Chapter 8 #2
As we walked arm-in-arm down the hallway to the cafeteria, moving with the flow of the student body, I made a decision then and there.
I wasn’t going to be Depressy Madison anymore.
I was going to be School Spirit Madison—the co-captain, Top Tier, senior-year legend.
I was going to channel every ounce of pep I had left, even if it killed me.
No more wallowing over stupid boys with stupid eyes and that stupidly adorable, puppy-like smile.
I wasn’t “staying stuck” in high school—I was in high school, and shame on him for trying to talk me out of enjoying it. Screw Logan Castle and his stupid Jefferson varsity jacket. He didn’t know what he was talking about.
No more brooding over school spirit–sucking vampires. My wooden stake? Pom-poms and face paint. Logan Castle was not making another appearance in my head anytime soon.
Since she packed her lunch, Jade went straight to the table while I joined the lunch line. Ten minutes later, I finally emerged with my greasy slop of spaghetti.
“Jeez, finally,” Riley huffed as I sat down beside Landon, her eyes narrowing. “Took you long enough.”
“The lunch line was long.”
“I’m about to send out the list,” Jade said as she readjusted her grip on her phone. Her case was our Brentwood High colors, of course, matching her cheer uniform. “I’m sending it to the girl who does Brentwood Babble.”
Put your money where your mouth is, Madison. “I’m so excited,” I gushed, twirling my spaghetti with my fork. “Sending it to Babble is so smart, Jade.”
“I seriously can’t believe the group last year didn’t do that. It’s, like, the easiest way for everyone to get notified at once. What was her name again? Eve, or something. Amy?”
At the other end of the lunch table, Reed said, “It’s Ava. The least you could do is remember her name.”
Jade didn’t look up. “She’s just Babble Girl.”
“She’s the reason you’re popular.” Reed’s tone was mildly disgusted. “Without her, no one could care less.”
“She started Babble sophomore year. It’s not like it’s been around since the dawn of the Top Tier.”
“Yeah, and isn’t it funny how you were a nobody freshman year?” he countered, arching an eyebrow. “A nobody until her blog.”
Jade rested her hands on the table, finally deigning to give him her full attention. “Babble doesn’t make us popular, Reed. If it did, you and your lack of posts would put you at the loser table.”
“At least I don’t have to fake news to be important.”
My own eyes widened as Jade’s flashed. “You’re lucky you’re still sitting here after you quit the football team on Friday,” Jade hissed. “So I’d shut your mouth if I were you.”
“Okay, okay,” Connor said to the table in general. From the quick glance he gave Jade, it was clear he was more concerned about her response than Reed’s. “Let’s just take a breath and drop it, yeah?”
Reed shook his head, but didn’t say another word.
I leaned closer to Landon as Jade typed on her phone. “You didn’t end up voting, right?” I whispered to him. “Like, you didn’t text Jade and vote after the fact?”
He glanced over at me, eyebrows pulling together at my hushed tone. “No. Why?”
A wave of relief washed over me, one that had me nearly slumping in my chair.
Even though they’d brought it up Friday, they definitely wouldn’t put Landon on the list. At the very least, they wouldn’t put Landon and me on the list. It’d be mutiny of the highest order, putting the quarterback and the co-captain of the cheer squad on the list. Jade wouldn’t have gone that far.
I felt so much lighter that I almost laughed. “No reason.”
“Sending in three,” Jade began, poising her thumb over the button. “Two… one.” And she brought her thumb down.
Almost all of us turned toward where Babble Girl sat at her lunch table.
She was easy enough to spot by her bright pink hair and the fact that her table was one of the few that wasn’t actually filled.
Almost on cue, she gasped, leaning forward to her friends.
One of the girls at her lunch table was none other than Maisie, who looked at Ava as she spoke, but clearly wasn’t interested.
“Okay,” Jade hissed impatiently. “Stop gossiping and post the list.”
Connor was one of the few at the table who hadn’t turned to see, rubbing his fingers into one eye. “If you wanted to do it faster, maybe you should’ve done it your—”
All at once, the cafeteria lit up with chimes and dings and bells. In my pocket, my own phone buzzed. Brentwood Babble Has Posted.
My stomach flipped with excitement, so suddenly that I actually felt a little sick.
Jade brought her phone up and tapped it against her grinning lips, watching as everyone scrambled at the tone. A Babble notification that everyone got in the middle of the day had to be major news, and there was only one big thing that happened this time every year.
The Most Likely Tos.
The feeling I got now was worlds different than how I’d felt on Friday.
Planning the list had left me unsettled, but this moment?
This was the energy I’d been waiting for, and I found myself grinning, too.
Ashton raised his chin as if scanning for someone in the cafeteria, and Riley smugly looked over at a different table across the room.
The quiet hum rose to a buzz. People were giggling, chittering, and gasping around the cafeteria that it was almost like a cheer chant itself. This was what being in the Top Tier was about. This was popularity—and this was exactly what I’d needed to pull me from my funk.
Almost like a magnet, my eyes met Maisie’s.
She’d been glaring at our table, but openly shifted the animosity to me when our gazes locked.
I was having a year’s worth of interactions with her within the past week, but this one hit me like a punch.
It wasn’t me, I wanted to tell her, not even knowing why.
Her opinion didn’t matter, but for some reason, in that moment, it was all I could think about. I didn’t put you on it. I swear.
Someone shifted between us, obscuring her from view. My smile had slid off my face without me noticing, and new words filled my head, ones that replaced my own thoughts.
Girls like you peak in high school.
I scrunched my nose, willing the vampire’s voice away. “Who did you vote for the list?” I asked Jade, twirling my fork slowly in my pasta. “I never even asked.”
