Another chapter I really enjoyed writing for the many many changes in mood within it. Next chapter is long - like, super long. Like, over 9000 words long.


Madison stifled a yawn as her mom brought the truck to a stop outside the school.

'Regretting your heavy weekend?' Laura asked, raising an eyebrow, the first comment she'd made on her daughter's late Saturday night. No doubt she was well aware that Madison had been drinking, but like so many times before, there would be no come back on it.

Shrugging, she said, 'Nothing I won't get over. Thanks for the lift.'

'Fancy anything special for dinner?' Laura gave a small laugh as Madison gave her a bemused look. 'What? Aren't I allowed to treat my favourite daughter every now and again?'

Madison shrugged again. 'It's not my birthday or anything.'

'I know. I just thought you deserved a treat. You've probably got some hot date lined up again though.'

'Mom, it wasn't a…' Madison broke off as Laura gave her a mischievous look. 'Oh very funny. I'll see you later.'

Crossing the parking lot, she pulled her jacket tighter around her, April still reminding people that it was the cruellest month. Her mind ran over the day ahead of her, trying her best to focus on the positives and yet every time coming back to that one sentence her mom had said: I just thought you deserved a treat. Why? Madison had done nothing worth rewarding recently; any normal parent would be grounding her for her seemingly endless detentions and underage drinking, not cooking her special meals. Why would her mom think she needed a treat? There was only one reason she could come up with and she didn't much like it.

Thoughts of her brother were momentarily knocked out of her by a football which missed its intended recipient and careered into her head instead. She stumbled on the steps on the way into the school, dropping her bag and cringing as some of its contents tumbled out onto the ground.

'Shit, sorry!' A laughing cavalier apology came from the boy who bent down next to her, seemingly to help her out, but really to retrieve his ball. She gave him little more than a glance, taking in his Letterman and movie-star good looks and figuring he'd move on within seconds anyway. The best thing was just to collect everything together and bury herself away somewhere to check out the damage to her hands and knees.

Just as she was about to do just that, her bag not even closed yet as she'd roughly shoved everything back in, the guy did a double-take. 'Hey, you're Madison Lawrence, aren't you?'

She blinked twice. She had never seen this guy before in her life; athletes like him and like Andrew had been drifting past her in corridors for years and she'd never taken much notice of them. Yet somehow he knew her name. And suddenly everybody around them was looking at her.

Tossing her hair over one shoulder, she nodded. 'Yeah. So?'

A nasty smile spread over his face and over the faces of everybody around them. Madison glanced around, her face turning redder by the second and not knowing why.

Eventually the jock gave her a reason, vague as it was. 'Claire Standish is looking for you.'

Madison almost laughed. It sounded so crazy, like a bad slasher movie, making Claire into some kind of vigilante killer instead of the queen bee she was. The import he had injected into his words was completely at odds with the statement. Yet looking at his face, the malicious curve to his lips, she swallowed the laughter and felt it settle uncomfortably in her stomach. For a moment she stood and stared at him, hearing the whispers and nervous laughter around her. Then she gathered her bag closer to her and walked into the school building.

All the way to her locker, she was aware of people turning to look at her, conversations pausing for a nanosecond as she passed by. A couple of times she swiped a hand over her face, wondering if she'd got food on her cheek. Never had she caused such a stir as she walked down the corridor and somehow she suspected it wasn't a good thing. She was grateful for the few seconds of privacy her locker afforded her as she tried to reorganise her bag and surreptitiously check her hands over. There were red and stinging but there were no obvious cuts. A quick rinse underneath the tap would get rid of the dirt before homeroom and she could forget that whole weird encounter had happened.

She turned to go to the bathroom.

'You bitch.' Claire was suddenly in her face, voice intense and hushed, eyes wild with fury. Madison instinctively took a step backwards and came up against her own locker. A quick glance up and down the corridor showed that all other activity had stopped and everybody was riveted by the scene in front of them. No teachers, though. Naturally.

Without waiting for Madison to say anything, Claire pressed on, her eyes narrowing. 'Did you really think I wouldn't find out? He's my boyfriend. Doesn't that mean anything to you people? My boyfriend.'

Madison tried to bite down on her tongue, tried to stop herself saying the words which spilled over anyway. 'Maybe you need to tell him that then.'

'Don't get smart with me!' Claire snapped, her voice high-pitched with anger. 'God, you're so desperate, Madison. How jealous are you?'

