Twenty-One Night Stand ✓

20 / everybody hurts

The clock was ticking but time wasn't passing the same. The room seemed to darken, a cloud falling over the window and blocking any natural light from entering while everything Ryan had said sank in. But it wouldn't. The words floated somewhere between them, lingering while Maddie figured out what to do with them. She didn't know.

She stared. Her brain hadn't told her body how to react, still processing the words Ryan had spoken. The colour drained from her cheeks and her features crumpled into a frown of utter bewilderment as she waited for him to say that he was joking, or that he had meant someone else, but he just watched her figure it out as though he was a cat torturing a mouse. She was sure that for at least a second, her heart had stopped beating, and now it was working in overdrive. Her body went cold, her hands and temples clammy as though a fever had washed over her in the space of a few seconds and her hair felt too hot on her neck.

"What?" she eventually managed to ask, the word coming out as a rasp. Knees weakened, her legs turning to jelly, she sat stuck to her chair and a headache crept up the base of her neck to throb in her ears. This couldn't be real. "Oh, God."

She wanted to leave. She needed to leave, but her head was already juggling too many commands: moving was right at the back of the queue. Rooted to the spot, she did nothing but stare at Ryan, who have her a vaguely apologetic look before he sniffed and blinked a couple of times, reaching down for his book. As though he hadn't just sent a whirlpool of waves crashing around his cousin, he opened the novel to his page and picked up where he had left off, but there was no way he would be able to focus on the words that jumped across the pages.

"What the fuck?" Maddie asked once her voice was a little stronger. Her head dropped into her hands and she stared slackjawed at her knees. Goose pimples dotted her arms even though it was warm enough in the room. This was too much. She had thought that a lot recently but now she really was convinced that she couldn't take anymore beatings. There had to be a limit, and she prayed to God that this was it, because she wasn't sure she would be able to stand up if she was pushed down one more time.

"I'm sorry," Ryan said from behind his book. He couldn't look her in the eye as he said the words. They didn't suit him, but they sounded genuine, and for a split second Maddie wondered if she had a chance to salvage her relationship with her cousin. He put the book down again and twisted his fingers in the hem of his shirt. This was a Ryan she had never seen before: a Ryan who told the truth, a Ryan who cared. "You're not the first person Peter loved, and you're not the first he hurt."

The more Maddie thought about what she had just learned, the more her nausea grew to the point that she had to plant a hand over her mouth and swallow hard. At last she stood on unsure legs and turned in a half circle before turning back again. Ryan watched her with hopeless, half hearted sympathy in his eyes but he made no move to leave his bed. Maddie was in turmoil, turning round and round like a dog trying to make its bed, totally unsure of what to do with herself.

"I need to go. Oh, God, I need to get out," she muttered, grabbing her bag and pushing her hair off her face. The back of her neck was too hot and her whole body ached in a way she had never known before, as though every feeling in her head had become physical.Spoying the door, she headed for it. She needed to leave.

"Maddie."

She halted when Ryan said her name with a tone of urgency, and she turned to face him. Concern riddled his pleated forehead, an emotion she hadn't thought possible for him.

"Tell my mother I'm fine."

A second's pause. In a daze, Maddie nodded and yanked open the door, hurrying down one flight of stairs and then the other, but she slowed when she caught sight of her aunt in the hallway as though she hadn't moved.