Page 5 of My Sweet Poison
Followed by a pair of silver-gray eyes staring straight through me.
* * *
“Madison! Madison, wake up!”
My body rocked violently forward and back. I stared without seeing and covered my ears to block out the roar of the Jaws of Life.
“Madison, stop!”
A sharp flash of pain stung my cheek and my head jerked to the side.
My pale blue bedspread with its embroidered daisies came into focus. Then the familiar mismatched bedroom furniture found over countless weekends searching garage sales and thrift stores, and the framed prints of my watercolor flowers. Gone were the horrific images of that late-night crash, replaced by the shabby but cozy atmosphere of my small bedroom.
Hailey’s hands clutched my upper arms. Her usually styled hair was a mass of unruly spiral curls which bounced with her continued shaking of my body.
Throwing my forearms up, I dislodged her grasp. “I’m awake! I’m awake!”
I caressed my cheek, which still stung. The skin was warm against my palm. “Did you slap me?”
Her voice was unrepentant as she pushed her hair away from her face and secured it in a messy bun on top of her head witha hair tie. “I was worried the neighbors were going to call the cops.” She shrugged. “And that’s what they do in the movies.”
My brow furrowed. “Do me a favor, maybe try cold water or hit me with a pillow next time.”
“If you’re going to make this a regular thing, we should keep a spray bottle on the nightstand. I’ll squirt you like a misbehaving cat.”
It had to still be the middle of the night, though I didn’t know the time. My phone was in the living room. I’d banished it there days ago to escape the endless calls from reporters.
Hailey leaned back against my bedpost. “Still having nightmares about the accident?”
Sitting up, I snatched a pillow from the empty side of the bed and hugged it to my chest. “I feel so stupid and childish. I can’t make them stop.”
Cliffs End was supposed to be a fresh start. My biological parents lived here once, walked these streets, maybe even sat in the same café where I'd planned my bookstore. I wanted to build something in the place they'd left behind. Then Jameson’s and my accident happened, and overnight I went from the new girl in town to the girl everyone whispered about. Surrounded by people and completely alone.
Well, at least not completely alone.
Hailey, my best friend, plopped down on the end of my bed and plucked at a loose string from a daisy petal. “Don’t be so hard on yourself. The funeral was only last week.”
The funeral.
Jameson’s funeral.
Jameson was dead.
No matter how many times I said it out loud or thought it, it didn’t seem real. I kept expecting him to storm through my apartment door, furious about something or other. He was always mad or annoyed at someone…usually me.
The funeral had been awful. All those mourners stroking my arm, telling me what a wonderful man he’d been. With every kind word, every sympathetic look, my skin crawled.
They didn’t know what he was really like. Only Hailey knew the truth.
We'd dated for just a few weeks. It had felt like a life sentence. All I wanted was out of the relationship. Away from his temper, his mood swings, the constant walking on eggshells. I tried to end it that night. He exploded, then insisted on driving me home, yelling the whole way.
His reaction was too overblown, even for him, as if he were raging at someone else entirely and I was just a convenient punching bag.
The medics assumed all of my injuries were from the accident.
I hadn’t seen the point in telling them otherwise.
Jameson was dead. He couldn’t hurt me anymore and correcting their assumption would only make the story more salacious for the circling press.