'I'm not… I…' Madison's mind whirred frantically as she tried to think what she could possibly say to get herself out of this situation. Cornered like a hunted animal, she searched for an escape route and found herself coming up without any solution. She wondered if Claire had become violent in the six years since they'd been best friends.

Then, for a moment, she thought she'd found salvation.

'Claire!' Pushing his way down the corridor, Allison following in his wake, Andrew called the red-head's name. Ever the knight in shining armour, Madison thought, yet somehow she doubted that he'd quite be enough on this occasion. She probably deserved this.

Claire didn't even acknowledge the jock's presence as he made his way through the crowds. 'Stay away from John,' she said, and for a moment Madison felt sorry for her, seeing the tears almost spill over in her eyes. She'd done a bad thing; she should have known that if it ever got back to Claire (and of course, it was always going to get back to her) then Claire would be upset. Given the power the Princess held at school, if this little performance was as bad as it got, Madison should probably be grateful.

Yet it didn't quite seem fair. It wasn't as though Madison had asked to go to the party. She hadn't asked to spend Saturdays in detention with John, whatever Vernon claimed. She most certainly hadn't asked him to stalk her to her job on a Sunday. Perhaps she shouldn't have accepted his invitation, but he shouldn't have asked her in the first place. She wondered if he was being given the Claire Standish treatment this morning and a rush of anger forced the words past her mouth.

'What if he won't stay away from me?' Immediately she knew she'd made yet another mistake, as everybody else in the corridor jeered at her comment. She should have just stayed silent; when did she lose the ability to stay silent? Claire turned back to her.

'Are you for real?' The malice in her smile was unmistakable. 'You really think he'd choose a piece of trailer trash over me?'

Madison didn't even hear the jeers this time. She didn't see the laughing faces or Andrew's look of shock. A white flash of anger overtook her, clouding everything out except Claire's smirking face. The next few seconds became a blur and it was only as she was being pulled away by Andrew, her hand stinging and Claire's face red from where she'd slapped her that she was even fully aware what had happened. It took another second or so for to realise that that was a long scratch down the side of her face from where Claire's nail had gouged a chunk of skin out.

And soon after that realisation: 'Claire Standish! Madison Lawrence! Principal's office! Now!'

Of course. Of course a teacher would show up now.

'Madison…' Andrew tried.

She shrugged out of his grasp with more force than was necessary, her anger now turning inward. She couldn't believe she'd done this. With a heavy heart, she followed the teacher towards the principal's office, no longer caring that everybody was staring at her; what lay behind that door was far, far worse.


There was a long pause after Madison sat down in the chair opposite the principal, Mr Walker. Always uncomfortable with being looked at, she stared down at the floor, all the time aware that he was glancing between the notes on his desk and her face, as though trying to make a connection between the two. The scratch on her cheek had given up its pathetic trickle of blood and was now just stinging every time she so much as moved her face. The real pain was on the inside, though, and she wished this whole mess was over and she could take herself home for the suspension that was without doubt on its way.

At last, Mr Walker spoke. Madison couldn't really remember ever hearing him speak before, her recent misdemeanours not having brought her in front of him. She was surprised when he sounded not angry or stern, but more weary.

'So, Madison. What happened this morning?' She frowned and he added, 'Humour me. Fill me in on what you think happened.'

Shrugging, she chose her words carefully. 'Claire and I were… talking and… we had an argument.' Then, in a rush, unable to be untruthful, she said, 'It was all my fault, I started the fight.' Then she fell back to studying her bitten nails and frayed cuffs.

Mr Walker left a long pause after she'd finished. Then said, 'Are you and Miss Standish friends?'

The question took her a little by surprise and she looked up. 'Not really.' Mr Walker nodded and something in his face made Madison think again. It was as though he really wanted to know. That was unusual. It was an expression she didn't see very often in her life. She could probably count on one hand the number of people who ever really looked like they were listening to her. She ignored the twist of pain it caused her when she realised John was one of them, and concentrated on this moment. Her moment.

'We used to be.'

'What happened?'

'I moved house.' It sounded so ridiculous put like that; her very presence at the same school as Claire proved she hadn't moved states. That her house and Claire's house were so far apart as to make their shared zip code irrelevant was something she wasn't willing to share. 'We're not really into the same kind of thing anymore.'

The irony of that statement was not lost on Mr Walker, who raised his eyebrows, proving he already knew far more about this altercation than he was letting on. Strangely, Madison was okay with that; it would at least save her from having to detail all the reasons why she and Claire were currently ripping chunks out of each other.

