CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 3
Madison stopped breathing.
Tyler saw the message and went pale beneath his smirk.
“What does she mean she’s outside?”
Madison stood so fast the chair scraped the floor.
“I don’t know.”
“You told her?”
“No.”
“Then how does she know?”
The consultation door at the end of the hall stayed closed. Nobody came out. Nobody saved them from the silence.
Madison walked to the window.
Through the rain, she saw her mother’s car parked beneath the broken streetlamp. The headlights were off. Her mother sat behind the wheel, both hands on the steering wheel, not moving.
Madison’s throat tightened.
Tyler came up behind her.
“Okay,” he said, panic sharpening his voice. “We can still handle this. Tell her I brought you here because you were scared. Tell her it was your idea.”
Madison turned slowly.
“My idea?”
Tyler blinked.
“I mean… you know. It’ll sound better.”
Something small and ugly opened in Madison’s chest.
She remembered his laugh in the car.
We fix it tonight.
She remembered the way he had parked two blocks away so no camera near the clinic entrance would catch his license plate.
She remembered him saying, “Don’t use my name at the desk.”
Madison looked at him like she was seeing him clearly for the first time.
“You were never scared for me,” she said.
Tyler’s jaw tightened.
May you like
“I’m trying to protect both of us.”
“No,” Madison whispered. “You were trying to protect yourself.”
