Madison’s fruity drink looks like something that should come with a tiny umbrella, all pink and orange layers that probably taste like regret and bad decisions.
I take a long pull from my beer, watching condensation drip down the glass onto the sticky bar table. We’re tucked into a booth near the back, facing each other like we’re about to negotiate a hostage situation. Which, considering our history, isn’t too far off.
“So how long have you been married?”
The question hangs in the air between us. I set my beer down and stare at the foam clinging to the inside of the glass.
“Oh well... it’s hard to say...”
I don’t even try to come up with something better. I’m too tired to pretend more than this.
“Well, it’s interesting.” Madison leans back in the booth, her fingers drumming against her drink. “She only showed up on the day of my sister’s suicide anniversary, didn’t she?”
The observation lands like a punch to the gut.
“How did you know that?”
She doesn’t answer. Just sits there staring at me with those blue eyes that are too much like Lauren’s. The silence stretches out, getting heavier with each passing second.
“Well, before I got the guts to finally call you...” She pauses, glancing around the bar like someone might be listening. Her voice drops to a whisper. “I may have spent a little time, you know... lightly stalking you...”
“Oh. Cool.” The words come out flat, uncaring. Because honestly, what’s one more stalker in my life? Alyssa’s been doing god knows what level of surveillance on me.
“You seem really depressed, by the way.” Madison’s voice shifts, taking on this clinical quality. “I thought you were going to kill yourself on Friday.”
“I was.” The admission comes out easy, natural. Like I’m talking about the weather or what I had for lunch. “But then my wife saved me...”
‘For now,’ I add silently in my head.
Madison’s face transforms. The clinical observation vanishes, replaced by something sharp and furious. Her hand slams down on the table hard enough to make our drinks jump.
“She’s not your fucking wife.”
The words come out of Madison’s mouth like bullets. Sharp. Final. Her eyes blaze with something between fury and desperation.
“She’s just some bitch that showed up.” Madison leans forward, her voice getting louder. “Why are you even allowing her to stay over?”
“Well, she’s fun.”
Madison’s face contorts. “But you literally didn’t know her before Friday, right?”
“Yeah, true.”
She pulls out her phone with violent efficiency, fingers moving across the screen so fast I can barely track them. Her eyes scan whatever she’s reading, and then she starts.
“Alyssa Chase. Twenty-four years old. Graduated with a degree in engineering from Boston University.”
The name hits me weird. “Her last name is Chase?”
I can’t help it. I laugh. The sound comes out hollow and strange in the crowded bar.
“Oh, that’s funny.” The coincidence is almost too perfect. “And she’s three years younger than me? Wow, I had no idea.”
Madison makes a face, this expression of disgust mixed with concern. “Caleb, there’s a lot more here.”
“Okay?”
She keeps scrolling, her voice getting quieter as she reads. “In her junior year of high school she had a boyfriend that committed suicide...” She pauses, and I watch her swallow hard. “He jumped off the roof of a hotel downtown.”
The beer suddenly tastes like ash in my mouth. “Wait, what?”
“Yeah...” Madison looks up at me, and her blue eyes are full of something I can’t quite name. “Eerily similar to you, isn’t she?”
The question hangs in the air between us. For me, it was a parking garage… My brain starts connecting dots I don’t want to connect. The way Alyssa showed up on that specific day. The knife. How she knew exactly what to say when she found me.
“Did she make a suicide pact with her boyfriend?”
Madison shakes her head. “They don’t include things like that in obituaries... I don’t know, though...” She scrolls more. “She’s odd. She originally went to BU to become a journalist and then switched majors her freshman year.”
“I don’t get it,” I mutter, staring down into my glass. “Why does any of that matter to her? Why me?”
Madison stops scrolling and looks up, her eyes hard. “You're a replacement, Caleb. She's projecting him onto you. If she saves you, she probably thinks she gets her late boyfriend back.”
I sigh, and something heavy settles in my chest.
“Oh.”
The disappointment tastes bitter on my tongue. Like copper. Like the end of something I didn’t realize I was holding onto.
“That’s such a bummer.” I take another pull from my beer, but it doesn’t help. “I was really starting to like her too.”
That familiar darkness creeping back in like fog rolling over water. The suicidal ideations start blaring in the background of my mind, loud and insistent. A chorus I’ve been trying to ignore for days now.
If she’s not even in it for me, then what’s the fucking point?
I’ll try again tonight. After Madison shows me whatever’s in that diary. I’ll go home and finish what I meant to do on Friday. What I should have finished before Alyssa interrupted.
Madison sits in silence across from me, her fingers still wrapped around her ridiculous fruity drink. She’s studying my face like she’s trying to read something written there.
The quiet stretches between us until I can’t take it anymore.
“Hey, so what’s in that diary exonerates me, right?”
“Yeah.” The word comes out simple. Final.
“Did you show your parents?” I lean forward slightly. “Or friends?”
Madison’s jaw tightens. “I tried to show my parents but they didn’t believe me.” Her voice goes quiet, and I watch something painful flicker across her face. “They’ve tried to just move on and pretend nothing ever happened. And no one else cared when I brought it up.”
“There’s some really fucked up shit in here though.”
I sigh again, heavier this time. The exhaustion is catching up with me, mixing with the beer and the growing certainty that tonight’s the night.
“Can I see it?”
Madison’s hand shoots out, covering the little purple diary like I just threatened to steal it. The movement is so fast, so protective, that it catches me off-guard.
Her eyes meet mine, and there’s something in them I can’t quite read. Fear? Possession? Like she’s afraid of what will happen if I actually open it.
Then I see the fist.
It connects with Madison’s face with a crack that cuts through the bar noise like a gunshot. Her head snaps to the side, glasses flying off her face and clattering across the table. Her body follows the momentum, sliding halfway out of the booth.
“GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM MY MAN!”