by Lisa Roecker
She had curled into herself as best she could, attempting to cover her exposed body with her hands bound behind her, which was pretty much impossible. Her head was turned to the left as far as it would go, the tendons in her neck strained to their breaking point. Some of the boys had the decency to look away. Maybe in the light, the prank looked different, more serious. Maybe they regretted what they’d done.
“Who has the key?” I screamed. Seth had rushed beside me now, ripping his jacket off to cover Maddie’s naked shoulders. Next, he stripped off his shirt, his skinny, white torso nearly as blinding as the spotlight. He made a valiant effort at securing his T-shirt to Maddie’s legs, but it kept falling off and a few snickers drifted up from the crowd.
I shook my head and tossed the shirt back to him. “Let’s just get her down from here, okay?”
“On it.” He slipped the shirt back on and got to work looking for something that might pick the lock on the cuffs.
Bradley looked down at his feet and I knew he was hiding something. “Give it to me! You piece of…”
Alistair moved forward again, slowly, like he was dealing with a rabid dog. “Relax, Kate. Settle down. It was just a joke.” His voice was slippery, patronizing. The carefully modulated words made me foam at the mouth. The only thing worse than having your friend publicly humiliated, naked, and crying was having some asshat tell you to settle down. I could practically feel the sick pleasure of my knee connecting with his groin.
“I swear to God, Kate, I had nothing to do with this.” Bradley shook his head adamantly. “They shoved the key and marker in my hands. I swear to God.” In that moment, I didn’t think; I just jumped down, plowing into Bradley headfirst. He scrambled backward, getting to his feet and holding the key out for me.
“Someone just handed it to me. It was dark. I didn’t see…I was going to get her down!” His light brown skin was flawless even in the harsh light, and his eyes were begging for me to believe him.
“It’s not like she didn’t deserve it,” Alistair said, raising his eyebrows and cocking his head. A fresh stream of tears spilled down Maddie’s cheeks as Bradley shot him a look. “What?” he said with a shrug.
I took a deep breath. I couldn’t beat him here—as much as I wanted to pummel him to a pulp.
Instead, I grabbed the key and threw it to Seth, who dropped it, of course, but then successfully unlocked Maddie. She immediately went down onto all fours, her hands moving around the ground, looking for something until she finally produced a small cloth-covered notebook. It fell open, revealing pages and pages of Maddie’s neat cursive handwriting interspersed with pictures of girls with words over their faces.
“My journal. They stole it and told me they’d copy it and send it to everyone in the school if I didn’t show up tonight.” My arms flew around her in a tight hug, partly for comfort and partly to shield her from the crowd of people. She shoved her head into the nook between my neck and shoulder, her back convulsing as she cried. With nothing more to see, the boys began to file out, until there was just one person left standing in the auditorium.
Liam.
I didn’t try to hide my shock at seeing him here. His lips were a straight line, his eyes heavy with disappointment. Disappointment in me? In the guys involved? In himself for being there?
Well, two could play at that game. He was here. Just standing in this room made him an accomplice to this atrocity. What did that say about him? About us?
“I got a text to be here,” he said softly. “I didn’t know it was this.” His arms swept around the room, but his eyes were locked on Maddie.
A knot formed in my throat, and I felt like I was either going to throw up or burst into tears. I wasn’t sure which was worse. There was so much to say, but I had no words.
Bradley hovered in the doorway and opened his mouth to say something, but he changed his mind and snapped it shut.
“Are you coming, Kate?” Seth called from the back of the room, holding Maddie up like a rag doll. She still hadn’t lifted her head, and I wondered if she ever would again. If this didn’t send Maddie spiraling back into whatever anguish she’d recently surfaced from, I didn’t know what would.
I rushed toward them just as my phone vibrated in my pocket. Praying that my parents hadn’t discovered my absence, I lifted it out and saw six missed calls and one new text. In all my rage, I hadn’t even felt it vibrate.
All six calls were from my mom. The text was from an unknown sender.
The play is over, applaud.
