Chapter 33
Thursday afternoon, it was time to face the music.
I’d gotten lucky with Mom’s leniency for Monday and Tuesday, when she was still trying to figure out how to stop my downward spiral, but after Maisie broke me from my bedroom, I had no more excuses.
At least, until Ms. Murphy—who consulted with Mom Tuesday evening—advised us to have a little one-on-one session before going back to school, so I could be “armed with the tools to protect my peace.” So, on Wednesday, she came home with my mom after school, and we had a long chat about what I could do if I felt overwhelmed during the school day.
And then that led to Thursday.
“Maybe I can just eat lunch in here,” I told Mom, who sat calmly in her desk chair. Which was ridiculous—how could she be calm? “I’ve done it before. It’s fine.”
I was pacing in her office, but it did absolutely nothing to calm my racing pulse. It hammered in my ears, and I would’ve sworn I was starting to feel lightheaded. “Madison,” Mom said, just as serenely as she looked. “I let you take the morning off, but now it’s time to ease back in.”
“Walking into a full cafeteria is not easing me back in,” I argued.
“Fourth period hasn’t let out yet. If you go now, it’d be empty—”
And, almost like some cosmic joke, the bell overhead rang out.
“Well.” Mom turned back to her paperwork. “If you hurry, it won’t be too full.”
My stomach dropped straight to my shoes.
The bell’s echo was still bouncing through my head, louder than it had any right to be, like the whole school was announcing my downfall.
My hands went clammy, my chest tightening as though someone had wound a cord around my ribs and yanked it tight.
I could already feel everyone’s stares, the whispers that would coil through the air the second I stepped inside.
Jefferson’s Bulldog. Jade’s ex–best friend. The fraud.
My breath came sharp and shallow, no matter how hard I tried to drag it deeper, and all I could think was that I wasn’t ready. I’d never be ready.
Mom’s office door slowly slid open, but it wasn’t her secretary poking their head in. It was Maisie. “Hey, Oliphants,” she greeted awkwardly. She still hadn’t quite seemed to get over the strangeness of interacting again.
And normally I’d have been the same way, but panic still had me in its grip. “How did you know I was in here?” I demanded, voice shrill.
“Principal O called Mrs. Greer—I have her for fourth period—and she told me to get my butt here after the bell.” Maisie gave her arms a little flap. “My butt is here, and ready to drag yours to the cafeteria.”
I turned toward Mom. “Please—”
“I can walk you down there,” Mom volunteered cheerfully. “I can even sit with you at your table. I doubt anyone would say anything if the principal was—”
“Oh my gosh, that’d be even worse.” I actually cringed as the image painted out in my head, pulse spiking. “F-Fine. I’ll… go to lunch.” If I don’t have a heart attack first.
Mom put a hand up, pulling her pink fabric lunch pail out from the mini fridge she kept behind her desk. She offered it to me with a soft smile. “Here,” she said. “You can have my panini.”
I was wound so tightly that I nearly burst out crying then and there.
“It’s no big deal,” Maisie said soothingly as we walked out of Mom’s office and to the main door that’d lead into the hallway. “Let them look at you all they want. You’re above all that high school nonsense.”
“Am I?” I muttered.
“Yep.” She nudged my shoulder, hard enough to pull me from the brink. “Ms. Most Likely To Peak In High School, who?”
I swallowed hard. “Not Madison Oliphant.”
“No, ma’am.” Maisie grabbed ahold of the hallway door handle, gaze finding mine. “Ready?”
To go out and face the piranhas? Absolutely not.
Jade Dyer would be out there. The Top Tier would be out there.
Students who were ready to take my Bobcat butt and turn it into taxidermy were out there.
Sure, no one would punch me—probably—but the dagger stares would hurt just as much, wouldn’t they?
But Maisie—the confidence gleamed in her expression like one of the football stadium lights.
And one of Ms. Murphy’s recommendations for when things got too overwhelming was to have an “anchor,” something to latch onto when I was spiraling.
Sure, she’d recommended it to be an object, but Maisie’s surety could work.
All I knew was that I was so beyond lucky to have her at my side. So even though I didn’t feel it, in a small voice, I said, “Ready.”
Maisie opened the door, grabbed my free hand, and tugged me out into the flow of traffic.
At first, it was like we floated along unnoticed.
The hallway stretched on forever, lockers gleaming like rows of eyes waiting to watch me crack.
Every step echoed too loudly, like I was announcing myself to the entire school.
Maisie walked beside me, close enough that her shoulder brushed mine every few steps, steady and unflinching, like she wasn’t afraid of being seen with me.
