Chapter 50: Forgiven
Jack and Madison were sitting on the couch looking through FairStay listings when Madison's phone rang. She picked up the phone, but not recognizing the number on caller id, she was about to ignore it when she saw the person was leaving a message. Curious, she tapped the button that would allow her to listen in while the person was leaving a message.
"...said you were trying to contact me. I'm not sure why, but-"
"Yes! Finally!" Madison crowed, while mashing the button to connect with the caller mid-message.
"Hello?" she said. "Yes. Hi, I'm so glad you called. What? Um...no, sorry. The reason I called was because I need to confess- Oh! Um, I mean that's not...Um, I mean I might be- Look, can you please just let me finish? Thank you. The thing is, I lied about Jack. I told you he and I were together, but that was a lie. We were just friends. Why? Because I was afraid I would lose him, lose his friendship if you said yes. So, I lied to get you to turn him down. No, no, none of that is true. I lied about all of that. I wanted to make sure you would say no when he asked you out. Yes, you're right. It was a horrible thing to do. Why? Because he found out. No, I told him. He said something that made me realize that what I had done was horrible and hurt him terribly. And, I confessed. No. He doesn't hate me. No. But he did tell me he wouldn't forgive me unless I confessed to everyone I lied to about him, and cleared his name. Yeah, seriously. No, not yet. Not ever, not like that anyway. He, um, he said that because of what I did, I could never have him all to myself. No, really. I don't mind. The fact that he's still giving me a chance, really helped me like, unclench. Yeah, I think he would. He's right here."
"What!" Jack heard a faint yell over Madison's phone.
"Well, do you?" asked Madison. "Okay, here he is." then as she handed him the phone she whispered, "Analise".
"Analise?" said Jack.
"Jack, Hi, um, hi. Oh, man. I am so sorry about what I said-"
"Hey, it's alright. I don't blame you. If whatever she told you had actually been true, then what you said probably would have been justified."
"But still, it must have hurt," she said.
"Oh, it did. But would you have said those things if Madison hadn't lied to you?"