Sorry if you’re still sleeping, but I cannot wait to see you! Wake up, wake up, wake up! Pancakes at Harry’s after ur flight? I will ply you with espresso shots to keep you awake!

The text came from Maddie as I was sliding back into bed next to Liam, after he’d helped me clean myself off in the bathroom. The feverishness with which he’d taken me on the bed was gone, and he’d been more tempered as he’d taken care of me, cleaning me with a damp washcloth and rubbing balm on my wrists, making sure I was okay, his face concerned and warm. He’d been tender with me, kind but serious.

“Who is it?” he asked now as I checked my phone. It still felt strange having my phone back.

“Maddie.”

“What does she want?”

“I, umm… when you left me at the casino, she made plans to pick me up at the airport tomorrow. In New York.” My fingers hovered over the screen, trying to figure out what the hell I was going to text back. Oh, hi, Maddie, sorry that I called you crying last night and saying that the thing with Liam wasn’t going to work out, but don’t worry he came back and then a crazy woman came over and said weird stuff and then Liam and I had anal sex and now we’re going to visit his family in California.

“I need to call her,” I said, crawling out of bed. “And I’m going to need privacy.” I thrust my chin in the air, daring him to contradict me, to tell me that I wasn’t going anywhere.

“Fine,” he said, surprising me. “You can use the conference room.”

“The conference room where you were talking to Vienna?” I couldn’t resist asking as I groped around in Liam’s open suitcase for a t-shirt, since he’d ripped the one I’d been wearing. I pulled it on, inhaling the scent of his laundry soap, something clean and crisp and expensive-smelling. “Is that where important conversations take place?”

“Emery.” His voice was a warning, and I knew I’d pushed him a lot tonight, knew that he wouldn’t hesitate to take me over his knee or tie me up again, or even worse, take my phone back.

“It’s fine,” I said, sliding out the door before he could change his mind.

The thing with Vienna would have to wait. But if Liam thought I was just going to let it go, he was wrong.

I took in a shuddering breath and stepped into the hallway.

The plane was quiet and still, the only sounds the distant roar of a few commercial planes flying into the airport behind us, and the soft crackle of the walkie-talkies of the security guards who were still stationed outside of our plane.

I walked into the conference room and shut the door behind me.

The glass that Liam had been drinking out of while he was talking to Vienna was sitting on the bar, and I resisted the urge to smash it, as if destroying it would take away any memory of her being here.

I sat down in one of the large black leather chairs and dialed Maddie’s number.

“You are not going to believe what just happened to me,” she said, launching right into a story without even saying hello. She sounded wide-awake and chipper.

“What?” I asked, smiling in spite of myself.

“Okay, so I went down to Harrison’s, you know, cause they’re open twenty four hours now,” she said, naming a bakery on campus that was known for its array of treats, everything from gourmet espresso drinks to hand-tossed pizza to freshly baked Italian bread and cupcakes so moist they’d been named “best of” for the whole state of New York at the state fair. “Did you know that? That they’re open twenty-four hours?”

“Yeah, they did that to capitalize on the drunk traffic.” Drunk kids were always wandering home from frat parties at all hours of the night, looking for something to eat, and they were loose with their money.

“Yes! Exactly! Now, of course I wasn’t drunk, but I needed to get down there because I wanted to buy us some of those chocolate hazelnut cupcakes, you know the ones with the filled center? And I wanted to get them with our initials on them, you know, M and M?”

My heart squeezed, thinking of how everyone used to call us M&M when we were younger, because we were always together. One M for Emery, one for Maddie. We never used the nickname anymore now that were older, unless it was when we were feeling sentimental.

“Yes,” I said softly, knowing I should tell her that I wasn’t coming before she got any more into the story. But my throat had gone dry.

“So there I was, ordering them, and Jodi Benson comes in, and she’s all, ‘Oh, Maddie, were you out tonight? I didn’t see you’ and I was all, ‘I wasn’t out, I’m just up early.’ And then they gave me my cupcakes, and I got twelve, because hello, we’re going to need them, and she was like ‘I hope you don’t have binge eating disorder, Maddie, I’ve noticed that you’ve gained a little weight, I hope you know I’m saying this as a friend.’ And so then I was like ‘You really shouldn’t joke about eating disorders, or any mental health condition, Jodi’ and she was like, ‘Who’s joking?’ and then I was like – ”

“I’m not coming home,” I blurted.

There was silence on the other end of the line, and I squeezed my hand into a fist and rested my elbow on my knee.

