Separately Together

Chapter Five: Old Wounds 1/2

I could barely register what Finnic was saying because of the ringing in my ears. How could he show back up in a time like this? Was he the one she was seeing and that's why she had been so secretive and distant the past couple of weeks? My mother was never like that, she was the hovering mother, the one that always called once a day just to see how we were doing. The type of mother that wanted us over at least once a week to eat family dinner. I loved her for that.

I couldn't say to him what I wanted to because that woman was still in bed asleep. I wanted to shout at him and for once let everything that had been building on top of me go. I couldn't do that to her when she didn't feel good. Couldn't make her wake up to see all of this.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Finnic asked with a quiet but deadly tone. He was calm and that meant dreadful things were turning in that mind of his.

"Your mother and I have been talking to each other for the past few weeks." He explains. "I'm the one that took her up here."

"What?" It came out as a whisper, but I doubt any of them heard it. Even though I had concluded that it had been his truck in her driveway to hear it truly hurt me. It felt like a knife was lodging itself into my throat from betrayal. Mama knew how much damage he had caused to me and Finnic growing up. Making us feel like we weren't enough.

I knew she had a soft spot for him, but I never thought that she would take him back. He had done too much damage to all of us including her.

"I left to find a better job and your mom didn't want to leave this town. I've retired from Walker Co. and decided to come back to her." He explains himself a little further, but it does little to take the pain and suffering he caused us to just vanish. "You two have got so big." He gave me a pleading look in his eyes.

"That's what twenty years will do to kids." Finnic snaps. "Quite trying to guilt trip, Maddie. She's not falling for your shit." He steps in front of me blocking my view of the man.

"Come on, Maddie. We're leaving.

Finnic grabs my arm and pulls me out of the hospital room closing the door behind us softly, so we didn't wake our mother up. Worry still ran through my veins for her, she was still the woman that called every day, but she had taken the man that never calls, not once, back. It hurt and stung so bad my eyes whelmed with tears.

"It's going to be okay Maddie." He stops in the middle of the hallway and grabs my face by the cheeks. He takes the pad of his thumbs and gently wipes the tears away. "Don't fall for his shit, Maddie. He is nothing but a snake in the weeds coming back home after he couldn't find anything better.

"I'm not going to fall for his mess, Finnic. I just ... I can't believe she would go back to him." More tears spilled over, and I hugged my brother tightly letting some of the built-up emotions spill onto him because I could hold any more on top of what was already in there. My glass is full.

Finnic soothes me back down to a level head, "Me either, sweets. Me either."

~.~.~.~.~

It's been two weeks since we caught our mother with our father at her bedside. Finnic confronted her and she made it out as if we were the ones in the wrong to not just welcome him back with open arms. After we spend every birthday, Christmas, Halloween, and Easter without him. I had to go to daddy-daughter dances with my mom instead of him and even had to listen to her cry herself to sleep at night sometimes because she missed him that much.

Finnic has been on a strike ever since a strike to not see her until she leaves him. I'm on his side, I will not be in the same room as that god-forsaken man, even if it means not seeing my mother until she opens her eyes. There is just too much hurt in their causes by him.

I glance up at Liz and see her dressed in the most recent wedding dress that the woman had brought to us. Her nose was scrunched up, a clear indicator that she didn't like something about it. We had been to multiple different dress stores, and we haven't found one that she likes all the way yet.

She looked stunning in all of them, to me.

"How did Finnic get so lucky." I mused at her from the seat and sat off to the side.

"He was kind and Funny. Can't forget all the jokes he tells all of the time." I gag at their puppy dog love. I loved romance novels and movies, but I liked the darker ones, the ones that seem more real. Finnic and Liz are so open about their liking for one another, and I love that for them but it's just not for me. I was a picky romantic.

The lady comes in to see how we like it. "Can I see one with a little less sleeve but the same torso?" Liz asks kindly and the woman nods eagerly before walking off to find her request.

"So, are you and Harley talking, yet?" She says in desperation as if we were taking forever doing something that was bound to happen anyways.

"No, Liz," I say exasperated; I told her as such at Kallie's but she was still holding out hope. "I haven't even talked to him in two weeks." I felt compelled to add that fact hoping that she would see we were in no way heading toward a romance.

"You say that as if you're disappointed." Liz teased or at least I hoped she was teasing. I hope that I hide my emotions better than that because the fact was that I was disappointed that I hadn't seen or heard from Harley in a little over two weeks.

I missed the freeness that he gave to me when he was around, the safe feeling that engulfed me whenever I saw him.

"I do not!" I shot off defensively.

Which was a mistake, because Liz laughs a booming laugh so loud, I'm sure everyone in the other rooms heard her.

"Oh, yes you are." I blew out an airy sigh because I hated how well she could read me. No privacy to my thoughts.

The lady brings in a new dress excusing herself quickly. "Okay, maybe I am a little disappointed that I haven't seen him in two weeks." Admitting it out loud made me feel dirty. This was Harley I was talking about, God I'm a mess.

"I knew it." She says as she slips the dress on. We both stopped in our tracks staring at her in the most stunning wedding dress I had ever laid my eyes on. It was low enough to show her cleavage but not low enough to be considered scandalous. The waist was tight fitting showing off her curved figure. She had the perfect hourglass body shape. The whole thing shines with sparkling glitter making her even more stunning.

"This is it." She was shocked by the appearance of her reflection.

"Yeah." I was glad the subject had gotten taken off of Harley, I was always thinking about him as it was and even just the mention of his name made me feel this craving that I didn't know what to do with. "You look stunning, Liz."

"Thank you."

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