"I don't know," I say honestly. "It sounds like it will come down to Sebastian."
"Sebastian's not going to vote against him." Madison sounds so sure. "He can't be that mad."
“I hope you’re right.” We reach our building, and the automatic door opens for us. “Like I said earlier, family is complicated."
We skip the elevator and take the stairs. Inside, Madison drops onto the couch. Marley bolts from my room and hops onto her lap.
"Are you done with him?” Then, as if I don’t know who she meant, she says, "With Thorne.”
That's the question, isn't it?
I pull my knees to my chest. I’d needed space to figure out who I am without him, what I want that isn't tangled up in his pain and his promises.
“I have no idea," I admit.
Madison is quiet for a long moment. Then asks, "Do you love him?"
My hand freezes where it's resting on my knee.
I think about Thorne waiting for me at the pool, us swimming laps together. The way he listened when I talked. His rare smiles that were just for me. How he looked at Madison, like she was something fragile he didn't quite know how to handle but was determined not to break.
The way he stood in that doorway and let me go, even though I could see it was killing him.
"I don't know," I whisper. But it's a lie, and we both know it.
The problem isn't whether I do or don’t. The problem is that I don’t trust him to love me as I need to be loved.
"He hurt me," I say, more to myself than to Madison.
"But you still care about him."
"Yes." Heat pricks behind my eyes. "And that's the problem."
Madison pulls her legs up onto the couch, mirroring my position. "What are you going to do?"
“No clue.”
But even as I say it, I’m turning over possibilities. Sebastian. The vote. Whether there's anything I could or should do to help.
Whether loving someone means saving them from themselves or letting them fall.
We sit in silence, thinking about Thorne. About family. About what happens when the people you care about are facing battles you can't fight for them.
Eventually, Madison stands. “I’m going to call Tracy,” she says, but pauses in the hallway. "I think he loves you too. Even if he sucks at showing it."
Then she closes the door between our suite’s living room and her bedroom, leaving me with my thoughts. I sit on the couchfor a while longer, staring at nothing. Then I move to the small balcony and look out over Louisville.
The city stretches before me, buildings catching the late afternoon sun, and somewhere out there, Thorne is working himself to exhaustion, preparing for a battle he might not win. Or giving up…
I pull my phone from my back pocket. Stare at his contact.
Call him? Delete his number?
My thumb hovers over his name.
We left things messy. Painful. But we didn't leave them finished.
I tap his name and press the phone to my ear. It rings once. Twice.
