IV Redemption #3
“I hate them,” he said. “The pretty people, the people who fuck beautiful people. I will butcher Madelyne. That is endgame. Is endgame now? I have no other immediate priorities. I will monitor other people to see who is sleeping with whom.”
He hacked into Ai’s texts on her phone.
She was texting no one about romance.
She was obsessing about remembering everything about Caitlyn.
She was texting Madelyne back and forth about how to stay alive. Waylon considered her strategies and how to counter them. He smiled.
He decided to go home and be miserable instead of attacking them.
He drove home, listening to soft pop music on the radio.
Home was miserable, lonely, stuffy.
Video games bored him. The same old games over and over? Not exciting.
Someone called him.
He felt nervous.
Should he answer?
He answered.
“Hello,” Waylon said.
“Hi,” Madelyne said. “This is Madelyne. I’m calling to talk to all the people connected to the drama department about how to try to stay alive in this difficult time.”
“Okay,” Waylon said. “I would love to hear that.”
“You need to not go out alone,” Madelyne said. “Have an alarm at your home. Have a security system, a good one, one that will deter him.”
“I have one,” Waylon said. That was a lie.
“As you may know, the school play is tomorrow,” Madelyne said.
“Yes,” Waylon said.
“I really need you to go there and cheer us on,” Madelyne said. “I’m happy with the play and excited by the hard work that everyone has put in. I think that it will be fantastic. I’m the lead.”
“Great,” Waylon said. He knew he shouldn’t pick an argument.
He knew that he should act passive and weak and not stand up to her or question anything, but he couldn’t help himself.
He couldn’t shut up. He couldn’t do it. “You don’t think that this play is a fucking disaster, with idiot teenagers butchering Ai’s words and pretending to be happy and healthy and pretending that their lives are anything but worthless and empty? ”
“Worthless and empty? I don’t think that at all,” Madelyne said.
“Worthless and empty,” Waylon said. “None of us will make it in life.”
“Some of us will make it,” Madelyne said. “A few people do succeed in life. Make nice lives for themselves.”
“Fuck you,” Waylon said.
“No,” Madelyne said. “Calm down. Let’s talk about this. Plenty of people from our high school will succeed in life in some circles. It may not be show business, and if it’s show business, it may not be in a celebrity role, but people will succeed. I didn’t mean to be rude just now. Okay?”
“Yeah,” Waylon said. “Don’t patronize me.
” “I’m not,” Madelyne said. “I’m trying to evaluate what your opinions are.
Many people don’t see reality in an accurate light, and I think you are one of those people.
You clearly have a hard time thinking that people can make it in life.
You should try to get better grades and go to community college and work really, really hard to get good grades while working twenty hours a week on the side.
Then you should transfer to a university, any old one, and then you should graduate with something to do with computers or math or something and get a job in that.
You will have a reasonable career and be a success. ”
“Maybe,” Waylon whispered. “Maybe.”
“Do you have any reason why that can’t happen?” Madelyne asked.
“No,” Waylon said. He considered, in that moment, following her advice, not killing anyone else, and becoming a mathematician and making money and having a good job and a nice home and a reasonable career.
He really considered it. Then he said to himself: I cannot live a life in which I accept reality.
I need to stand up to the madness that I see.
He said to himself that he would rather fucking butcher more horny teenagers in order to rebel against a society that was broken and had broken him.
“Thank you for considering it,” Madelyne said. “I think that I wanted to be friends with all the drama kids, and we’re sorry that you weren’t a part of that. It’s a shame that I can’t hang out with everyone. I just can’t. There are too many people. You understand?”
“Yeah,” Waylon muttered.
“Cool,” Madelyne said.
Waylon decided: he wanted to kill Madelyne.
He thought that she was trying to look down on him, condescend to him, and that she felt that she was above him.
He wanted to bring her down to his level by butchering her with a short sword and watching her eyes go blank as she died.
He didn’t butcher anyone that night - he didn’t think he could get away with it.
He didn’t want to pull the trigger early and lose.
He went home and masturbated while thinking about Madelyne and then slept.
The play was in an hour, and it was a whirlwind of disasters.
Madelyne was the star, and she was acting opposite a young lady named Jennie Fitzpatrick.
She had substituted in at the last moment when Lilian and Caitlyn had been horribly murdered, and the other new girl hadn’t learned her lines.
Jennie was getting her dress on and going over where to stand to start the play - something she should already know.
