door quietly behind her friend. “I don’t feel like
going out.”
“You haven’t left your apartment in weeks,” Sara
scolded. “It’s a beautiful spring day, and we’re
going to enjoy it.”
“I hate spring.” Madison groaned as Sara made a
beeline for her bedroom. Reluctantly she followed
and found her friend digging through her closet.
“What are you doing?”
“Finding you something to wear,” Sara called from
the closet. “You certainly can’t go out like that.”
Madison glanced down at her faded, tattered
T-shirt and dingy gray sweats. So what, she
looked like a bum. Who was going to see her
anyway? She flopped down on the bed as Sara
came out of the closet with a cotton halter dress in
a pale pink floral pattern. “I told you I don’t feel up
to going out.”
“The sun is shining, the sky is blue, and we’re
going to enjoy it.” She held the dress out for
Madison. “You march right into that bathroom, put
this on, and do something with that mop you call
hair.”
Madison opened her mouth to protest, but Sara
nudged the dress at her again, her voice dropping
to that distinctly motherly tone. “March.”
Madison blew out a breath as she rose from the
bed and snatched the dress from Sara’s hand.
She grumbled all the way to the bathroom, but
Sara didn’t bat an eye at her mumbled curses.
Madison slipped out of her sweats, pulled the
dress over her head, and then raked the brush
through her tangled hair. Deciding she wasn’t
going to be able to do a thing with it, she twisted
it up and secured it with a clip, leaving several
wayward tendrils to frame her face. She looked in
the mirror. Yep, that was as good as it got.
She found Sara standing at the open front door,
her purse in her friend’s hand. Madison eyed her
cautiously as she crossed the living room and
snatched her purse. “Are we in a hurry?”
“No sense in wasting a beautiful day.” Sara
beamed at her.
Madison followed her friend out of the apartment,
stopping short to lock her door. As she turned
down the hall, she cast a glance at Matt’s door.
She wondered where he had been. She hadn’t
seen him since the bathtub incident, and it
certainly wasn’t like him to stay away. Sure after
their breakup years ago, it had taken some time
for them to adjust to the idea of just being friends.
But since then Matt had always been the rock in
her life. He had always been there, through the
ups and the downs as well as the break-ups and
the romances. Why had he made himself scarce
now?
She swallowed against the lump in her throat as
she walked past his door and tried not to think
about the hole Matt’s disappearance had left in her
heart. It was a sudden and shocking realization
that even her whirlwind affair and recent breakup
with Jeff hadn’t left her as empty as Matt’s
absence had. What was she supposed to say
about that?
As they stepped into the elevator and rode the five
flights down, she couldn’t help but ask about him.
“Haven’t seen Matt around. What’s he been up
to?”
Sara flashed her an oddly suspicious smile.
“Working I guess. You miss him?”
Madison shrugged it off as though it weren’t
important, but in truth it was. More important than
she cared to admit.
***
Outside the sky was a pale robin’s egg blue. A few
sparse pillows of white clouds drifted aimlessly
overhead. The sun was bright though there was a
January 2014 | 3