Chapter 18
I couldn’t go home. I couldn’t even bring myself to answer my phone, but if I screened another call from my parents I had no doubt they’d go all Hunger Games on my ass and hunt me down via hovercraft. My bike rattled in the back of Seth’s mom’s van as we made our way to Maddie’s neighborhood. Why weren’t his parents calling every five minutes? Mrs. Allen was probably just relieved Seth had an “active social life.” She always said the term with implied air quotes, and it never failed to bring to mind senior citizens zipping around on those creepy geriatric scooters.
The truth was that my parents operated on two extremes. They went from obsessed to negligent in the time it took to say “baggage.” Apparently tonight they were obsessed. Ever since I’d started seeing Dr. P., books with titles like Talkin’ 2 Your Teen: How 2 Jive with Ur Offspring littered my parents’ nightstands. Brutal.
“I have to call my mom. Don’t talk.” I turned to Seth as I said it, knowing full well I didn’t have to worry about Maddie. She was curled up in the backseat, head tucked into her chest. I clicked on my home number and put the phone to my ear. It didn’t even ring once before I heard them pick up.
“Where in the hell have you been?” Not Mom. Dad. Not good.
“Dad, I’m sorry. It was just…it was Maddie and I didn’t know what to do and I tried to wake you guys up, but I seriously shook you for like five minutes and she was crying and I had to help her. I sent a text. Didn’t you see the text?” I clicked random buttons on my phone, shaking it around in my hands a bit. “I’m looking at it right now.” The lies spewed out of my mouth like vomit.
My dad breathed heavily into the phone, and I knew he was shaking his head. I could hear my mom in the background, frantic, asking question after question. Finally, I heard a click as she picked up the extension in the office.
“There is absolutely no excuse for this behavior. I don’t care what you think you have to take care of. You are fifteen, Kate, fifteen. We didn’t know what happened! And here we tried to call and you didn’t even answer your phone!” Her voice broke and I felt my heart pull a little. I never thought they’d find out. They never woke up. My luck had officially run out.
“Mom, it was Maddie,” I said, knowing the name would remind her of everything that used to be. How could it not? I silently cursed myself for not keeping my hair brown. Brown hair definitely would have helped smooth things over at a time like this. Blue? Not so much. “She needed me.” I wished that was the whole story and felt another wave of guilt when I remembered what had really made me set out on my bike tonight. Some friend.
My mom inhaled deeply and exhaled slowly. A yoga breath. Always a good sign. She was pulling herself together. “You may think this behavior is coolio,” she paused, letting her lame slang sink in, “but it leaves your dad and me feeling like we’ve been played.”
Well, I guess it was pretty clear that they’d taken advantage of my absence to finally get through “Chapter Five: Gettin’ Jiggy with Your Teen When They’re Coppin’ a ’Tude.”
“Where are you, Kate?” my dad cut in. “I’ll pick you up.”
Seth’s headlights swung onto Maddie’s long driveway, illuminating what up until the past year had been my second home, sometimes even my only home. “I’m at Maddie’s house.”
“Hi, Mr. and Mrs. Lowry,” Maddie’s voice cracked from the backseat. I hadn’t realized she was listening. Maddie offered a hesitant smile when I turned around in my seat.
<
br /> “I’m going to stay with her. I’m sorry I scared you. I was just trying to help my friend.” Even my slang-lovin’ parents couldn’t find fault in that.
I could practically see my mom rubbing at her tired eyes, staring at the clock ticking quietly on the wall. It was late, she was tired, she had to work tomorrow, she didn’t have time for this, she wished it wasn’t happening. I felt the same way.
“Never again, Kate,” was all she said before she clicked the phone off.
I hung up the phone and twisted around in my seat. One look at Maddie and I knew I’d done the right thing. She was shivering, curled into a tiny ball with Seth’s jacket laid over her like a blanket. She needed me right now.
“My parents can’t know.” She said the words so softly they were almost unintelligible.
“Shhhh…don’t worry. We’ll figure this out.”
