Home Bound (18+)

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The wedding was exemplary. Breathtaking colors of the sunset covered the walls and ceilings that perfectly matched the lilies and orchids placed on the tables and columns. One by one, people dressed in different shades of pastel yellow started to occupy Lockheart Hall. Tiny giggles, clatters of the utensils, shouts of children, and delighted cheers emanated around the hall. Food and champagne flowed as fast as the conversation. Nothing and no one looked out of place. It was perfect.

It was surreal, Madison thought with a hint of tears glistening her eyes. Chest bursting with pride, she ran her eyes around the wedding reception she helped executing in a span of less than three months. The endless arguments against the caterers, bargaining for cheaper prices, and dealing with bridezilla (not to mention bridesmaidzillas) had finally paid off.

Madison lifted the margarita she ordered twenty minutes ago to her lips and let it moisture her tightening throat. For the first time since the experiment had ended, she felt genuine happiness.

After crushing the note, Maddie collected her handful clothes, went back to her apartment brokenhearted, and cried her heart out until her eyes became puffy and her nose running. And feeling sorrier for herself than ever, she dragged herself in her tub, trying unsuccessfully to wash away the feeling of Lance's touch and kisses, scrubbing her flesh raw until her skin protested for no more and still she could feel it. His lips. His tongue. His bite. His breath. his love. Everything. She could still feel everything as if he was still there.

When all her attempts proved futile to take away the heaviness in her chest, she tried curling atop her bed and cried with her shoulders racking and her throat sore. Maddie ached so much she had no energy to pick all the pieces of her meager heart up and try to do some repair. For Lance rejection was too much to bear even for someone who was strong as Madison.

For the next two weeks, Madison Ames ceased to live. Only she struggled to exist, doing her chores and physiological responsibilities like a robot. The once alight and joyful blue eyes looked so bleak she stopped looking at the mirror. Maddie embraced the pain like a long lost lover until her friend, Sierra, fought like mad to take it away from her.

She refused endlessly. It was her pain. Hers and only hers. Pain that made her human. She didn't know how to live without her nursing, stroking, and building her pain.

Yet Sierra, crazy as her mother (bless her soul), tended her as if she was a ten-year-old child who couldn't take care of herself.

Or maybe she really couldn't. Maddie smiled at the thought.

She lifted her cup once more and finished her bland margarita in two gulps and placed it away, her eyes scanning the crowd looking for the bride. Sierra was now clinging around the arm of her husband of twenty-three minutes in precision, Jerry. She was laughing at something he whispered and playfully patting his cheek with her free hand. Maddie vividly remembered how Sierra pushed her to be her maid of honor. How she succinctly enunciate to Maddie to stop being a brokenhearted hussy.

Organizing her wedding was the second best thing she did after the experiment. Making Sierra as her friend was the first.

After two weeks since the Life After Lance, miserable Maddie switched to self-pity. Which Sierra took care of by having a three-day pampering in a spa. She left the Body & Soul Spa with so much positivity that she smiled for nothing for the whole week. A month and a half had passed, Maddie had started to miss him. It was so hard to accept the truth in the day but she saw it's blinding clarity every night she laid on her bed with her body aching for his touch. For the first time since she was born, she was ready to beg.

She didn't want to. Maddie had told her weak self that no man should let his woman beg for his love. That no man should let his woman feel inadequate for his love. That no man should let his woman wait without knowing if he would ever comeback.