CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 2
Madison stared at the screen until it went dark.
Tyler noticed.
“Don’t answer,” he said quickly.
Madison tried to roll her eyes, but her hand had already tightened around the phone.
“She thinks I’m at Ava’s.”
“Then let her think that.”
The receptionist looked down at her paperwork, pretending not to listen, but Madison could feel the woman’s discomfort from across the room.
The phone lit up again.
Mom.
Tyler leaned closer, his voice lower now.
“Madison. If your parents find out, mine find out. If mine find out, Stanford finds out. This becomes a thing.”
“A thing?” Madison whispered.
“You know what I mean.”
She did know.
That was the problem.
For three weeks, Tyler had called it “a situation.” Then “a mistake.” Then “an interruption.” Tonight, in the car, he had called it “something we can erase before it ruins everything.”
Madison had laughed when he said it.
She had wanted to sound fearless.
But now, sitting under cheap fluorescent lights with rain crawling down the glass, the word erase felt different.
Her phone buzzed a third time.
May you like
This time, a message appeared.
I’m outside. Please don’t go in without me.
