T H I R T Y - F I V E

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B R E N

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B R E N

T R I G G E R W A R N I N G 


"You don't have to, you know."

Madie's eyes were as stormy as the ocean outside as she looked up at me. "What?"

"You don't have to talk about it. You just made a point of saying you wanted to forget."

Still on my lap, Madie leaned into me, encircling my neck with her arms. She reached up to place a light kiss on my cheek. "This is for you, Bren. I'll talk about it for you. So you can understand," she whispered against my skin.

I had never thought that the person who really needed this conversation might be me.

I probably didn't deserve it, but Madie told me everything. She told me that Quinton started hitting her when she was seventeen, and he made her believe it was her fault because she'd yelled at him about something or another. She said she always felt like everything he did to her was somehow her fault—a reaction she deserved.

It took all my power not to cut in, not to reassure her that was wrong. But she seemed to know it now, and so I was able to hold my tongue.

She told me what happened when she tried to break up with Quinton, how he'd asked if she was leaving because of me. And Madie—my sweet, honest Madie—said yes. Quinton had shoved her down by her hair, and part of that was my fault. But there was nothing I could do about it now, so I just rubbed her back and let her choke out her story.

Finally, she circled back to what happened in the hospital.

"Even when we were getting ready to leave for college, both Quin and I knew that something was pulling us apart," she said. Her head was tucked into the crook of my neck, so I couldn't see her expression. But I felt the tingling of her voice as she mumbled into my skin. "Quinton was enjoying this new freedom that comes after high school, but he still expected me to live in this tiny box of his creation. And I kept trying to get out. And he kept pulling back. I just didn't realize..."

She took a deep breath and then exhaled, a soft caress over my body.

"Midway through August, he wanted me to go on the pill. He didn't want to use condoms anymore."

My jaw instantly clenched. Madie must have felt the way my body tightened, because she shifted, glancing up. But I was too busy trying not to shudder at the images that immediately popped into my head of Quinton and Madie together. I hated that he touched her. I hated that he touched her and left permanent marks.

"I said okay," Madie continued, tucking herself back into me. "I said I'd go to the doctor. But then he pulled out the little packet of them, saying he'd already stopped by the free clinic in town. And—god, I'm such an idiot."

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