“Why can’t men be like that?” Madison Parker gestured to the television screen.

“Because,” Sara murmured as she stepped into Madison’s apartment, picking her
way through the clutter of empty take-out that littered the floor. “We don’t live in a
movie.”

Madison ignored her best friend as she turned up the sound on the television,
trying to drown out Sara’s tsks of disappointment.

“It’s been a week, Maddie. Don’t you think you should take off that sweatshirt?”

Madison glanced down at Jeff’s rumpled NYU sweatshirt. It had been one of his
favorites. One of the few things he had left behind when he had gone back to his wife. It
still smelled like him and she needed that.

From the corner of her eye she saw Sara cross to the answering machine. “You
have twenty-three messages.” She punched her finger into the button on the machine.
Jeff’s voice filtered through the room and made Madison’s heart ache painfully. “Are
these all from him?” her friend asked. “I can’t believe that asshole is still calling you.
You need to delete them.”

“No!” Madison jumped up from the couch, nearly tripping over a pizza box as

Sara’s finger inched towards the delete button. “I need those!”

Sara cocked an eyebrow, and then hit the delete key anyway.

“I can’t believe you did that.”

“I did it for your own good.” Sara waved a finger at her. “There’s nothing he could say to make up for what he did and you are only torturing yourself by keeping them.”

“I can’t believe you did that,” Madison murmured again as a new wash of tears
streamed down her face. She had shed so many over the last week it was a wonder she
had any left. But her tears, like the ache in her heart, seemed a bottomless well from
which she could never escape.

She stormed past Sara, turned into her bedroom room and flopped helplessly on
the bed.

She heard Sara’s footsteps drawing up behind her. She turned her face into the
pillow, muttering into the cotton case. “I should have known he’d go back to her.”

“I told you that you were playing with fire getting involved with a married man.
They always go back.”

She knew Sara was right, but that knowledge didn’t help soothe the emptiness
that threatened to devour her.

She felt Sara’s hands slip over her, gathering the folds of her sweatshirt. “Take
this damn thing off.”

Madison shot up, slapping her friend’s hand away. “Leave me alone.”

Sara drew back and cocked a brow as if daring her. “You’re going to make me
get out the big guns aren’t you?”

Madison let out a whimper as she flopped back down, this time drawing the
blankets over the top of her, hiding beneath them.

She felt Sara’s weight shift off the bed. “All right, girl, you asked for it.”

Madison blew out a heavy breath beneath the blankets as she heard Sara’s
footsteps fade off into the distance and the front door slam moments later. Oh she was
in for it all right. In for a lifetime of loneliness.