Chapter 19
(Madge POV)
I am so livid I could scream. I pace the floor in my room, fuming and trying to calm down. What I really want to do is pack up all my things and head right back to the train station. I could be home in 12, doing something fun with Gale, someone who actually seems to enjoy spending time with me. But instead I'm here where I'm not even really wanted. I know I can't leave though. My father would be in an absolute rage over it. Knowing him, he may even be so angry that he'd make me turn around and come right back. I pick up the phone and call down to the kitchen. I tell the Whitney's housekeeper that I am not feeling well and won't be joining the family for dinner this evening so that she doesn't set a place for me at the table or prepare any dinner for me. I ask her to please make my apologies to the Whitneys. She's very polite and offers to have someone bring up some medicine and water. I don't need it but to make it seem more realistic, I have her go ahead and send it up to me. An older Avox woman brings it right up.
"Thank you for bringing this to me." I tell her, looking right at her. She doesn't respond or even look up. I don't blame her though. I'm a guest she doesn't know and could very well just be testing her to see if she'd respond in any visual way. Besides, the Whitneys probably punish their staff and Avox if they feel they're out of line and I can only imagine what sort of punishments they'd dole out.
I put the water and pills on the night table and go ahead and put on my pajamas. I may just play sick the whole rest of this visit if that's what it takes to avoid seeing anyone. I'll just sit in this room by myself. I get in bed and hot tears roll down my cheeks. I can't believe how much this hurts. We'd had a nice day. Or I had anyway. He may have been hating every moment of it for all I know. But at least he thinks I'm nice. I can tell my father that when Drew picks Ellison. Sorry Father, but don't worry, he said I was nice. I throw one of the pillows off the bed in anger. This is going to be a very long couple days, even if I manage to find a way to stay holed up in this room the whole time.
A knock at the door startles me. It's probably Drew. I ignore it. Maybe if I don't answer, he'll go away. He waits and knocks again. I still don't answer. And that must work because he goes away. I pull the comforter over my head and try to just go to sleep. Sleeping will give me an escape from thinking about this and will make the time pass more quickly. Somehow, I must actually manage to eventually fall asleep because the next thing I know, someone is shaking me awake.
"Madge?"
I lift my head and see that it's Drew.
"I'm sorry to wake you. My housekeeper said you were sick. I wanted to see if you needed a doctor to see you. I can call him for you, have him come here."
"I don't need a doctor." I say as I roll over, facing away from him now.
"What's bothering you? Can I get you anything?"
I don't verbally answer him because I'm afraid I may start crying again and I don't want him to hear my voice crack if I do. Instead, I shake my head and then pull the comforter up to cover some of my face. I just need him to go away.
He doesn't say anything but I can tell he's still sitting there on the edge of my bed.
"Madge, I'm worried about you. Are you sure there's nothing you need? Whatever you want, I can get it for you."
I roll back over towards him as the anger builds up again. "Well in that case, what I need is for you to not worry about pretending to entertain me anymore. I'll be perfectly fine here by myself until my train is ready to depart." I seethe at him.
Drew's face goes pale and his jaw stiffens.
I raise an eyebrow at him, daring him to argue me on this. When he doesn't move or say anything, I roll back over and pull the comforter back up again, ready for him to leave.
"Madge, I need you to come with me. I mean, please can you come with me?" He asks, his tone changing to almost a pleading at the end.
"I mean it Drew, I don't need anything from you. You can go." The tears are falling again and I'm certain he can tell.
"Please, just come with me. After that, if you want to come back to bed, you can, but please come with me."
I know what he's trying to do. He wants to take me somewhere we can have a conversation about all of this without the Capitol listening in on us. I ignore him and wipe tears from my face though it's useless because more just fall.
"Madge, please..."
"Fine, but let's make this quick okay? No need to draw it out or take up anymore of your time." I tell him, throwing the blankets back and getting to my feet. I purposely get out on the other side of the bed, away from him. "Give me 2 minutes to get dressed." I tell him as I grab my dress from earlier out of the floor and go into the bathroom.
When I come back out, he's standing by the bedroom door, waiting for us to leave. He opens it and I follow him, neither of us speaking. He leads me down a service staircase and out a side door. We walk across a street and onto the beach. I bend down and take my shoes off so I can walk in the sand. We walk a decent distance away from everything, from all the buildings. He finally stops when we reach an outcropping of large rocks. He sits on one but I don't, I just stand in in front of him.