After another long pause, Mr Walker picked up a sheet of paper in front of him. 'You're not somebody I've had much to do with since you joined Shermer High. Your academic and behaviour scores are all very positive. Very positive. I see you're hoping to study Literature at college?'

She nodded, not looking up from her lap. This was too cruel, she thought, thinking of all the applications she'd put in, the scholarships she'd researched and applied for, all of them now fit for nothing more than the recycling bin. Her spotless record had taken a battering over the last few weeks and this incident, a case of violent behaviour, would surely put any school off of her if they'd ever even been considering her. If Claire had wanted to pay her back, she'd done so big time.

'Quite a range of scholarships applied for. All on the West Coast I see.'

Madison had no idea what significance that had to him. If he thought she was going to open up about her need to escape Illinois, he was deluding himself. She chose to nod instead.

'Not many extracurricular activities though,' he mused as he leafed through her file. 'Why's that?'

'I work on the weekend.'

'Right.' He nodded again. Then, putting her file down on the desk, he said, 'Your academic record is one of the best I've seen at this school, Madison. You work hard. You turn assignments in on time. From all of your teachers' reports, it seems you don't contribute much in class, but all in all, your record is virtually faultless. Until recently. Six Saturday detentions in six weeks and now this.'

This was hardly news and so she stayed silent.

'You do know an incident like this could jeopardise your chance at these scholarships?'

Of course she knew. She nodded, wishing he would stop prolonging this torture and just deliver his sentence. Sooner or later, one of them had to mention the elephant in the room and she suspected if she did it, she may as well set fire to her applications herself.

'Claire Standish is a very popular young lady.' Mr Walker's words came out of nowhere and Madison jerked her head up to look at him. It was news to her that teachers noticed that kind of thing, let alone the principal. Surely he had way more important things to think about than the social hierarchy of the students?

He seemed to be waiting for a response. Agreement seemed the best option. 'Yes, sir.' It was the truth anyway. If that was why he believed she'd slapped the girl that was a good enough tale for her. It was preferable to the reality and might get this hideous interview over sooner. If it wasn't over soon, she wasn't sure what she'd do.

'I imagine that can sometimes make her quite difficult to be around.'

She half-shrugged, half-nodded. It seemed to be what he wanted to hear and she wanted out. She wondered when she'd lost the ability to zone out of situations like this.

There was a long pause in which Mr Walker surveyed her again. Then he pulled a sheet from his drawer and scribbled a note on it. When he spoke again it was with much more authority and decisiveness.

'You should report to detention after school every night this week. Your Saturday detentions still, of course, stand, and I do not expect to see you in this office again before graduation.' Standing up, he pushed the sheet across his desk and began to make his way around the desk. When he realised Madison was still rooted in her seat, he said, 'Is something wrong?'

Madison looked from the sheet to him. 'I… don't understand. Aren't you going to suspend me?'

His eyebrows raised. 'Would you like me to?'

'No! I just…' She shook her head, unable to understand what she was hearing. She wondered if he'd forgotten what she'd done, or whether she'd missed some vital point. This seemed ridiculous. 'Will this not go on my permanent record?'

Mr Walker sat on the edge of his desk and folded his arms, looking down at her. After a short pause, he spoke quietly and seriously. 'Under the circumstances, and taking into account both yours and Claire Standish's academic and behaviour records, I have decided on this occasion to overlook this incident. Miss Standish was equally as keen to avoid this being an issue for her in the future. Suspension on this occasion so close to graduation would, I feel, be largely an exercise in bureaucracy. I believe that neither you nor Claire will be troubling me again. Am I correct?'

Madison nodded, the most definitive gesture she'd been able to make ever since this interview had begun.

'I never condone violent behaviour, Miss Lawrence. I strongly advise that you and Miss Standish stay out of each other's way.'

'That won't be a problem.'

Mr Walker stood up and walked to the door, the signal that this interview was at a close. Madison got to her feet, dazed and wondering if she'd somehow hallucinated the last fifteen minutes. Getting out of the door before he changed his mind was her main goal for the next few moments

'You may want to see the nurse about that scratch before you go to class.' Mr Walker handed her a hallway pass. 'I hope not to see you again.'

Madison couldn't remember the last time she'd agreed so much with a teacher. With a brief nod, she headed back out into the school and hoped that somebody had given birth in class since she'd been in his office; anything to take the attention away from herself.


