"Did I do something?" Caleb prodded again when the teenager stayed quiet.
"I may be just a kid," Peter started, voice quiet yet careful, "but I like to think that I can read people pretty well. And Maddie is probably one of the kindest people I've ever met in my life. I've never seen her as hurt and upset as she was last night before she left, no matter how much she was trying to hide it from me, and I know that you had something to do with it." Peter turned to stare at him straight in the eye. "I don't know what happened between you two, but I hope you realize that she didn't deserve it. Whatever it was."
With that, Peter pushed the passenger door open, slipped out, and slammed the door behind him. Hard. Caleb was still trying to process his words, feeling that knife twist in his chest when Peter said that Maddie had been upset last night, but then he realized something.
He accelerated to catch up with Peter and rolled down his window. "What the hell do you mean by she left last night?"
Peter stopped and gave him an odd look. "You mean, she didn't tell you?"
Panic started clawing up his chest. Her door had still been shut this morning when he went out for a run and when he returned, but he thought she'd just been getting some extra sleep.
"What happened last night?" he asked, his words coming fast.
"She said you guys got into a fight," Peter said, eyeing him. "She said it was best if she left for a little while. She had a suitcase. I helped her bring it downstairs and into her car and then she drove off."
Disbelief made him process the information slowly, but no matter how long he sat there, the fact still remained.
Maddie had left him.
Caleb shook his head, fists gripping the wheel until his knuckles turned white, and then he was pulling away from the curb, leaving Peter looking after him with a puzzled expression, and speeding back to the house.
He refused to believe it. Maddie had to be at home still. She had to.
Caleb's heart pounded in his chest the entire drive and when he finally pulled up into the driveway, he immediately opened the garage, which he rarely used. The space where Maddie usually parked her car was empty.
He charged through the garage and through the door leading into the house.
"Maddie!" he yelled, taking the stairs two at a time. He burst into the master bedroom. "Maddie!"
It was empty.
Caleb looked at the neatly made bed, feeling his stomach sink and throat burn, before pulling open the closet door. Her suitcase was gone. After a quick glance in the bathroom, he saw her toiletries were as well.
He fisted a hand in his hair, trying to stay calm, but already he was beginning to feel a sense of loss so devastating that it made him want to sink to his knees.
On Caleb's side of the bed, he saw a folded up piece of paper and he snatched it up, almost ripping it in the process of opening it. Maddie's soft, feminine handwriting took up the page and his eyes moved over the words quickly, but every one he read turned his mood darker and darker.
Caleb,
I hope you understand why I need to do this. I need time away from you, from our situation, to think things through and to decide what's best, not just for the baby, but for me as well.
I hope you know that I would never try and cut you out of the pregnancy. I know how important it is to you and I want you to be involved. I meant what I said when I told you you'd be an amazing father. Just because we don't live under the same roof, it doesn't make that untrue.
I'll see you in a couple weeks at the next doctor's appointment, if you still plan on coming. I do hope you'll be there.
There was nothing more. She didn't tell him where she was going or when-if, Caleb's mind whispered-she would come back. Caleb reread the note three times until it really sunk in that she'd left him.
Are you really surprised? he asked himself bitterly. After what you said to her last night …
Immediately, he pulled his cell phone out from his back pocket and dialed her number, taking deep breaths on every ring that she didn't answer.
Pick up, pick up, pick up.
Finally, her voice drifted over the line and Caleb felt a dizzying wash of relief.
"Caleb," she said. Her voice was quiet, tired, as though she hadn't slept and he clenched his jaw.
"Where are you?" he demanded, trying to keep his voice even. If there was a way to pull her through the phone and back into his arms, back into their bed, where she belonged, he would do it in a heartbeat.
Maddie sighed and a few seconds ticked by in silence. "I don't know what to say. I don't know what to do and there's a lot I need to work through before I'm ready to do anything. I hope you'll give me that time."