Maddie and Wyn by Cameron Dane Read Free Book Online Page B

at my school.” Just talking about the isolation swamped Maddie with loneliness anew, and the laughter went away. “I’m grateful that Dev indulges me most of the time, and I love the shop and Mr. Corsini, but that doesn’t change the fact that I go to school every single day and am alone for all those hours, nobody to talk to or lean on or laugh with, while everyone else is in their own cliques and groups doing the things I assume teenagers are supposed to do.”
    Maddie blinked away wetness before letting a single tear fall, and she forced happier circumstances into her thoughts. “But then we got Aidan back, and he got back with Ethan, and Ethan is close to you, and I still have Dev, and in a weird way it was kind of like I finally had my own circle of friends in all of you. And it’s nice, and it makes me feel like I belong.”
    With that admission from Maddie, a hint of a grin finally cracked Wyn’s face, and Maddie smiled and blushed. “So in a really long-winded way, I’m trying to say that even though I call you ‘asshole’ and ‘jerk’ and poke at you constantly, you’re one of a small handful of people I care about and who are more important to me than pretty much anything in the world.”
    Unspoken, unknown darkness still dwelled in Wyn’s eyes. Maddie reached out and covered his hand with hers, needing him to feel human connection in another way. “And when I see you in pain so vivid that it almost covers your whole body like a suit, I have to respond, because it hurts my heart too.”
    Wyn suddenly shook himself and scrubbed the hard lines of his face, but only said, “I’m sorry you feel so isolated and alone at school.”
    Maddie frowned, but also shrugged. “It’s all right. I’m handling it okay.” She thought about her beloved Lost calendar hanging in her room, with all the X’s cutting through boxes, and flashed a smile. “In less than four months I’m out, and I’ll be able to make a life that fits me better than this one. I’d like you to be in it.” Maddie heard the words she was speaking, the depth of vulnerability she was exposing if Wyn really listened and read between the lines; she felt completely naked even though she had on a mountain of clothes. The rest of her body began to sweat as much as her upper lip, but she didn’t let herself pull away. “I think of us as friends, Wyn,” she revealed, “as unwanted or strange as that may sound to you. I want you to be able to rely on me the way I already in a weird way rely on you.”
    Wyn looked away then. His jaw clenched visibly, repeatedly, and he covered the lower half of his face with his hand. He stayed dead quiet for the longest time, and the night seemed to follow; not a critter on the mountain or partier back at the cabin cut through the stillness and silence. Everything waited, it seemed, for him to make the next move.
    Still staring into the black night surrounding them, Wyn finally murmured, “I don’t want to talk about what the phone call was about, I’m not ready for that, not even with Ethan, but I will say the call I took was from my father.” He shifted his focus back to her then, and the dark edge in his stare warned people away. “He’s been calling me off and on since my mom passed,” a gutting scratch filled Wyn’s voice, “and it gets under my skin in a really bad way when he does.”
    A lump filled Maddie throat, but she swallowed it, determined to keep him talking. “You’re not close to your father. I know that much. I know he left you guys when your mom got sick the first time.”
    “Yeah.” More grim lines aged Wyn’s already severe face. “He did.”
    Maddie grazed the back of her hand across Wyn’s cheek and jaw, desperate to wipe some of the hardness away. “I’m sorry he’s stirring stuff up for you. You don’t deserve the pain.” She cupped the side of his neck and rubbed tension from his shoulder, trying to absorb some of his hurt. “I wish I had the power to stop him