I Dare You by Lylah James

Not all right decisions feel like they are right. Sometimes, they gut you from within and tear you apart. Right decisions should be easy to make, but they rarely are.

I had a choice, and I wanted to believe I made the right one.

The good choice, the right decision.

Walking away from Maddox was the hardest thing I had ever done in my life, but I had to…

Not for me. But for him.

Maddox was my boyfriend, but first and foremost… he was my best friend. I knew him better than he knew himself. I could see inside him, so clearly, and Maddox, my God, he was so lost in that moment, and I needed him to see things clearly.

I waited for the wave of regret that had been crashing through me, since I walked away from him. It came and went, similar to the wave of pain. Always there, always constant. But still, I told myself I made the right decision.

For the last three weeks, Maddox tried calling. He knocked on our door multiple times a day. He talked to Riley, tried to convince her to let him inside… to let him talk to me. But Riley was loyal to a fault. She didn’t know why I had to walk away, but she knew how much it hurt me.

I never ran away from my problems, but I had to run away from Maddox. He was my one weakness, and I knew the moment I took a look at his broken stare, his wounded blue eyes – I’d fall back into his arms. It would turn into a vicious, never-ending cycle.

“Hey, Lila!” I flinched away from my thoughts and turned toward the sound of my name.

My co-worker snapped her fingers in my face and gave me a questioning look. “Stop day-dreaming. No time for that.”

I wiped my wet hands on my apron. “I’ll serve the next table.” I went to take the tray from her hand, but she held it out of my way.

Amanda fished for something from the front pocket of her apron. She placed a blue post-it note, folded in half, in my open palm. “He told me to give you this.”

My heart thudded. “He?”

Amanda shrugged and walked away. I unfolded the note, and my heart cracked, my chest burning with misery.

I looked up and caught Maddox's eyes through the window of the restaurant. His tortured eyes held mine for a single second, a throbbing moment, a painful heartbeat, before he blinked and walked away. Maddox disappeared in the crowd, with only his note, as a reminder that he had been here.

We were strangers, once again.

This was more than a note about our last goodbye. He was letting me know he had given up. Maddox wasn’t going to fight for us anymore. It almost killed me where I stood, for a second, my heart ceased to beat.

I should have been happy about this – it was what I wanted, after all. I had been avoiding him for over three weeks, waiting for the moment, when he would stop calling and stop trying to see me.

But it still… hurt.

Goddamn it.

Giving Maddox Coulter my heart had been a mistake. But this time… I had been the one to walk away from him.

“I forgot, when are your exams?” Riley settled beside me on the couch, wrapping an arm around my shoulders. I sunk into her embrace and curled my feet under me.

“I have two back to back in two days, and another, the day after next.”

We were now exactly twenty days from Christmas. My life fell apart at a shitty time. Exams period were upon us, and life got even crazier. I could barely study, barely focus on my revisions for my exams. My mind was a mess, and my heart just wasn’t in it. I constantly worried about Maddox. He was never next door. From what I heard, he was staying with Colton at his townhouse. The apartment that we made into our home – it was now empty. Forgotten. Abandoned.

“How are you feeling?” Riley asked cautiously.

“I feel like shit,” I said, shocking myself with my honesty. “How’s Maddox?”

Her brows creased. “I don’t understand you. He hurt you, you left him. There’s so much bitterness and heartache there. Yet, you still ask me about him every day. Keeping tabs on him. I don’t understand you, Babe.”

Fresh tears stung the back of my eyes, but I blinked them away. “I still love him.”

“Then why did you leave?”

“Because sometimes love isn’t enough.”

She squeezed my shoulders, and I knew what was coming. “He didn’t cheat on you. Yes, he lied. He should have told you about Bianca the moment he found out, but is it really that bad? This whole situation is just a big ball of mess, but maybe… I don’t know. I just think that Maddox would never intentionally hurt you. I think he was just trying to protect you, in his own messed up way.”

“You won’t understand.” Because she hadn’t looked into Maddox’s eyes and didn’t see his struggles… his truth…

“Help me understand.” She scrunched her nose, as she tried so hard to break down my walls. Riley was a good friend, my only friend. My little bundle of light.

“I can’t,” I whispered.

She let out a soft sigh, and her head dropped back against the couch. “Maddox still hasn’t returned. He’s staying with Colton, and he hasn’t attended any classes since…”

My eyes shuttered close, and I breathed through the stinging in my nose. “He’s going to be okay. Maddox is strong and capable of taking care of himself.”