“I’m a little nervous,” Jennie said. Jennie had short blonde hair, was little and skinny, and spoke with a quiet sincerity. She was a good actor, all things considered.
“You should be a little nervous,” Westfield said.
He was organizing everything, putting everyone in their places and making sure all the sets were perfect.
He was looking at the actors and making certain that they were all there and wearing the right costumes, and then he talked to each of them for a minute to make certain that they were ready for this.
The lighting. Westfield heard that a light wasn’t working and needed to go fix it. He walked - hurried, actually - over to try to fix the light and figure out what was wrong with it.
Madelyne sat in her chair, the star, waiting to go on.
“You can do wonderful things,” she told herself silently in the mirror.
She didn’t convince herself.
Melody stood behind her.
“I’ll be watching your performance,” Melody said. “I’ll be judging you.”
“You are a hallucination,” Madelyne said. “You don’t matter.”
“Oh, but I do,” Melody said. “I matter. I am a part of your life. I am part of you. I matter to you, even if you don’t admit it.”
“I don’t,” Madelyne said.
Ai stood backstage.
“I’m nervous,” Ai said.
“Nothing you can do but watch and enjoy,” Westfield said.
“I understand,” Ai said. “This means everything to me. This is all I have left now that I don’t have Caitlyn. This is all I have left.”
Westfield was managing the lights when someone tapped him on the shoulder.
He turned to see Peck Westfield, his older brother, in a nice dress shirt and dress pants and a tie, smiling and offering his hand.
Dr. Westfield, their father, stood behind Peck, smiling and drinking from a flask - at a school.
“Congratulations on the play,” Peck said. “You’re an assistant! Congratulations on assisting, my brother. You assist very well. Did you get some coffee? Did you say yes sir or yes ma’am a lot? I imagine you fixed a set or two.” “Fuck yourself,” Westfield said. “Will you learn to leave me alone?”
Westfield wanted closure. He wanted to do or say something that would convince his brother and his father to stay away from him for good. He didn’t know what to do to make that happen.
“You’re a problem,” Westfield said. “I need to work.”
“Someone needs an assistant,” Peck said. “I know how plays work. You are needed. I understand that. Get to work, little brother. We’ve missed you. We want you to know that we love you and want you to understand that we want you back at home.”
“No,” Westfield said.
“Why?” Peck asked.
“Because you are ceaselessly mean to me,” Westfield said.
“I’m sorry,” Peck said. “We did a little brotherly roughhousing. Nothing more. Nothing that anyone will get me in trouble for.”
“I’m not arresting you,” Westfield said. “I’m telling you to leave me alone.”
“I’m sensing a weak threat here,” Peck said.
“No threat, just telling you to leave me alone,” Westfield said.
“I see no reason to leave you alone,” Peck said. “You are my brother. You should be a part of my life. We’re family. Family means something. Something important. You should understand.”
Mitchell walked up to Westfield. “That light fixed?”
“Yeah,” Westfield said.
“Hey,” Mitchell said. “It’s your abusive brother.”
“Fuck yourself,” Peck said. “I resent that. No physical damage, no abuse.”
“Bullshit,” Mitchell said. “You are cruel to him.”
“Bullshit,” Peck said. “Because I’m mean to him? I say bad words to him? Point out that he’s a fucking loser?”
“You actually think that, don’t you?” Westfield asked. “You actually think that you are somehow innocent and good?”
“Doesn’t everyone?” Madelyne asked, walking into the room. She wore a flawless blue dress.
“Not now,” Westfield said.
“Nonsense,” Peck said. “We’re big fans, Madelyne.”
“Thank you,” Madelyne said. “But you can go fuck yourselves with something sharp. I’ve had enough abusive people for one lifetime.”
“I’m sorry,” Westfield said.
“No,” Madelyne said. “I’m just tired of people saying that they are family and important to us when they are toxic and shouldn’t be a part of our lives.”
Melody smiled. “You’re talking about me!” she said. “Unfortunately, you are stuck with me. You are part of me. I am part of you. You can get Westfield away from his family, but I will never leave you, Mads.”
Peck smiled at Madelyne. “You want to grab drinks at the Westfield house after the play?” he asked.
“No,” Madelyne said. “That’s the last thing that I want.”
“Pity,” Peck said. He looked at Westfield. “I think that I know which way this is going. Westfield is going to be living away from us and going to college and racking up debt.”
“He’s paying his bills,” Mitchell said. “He’s working.”
“Fine,” Peck said. “He’s a good young man. We raised a good one.”