FicWad

Chapter Five

When Maddie had said 'We need to get out of here' I couldn't have agreed more, but the problem still faced us 20 minutes later. The barking outside the bathroom door had subsided to nothing more than a slight growl every now and then. I pictured my life and all the good I had experienced believing it would all be over in a short time when the ex returned.

I slid down into the tub to take a seat. The side had become very painful to sit on after the first 10 minutes plus my foot still was throbbing.

Maddie was still perched on the toilet her head held a loft on her hand. She had a faraway look as though she was trying to come up with a brilliant plan to get us out. (Well that's what I hoped she was thinking.)

I sunk lower into the tub and turned so now I was sitting as though I was ready to take a bath which didn't sound too bad at the time actually. I reached down to my foot where it still throbbed from its collision with the cabinet. I untied my shoe and pulled it off gently seeing a bloody sock emerge. Great, I thought. I threw my shoe aside and set my head back in the tub looking up and thinking 'why me God?' I stole a glance over at Maddie who hadn't changed positions for quite some time.

"Well at least you got the pictures," I commented trying to shed some light on what seemed to be a hopeless situation.

Maddie turned her head to me. At first her expression expressed loathing or even true hatred towards me, but it quickly changed to a smile which turned into full force laughter. She threw her head up and before long tears started to fall from her eyes. She wiped them away while clutching her stomach in deep breaths.

I gave a small smile feeling terrified. Now that I watched her double over in fits of laughter again I realized I had never heard her laugh before. The first time we met I had barely caught her name before we jumped into bed, but now…now I saw Maddie…who was laughing.

"Patrick," she said taking deep breaths and wiping her eyes once more. "Look at you."

I looked away from her and down at me. I guess I could see the comedy in my appearance. I was after all sitting in a bath tub with a lump on my head and one shoe on.

I heard Maddie give a sigh. I looked over at her and she shook her head slowly making her blood hair move back in forth in its ponytail. "Let me help you," she said gesturing to my foot. She got up from the toilet and heading to a cabinet above the sink. She obviously knew the bathroom because two seconds later she was back with a first aid kit. She sat on the side of the tub and immediately reached for my foot.

I smiled shyly as she hoisted my foot on the side of the tub and pulled off my sock. It was discarded on the floor as she gazed at my bloody toe.

"How did this happen?" She asked examining it carefully.

I chuckled myself and answered. "When you heroically pulled me into this bathroom."

Maddie looked at me and gave a sorry expression and pulled out some ointment to clean my wound.

I felt slightly awkward as I watched Maddie tend to my 'battle scar'. This girl I knew nothing about was suddenly about to become so much to me. I wasn't going to lie and say I wasn't scared because I was terrified. In my life I had always had the power to choose who I wanted close to me. I had been able to choose my friends and my, shall we say lovers, but now here was this girl. I hadn't really 'chosen' her if you call our one night stand a decision making process, but now this had happened and I guess something else chose her for me.

Maddie's crystal eyes gazed down at her project before finishing by selecting a band-aid to place over the cut. She smiled at her work like she was proud of it and packed the things back in the first aid kit.

"Thanks," I murmured lowering my foot back in the tub.

"No problem," she smiled getting up the replace the kit in the cabinet.

I watched her close the cabinet and walk towards the door. She leaned against it pressing her ear to the door as if was about to tell her a big secret. I let my eyes wonder down her body and up again. There was no denying she was gorgeous! Her body had curves I had never known before and something about her scent drove me crazy. She was so beautiful, but something at that club that night had led her to me. Why had she chosen me? I mean, let's be honest I wasn't the beast her ex looked like, and yet I was not the tall, dark, handsome man either. I was plain, normal. I was Patrick.

She stepped away from the door and looked over at me with a sigh. "He's still there," she said before moving to sit next to me on the toilet again.

It took me a second to remember what she was talking about and then gave an odd grunt as a reply. She smiled at my response before returning to her usual position of 'the thinking man'.

I sat straighter in my tub and decided to break the tone in the room. "Maddie," I said.

She turned her head towards me and gave a 'hmm' to say she was listening.

I shuffled in the tub unsure of how to phrase my question. "That night…well I mean that night we met…why," I started searching through my vocabulary for the right words. "Why did you talk to me? Why did you even let me follow you home that night?" They sounded like stupid questions as I expressed them, but it was want I wanted to know.

Maddie gave a confused smile as if unsure of what I was really asking her. "Well, I don't know," she confessed. "I don't want you to get the impression I was using you…"

"Oh no, no," I jumped in quickly. I didn't want her to think I was some wussy who was crying about being dumped in one night. "I just meant…well you're so…so gorgeous…and I'm…well I'm not…"

Maddie gave a laugh again and I saw how her blue eyes really sparkled. "I didn't know you that night Patrick," she said. "That's all I really cared about."

I took in her words not sure of what they meant. She was just looking for a stranger. It could've been anyone.

"I mean," Maddie cut in quickly. "It's not like I didn't pick you out of the crowd too."

I smiled and felt a slight heat rise to my cheeks. So she did pick me. I looked at Maddie who was smiling too and then moved her head away. I turned in the tub so I could look at her more directly and continued. "I knew it was something," I said openly. "When I first saw you I mean…you were there dancing and I saw you. You looked at me and I knew something was there." My mouth rolled on with my experience of that night. It had been weird when I saw her like she hadn't been really real.

To my surprise Maddie looked back at me and gave a laugh. She shook her head again and my mouth shut. "Patrick," she said looking at me. "Do you believe everything happens by fate?"

Now that the word fate entered my ears I guess that's exactly what I believed. It had been fate that connected us that night. "Um…yeah," I said.

Maddie laughed again and stared at me with piercing eyes. "Life isn't a love song," she stated plainly.

I looked at her in confusion. "So you're saying you don't believe it was fate?" I asked.

Maddie shook her head and part of her mouth rose up. "No," she said. "I believe what's real…it was just coincidence."

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. My dreams of the perfect end shattered to the floor of this pearly white bath tub. Of course life wasn't a love song, but songs were written from experience. I sang about them every day. All of Pete's words tumbled through my head like race cars…'turn off the lights and turn off the shyness' 'nothing comes as easy as you' ‘you were the last good thing about this part of town’. They were love stories, not just songs.

Maddie must have seen my sinking expressions and worried looks because she unexpectently grabbed my hand. "Patrick, are you okay?" She said.

I looked up at her and nodded my head slowly. It was like I was having an epiphany in my life and it was happening here right in this bath tub. I let the feeling slide in me and within seconds it was gone.

I scratched the side of my head where the bump was still pulsing. I needed to get up. I let Maddie's hand fall from mine as I grabbed my sock and shoe and put them on my still aching foot. I got up out of the bath tub and began to pace the floor of the bathroom. I could still feel Maddie staring at me from her seat and I made it a quest not to look at her. The heat that was in my cheeks a mere minute ago now seemed to flood through my entire body. I needed air. I looked around and saw a window by the sink. I walked over to it and pushed it open with all the force I could muster. Once it was open to its fullest I stuck my head out to gasp in the cool night air. I let my head fill up with it and my eyes sank low into relaxation.

Once the air had filled me enough I opened my eyes back up and gazed at the street below, but most of it was blocked from the stupid fire escape that wrapped down the side of the building. Stupid thing, I thought looking at the metal obstacle course. They were so useless. No one really used them…wait! I pulled my head back in and gave a jerky glance towards Maddie.

"Maddie the fire escape," I said plainly pointing out the window. "That's how we can get out."