Page 13 of Finding Fate

I go to pull the backpack on, but the second it rubs against my skin my back arches. Konnor grabs it from me, anger written all over his face. “Let’s go. You’re not staying here another second.”

We all three run down the stairs after returning my room to the locked state it was in, cutting off all lights on the way and locking the doors. I follow them down the street in my pajamas to a black Expedition sitting in the driveway of a house that just sold. The doors unlock before I get to the door, and we all jump in, but I stay seated on the edge of the seat.

We remain quiet as he starts the engine and backs out of the driveway, focusing on getting us out of the subdivision through the maze of streets. When he makes it out onto the main highway that runs through the center of town, I stare out the window, watching everything I’ve known my entire life pass me by. He doesn’t let up except for the one red light that stopped us until we’re on the interstate, heading toward New Orleans.

“What the fuck happened, Gabby?” Konnor says, breaking the comfortable silence. “Just start from Maddox’s house.”

I breathe out. “Maddox asked me to move to Miami with him. I said yes. I woke up, unable to go back to sleep, so I went to pack my bags to be ready to leave when y’all were. I didn’t want to be a hold-up. My dad showed up, sedated me, and locked me in my room. He somehow figured out about Maddox being in town and us together. I don’t know how. He wanted me to take emergency birth control. I refused. I’m not going to be with who he wants me to be with. I choose who I love. When you disobey my dad, he punishes. He uses real leather.”

“Jesus,” he says, and then opens the center console, pulling something out of it. “Does this have anything to do with him wanting you to take it?” he asks, handing me a photo upside down. I recognize the handwriting on the back before I even look at the photo, my eyes already welling up.

“Where did you get this?” I ask, tears falling before I can stop them. I only look at it once a year, on his birthday, when I buy a small cake from the local grocery store bakery and light a candle with his age. It’s all I can take. And then I stay drunk or high for a week after, until I can pull myself together again. But it’s here, out of the pouch I keep it in, and I can’t help myself.

“Autumn found it in the front of your bag looking for a clue of where you may have gone. She asked if I knew anything about it. We got your stuff. We have a long drive to the airport. You gotta start talking, Gabby. You’re my friend, but Maddox is my friend too.”

I turn it over, emotionally breaking as I look at my son on the day he was born, remembering that dream and nightmare rolled into one like it was yesterday. Later that night, when my baby wasn’t allowed to come back in the room because the adoptive parents were there with the guardianship orders that gave them temporary custody to take the baby when he was discharged until the adoption was final—both legal documents in which I was forced to sign—and my father had left for the night to go home, the nursery tech that was there when he was taken from me came in my room. She had taken a photo of him in the nursery with her personal cell phone when it was a shift change and offered to send it to my cell phone as long as I didn’t tell anyone due to the fact that she could lose her job. I hid my cell phone for days after, making sure my dad didn’t find it and report her before I could have it printed, and then emailed myself a backup just in case. I’ve never shown a single person.

I stare at him. He’s beautiful. Honestly, I’m tired of hiding him. I hate keeping him a secret like he never existed. I’m not ashamed of him, even given the fact that I got pregnant at fourteen. He was created in love with someone that I still want as much as the day I fell in love with him. “His name is Madden Leroy, after Maddox. The last time me and Maddox had sex after my dad found out about us and threatened to press charges if he didn’t leave town was when I snuck away to tell him goodbye on the day he had to leave. We were emotional. We weren’t thinking. I got pregnant. I was fourteen. My dad wanted me to have an abortion. I begged him for three days not to force me to do that. Threatened to run away if he tried. He agreed to let me carry it to term but the deal was I had to homeschool until he was born once I started to show and then give him up for adoption. I wasn’t allowed to tell anyone. Maddox was gone. I tried not to get attached to him, knowing I couldn’t keep him, but I felt him move inside me, especially when I talked to him. My heart loved him already. Then he was born. I cried, begged, and screamed for him to let me keep him. When a young female gets pregnant she becomes an emancipated minor. He used the only thing on me he knew would work for me to turn him loose—Maddox. A baby is proof we made him together. I was underage. He was eighteen. I gave up our son to keep him out of jail. I haven’t seen him since the day he was pried out of my arms in that hospital bed.”

Presley climbs over the center console and sits beside me, pulling me into a hug, and then she starts to rock, letting me cry against her. “I think me and you are going to have a lot more in common than you think.”

Ten

Maddox

Ipry my eyes open, blasted with daylight coming through my blinds. My skull feels like it’s going to explode. Those Southern Comfort shots come back to me. “Fuck,” I groan, and then force myself into a sitting position, massaging my temples with my thumb and fingers.

“Feel like shit? ‘Cause you look like shit.”

I look at Riggan standing in my doorway. “Stop screaming.”

He tosses me a bottle of water. I twist off the cap and down it. “Ready to deal with your little problem in the basement?”

My eyes lock on his as the last drop pours into my mouth, and suddenly, pieces of last night come back, one after the other, with holes in between from where I clearly blacked out. I close my eyes and shake my head in shame, returning the cap to the empty bottle. “And Blondie? How bad did I embarrass myself?”

He smirks at me. “Wants to fix your sorry ass. You two share this weird little friend love for each other. She has a lot of Maddox love going on and wants to make you happy again, so don’t be surprised if she seems overly helpful. You take that shit and shove it down your throat after me letting her get in the shower with you.”

I groan, and then open the top drawer to my nightstand, pulling out a pair of clean boxer briefs, sliding them on, before getting up and pulling on the first pair of clothes I find—khaki cargo shorts and a red tee shirt. I comb my fingers through the longer part of my hair on top. Might as well get it over with. “What do they look like? Are they at least hot like I remember them in my head?”

“And if I said no?”

“Shit. I was trashed.”

He laughs. “Eh, they’re no comparison to princess, but they’re claimable.”

I roll my eyes. “Who would compare to blondie with you?”

“No one. She’s unmatchable. But Gabby comes pretty fucking close if I were going to try. She looks a lot different than I remember, even if she still had her blonde hair.”

My heart sinks. He’s trying to get a rise out of me. Everyone knows Gabby is hot. She’s a blend you can’t put into words between her dad and mom. Once you’ve seen her she’s unforgettable. But Riggan doesn’t comment on his friends’ girls. He never has. “That’s fucked up, Rig.”

“Twenty-four hours between girls is a new low for you. You’re escalating.”

My eyes gloss over. I’m not doing this here. “Yeah, well, what do you want me to do? I put every fucking thing on the table and woke up to her gone and not answering her phone. My heart can’t be ripped out any more than it already is.”

He glances at his phone and shoves it back in his pocket, before turning to go down the stairs. “Come on. Let’s get this over with. This isn’t a hotel.”

I jog down both sets of stairs behind him and we make our way toward the basement, but just before we get to the door it swings open, Kaysen walking out, yawning and brushing his hair down. He glances at Riggan first and nods, then looks at me. “Bro, what happened to you?”