AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Are you willing to answer my question?” To help me out again? I know it’s a stretch after the whole vending machine thing, but I try anyway. If she didn’t want to help, she’d have left already.
“I think I’ll pass, thanks though.” Her voice is overly cavalier, chirpy.
My teeth gnash together. “Fine.”
“Fine?”
“Yep,” I deadpan. “I changed my mind; I don’t want your help.”
“Don’t pretend I don’t understand what you’re getting at.” She takes a pointed step into me. “How I haven’t noticed how you think every one of us that goes to this school is all the same. Pretentious and spoiled because we have money.”
This is the Madison I expect. The uncaring, heartless person who looks down on people. Well, now she’s the one staring me down but for completely different reasons.
“You think you’re better because you defend people, but you know what you’re teaching them in the process?” she concedes. “You’re coaching them on how to remain weak. Small. Not letting them gain the courage to stand on their own feet.”
A shadow crosses over her eyes before it disappears and it’s replaced with a cold, empty nothingness.
“You’re weakening them, and you don’t even realize it.” That deadly smirk back in place when I say nothing, fuming in place.
No way she’s right.
Right?
Wrong.
Madison goes in for the kill. “That’s how life is, shouldn’t you know that better than anyone?”
“And you think that by being a bully, you're what? Strengthening them somehow?”
Her head falls back on a laugh, but it sounds like isolation. “I’m teaching them that the real world sucks. No sugarcoating.”
“You’re wrong,” I bite out on a swallow. “You’re doing it to soothe your own tragedy. Making them feel small so you feel big.”
“Am I though?” she asks over the rim of her drink, already stepping away. “Admit it, I’m the most real one here,” she refutes.
“If you’re soreal, how come you refuse to answer my question?” I holler, words echoing off the lockers of the empty hallway.
Her steps pause and I wonder if there might be a chance she’ll tell me, but then her shoulders widen, and I know it’s a lost cause.
My arms swing out, not that she sees. “Be real, Madison.”
That hint of hesitation lingers between us like a bomb ready to go off.
“My answer is still no,” she says, and I notice how her chin points down sharply even if her back is to me.
That’s not the only thing. Her words are too even, leveled, and I imagine if I could see her face her eyes would be squeezed shut.
I rub at my own eye sockets, exhausted as she rounds the corner. This improvised idea was a complete bust.
twenty-five
Cole
Coach’swhistlesounds.“Alright,boys, bring it in.”
He blows it again, the noise loud and expressive, much like his tenacity. It rattles my eardrums and I pick up my pace, everyone else following the same.
The high-pitched squeal of a noise was nothing new. Coach Boone chooses to use that instead of actual words most of the time.
