sweet instigator

ten. (*)

Madeleine was trying to keep it together.

Emphasis on trying.

She sat trembling at her desk, drinking a cup of coffee. She had lost track of the amount of caffeine she had consumed today and felt only partly guilty for snapping at James - who had asked her for the millionth time what was wrong.

It was nearing five p.m. and she had successfully scared away her co-workers today, leaving her alone in the shared office space. They all left early while they otherwise never did. Madeleine knew it was because of her snapping and nervous fidgeting and endless sighing.

Her anxiety was through the roof.

Not only did she get about fourteen emails from Connor, all with ideas she felt like were horrible. He also disregarded the budget and assumed Maddie could get everything done for free. They wanted to come in and shoot the ad in the next few weeks - which didn't give her enough time to figure everything out.

So she called him to try and tell him that she couldn't do it, that it wouldn't work out. And Connor took her on a guilt-trip. It became personal and messy and by the end of the call, Madeleine hurried into the restrooms to cry.

It was always the same thing. About how badly she hurt him and about how he thought she'd change after he proposed. About how she didn't and how it crushed him and about how he saw no other solution than to choose himself and break up. About how it broke his heart to do so and about how he was asking her this one thing while he had never asked her for anything during their relationship. About how Madeleine was always the one asking him for things. Asking him to push back the reservation, asking him to go to parties on his own because she was stuck at work, asking him to do the groceries because she didn't have the time, asking him to re-watch the movie another day because she fell asleep and missed about half of it.

After they broke up, Madeleine had always felt anger towards him. Connor never gave her this big of an explanation when he asked for the diamond ring back. He never said it with this many words when he watched her pack, ending their relationship out of the blue. Or so it felt like for Maddie. So she was angry with him, for blindsiding her, for not communicating and talking through their issues, for making her feel like everything was fine while it was clearly not.

And Madeleine never really noticed how angry Connor was too. Apparently, he had been angry for a long time. But he held it all in, and Madeleine wasn't a mind-reader. And then it exploded and she had no clue why.

Part of her felt like it wasn't fair of him to bring this all up, three months after they ended. And if he was that angry, why did he try to keep in touch with her these past few months?

She was confused. Spending time with him brought back feelings, and her chest ached when she saw him and couldn't kiss him. When she laid in bed alone without someone to spoon her to sleep. When she couldn't finish her plate and she didn't have someone who'd happily finish it for her. When she wanted to complain about her parents or co-workers and she didn't have anyone to talk to.

Her feelings towards Connor were confusing and Madeleine hated it. So she searched for Cameron until that got confusing as well.

Madeleine had a soft spot for Theodora, but it didn't necessarily help that she was his daughter. She felt guilty, spending time with Theodora and then hooking up with her father behind her back. Not that she needed to know anything - she was only eleven - and Maddie didn't actually feel like there was a lot to know anyway.

Her and Cam just hooked up. Multiple times a week. And it was good, it was always so good. But even those lines got blurred. Because he was here, every single day. She saw his van in front of the building, she saw the cigarette stumps in the ashtray on the hood of his van, she smelled traces of him around the hallways or the elevator. She caught glimpses of him whenever he passed through her floor to measure something.