Seth shot me a doubtful look, and I could see where he was coming from. Smuggling a half-naked Maddie inside the house without Mr. and Mrs. Greene noticing was kind of a tall order. Especially when you considered the fact that she was fresh out of a rehab stint.
I sized Seth up. As usual his khaki pants were pristine, perfectly pressed, not a dirt stain in sight. Seth Allen had to be the only person on the planet who could make it through pitch-black underground tunnels without getting a speck of dirt on his pants, but give the kid a jelly donut, and jam would end up in places jam had absolutely no right to be.
There was one very obvious solution to this problem, but it involved me uttering four inconceivable words to Seth Allen. This was not going to be pretty.
“Take off your pants,” I mumbled in Seth’s direction.
“What?” Seth’s voice was shrill as it cracked.
“Your pants. Take them off.” I spoke louder now, impatient.
“But…I’ll be naked and cold, and I still haven’t had the chance to bulk up my legs at the gym so I’m just not sure…”
I cut Seth off with my best “Are you effing kidding me?” face and jerked my head toward Maddie in the backseat.
“Oh, right. I get it. Maddie needs pants and I have them, so I’ll just go ahead and, um, well, strip down. Could you…” Seth’s cheeks went up in twin flames.
I did my best to hide my smile and averted my eyes while Seth scrambled out of his pants next to me. I peeked and immediately wished I had some eye bleach to remove the image of Seth’s blindingly white legs and equally bright tightie-whities. Apparently, looking at Seth Allen in his underwear was exactly like looking directly into the sun during an eclipse—ill advised unless your eyes are properly protected.
I reached over to Seth without looking and snatched his pants away. “Okay, Maddie, let’s get you into these and that coat, and your parents won’t notice a thing.” I climbed over the center console and into the backseat, settling next to Maddie. Her frail shoulders felt more like a child’s, and as I helped pull her arms through the sleeves, it felt similar to dressing a baby. Her arms and legs were limp, but her eyes were wide open and aware. Almost like she was having an out-of-body experience. After what she’d been through tonight, that wouldn’t surprise me.
I ushered Maddie out of the car and did my best to keep my eyes away from Seth’s underoos. “Thanks for everything, Seth.” I leaned in to give him a quick kiss on the cheek before jumping out of the car.
To his credit, his eyes stayed focused on Maddie, and my impromptu show of affection didn’t even make him blush.
“Just make sure she’s okay, all right?” Concern was written all over his face as he watched Maddie swaying in the driveway. She looked like a strong wind would blow her up into the dark night sky.
“You got it, my friend. See ya at school tomorrow.”
“Liam picking you guys up?”
I remembered seeing Liam standing in the crowd with the rest of the Brotherhood, just as complicit in Maddie’s punishment as the rest of them. “Nah, we’re busin’ it.”
I didn’t wait for Seth’s inevitable questions about my sudden fondness for school transportation. Instead I grabbed Maddie’s elbow and walked her around to the back door. I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw it was still open a crack. Back in the day, we’d relied on that door as our late-night escape route. Only door in the house that didn’t trigger the alarm. We used to wonder if the alarm-installation guys had done it on purpose, but tonight I was just happy that once upon a time I’d known Maddie well enough to remember all her tricks.
One look at the shadowed figure in front of me reminded me that I’d probably never know her that well again.
To: [email protected]
Sent: Tues 1/13 1:02 AM
From: [email protected]
Subject: Maddie
Grace,
I’m sitting here on my phone in the dark. Maddie is sleeping next to me, and everything is so messed up. I actually thought Maddie took Bethany. Is that crazy? Have we really changed so much that I could have believed she was capable of something like that? I guess so.
Everything is just so different now. So wrong. She wouldn’t be like this if you were still here. I wouldn’t be like this. I so badly want everything to go back to normal. You’ve been gone over a year and this still doesn’t feel normal. I wonder if it ever will.
Chapter 19
The next morning I woke up to the rich smell of coffee.
“Extra cream, four packs of sugar. That’s still the way you take it, right?” Maddie was already dressed in her uniform. The purple half-moons etched beneath her eyes and the small green journal sitting on her desk provided the only evidence of her traumatic evening.
