Romantic love story

Chapter ninteen: This Couldn't Be Love

While Maddie ate her toast, Terry went next door on the pretext of checking Earl's progress. Not that Terry minded how long the cable guy took. Terry only wanted a chance to collect himself, to clear his mind of the sad sight of Maddie in those crumpled pajamas, her hair unwashed, her frame noticeably thinner than when he'd left her two days earlier.

Leaving Earl to do his job, Terry headed for the sidewalk instead of going back to Maddie. Two days. Terry had only left her alone for two days, and she hadn't been able to cope with being by herself. To be honest, she had coped, but not in the way Terry had hoped she would. He tried picturing himself chained to a bed, alone with the animal she called the Dragon, then truly alone for long stretches of time without a soul to talk to. Withdrawing into yourself would be so easy to do, possibly even necessary to preserve your sanity.

Terry had no way of knowing how much of her childhood, her adulthood, had been spent chained to a bed. She'd once told him that the abuse had started when she was eight or nine, and the math terrified him. He wanted to press for more, to ask how long Maddie had been chained, if Maddie had ever heard from her mother after the Dragon had adopted her-- things he wanted to know but was too afraid to ask.

Already knowing this much taxed his emotions, left him feeling drained and tired. Not tired of helping Maddie, but tired of fighting back his own memories. Pain similar to his own had a tendency to trigger memories, things he needed to avoid dwelling on before it sank him into even deeper sadness.

He came to a stop on the sidewalk and watched the cars zip past him. Oh, to be like everyone else, to not know that soul-piercing shame, the ugliness behind your abuser's smiling face, and to know that ugliness was all for you. What was it like to not know that? to live a normal, ordinary life with nothing but normal, ordinary problems? John's life came as close to seeing what normal looked like, but even there, John wasn't exactly normal. Not with having Terry for a best friend, and a brother.

God, help me help Maddie. My heart is so overwhelmed, and yet, not my will, but Thine be done.

A horn blasted, and Terry turned to see Brian's truck move past him on his way to the apartment.

Terry waved, but Brian had already disappeared around the block. Time to get back to the complex so he and Brian could start working.

Life kept moving, and so must he.

When Terry reached his apartment, he found Brian in the back of his truck, getting the power washer ready.

"Hey," Terry called to him, "thanks for coming down."

"Glad I could help out."

"I didn't know you had one of these." Terry reached out to help Brian lift the wheeled machine off the bed of the truck, and onto the asphalt.

Brian hopped down. "It's not mine."

"Oh?" Terry looked at his friend. "Is this a rental?"

"Yup."

"I thought John said you had one."

"No, I never said that." Brian picked up the manual. "I only said I could get my hands on one."

"But you didn't have to do this. That graffiti's my problem, not yours."

Grinning, Brian paged through the manual. "You've been helping out enough people, I figured I could at least do this much."

"You're not doing this because of Maddie, are you?"

"Why?" Brian looked up. "Is she here?"

Terry shook his head. "I already told you she wasn't interested."