Of course nobody had given birth. Nobody had had a messy break-up or split their pants or been sick in the middle of class. Her fight with Claire was already becoming Shermer Legend, Madison's scratched face now the result of a flick-knife Claire carried in her purse. Ignoring the gossip and rumours took all of her energy as the day wore on and by lunch time, she wanted to be anywhere but at school. Somehow, she guessed skipping this afternoon would get her hauled up in front of Mr Walker faster than she could run away, and so she headed for a place she knew nobody of any consequence at this school would ever be. Curled up in the bookstacks, she opened up her book and tried to escape into the world of nineteenth century England. It had to be a better place than twentieth century Illinois.

For the first time all day, she was beginning to feel a little bit calmer, a little bit safer. If she could just stay here until the bell rang for the end of the day, she thought she might be okay. Not happy, but okay. Okay was what she was aiming for right now.

And instantly, okay was shattered.

'Hey Twinks. Thought I might find you here.'

Madison scrambled to her feet, flight reaction instantly kicking in. He was the reason for all of the trouble today. 'Don't even.' Collecting together her belongings, she tried to walk past him. When his hand closed around her wrist, she gave a small shriek and shook him off. 'Don't touch me. You don't get to touch me.'

A frown crossed John's features. 'What? You're angry with me? What did I do? It's not like I scratched your face.'

Incredulity made Madison bold. 'No, that would be your girlfriend. Remember, Claire? The one you didn't invite to the party?'

'Hey, you knew she wasn't coming and you still said yes,' John shot back, eyes flashing with anger. 'You asked specifically if she was coming and I said no. You made that choice, not me.'

'You shouldn't have asked!'

'I thought you might enjoy it. It's not like I put a gun to your head. Excuse me for helping.'

'You call this helping?' Madison waved at her face and now her voice was becoming louder and more high-pitched. 'I can do without your help, John Bender! I can do without you anywhere near me. Everybody says you're bad news, and you know what? They're right.' She was alarmed to find herself shaking with rage and something else, something she wasn't willing to give into.

'At least I am news!' John shot back, his words hitting her like bullets. 'At least people know who I am. Until today, you really think people knew who you were?'

'That's just it though!' Madison wondered how she could ever have believed that John understood her. It seemed he was even more of a liar than she'd ever believed. 'I don't want to be news! I don't want people talking about me. And you knew that! And you still created this whole… mess! You let Claire find out and…' She tailed off, breathing hard and finding tears in her eyes, before she found the real words she wanted to say. 'And you weren't there.'

'So if I'd been there to see you go batshit crazy on her, all of this would be okay?' Put like that, she knew it wouldn't have been and he'd totally called her bluff all over again. 'Get real, Twinkie.'

'That's not even my name!'

'Well, good, I thought you didn't want people to know your name! I thought you liked being the Invisible Girl! Everything was so a-fucking-mazing when nobody knew your name and nobody knew about your dick of a dad and that your brother's probably dying from cancer! Right?'

'I hate you!' Madison felt sobs choke her throat as she repeated Claire's words from weeks earlier. She'd been so right. 'I really really hate you! Just stay out of my life!' Her safe place violated, she ran from the library to many glares and some curious stares from those whose John's words had reached. She spent the rest of lunch period locked in a bathroom cubicle and hoped that when she came out, it would be graduation day and she could walk away from Illinois for good.


The one relief in Madison's week was that her after-school detentions were better supervised than those on Saturday. It was ironic that Mr Walker's instructions to avoid Claire Standish were undermined completely by his putting the two of them in detention together, but at least they were afforded absolutely no opportunity to interact. In some ways, detention was less of a punishment than having to attend school in the first place: everybody had to face the front and gossiping would instantly land them another after-school. If Madison could just attend the detention and skip school, she thought the week might actually be bearable.

She avoided everybody as much as she could, not just Claire and John. Lunchtimes were spent either in the library or in her new bolt-hole in the bathroom. Meeting up with Brian outside of lessons to work on their project was now a complete non-starter and so she'd offered to complete it on her own. 'Offered' was probably too generous a term: she'd informed Brian it was happening and he'd gone along with it, trying not to stare at the scratch on her face. Madison could barely wait for the assignment to be over and to be able to go back to her solitary existence.

Her mom had reacted in the usual fashion when Madison had told her what had happened, merely asking if she needed a lift home from the detentions. It was unnatural and Madison wished she'd shout at her, ground her or something. Even for Laura, this was distracted, and it only heightened her sense that something was really wrong with Zach. Still she wasn't brave enough to ask though, and so she could safely say that this was the worst week she could remember in a very long time.

What happened on Thursday night made her rethink that definition.