Maddie sat across from her, staring blankly down at her tray of food. Rayna had insisted that they go get something to eat, she could already see the heavy toll the past hours were taking on Maddie and the last thing she needed was to be missing meals. Maddie reluctantly agreed, although she didn't seem to be doing much eating as she was absentmindedly pushing her food around with her fork.
"Something wrong with your food, you haven't eaten much."
"Not hungry."
"I know your worried about Deacon but you've gotten eat something, it'll make you feel better."
"I'm not hungry and I don't want to feel better."
"What do you mean you don't want to feel better?"
"Nothing." Maddie murmured, her eyes glued to the table.
"Baby girl, I know that this is scary for you, but you can't shut me out now. We need each other. Please, talk to me, tell me what's going on."
"It's all my fault."
"What do you mean?"
"Everything. Every day since I went snooping has been my fault. I found the test, I told Deacon. Then you guys broke up and he got drunk, and you almost died. Maybe if I hadn't gone looking, if I hadn't told Deacon first, maybe you'd still be together and it would all be different."
Rayna was shocked and heartbroken. She'd understood Maddie's anger, her sadness, her confusion, expected it. But not this. It had never crossed her mind that Maddie felt the slightest bit responsible for the chain of events that had changed both their lives. She immediately dropped the fork she'd be stabbing into her salad, reached across the table, and grasped Maddie's hands.
"Now you listen here, none of this if your fault. Don't ever think that. Deacon and I both made our own decisions, we both did things that made it possible for what happened to happen, not you. I love you very much, and I know your dad does too, and I also know he would never want you to feel like this. Sweetie, some things in life happen for a reason. You finding out about your dad, it took a lot of hurt, pain, and confusion to get through that, but now you have someone else in your life who loves you more than anything else in the world, and that makes it all worth it. Okay?"
Maddie nodded, sighed a breath of relief. She had been holding in all this guilt, secretly carrying it with her. At first, she had been too mad at her mom to process much else. But once things settled she began to see how big of a role she played in it all. she felt better once things start to return to normal and she thought that if things kept going good, she'd feel less guilty. Then Luke proposed to her mom and Maddie wished she could go back to when Deacon and her mom started to be together again, before she'd turned their lives upside down. Having her mom reassure her, being released of this invisible burden, it gave Maddie hope that they'd all move on from this eventually, and end up where they were meant to.