Chapter 5: The Wrong Road

Madonna's POV 

My mother found me by the horse stables.

She didn’t speak. Just sat beside me in heavy, tense silence.

“I know,” she said quietly.

I looked at her.

“About last night. About you and Callum.”

My spine went rigid with ice.

“It doesn’t matter,” she continued, folding her hands in her lap. “Which is why I think you need to leave, Madonna. Go abroad. Clear your head. You cannot be here for what comes next.”

*What comes next…*

I would be forced to watch the man I loved marry my worst enemy.

Tears spilled over.

“Okay,” I whispered. “I’d rather die than see that. I’ll go. Thank you, Mum.”

She nodded once, reached for her phone, and that was that.

The car came to pick me at eleven.

I had one bag and definitely no goodbyes. Well, no one to say goodbye to.

I climbed into the back seat and watched the estate lights shrink in the rear window, and the cut on my arm throbbed under the napkin I'd wrapped around it, which only reminded me of how he walked out of that room with her in his arms and told someone else to look at my blood.

God, I was so stupid. All those years I kept every little thing he ever did like it was proof, the way he'd hold my hand through thunderstorms,  showed up at my door when the nightmares came, said my name so beautifully and I turned every one of them into a love story in my head. 

And then the night of my birthday I even believed his kiss, his hands, his voice breaking when he said he couldn't stop caring, and I walked into that dining room the next morning with a smile I couldn't wipe off my face!

But it was never about love. He never loved me, I was the only one who did.

I did try, though, I want that to be clear to myself because I didn't just roll over. I went to him on that terrace and begged him to say it wasn't true, and he looked right at me and told me I was easy access and a warm hole, that it was just one fuck and I should get over it. Then he reminded me to wear something appropriate because Ella's family would be there. Ella's family, not mine, and that was how little I mattered, he'd already picked her before I even finished putting my shoes on.

So what was left to fight for? You can't hold onto a man who's already told you to your face that you were only ever convenient.

"Stupid, stupid girl," I muttered, pressing my forehead against the cold window so the driver wouldn't see me cry. 

"He doesn't want you, Donna, just let him go."

The drive felt endless with the empty roads and the forty minutes to the airport had stretched into an hour.

 

It was starting to get worrisome when we just kept going on and on endlessly that I had to ask.

“Are you sure we took the correct route?”

The driver ignored me and kept going. When I asked again, he pulled over, stepped out, and opened the back door.

I was confused.

He suddenly pressed a cold, sharp-smelling handkerchief over my nose.

My body shut down instantly. I tried to scream — the sound died in my throat.

My vision dimmed as he closed the door.

“Yes. She’s been secured now.” His voice reached me through the fog as everything went black.

When I woke, the first thing I saw was blinding white.

A narrow bed. A high, frosted window. A door with no handle on the inside. A side table holding nothing but a plastic cup of water. The room was the whitest white imaginable — floor to ceiling — making it feel like I was trapped inside a dream.

My phone was gone. They’d changed me out of my dress into the same clinical blue gown.

*Where the hell am I? What is this place?*

I stood up slowly and crossed to the door. No way out. My ear pressed against it and picked up footsteps on the other side.

“Hello! Please help me!”

No answer.

The door suddenly swung open on a chain. A pale, smiling woman appeared in the gap.

“You’re awake,” she said, like it was the best news in the world.

“Where am I?” My voice came out raw.

Her smile widened. “You’re at a psychiatric institution. We’ll take very good care of you here.”