It wasn’t Jade that jumped to answer, but Riley. “Most Likely To: Peak in High School,” she said, grin spreading across her lips. “You.”
The cafeteria went silent. Or, at least, it went silent in my head. A loud whooshing sound replaced the hum of voices and murmurs, as if could hear the blood roaring in my veins. Landon, at my side, froze.
I stared at Jade, but she wouldn’t even look at me. She was too busy taking in the excitement of the cafeteria with dark glee, as if wholly unaware Riley had spoken. “Who?” I asked, heart drumming in panic.
“You,” Riley repeated. “Madison Oliphant.”
Jade seemed to feel my attention on her now, because she looked over as if it was going to be a quick glance, but did a double take. She laughed aloud—the last thing I expected her to do. “Oh, don’t give me that look.”
I had no idea what kind of look I had on my face, but it definitely felt like all the blood had leached from my cheeks. The label danced around my head with mocking choreography, and I could still clearly see Logan’s expression in my mind from when he’d said it.
“We told you what it meant not to vote,” Riley said from Jade’s side, relishing in the moment. We told you. As if she were Jade’s second in command, not me. “You still didn’t vote. That was your choice.”
“You put her on the list?” Landon demanded at my side. “Your best friend?”
“You’re on it, too, dude,” Ashton piped up from the other end of the table. “If you don’t vote, you’re on it. We all knew that, Mr. Most Likely To: Never Get A Girlfriend.”
Landon stared down Ashton, not looking around at any of his friends. “Creative,” he huffed. “But Reed already gave me a heads up on Friday. You blindsided her?” The last bit was directed at Jade. “Seriously?”
“You’re both so ridiculous.” Jade tipped her chin up in exasperation. “It’s just a label meant to make people laugh. Stop acting like it’s the end of the world.”
Underneath the table, I clenched my hands into fists, pressing them into my skirt.
This moment, just like when Logan walked into Expresso’s Friday afternoon, didn’t feel real.
It was like one of those dreams where you realize you’re walking down the school hallway in just your underwear, and everyone is staring and laughing. Completely exposed.
Most Likely To: Peak in High School.
Madison Oliphant.
It was more than just the label. Jade had to see that.
I wanted nothing more in that moment to disappear, to melt into my chair and become one with the blue plastic. I couldn’t bring myself to look around me, to accidentally meet anyone’s eye.
I still had the second half of the school day to get through, bearing all the stares and whispers. There was no blending into my chair. I had to face it all.
Were they already whispering about me? What were they saying? What were they thinking?
At the end of lunch, before Jade could walk too far down the hallway, I grabbed her upper arm and hauled her to the side.
Her sneakers skidded on the linoleum, but she came pretty willingly with me into the girls’ room.
No one stood at the sinks, but I didn’t bother to kick open all the stalls and check them, whirling on Jade.
“How could you?” I demanded, voice already shaking.
Away from the rest of the Top Tier, something about Jade’s expression shifted. Her eyes were wider as she stared at me, as if trying to show the sincerity in them. “It was Riley’s idea,” she insisted. “She wouldn’t let it go—how you didn’t and how it wasn’t fair.”
Bull crap. “Last I checked, Riley wasn’t the captain. Riley didn’t call the shots. You do.”
“She wasn’t wrong. You didn’t vote.”
“You should’ve told me you were going to actually put me on it!” I countered. “I would’ve voted then. Don’t you think it’s a bad look for the Top Tier? Turning on one of your own?”
Jade didn’t reply. I so badly wanted her to say she screwed up, that she didn’t realize how much it would hurt my feelings. But she didn’t. She barely even blinked.
“Why that label?” The question came out breathy, defeated, laced with the hurt I’d had ever since Jade first said it. “It could’ve been anything else. Heck, I could’ve been Most Likely To: Never Get a Boyfriend.”
“Ashton already claimed that one.”
I could’ve shaken her. “But why that?”
“It had a good ring to it,” Jade answered, reaching over and flipping a lock of my blonde hair over my shoulder.
She smoothed down the piece affectionately, causing the buzzing in my ear to sound louder.
“People say it about us all the time. If you can’t handle hearing it, maybe you shouldn’t be at the top. ”
The buzzing in my ears migrated into my chest again, thundering in my heart like it was about to beat out of my chest. “You… you’re saying I shouldn’t be in the Top Tier?”
“Of course not,” Jade answered immediately, lips stretching into an almost motherly smile. “That’s not what I meant. I didn’t mean you, you. I just meant ‘you,’ like anyone in general.”
Even though I wanted to—I so desperately wanted to—I didn’t believe her.
She patted my shoulder before taking a step back. “We should get going. If I get a tardy for Mrs. Greer, I’m so convincing her to put it on your roster.”
I didn’t follow Jade out of the bathroom.
I faced myself in the mirror, my breathing beginning to grow heavy.
My green eyes were wide and watery, cheeks far too flushed to say it was just blush.
The longer I stared, the more cracks began to form, and I was sure everyone would see them when I walked out of the bathroom.
They’d be plain as day, proving that Madison Oliphant wasn’t the perfect doll she pretended to be. She wasn’t loved, funny, and happy.
She was a laughingstock, cruel, and shallow.
With one hand gripping the porcelain sink, I sank down to my heels.
Was this what Maisie felt like that day freshman year? After I taught her the wrong choreography, tanking her cheer tryout, had she thought this same thing? That her best friend turned on her? Stabbed her in the back?
Girls like you peak in high school.
The tardy bell rang out then, but still, I didn’t move. No one else came into the bathroom, and with no other distractions, the words rang out in my head instead. A damning label, spoken in Logan’s voice.
Most Likely To: Peak In High School.
Madison Oliphant.