Chapter Forty One

Madeline’s POV

A magic eight ball…?

This somehow makes both zero and perfect sense. I don’t realize how much time has passed until my Mom calls me to dinner. I descend the stairs to find my last delicious home-cooked meal waiting for me.

After a bunch of oddly-phrased jokes and suspicious hinting, my Mom convinced me that I should leave tomorrow. Apparently, despite the fact that she enjoys my company, I have to leave to practice “responsibility”.

I didn’t buy it until she suggested that I might have left a stove on.

“Is there anything I can do to help?” I ask skeptically, inching my way closer to the dinner table. She’s had me help her before, I don’t want to risk being tricked twice.

“Nope, not this time,” She says genuinely, placing down a freshly baked meatloaf, “You deserve it, you’ve been going through all that junk the entire day!”

Hearing my mom call what’s left of my childhood “junk” stung.