“I’ve actually downsized to two sugars. Trying to cut back.” The words slipped out before I could even consider their implication, and I turned as red as Seth’s hair, which with my new bright blue strands couldn’t have worked well. Her features darkened and her shoulders slumped as she crumbled into herself, and I hated myself for trying to keep things light. I needed to be more aware. The constant reminders of how much we’d changed stood out in sharp contrast to the visible reminders here of our past life together.
Maddie’s bedroom was no different. Plaid pink and kelly green comforters still graced her twin beds. Her mirror was still crowded with all the same photos of me, Grace, and herself mugging for the camera. Her stuffed animals were piled on the huge window seat overlooking her backyard, just like always.
But the thin, tired-looking girl seemed out of place in this cheerful room, like a guest who had overstayed her welcome. I wracked my brain for something to say, something to make things right. To give this morning some semblance of normalcy.
To avoid the thick silence, I leapt off the bed and made a beeline for the loose floorboard in Maddie’s closet. Back in the day, we’d hidden our candy stash underneath so we’d have fuel for our late-night prank calls during the endless nights of our sleepovers. I had no idea if anything was still in there, but it was worth a shot. I tore up the floorboard and groped around in the cavern. A surge of happiness bubbled in my chest when my fingers met the crinkle of plastic. Twizzlers. I grabbed a Twizzler and almost cracked a tooth biting off the stale ends. I stuck my makeshift red straw into my coffee and took a long sip and was rewarded with a dazzling smile from Maddie.
“Eww. That is so gross.” But she was laughing as she said it.
“Yup, some things never change.”
Maddie’s mom shouted for her to come downstairs. I guessed Maddie had a little explaining to do after our late-night entrance. They had been waiting for us when we opened the door. Just as her dad started yelling, they saw me and stopped. I’m not sure if it was my blue hair or my mere presence, a ghost from their daughter’s haunted past, that was enough to silence a room. Either way, they stopped yelling and sent us both to bed, saying they’d hash everything out in the morning.
While Maddie muddled through some type of explanation, I helped myself to one of her uniforms, swirled around some mouthwash, and declared myself rea
dy to face the world, or at least the bus stop at the end of Maddie’s street.
By the time I got downstairs, Mrs. Greene was beaming at me.
“Oh, Kate! Maddie explained everything. I hope you’re okay. I’m so glad you called Maddie last night in your…er…time of need. You know we’ll always be here for you, honey. Whatever you need.”
“Um, yeah. Sure.” Mrs. Greene was using the voice people reserved for mental patients and death-row criminals, but as long as we weren’t in trouble, I figured I’d just play along with whatever outrageous lie Maddie had conjured up.
“Oops, think I hear the bus! Bye, Mom!” Maddie plastered on a fake smile, kissed her mom on the cheek, and yanked me out of the house before I could say anything stupid. Girl after my own heart.
The bus arrived at the stop at the same time we did, and we both fell into the closest empty seat. Maddie stared out the window, the mask of her false happiness slipping off more the farther we drove from her house.
“Are you okay?” I knew that was the single most annoying thing you could ask a person who was so obviously not okay, but I couldn’t seem to help myself. I had to know what she was thinking. I guess I just wanted to be prepared for what came next. If Maddie was going to fall apart, someone was going to have to pick up the pieces, and it sure as hell wasn’t going to be Taylor or Bethany this time.
“I’m fine.” She answered immediately, like people do in church when they’ve been brainwashed.
I elbowed her in the side, a gesture so achingly familiar, yet so foreign. Instead of meeting the soft flesh of her abdomen the way it used to, my elbow crunched right into bone and left me wondering if I’d cracked one of her ribs.
“No, really. I’m fine. Last night was awful, but honestly, I’m sort of glad that it’s over. I knew they’d do something to me when I came back. It’s actually easier now that I have it behind me. I can move on, you know? Start fresh. They talk a lot about starting fresh at…well, you know what I mean.”