My throat was tight, my palm damp against the strap of Mom’s lunch pail, but Maisie’s quiet presence grounded me.
And then I became aware of the murmurs. The way the space around Maisie and I went from cramped to roomy. People stepped away from us, wanting a better view of the social pariah as she walked down the hall.
Someone suddenly came up on my other side, and I found Connor standing there. “What’s on the menu today?” he asked.
I stared up at his profile, so dumbfounded that I’d forgotten how to speak. “Chili and breadsticks,” Maisie replied to him from my other side, her grip on my hand still firm.
Connor glanced at Maisie’s lunch bag. “Want anything from the line?” he asked her. “Cookies, chips, juice—”
“Are you allowed to get extra breadsticks?” she asked sheepishly, looking up at him with a small smile.
And he returned her gaze with a dazzled one of his own. “Even if I’m not allowed to, I’ll get them for you somehow.” He lingered on her for a moment before raising his eyebrows to me. “Want anything?”
I wasn’t sure Connor had ever asked me that question in his life. I wasn’t sure if it was because he felt sorry for me or if it was the Maisie Matthews effect. “I’ll take a cookie,” I mumbled.
“You got it.”
“I want a cookie!” a new voice chirped. I turned to find Ava hurrying up behind us, her own brown paper lunch bag tucked underneath an arm.
Her pink hair was in two buns on the top of her head, a few pieces escaping.
“And Rachel will want one too, you know. Which then means you should get one for Lacey, and then—”
“I’ll just sell them out of cookies,” Connor said with a knowing nod. His lips lifted in a half smile. “Because if I don’t buy them all, Reed will take half of yours.”
“He can try.” Ava scoffed. “He’d have to fight me for it.”
“And I’d let you win.” Reed came up behind Ava and dropped his arm around her shoulders, jostling her lightly. She swatted at his chest playfully, but he only grinned like a fool. “Either that, or I’d end up on Babble as The Cookie Thief.”
I gave an awkward chuckle. “Not quite the most interesting thing that’s happened lately.”
It was like a tumbleweed blew through our conversation as everyone fought to figure out what to say. Nice, Madison, I thought with an inward groan. Way to kill the mood.
I didn’t have a chance to try to recover the convo, either, because before I knew it, we were walking through the cafeteria doors.
I’d stepped over the threshold on instinct, but when I realized, I immediately wanted to backtrack.
Maisie didn’t relinquish her grip on my hand, though, and Ava was directly behind me, making turning around impossible.
It only took a second for those already at their tables to notice who had just walked in.
The entire cafeteria went quiet in a rush, the hush falling over every table as their heads swiveled to the double doors I’d just walked through.
I wanted to say I was just imagining it, that surely it was my panic brain making the situation seem worse than it was, but Maisie stiffened at my side.
“Everyone’s staring,” I muttered, pointing out the obvious.
“Imagine how it was when Connor and I walked into the cafeteria on Monday,” Maisie said in a low voice as we sat down at her empty table. “I thought someone was going to chuck a lunch tray at my head.”
“Connor would’ve gone nuclear,” Reed said as he settled into his seat next to Ava, who sat beside Maisie. “I swear, he’s just begging someone to say something. I’m waiting for it, too, honestly. It’d be funny.”
I latched onto their conversation as I shakily unpacked Mom’s lunch pail, gripping onto every word to let it distract me. I wondered if that was their intention, to bat the ball back and forth to give me no time to get lost in my thoughts.
She’d packed a tuna and mayo panini. My favorite.
“He’s been brutal at practice.” The new voice belonged to Landon. He set his blue lunch tray down across from me, shaking his red hair out of his eyes. “Nate Tulane said something the other day, and he sacked him hard during the practice scrimmage.”
“Nate has poor timing with his jokes.” Lacey Churchill arranged her own tray beside Landon’s, swiping up a carrot stick from his as she sat down. She bit into it. “He’s working on it.”
I found my gaze lingering on Lacey as she settled in. She flipped her blonde hair over her shoulder, nudging her shoulder against Landon’s playfully, seemingly just because. A small, boyish grin broke out across his face.
Lacey looked up then, our gazes locking. Her eyes were bright and calm. “Congrats on homecoming queen,” she said.
Landon not-so-discreetly elbowed her. “Thanks,” I said before he could scold her. “Happy belated birthday.”
“It was your birthday?” That was Ava, whose jaw dropped. “I should’ve posted it on Babble!”
“It was Friday.” Lacey’s gaze slid to Maisie. “So not the most exciting thing that happened at the homecoming game, I hear.”