Chapter Nineteen - Maddie
For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
I know this is some kind of universal law I learned in seventh-grade science class, and why I know it—and have known it since the first time I read it in my middle-school textbook—is about as understandable as anything else that’s happening to me at the moment. But it fits. It fits my life like a goddamned glove.
I clearly did something once, something terrible and ugly, and all this bad luck isn’t bad luck at all. It’s fate. It’s destiny. Maybe I’m just an inexplicably evil person or have one of those dark souls. Or fuck it… maybe I’m just paying the price for original sin.
Who really gives a fuck?
I deserve this. It’s the Third Law of Motion. I am a million examples of equal and opposite reactions. Every single thing that’s happened to me has been nothing but a reaction to my actions.
Even Tyler Morgan.
So it turns out I was wrong. This whole time. There is no right way to do anything. Not make toast, or get to work, or get through life trying to be happy.
The elevator dings and opens. I walk out, stunned silent and on autopilot.
“Ma’am?” the doorman says as he opens the door for me. “Are you OK?”
The next thing I know I’m walking down Las Vegas Boulevard and I can only assume I never answered him. I look down at my feet because I have no shoes on and the sidewalk is cold, and notice somewhere between there and here, I cut myself. Looking over my shoulder I see a trail of red footprints behind me.
This is Vegas. Home of the weird and sad. So no one takes any notice of me at all. Life goes on all around me in a blur of motion that makes me feel like I’m just an extra in someone else’s movie.
I head toward Pete’s because I have nowhere else to go. I have no phone, I have no car, I have no money… I have nothing because I am no one. Going back to Pete’s feels like returning to the scene of a crime. The crime I committed was allowing myself to believe that things might turn out OK. I’m not being morose or feeling bad for myself—I’m really not—I’m just confronting a bitter reality. If this is, in fact, reality.
It takes an hour to make my way back to Pete’s. It’s cold. Desert cold. Dry and dusty and barren. As I approach the alley behind the club, I think of what we did back here. And how good it felt. And thinking about how good it felt makes me feel bad now. I think of what he said to me—“You’re going to kill me”—and I remember thinking that maybe we’d kill each other. Seems more like a premonition now than just a random thought.
Tyler Morgan. Shit. The potential for some chance at happiness ripped from my precarious grip by the inconceivable arrival of Tyler Morgan. Just one more example of all the equal and opposite reactions I deserve.
Why did it have to be him?
Because, the devil on my shoulder says, there was no one else it could’ve been.
The angel doesn’t even show up to give her opposing opinion. Apparently she’s done with me. I have finally fallen from her grace and there is no amount of penance that can cleanse my soul.
I shoulda moved to fucking Monaco.
There’s a car idling in the alley. A Mercedes parked just outside the back door. Its headlights illuminate me in all my wasted glory. I lift my hand and squint to shield my eyes from the glare. Which doesn’t help, but I do it anyway.
Then the rear driver’s side door opens and a leg extends itself. A man gets out, leaving the door open. “Madison,” he says in his somewhat thick Spanish accent.
“Carlos,” I say back, not even scared. Just… no longer able to be shocked by the seemingly endless parade of ridiculous shit that’s happening tonight, and ready to get this over with. Just take me to the desert and kill me. My situation would improve dramatically if this whole stupid nightmare called life was over.
“Would you come with me, please?” he asks.
“Dunno. Pretty busy just now,” I say.
Then the driver’s window lowers and there’s Logan. Holding a gun. Pointed at me.
“Hey, you got a new gun. Good for you,” I say to him. He doesn’t seem amused.
Logan says, “Shut up and get in the fucking car.”
I stare at him for a moment. Then I shrug and say, “Yeah, sure,” and head over.
Just then, the back door to Pete’s swings open and Raven appears, silhouetted by bright white light. Like she’s pretending to be the angel who deserted me. I don’t know how, or why, she decided to come out here at this exact moment, but there she is. Standing witness to my mistakes.
“Scarlett,” she yells. “Come here.” Her eyes dart to Carlos, then me, as she extends her arm and holds out her hand, beckoning me to her with flicking fingers.
“Madison,” Carlos says. “Please.” He again gestures for me to come to him.
Like the devil on my shoulder, he makes a lot more sense than Raven. Because if I go to her, they’ll shoot me, or run me over, or hell, maybe just come back another day to finish me off.
If I go to her, there’s a chance that this… all this that’s happening tonight… will never end. And I just want it to be over. I don’t want to climb this fucking mountain anymore. I’m so tired of pulling myself back up. I just want to fall now. I’m done.
I look to Raven, smile a sad but grateful smile—who would’ve thought she’d turn out to be on my side?—and then turn back to Carlos. I walk over, stand next to him, look him right in the eye, and say, “Happy Halloween.”
And then I slide into the backseat and glance out the window to the dark corner where not so very long ago, a stranger that I once knew showed up and made feel happy and safe and warm.
Carlos gets in and slams the door shut.
And as we pull out of the alley and off into the desert night, I close my eyes, lean my head back onto the headrest, and whisper to myself, “Stop climbing now, Maddie.”