❝𝐅𝐎𝐎𝐋'𝐒 𝐆𝐎𝐋𝐃❞ ɢʀᴇʏ·s ᴀɴᴀᴛᴏᴍʏ

CHAPTER THIRTY.

Sometimes life can be suffocating.

It's often said that it's always darkest before the dawn, but for the person in whom all the worst possible circumstances come together, it's always the darkest. At least that's what Maddox thinks as she slides into the tub, staring at the ceiling with narrowed eyes and blowing bubbles in the water with her mouth half-buried in the water. She's still not quite used to the bath on the new floor, so her skin slips on at least three occasions, but on the fourth she stops straining, succumbing to the inertia that pushes her to close her eyes and catch her breath.

In her head the same image keeps replaying hour after hour, minute after minute, second after second, the scene from two nights ago keeps coming up. Her father's voice piercing her ears, tearing at them with those words Maddox dares not repeat but, ironically, can't help but hear; her lips peeling away from Addison's with uncharacteristic speed, as if that's the perfect way to reverse the whole situation; everyone else's gazes on the image, on her, specifically, but especially her mother's, who won't open her mouth while her father accuses her of being a bad Christian and a worse disappointment than her brother.

Ten seconds.

As tears fall silently down her cheeks at her father's expletives, Maddox reminds herself that it's not real what he's saying. She remembers all the times they've gone fishing together, just the two of them, returning home happy when Maddox catches her first victims; the times Gregory Easton has placed the protective headphones over his daughter's ears himself so the roar of bullets penetrating wooden bodies wouldn't affect her; all the times when she was little and her father came home from his missions in the east he'd hoist her up, reminding her how much he'd missed her and promising her he wouldn't be gone for a long time.

But, as always, promises fizzled out. The look on her father's face had been so wrathful that Maddox knew for sure she would never get back the part of him she longed for.

"Mamá," Maddox had started that night, taking a huge step forward as her father left Joe's bar. Nothing could be heard in the bar but Maddox's incessant sobs and the bated breaths of those closest to her. Maria Easton had raised her hand, not looking her in the eye, and Maddox tried again. "Mamá, por favor."

Twenty seconds.

Maria steps back, away from her daughter, who implores with her eyes. Far from being embarrassed by the scene caused, her heart slowly breaks into a thousand pieces because everything she has fought for is what is now being pushed away from her.

"Maddox, no... I have to leave. I'm sorry," are the only words he extracts from her mother that night, and the woman disappears behind the bar door, slamming it shut and ending the family's short conversation.

Maddox doesn't remember exactly what happens after that. She remembers a pair of arms closing around her, and from the scent she knows it's a woman, but it's not Addison, because her blue eyes are locked on her sea-colored eyes, with a completely disbelieving gesture, far away, where she has left her when she has approached her mother. Maddox tries to say something, opening her mouth, but no sound comes out of it, and so it goes for the rest of the night. Later Maddox learns that it is Lexie who separates her from everything and everyone, and that the first time she sees the new apartment she has with Addison is when she tucks her into bed and stays with her until her chest stops heaving from sobs and she falls asleep.

Thirty seconds.

"Do you think she'll be okay?" Addison asks Callie outside the bathroom, the two of them leaning on either side of the wall, waiting for the door to open and reveal Maddox. Time passes and the only bathroom in the house is still occupied by the young woman, who has barely said a couple of words since everything that has happened. Webber understands the situation, knowing the young woman's parents but not recognizing their attitude, and allows it to be the rest of the residents who put in a little more effort to cover Maddox's duties for at least two days.