"A fucking book deal, Madison?" Ethan asked coldly.
"I..."
"No; don't talk, just listen." There was nothing she could say anyway. She knew how this must look. "I can't believe you would do this, even after you said that all you wanted was to help find Shaun."
"Speaking of Shaun, where is he?"
"He's with Grace." Ethan replied. "Don't change the subject."
"I did want to save your son. That was true." Madison said. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner, but by then I wasn't in it for the story anymore. I saw what you were going through and I wanted to be there for you."
"But you weren't there." he snapped.
"Only because you told me to go!" Something inside her snapped, too. "And don't even talk to me about not being there when you weren't either. You weren't there when Paco Mendez pulled out a gun and told me to take my clothes off, or when Adrian Baker tied me up in his basement and nearly killed me with a fucking power drill!" Madison forced herself to breathe deeply. "You weren't there when Scott Shelby's apartment exploded with me inside."
Ethan was dumbstruck. "I didn't know..."
"Of course you didn't." she said. "How could you have known? I shouldn't expect you to. My point is: I went through all that to save Shaun, not to get a book deal."
"I still don't appreciate you writing about me."
"For God's sake, Ethan, you think my book is about you?" Madison huffed. "I hardly mentioned your name at all, to respect your privacy. It's about those things you weren't there for. It's my story. If you'd read it, you would know that."
He sighed, looking at the floor. "I'm so sick of being angry, Madison. It feels like everything fell apart and I can't fix it...I should be happy, but I'm not."
"Were you happy before?" she asked softly.
"I've missed you, you know." he said. "I miss the way things were between us. You're good at fixing things. I would be dead if it weren't for you, and Shaun..." Ethan looked at her. "I forgive you, and I'd like to start over, now that there's nothing standing in our way."
Once again, she didn't know how to respond. The fact that Ethan still felt betrayed had haunted Madison. But he hadn't been there, and Jayden had. Truth be told, she could easily see herself with him in another time, but things were different now. She was happy here. It was enough to know that he didn't hate her guts for lying to him about being a journalist.
"I'm sorry." she told him. "There is...someone else."
"Right..." Ethan averted his eyes. "I get it. I don't know why I came here. My life's been so fucked up lately. It doesn't get any easier. I'm sorry."
"Ethan, wait," Madison called before he could disappear into the crowd. She grabbed his hand. "This doesn't have to be goodbye, right?"
He shook his head. "I think it does."
And just like that, she traded one regret for another. Was breaking even supposed to hurt so much?
She hoped he didn't regret ever meeting her. But more than that, she hoped he found happiness eventually, maybe in a place where it never rained. Yeah, that was what they all needed. Ethan left her standing there in the middle of the bookstore with a line of people waiting for her to autograph their books growing increasingly impatient. It wasn't the kind of closure Madison had been hoping for. She didn't want Ethan Mars to leave her, but at least he could stop haunting her already horrific dreams.
"Goodbye..."