Saving Madison

Chapter Four

Tyler's p.o.v »»

Having been up for over 24 hours, the lack of sleep was starting to catch up with me. I sat at the kitchen table, my head propped up on my palm while my mom slid a plate of food in front of me, whistling to get my attention. The rain poured down lightly, the sky a light gray, reflecting my mood perfectly.

"I keep telling you that you need to get some rest, but no, you never listen." She said, putting a pitcher of orange juice in between us. When I didn't say anything, she waved her hand in front of my face.

"Uh, sorry, I can't think straight." I apologized, picking up the fork she had stuck in my plate and eating some eggs, although I wasn't really hungry.
"We should have the Taylor's over for dinner soon." She suggested, probably thinking she was saying what I wanted to hear. Instead, she could not have been further, "Just the thought of that makes me sick, mom."

"It would be nice. I know Amanda and David are so happy to have their daughter back, and I'm sure Madison would like to see you."
I laughed coldly. "She does not want to see me. She was dead, mom. Dead. She killed herself. And now she's here? Alive?" I took a bite of bacon. "It's not right."

"I remember how you were when she died," she said, speaking softly and looking at me with her big, puppy dog eyes. "I know how you still are. I don't know how she's back, or whether she really died, but I know that you have a second chance now. Don't make the same mistakes, sweetheart." Easier said than done.

"Are you going to go with Will to take the basket I made over? I really think you should." My eyebrows furrowed.

"You're making Will go over there?"
"I'm not making him do anything, he offered." My face must have displayed surprise before she continued. "I'm guessing to get some intel for you since he figured you wouldn't go." Will had the right idea.

"I gotta go," I said, easily changing the subject to the fact that I had to leave for school in a few minutes. "Harrison High waits for no man." I grabbed my bookbag from behind my chair, shoving a piece of bacon in my mouth while I moved around the kitchen.

"I'm going to stop making you breakfast if you don't eat it, which you need to." My mom said sternly.
"I'm not hungry, I'll give it to Will."
"I'll take it!" Will called from the hallway, a basket in his hands. "You want me to take this now, ma?"

"Yeah, go ahead." He gave her a thumbs up before looking at me, "I'll be at the car in a few minutes with intel." I looked to my mom, who looked at me with a "what did I tell you?" look.

"Are you excited for today?" She asked me, pushing the food I hadn't touched into a plastic container.
"It's school, so no, but it might be nice to see some of my friends. I didn't really see them over the summer."

"Which I'm sure they understand," If it was one person who was always optimistic and understanding, it was my mother.

"Yeah, but it's going to be even worse there than it is here." I pointed out, and she rose her eyebrows in suspicion at what I meant. "I just mean that everybody at school is going to be talking about Madison, like you have been doing since she was found." She nodded, sealing the container and holding it out to me.

"Well, tell them what happened, or don't tell them anything, it's up to you." I gave her a quick side hug before I walked towards the front, but not before she called out to me, "And take care of Will!"

"He's 15, mom, I think he knows how to take care of himself!" But, of course, we both knew I would protect my little brother no matter what.

I was waiting in my truck when I saw Will jogging over as the door to the Taylor house closed, nothing but a glimpse of red hair catching my eye.

"How was it?" I asked when he got in, tossing his bag in the backseat and picking up the bowl from the glove compartment. "We talked about you a lot," he said, and after the smile that followed it, I knew he was joking, "I just told her that mom wanted to give them a basket, and I asked her if she was okay." I started the truck as he continued.

"She said that she was so grateful to have a knight in shining armor pull her out of the lake." When my face remained emotionless, he got serious. "She's tired of people asking her that. I don't think she is, though. Okay, that is."

"I wouldn't be okay if I were in her position, either." I told him as I drove, and he nodded in agreement, "I think she was watching you, while you were in the kitchen. She might want to talk to you just as much as you want to talk to her."

"I don't want to talk to her." I saw his eye roll from the corner of my eye, "Come on, T, who do you think you're fooling?"

"I'm not trying to fool anybody. I don't think I should talk to her right now."

"Well, I think mom has something planned for this weekend, so you just might have to." Will said.

"If mom has something planned, so do I." I said simply, turning into the school's parking lot.
"Why are you trying so hard to get out of this? The girl you were in love with is back, isn't that something to be happy about?" I sighed heavily, gripping the steering wheel a little too hard, "Not when she killed herself partially because of me."

"You don't know that." He said, but it didn't even take someone as smart as Will to know that, that wasn't true. "Okay, I'll give you that one."

"Exactly," I looked up when I heard a car honk, seeing the very familiar black Jeep pull in beside me. My best friend, Jake, looked at me with a big smile while one of the cheerleaders from last year waved to me from the passenger's seat, "Look who it is!" He nearly yelled as I got out, beating me to his car and tackling me in a rough hug.

"Never thought I'd see your ass again." I couldn't help but smile. Not seeing him for nearly two months, it was good to have a sense of normalcy again.

"I know I've been slacking, but I'm getting my mojo back this year." I looked around for Will, giving him a thumbs up to make sure he was good before he walked into the front doors. I received waves from people going in and standing in the parking lot, making me feel like I had hardly been mentally and physically absent from most of them.

"Good, because this shit storm is not about to bring you down again." He said, patting me on the back as he basically dragged me into the building.
"We're juniors now, this is the most crucial year of high school." I didn't know how true that was, but I didn't say anything.

"And we're going to start it with a bang." In Jake Langley's book, a 'bang' almost always meant a party.