always (erik durm)

CHAPTER FOUR

It is 6 in the evening and the night is still young. After arriving at our apartment, I drop the bag of groceries and head to Madeline's room.

"Mads, what do you want for dinner?" I ask her. She is lying down on her bed with her laptop on top of her stomach. Her earphones are plugged in so I assume that she is talking to her boyfriend again.

Madie's boyfriend is a football player. He lives in Spain and Madie doesn't see him that often because of their busy schedules. The last time Madie met up with him was a month ago and it's evident that they are both dying to see each other.

"Anything but meat." She replies, taking her earphones off. I hear her boyfriend ask who she was talking to and she replies with my name. She turns the laptop towards me and I give a small wave to her boyfriend.

"Okay—hello Saúl—we're having spaghetti." I say to her before leaving the room. I hear Madie groan and complain to Saúl about how we always have pasta. 

I'm not the best cook nor am I the worst, I'm in between. Cooking isn't really my forte but Madie can't cook for shit so she decided that I become the house cook.

I start preparing my utensils and equipment for the spaghetti but I stop when I hear knocking on the door. I shout for Madie to get it but when I get no reply from her minutes later, I decide to go open it myself.

I take off my apron and head towards the door. Once I had swung the door open, I was greeted by a brunet man.

"Hallo." He says, wait is that an American accent I hear? I nod at him slowly and hold up a finger, signaling for him to wait there. I leave the door open and run towards Madie's room.

"Mads, why is there an attractive brunet man at the door?" I whisper-shout. She's done talking to Saúl and all she's doing now is lying down on her back. Once she heard me mention the word ''attractive", she immediately shoots up.

"Wait what," Without saying a word, she runs towards the front door and I am almost knocked over because of how fast she is running. I shake my head and walk towards Madie, who is now talking to the man.

"My name is Christian Pulisic, I'm here because someone sent me to give you tickets to a Borussia Dortmund game," Christian pulls out a sealed envelope and Madie immediately grabs it, me just shaking my head. "It starts at 4 pm tomorrow ."

"Wait," I say to Christian. I shove Madie to the side and once I am in front of Christian, I close the front door so both of us are standing outside. "Who gave you the tickets?"

"I'm not supposed to say anything." Christian frowns and waves before abruptly leaving. I don't call his name because I honestly don't care. I don't want to attend the game simply because I've lost interest in football years ago and I have work during that time.

I open the door and when I do, I am greeted by Madie's boisterous screams. I whisper for her to shut up and walk towards the kitchen, continuing the spaghetti I haven't cooked yet.

"Hads, it's from Erik!" I hear Madie scream from behind me. I drop my bag of spaghetti pasta and my mouth immediately gapes.

The last time we talked to Erik was during graduation and that was almost eight years ago. I turn towards Madie and cock an eyebrow at her.

"Are you sure? I mean, how does he still know us?" Erik abruptly left us and until now, we still don't know where he went. We don't know if he's in Germany right now but if he is, I'm damn sure Madeline's gonna set up a reunion.

To be quite honest, I'm not that excited. I mean, yeah, Erik's coming back but he left Madie and I without saying a proper goodbye. Obviously, it hurt me but I didn't let it affect me because it was pointless and I didn't really care anymore.

My feelings for Erik seemed to wash away right after he left. I was bawling for like an hour but then the next, I was completely angry. I mean, why would he leave without saying goodbye? Maybe he left for a reason and if ever he is coming back, then I'm not going to welcome him at all.

"Hadley, it's clearly Erik's handwriting!" Madeline shoves the letter in front of my face and I groan. I grab her and pull it away from my face before going back to my still uncooked spaghetti.

"Hads, aren't you happy?" Madeline questions me. I look down at the raw pasta and sigh. I honestly don't know if I am. I mean there's this part of me that wants to go to this supposed game and hug the crap out of Erik but there's this other part of me that just wants to stay at home. I want to see Erik but if I do, I know that I'll be hurt, I know that all those unsaid feelings will return. I don't want that, those feelings were eating me up but I am actually glad that I got over it.

"Dinner will be ready in 15 minutes." I say instead. I hear Madeline utter a "whatever" and I assume that she is walking towards her room. I turn around and when I see that she is gone, I drop on the floor and pull my knees up to my chest.

Obviously, Madie wants to go that damn football game. She will obviously not go alone because she can't handle being alone and she'll probably faint. I don't want Madie to faint but I don't want to go to that game. If I see Erik there, I'll probably faint. I don't want Madie to feel bad but I also don't want to make myself feel bad.

What the hell do I do?