Page 67 of Rising Star

She exited the room without another glance at me. I breathed out my annoyance.

“Fine,” I hollered after a minute.

Emily opened the door, grinning like a fool. “I knew you wouldn’t be able to resist. I’ll get my makeup bag and be back.” She threw a cookie on the bed. “Get your chocolate fix.”

* * *

I exhaled. Fishing my phone out, I watched the screen for a long time before I gathered enough courage to make the call.

“Maddie,” he exclaimed when he answered at the second ring. “Everything all right?”

“Riley, I want back in. I need to get on the tour bus. Can you make it happen? I’m going nuts stuck in here. I’m driving my sister insane. My mood is all over the place. I know I need physical therapy, so maybe not this week. But as soon as it’s physically possible, take me back, okay? I’ll lose my mind if I spend too much time away. I miss them. I miss him. I can’t heal if my heart is broken.”

“Maddie, I’ll see what I can do. Have you talked to him lately?”

“Last week. It was tense. He doesn’t agree with me for not wanting him to visit. It’s for the best. I’m doing it for him.”

“He loves you. You gotta let him help you,” he said.

“He’s already done more than enough. All the care… It’s more than I could have ever expected. And every time he leaves, I cry myself to sleep. How is it beneficial for anyone? We’re all suffering.”

“I hear you. Can we talk later? I have a meeting in five. I’ll call you after dinner, okay? We’ll figure something out.”

“Yeah, I gotta go too. Bye.”

* * *

“That splint looks badass on you,” my sister said after we exited the doctor’s office. “The x-rays look better than I expected. I’m impressed by the healing so far. It’s all promising.”

She pushed the wheelchair while I scrutinized the new apparatus around my leg. All I could see were the scars decorating my flesh that I would have to learn to accept. I still had a hard time with the one on my left hip. The leg ones were longer, but at least they were not as awful in appearance.

“Ems, I’m not feeling good enough to go out. My head spins. I wanna go to bed—”

Pain radiated down my limb, stealing my thoughts in the process. My entire body became taut as I prayed for the blades of fire shredding my muscles to dissipate.

Cold shivers lined my back, and I nipped at my bottom lip to keep from crying.

“Ems. Raincheck? Can you drive me home?”

My sister engaged the brake of the wheelchair, circled it, then gave me a pointed glance. “Is it back? How bad? On a scale of one to ten?”

A moan escaped my lips as I squirmed in my seat. “A hundred.”

“Fuck.”

She loosened the straps of the splint and pressed firmly on the muscles in spasm. A lightning bolt of agony hit me with each action of her fingertips. She kept the rhythm going, massaging the flesh in circular movements until they slowly relaxed, one fiber at a time. A sigh left me as my whole body collapsed and sank into the chair. I could breathe at last. I wiped the moisture in my eyes with my fingertips. “I seem to be wrecking all our plans.”

“Hey, it’s okay. You come first. We can go out some other time.”

“I acted like a brat earlier. I really wanted us to have dinner somewhere. We dressed up. Sorry, Ems.”

Emily cupped my cheek, wiping my tears away. “We can still have fun. Let’s grab takeout on our way back. Then we can watch a movie. I really wanna spend my night with you. Just us sisters. Okay?”

“Okay. Thank you.”

21

MADISON