Page 75 of Under the Influence

CHAPTER

TWENTY-THREE

MADDEN

After Lainey successfully gave me the cold shoulder all week, I am happy to see a message from her saying we need to talk.

We do need to talk, and I need to let her know that I’m not sure how to share her. I’ve never had to before, so I don’t know how to act.

If Drayton Lewis is going to be around, I will have to find a way to deal with it.

Homecoming is just three weeks away, and if Lainey is bringing him, she must be serious about him. Even if I don’t like it.

I pull out my phone, scrolling through Instagram. I can’t help but pull up Avery’s profile, which has been pretty quiet for a couple weeks. I stare at her pictures, wondering what it would be like to have her, to really know her.

It’s stupid when I know for sure she doesn’t want me like that. How could she? I’m not stupid enough to believe that I could fit anywhere in her life.

I pull up our texts from a week ago, my thumb flirting with the keypad to message her again.

“Hey Mad,” Mom sticks her head through my door. “Someone is here to see you.”

I sit my phone down on the nightstand and move my guitar from my lap. Mom opens my door, and Avery herself steps in. The last person I ever expected to just show up.

Mom’s expression on her face is curious, but she closes the door behind her.

“What are you doing here? How did you know where I live?”

She sets her designer purse down on my bed, “I asked around.”

I take her in. Her long black hair, her tiny body con dress and boots that make her look like she just stepped off a runway somewhere significant. A complete one-eighty from when I saw her at the playground, where I got to see what was underneath the makeup.

“Where have you been?” I ask, her arms wrapping around her torso nervously.

“A photoshoot,” she huffs.

“No, I mean, where have you been all week? You ditched school.”

“That’s actually why I’m here. I wanted to thank you for being there for me. The night at my party with Nash, and then at the playground. You didn’t have to do that.”

“Why does it sound like you are leaving?”

“I’m going to therapy, an inpatient program, for a while. My dad is threatening to shut down my social media accounts if I don’t go.”

“Would that be so terrible?”

She stalls, “No Instagram means no posts, no posts mean no sponsors. The brands are what make my career successful, Madden.”

“Do you really need a career? You just turned seventeen.”

“I love it. I just don’t love the pressure. When I come clean about the breakup, all hell is going to break loose for Carson and me.”

“Wait? You broke up?”

“Well, not in those exact words, but yeah.”

“Carson told everyone you were sick…”

She sits down on my bed, “Because he’s too good to me. He’ll protect me, even when he knows he can’t do it forever.”