“What do you mean?” Her voice had changed, the bubbliness and excitement that it had just a moment ago gone. She didn’t sound mad, exactly, just confused.

“I just… Liam came back,” I said, “and we’re going to California to see his family.”

Another silence.

It stretched on so long that I began to count in my head… one… two… three… when I got to fifteen, I said, “Are you there?”

“Yes, I’m here, Emery.” Her voice was steely now, cold.

“Are you mad?”

“Am I mad? Are you insane? Yes, of course I’m mad, Emery, you could have told me this at any time, and yet you wait until the morning of your flight, when I’ve been up all night, cleaning my apartment so you can stay here, putting fresh sheets on the bed. Jesus, Emery, I was out getting cupcakes!”

“I’m sorry, Mads, I really am. You’re right, I should have told you sooner.” She was right. I should have told her sooner, and there was no excuse for me not doing it, except that I’d been distracted. Which wasn’t an excuse. “I’ll pay you back for the cupcakes.”

“Forget about the stupid cupcakes, Emery. I don’t give a fuck about the cupcakes. I care about you. You’re acting like an insane person.”

“I’m not insane,” I said, bristling.

“I didn’t say you were insane, I said you’re acting like an insane person.” She sighed. “Listen, you have to come home. Please, you…” She took in another deep breath, like she was trying to gather her thoughts. “Just come home. I’m not saying that you have to stay here forever, but you can’t just blow off school and me and… everything. Just come back here for a few days, and then next week if you want to go back with Liam, you can.”

“I can’t do that.” My chest ached and my eyes felt tight.

“Yes, you can!” she said. “It’s very easy. Just get on a plane and come home. Please, Emery.” Her voice was soft and sad, pleading, and that was worse than if she’d been yelling and screaming. If she was yelling, I could feel indignant. But this was worse, because I knew she loved me so much, that she cared about me so much that she was willing to forget about her anger, that I’d let her down, and instead she was just worried about me.

It was just like Liam had said the night that Maddie had called the police. She was a good friend, and I couldn’t be mad at her for caring about me.

“I can’t,” I said. “I’m sorry. Someday I’ll explain it all to you, but I … I love him, Maddie.”

“You love him? You’ve known him for, like, an hour!”

“I’ve known him longer than an hour.”

“This is insane,” she said again. “If you do this, Emery, so help me God, I will go back to the police.”

“The police don’t care, Maddie.”

“Oh, yeah?” she said, and now the pleading in her voice was completely gone, the soft tone she’d taken with me replaced by defiance, and, I was shocked to realize, meanness. “Maybe they will when they find out what Jodi Benson told me at Harrison’s this morning.”

“What are you talking about?”

“She told me she saw you the night of the frat party. The night that you met Liam.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked again, tension twisting at my stomach.

“She said she saw you that night, that Liam didn’t ask you for directions. She said she saw a man grab you, that he took you and put you in his car.”

Panic clawed at my throat, and my fist gripped the phone so tightly that the on button on the side pressed into my skin, leaving an indent.

“What did you tell her?” I asked.

“I told her it wasn’t true. I didn’t think it was true, because you told me that he stopped and asked you for directions. But that was when I thought you were coming home, when I thought you would never lie to me.”

I chewed my lip, my heart pounding, blood rushing through my veins. “Is Jodi going to call the police?”

“I think if she was going to call the police, she would have done it by now. She wasn’t completely sure what she saw. Apparently she’d dropped ecstasy at some house party up on Monument Street that night.”

“Thank you,” I said. “For telling her it wasn’t true.”

“Don’t thank me, Emery, I wasn’t doing you a favor, I didn’t think it was true! But now from the way you’re acting, I’m starting to think I was wrong!”

“It’s not the way it seems,” I said.

“Jesus, Emery! Listen to yourself. Did he kidnap you?”

“No! I mean, I’m not…” I inhaled through my nose, a deep breath, trying to calm myself. “It’s kind of game,” I said lamely.

“Him putting you into the back of a car is a game? Like some kind of sick sex stuff? Emery, please, you have to come home.”

“I can’t, Maddie. I want to stay with him.”

Silence.

I closed my eyes tight together, waiting for her verdict, waiting for her to tell me what she was going to do. I felt like I couldn’t breathe.

“Fine. Do what you want. But I won’t be held responsible for anything I decide to do. And don’t expect me to be there for you when this all blows up in your face.”

She hung up on me then, the line beeping twice to let me know that she was gone.