"Listen, clearly I owe you an apology..."He begins.
"No, you don't owe me anything. In fact, let me go ahead and assure you that you are free of any obligation to me. Spend your time with Ellison, pick her and stop wasting your time on me."
"Stop, don't say that. I need you to just listen, hear me out. What you heard, me talking to August, you can't take what he said as my opinion. I do want to spend time with you, I wanted you to visit. I haven't been pretending to entertain you and you're not a waste of my time. August is the worst and you can't let yourself care what he thinks or listen to what he says. His only goal is to get as powerful as he can in the Capitol, as quickly as he can. He wants me to pick Ellison because she's from the Capitol and her father is head gamemaker and he thinks that will help him with his career. It has nothing to actually do with you."
"Well you certainly didn't seem to feel the need to come to my defense when he said all that. I mean, you did tell him I was nice so I guess theres that."
He takes both my hands, squeezing them, looking me right in the eyes. "Because I know how he operates. I don't want him to know all the things I love about you. The more he thinks I don't care much about you, the easier it will be for you and I. Because trust me, if he knew anything about how I really feel, he'd be coming up with a plan to tear us apart."
He loves things about me? He actually has feelings for me? I stare at him, not knowing what to say. The tears still rolling down my face.
Drew leans closer, taking his thumbs he wipes away my tears and then cups my face with his hands. "I am crazy about you. I have been for a very long time. Since we were 5 years old actually. Being matched with you was everything I'd hoped for all these years. My chance to be with you. I know it's complicated and uncomfortable with me also matching with Ellison but I want you to know right here, right now that I want to be with you. I have every intention of choosing you. Not because I have to and not for any sort of career gain, but because I want to be with you."
I can't believe what I'm hearing. I'm stunned silent. He leans his forehead against mine and closes his eyes."Please don't let this all be over, especially because of August. I haven't even had a chance to win you over yet."
I still have no words and I'm overwhelmed by everything he just divulged and I want him to know it isn't over. I reach up, put my hands on either side of his face, pulling his mouth to mine and I kiss him.
The kiss feels so intense and I don't want it to end. When it does, I'm left breathless, wanting another one.
"I'm sorry this all happened like this. I was hoping to get to talk to you privately while you were here so I could let you know how I really felt about you but I certainly didn't mean for things to happen like this, to make you feel so bad." He tells me, still holding onto me.
"I'm sorry I got so upset before giving you a chance to explain."
He shakes his head. "No, I knew you weren't liking that Ellison is in the picture and that it was making you pull away from me and I should've found a way to let you know how I felt sooner so this wouldn't have happened."
"I wasn't sure how you felt. Sometimes when we're together, it feels very hard to tell if you're doing things because you genuinely want to or if you're doing them out of an obligation to the Capitol. I know it isn't fair for me to get jealous about you spending time with and doing things for Ellison but when I see you do the same things for her that you do for me, it's like it steals all the emotion right out of whatever you did for me. I want to be fair to her, to let you spend time with her and give her a chance but I also don't want to see it happen."
"There will be plenty of things I will have to do for the both of you but anything I do for you, it has meaning behind it. If you see me do the same thing for her that I just did for you, it's because I didn't want to put any thought in it beyond you. She's the one getting the obligatory stuff, not you."
"Does she know that?"
He looks very uncomfortable when I ask that. "No, she doesn't. I honestly don't think it would be wise to tell her I plan to pick you. She's not happy that you're in the match with us and I don't think she'd just bow out gracefully. I think she'd stir things up, find a way to cause trouble for you. Unlike you, she isn't a very nice person."
"I'm sorry I skipped dinner with your family. Were your parents mad?"
"No, my mother was a little concerned about you. Said if you still aren't feeling well tomorrow that we need to call your father and let him know you're sick."
"So I'd best be feeling better soon then." I say with a light laugh.
"Are you? Are you feeling better now?" He asks, pushing a curl back from my face as the breeze catches it.
I nod and kiss him again. He really does like me and want to get to know me better and that feels really good. But my mind does drift to Gale, just briefly before I can push the thought of him away, and I know I haven't decided what my heart wants yet.
A/N: Just a heads up that I am out of town with limited internet access for the next week. I will post when and if I can and if not, it'll be as soon as I get back from my trip!