Chapter 1
It was a year after Maddy and her parents had left for the wild pack. Rhydian sat alone in the woods. Everyone had moved on but him: after Dr Whitewood had given up with her questioning, Tom and Shan had been able to carry on with life almost as if nothing had happened. Well that was lucky for them.
Rhydian still felt as empty as he did the day Maddy left, and nothing could fill that hollow hole in his heart.
He had really buckled down in school and was achieving fantastic results; he aimed to have made something of himself by the time he was finally able to go in search of Maddy. Whenever that would be…
Purely out of boredom, he began scrolling through the contacts on his phone. The cursor fell on Maddy's name. Rhydian clicked on it to see her details and began reading through their text messages from all those months ago.
Maddy—meet you in the woods later? x
Me—Ok xx :D
Looking back, he felt a mixture of pain and warmth – not without a hint of regret. Why didn't I admit my feelings earlier? Rhydian thought, Maybe it would be easier now if we had had some more time being… well ….. not just friends.
This was hardly the first time he had thought about Maddy like this: he used Eolas regularly now to check up on her and he was sure she did the same. At least he hoped she did.
Every time he saw her or thought about her he had to force himself not to go out in search of her, and now was no different. RHYDIAN! Stop it! He thought, Remember what you told her? 'when I'm older and no one cares what I do'? Well you aren't much older and you can't do what you want ….. yet.
