“I wanted just whatever he would give me…”

– Krista Richards

“Never”

Fiction Based on a True Feeling of an Unrequited Romance.

By Chelsea Wolfe

This journal entry is inspired by true events. Some of the characters, names, businesses, incidents, and certain locations and events have been fictionalized for dramatic purposes. Any similarity to the name, character, or history of any person is entirely coincidental and unintentional.

Trigger Warning: our program often motivates people to discuss their trauma. If you find yourself feeling overwhelmed, please, take a step back to address emotional flashbacks and trauma before continuing to push yourself. If you are experiencing a medical emergency, call 911 or the National Suicide Hotline at (1-800) 273-8255.

Sitting in the car Maddie waited. She was browsing Pinterest looking at new ideas for crafts, maybe some new writing prompts if she could find them.

Alexandria sat in the back, buckled safely into her car seat. Cody’s phone was sitting on the dashboard. It was playing soothing baby music to help keep Alexandria asleep.

Maddie kept glancing at it sitting there.

Then she would glance back at the house. Cody had been inside for a while now. That wasn’t what bothered her though. No, Maddie loved them. What bothered Maddie was not knowing who he was talking to on his phone.

And it was just sitting there. But it felt like it was taunting her.

Cody had been getting better at hiding his messages. Sometimes even deleting them. But Maddie was getting more creative at finding them.

She knew she shouldn’t, but her fingers were twitching, aching to quickly search through the phone to see if there were any new messages from Yanamaria. More messages that proved Cody was speaking to the homewrecking cunt who couldn’t leave well enough alone.

Wasn’t it enough that Maddie had already gone to their work and threatened to kick her ass? Was she that desperate? Or just stupid?

Maddie knew she couldn’t lay the whole blame on her. Cody was the problem too. But Maddie still loved Cody despite the asshole he had become lately.

She had given him plenty of outs. She had asked him many times if he wanted to leave. She told him she wouldn’t be mad. And she was telling the truth.

And the truth was she didn’t want to be another statistic that showed high school sweethearts didn’t last. Especially when they had a baby together now.

It was more than that, of course it was. Maddie loved Cody. She thought she would die for him if it came t that. She already proved she would fuck a bitch up for him if she needed to. She would probably even kill for him. She was his Harley Quinn and he the Joker.

But Maddie also knew love wasn’t supposed to be that way. It wasn’t supposed to be untrusting, unfaithful, or even cause doubt in oneself.

But she couldn’t leave. Not without a fight. No one would ever be able to tell her she didn’t try. Because she did try. She tried everything.

And yet it was never enough. Not for Cody.

Maddie looked at the phone again. Then back to the house.

Fuck it.

She grabbed the phone. The music stopped playing when she clicked the home button and she worried for a second that Alexandria would wake up.

But she didn’t.

Maddie quickly went to the menu option. She searched through all the apps, all the folders, looking for anything that was new. She knew his phone by now to know when something was different. The thought of that almost made her flinch.

There.

A new app. It was hidden in a folder. Maddie clicked on it and started scrolling around. It was a messaging app. A fake phone number.

Maddie heard the house door shut. She had only seconds before Cody came back to the car. But she didn’t care. Because there, in the apps history was a phone number she knew all too well.

Fucking Yanamaria.

Maddie quickly removed the app from the phone’s history and went back into YouTube to resume the soothing sounds of baby music.

She saw Cody walking around to the driver’s side door. She shoved the phone back onto the dashboard, not caring if it was in the same position as he left it, and resumed scrolling through her own phone.

“Ready?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Maddie said, nonchalantly, as if she wasn’t internally screaming.

Cody grabbed his phone and put on different music. Music they both loved. Music they both had experienced in running to when things were bad in their lives.

Maddie sighed and put down her phone. She watched the passing scenery. The trees, the business, the empty streets.

“You okay?” he asked glancing at her from the corner of his eyes.

“I saw the messages,” was all she said.

Cody sighed heavily then. Nothing needed to be elaborated because they both knew exactly what messages she was talking about.

Tears burned in Maddie’s eyes, but she didn’t let them fall. She was tired of letting the tears fall because of him. But it still hurt. Everything hurt. Because Maddie knew deep down, even if she didn’t want to admit it out loud or to herself yet, that it would never be her.

He would never choose her.