“Hey, Mad? Can I ask you something?” I ask him hesitantly.
“Yeah, girl. You can ask but that doesn’t mean I’m going to answer.” He looks over, and despite his teasing, I can see the wariness behind his eyes.
“I know, I just . . . I just want you to know I’m here if you want to talk. I hear you, you know? I know what it’s like to have your nightmares chase you out of your dreams. I guess I just wanted to know if you wanted to talk about it?” I keep my eyes level with him, wanting him to know that, even with my problems, I can take on his issues. I want to help; I want to be there for my friend.
“Nothing for you to worry about, girl. Things better left alone, yeah?”
“All right, Mad. But if you want to talk, I’m here.” I pick up my fork and return to my salad.
“Izzy?” he asks. He startles me, not because I can hear the question coming, but because I don’t think I have ever heard him call me my name.
“Maddox?” I tease.
“What happened between you and Reid?” He looks at me with concern written all over his face. Sympathy for my situation and compassion for me and my pain.
I don’t know what makes me open my mouth, but I know that whatever demons are chasing me, his are worse. For once, I don’t feel the stabbing pain that normally comes with thinking about the old Axel and Izzy. For the first time, I want to talk to someone, want to have someone else understand why I am firm on keeping him at arm’s length.
“All right,” I start, placing my fork back on the table and pushing back in my chair, “how long have you known Axel?”
“Close to ten years. I know about you. He used to talk. I just don’t understand how you are the same girl he always talked about. I can’t seem to understand his anger and your heartbreak.”
“Ten years, huh? So not long after he joined. Did you know I was supposed to be by his side ten years ago? We had it all planned out, like stupid kids. We thought that nothing would ever get in the way of our stupid plans. I was seventeen when he left for basic, still had one more year of school left, but he was coming back. I had this tiny speck of a diamond promise ring from him, so tiny you couldn’t even really see it was there . . . but that ring was worth more to me than all the riches in the world. He left for basic and was coming back for a visit a few months later. The plan was for me to make it to graduation. Then we would have a small wedding and I would join him wherever the Marines took him. He broke those plans. Broke them and never looked back.” I stop picking at the table and look up to meet Maddox’s blank stare.
“He broke them?” he calmly asks.
“Yeah. Never came back to me.” I can feel the emotion start choking me, but I am determined not to go there.
“Izzy, you’re sure? He never came back home?” He seems so confused by this.
“I don’t know if he ever came back home,” I start, earning another confused frown from Maddox. “Two weeks after he left, my parents were killed—drunk driver. Still being a minor and with no other local family, I was sent to my grandparents’ in North Carolina.”
“Did Reid, Axel . . . Did Axel know this?”
“Yes, he would have known about my parents the second he rolled back into town. Small-town living means everyone is always in your business. There is no way he didn’t know about their passing.”
“Not what I mean, girl. Did he know where you were?”
“Um, yes. I left my grandparents’ address with his foster mother. I wrote him and wrote and wrote some more to the base he was supposed to be stationed at, but all the letters came back to me. June, his foster mother, she had all my contact information. It wasn’t like I was hiding, Maddox.”
His normally blank face looks so different when he allows emotion to filter through his tightly locked walls. His nose is scrunched up, eyes are narrowed, and his lips are pulled tight. He looks distressed, mildly confused, and constipated all in one.
“Girl, there seems to be some major wires crossed between you two.” He keeps his weird look. “Is that all? Seems to be a little more than just some foiled plans with all this shit.”
“Yeah, Mad . . . there’s a lot more.”
He sits there, silently waiting for me to continue. It feels oddly liberating to get this off my chest, knowing that I won’t be judged and that someone else will understand where I am coming from.
“Mad, I get you’re trying to be there, but this might be different with you being his friend and all.”