“I hope you’re right,” Riley whispered.

She didn’t believe me.

And… as much as I wanted my words to be true, I didn’t believe myself either.

My phone vibrated between my legs, and I peeked at the screen, looking at an unfamiliar number. I ignored the call and closed my eyes.

“Someone’s calling again,” Riley said, next to me.

“I don’t recognize the number.”

Five consecutive calls later, I started to grow uneasy. Anxiety tugged at the muscles in my chest, and a heavy weight settled there. At the sixth call, from the same number, I finally picked up.

“Hello?”

“Oh, Lila. Finally.” A familiar voice came through, and I frowned.

“Savannah?” Why was Maddox’s mother calling me?

Maddox. Oh God. Maddox!

I bounced off the couch, my heart feeling constricted, as if something heavy had wrapped itself around the fragile organ, squeezing the life out of me. “Is he okay? What happened? What’s wrong? Is it Maddox?”

“What? No – I mean, I’ve been trying to reach him for the last five days, but he won’t pick up my calls anymore.”

Okay, that wasn’t alarming. Maddox never picked up his mother’s calls or his father’s, for that matter. He rarely wanted to listen to what they had to say.

“I don’t understand. You sound worried,” I said, still frowning.

“The last time I spoke to him, he hung up on me,” she whispered, and then, I heard sniffling.

I rubbed my forehead, feeling another headache quickly approaching. “Savannah, what are you trying to say? If you’re calling me this many time, then it must be important. Is this about another gala or dinner party? I’m not coming, and neither is Maddox. Save it. Don’t even bother asking.”

Savannah was silent for a second, before she burst into tears and choked out her words, half mumbling and half not making any sense. “No. Not…another… gala. This… Brad… Maddox… won’t pick up my… call. His… father…”

I paced the floor, feeling so confused, so lost. Savannah Coulter was crying to me on the phone. For the four years that I have known her, she’s never lost her cool, maintaining her calm, plastic façade.

She was…crying. CRYING! The world was officially ending, this was proof enough. “What about Brad?”

“He’s in the hospital.” She hiccupped back a sob.

My feet came to a halt, and I paused, my breathing stuttering. “What?”

“He’s sick, Lila. Very sick,” Savannah whispered, barely audible. “Maddox needs to be here… but he won’t pick up my calls.”

Oh God. No! “Did you tell him?”

“I did, but he didn’t say anything and then hung up on me. This was five days ago. Brad is… He wants to see his son.”

His son – the same one he didn’t give a shit about before. But now that he was bedridden in a hospital bed, he needed to see his… son.

“I don’t know, Savannah. I haven’t seen Maddox in weeks. We broke up.”

“Please,” she begged, her voice cracking. “Please. He needs to be here. You don’t understand. Brad… I don’t know how long he has. Please, Lila.”

I glanced at Riley, and she gave me a questioning look. “I’m sorry, Savannah. I’ll see what I can do, but I can’t guarantee he’ll listen to me. If you want Maddox there and I can’t bring him to you, you’ll need to find another way.”

Savannah inhaled a shaky breath. “Okay. Thank you, Lila.”

We hung up, and I fell on the couch beside Riley. “What’s up? What did Savannah want?”

“Brad is… sick.”

Her mouth rounded with a shocked ‘o’. “She wants you to convince Maddox to go see his dad?”

“Bingo.”

“How sick is he?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. It sounded serious, because she was crying.”

Riley nodded slowly. “I was on Colton’s Instagram two hours ago. They apparently have a party going on at his house, right now. I saw Maddox in one of the videos in his story.”

“Another party?” During Exams? What the hell?

“Last I heard, it was Maddox who decided to throw the party. Again. Which, by the way, the last one ended with a fight.”

This reminded me of four years ago. Back in high school, when Maddox didn’t give a shit about anything or… anyone. He was all about partying, drugs and alcohol… and letting his fists do the talking.

He was spiraling. Once again. Oh God.

My head fell into my hands, and I took a deep breath. Maybe it was my fault… An overwhelming sense of guilt filled my chest, and I almost choked on the taste of bitterness on my tongue.

“Do you want to wait until tomorrow?” Riley questioned, rubbing my back.

“No. I have to do this tonight. Maddox might be stubborn, but I am more stubborn than he could ever be.”