Two Bar Mitzvahs (No Weddings #3)(73)

A very small “yes.”

I exhaled a relieved lungful of breath, grateful for the tiny sliver of hope.

(And realized I needed f*cking reading glasses.)

***

The next morning, sitting at a table at the coffeehouse felt like déjà vu. Only this time, Madison walking toward me had been my idea. Closure.

Coffee in hand, she sat down across from me, a somber expression on her face. She knew what this was about, even though I hadn’t spelled it out in so many words. My heavy tone had been enough.

“Hi, Cade.”

“Thanks for meeting me, Madison. We have a few things to discuss.”

She nodded. Said nothing.

“Please understand why we’re meeting like this. I’m giving you this time because we grew up together. But it has to be the last time that we see, or even communicate, with each other. I’m not your therapist, even though you came to me all the time to fix your problems when we were kids. I think that’s why you’re so attached to me now. But it needs to end. You need professional therapy.”

She took a deep breath. “I know. I need help.”

“I hope you truly understand what you need help with. It’s not just sexual addiction. You seem to have replaced sexual addiction with obsession. And I was your target, for whatever reason.”

“I discovered too late that you were the only one who ever really loved me.”

I gave her a nod. “I did. I loved the woman I thought I knew. But you’re broken right now. You need to get fixed. Not for someone else. Not to ‘get’ something out of it. For you.”

Tears welled in her eyes. It seemed my words were getting through to her.

“I mean it about the no communication. This is it. You can’t contact me again. Or interject yourself into any part of my life. Ever. You need to move on. Learn to be better for you. Alone. Once you’re healthy, someone who sees and loves you for you will come along.”

“I’m so sorry. I regret what I’ve done, how I’ve hurt you. And Hannah.”

For a fleeting moment, I saw the little girl I once knew in the eyes of the woman sitting across from me. “Thank you. Please know I always want you to find happiness in your life.”

I stood. The meeting was done. But she looked up at me with the eyes of a lost little girl. I pulled her up from the chair and gave her a fierce hug. She had a hard road to travel. And she wouldn’t have me to run to anymore. The least I could do was give her a solid memory of the boy who’d once cared for her as she worked toward finding another.

I pulled away and gave her a hard stare. “You can do this. The Madison I knew growing up was fearless. Find her again.”





30


A Walk in the Park


The following afternoon, I walked along the curving sidewalk in our tucked-away section of Fairmount Park ten minutes early and spotted the empty park bench. My pulse kicked up a notch from excited to frenzied, and I broke out in a cold sweat. Anxiety and I had never gotten along very well.

“Calm the f*ck down, Cade,” I muttered. “You’re no good to her dead from a coronary.”

Ava trotted alongside me, happy to be in the middle of so much activity buzzing around, but amazingly mindful due to Mase’s new leash training. And I couldn’t decide which I wanted more: Ava running in every direction chasing grasshoppers and butterflies or the pup on her best behavior. The latter seemed easier on me, however, and I was grateful. Besides, best behavior seemed to be the theme for the day.

I sat down on the park bench, watching the sidewalk in the most likely direction Hannah would come from, and Ava sat beside my left leg. Not even thirty seconds ticked by before I stood and began pacing. Misunderstanding my actions, Ava scampered up and followed for two circuits of pacing, before giving up, sitting down, and watching me wear a groove in the sidewalk.

A gravelly deep voice sounded out behind me. “Have a seat. She’s going to say yes.”

Blinking, I turned around. An elderly man leaned on the top back slat of the park bench. “How do you know—”

He snorted. “A man this nervous? Only a woman could make a man so crazy. Relax. Breathe. And speak from your heart. Women understand that language.”

Distracted by the man, my erratic pulse began to calm. I arched a brow. “You seem wise.”

A hard laugh was followed by a rattling cough. As I took the seat he suggested, he clapped me lightly on the shoulder with his frail hand. Ava settled next to my leg again.

“Only fools play the game of love. The lucky few get caught by it and never let go.” His bony finger pointed along the sidewalk. “There she is, my boy. Go get her.”

And there she was.

I sucked in a breath, my heart jumping at the sight of her walking toward me in a bright yellow sundress. Her hair was pulled up into a high ponytail, a few dark wisps catching in the breeze, teasing across her pinked cheeks.

In the first brief second, I could see she fared well, if perhaps a little on the thin side, but my focus lingered on her tentative smile. Ava broke all her good behavior and bolted toward her, yanking the leash out of my hand. I laughed and stood, glancing behind me to thank the older man.

He’d vanished. I scanned the park behind me and off to the side where I’d come from, but he was nowhere. Furrowing my brow for an instant, I wondered if he’d been real.