then?" I asked, throwing another of my questions at her like a curveball. "Why not end it with him before coming here?"

I could see she was scrambling, getting emotional again. I didn't want to care.

"I - I..." She looked down at her ring, took a deep breath. When she looked up again, there were more tears in her eyes. "I sort of... did."

I was stunned.

Happy.

"You... you what?" I breathed, watching as the tears continued to roll down her cheeks.

"Seeing you at the wedding, it was like... like everything snapped back into focus." Mads drew in a deep breath. "A couple of days after... after seeing you, I—I was still beside myself. There was no hiding it from Rob. I was an absolute mess. I—I was scaring him again. I was scaring myself, I think. But when I decided why, when the shadows all cleared and I realized that everything I'd done to spare you what I thought was a whole lot of hardship was really just cowardice on my part, I... I told him I had to come here. And that I wanted to call the engagement off."