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It’s shocking how much being called the c-word by a literal superhero hurts, but as soon as Glory Girl walked away from us, taking most of the other people at the party with her I felt like someone had cut me with a knife. I felt like the world had gone quiet, but I could still make out Emma and our friends suddenly shift into defense. They were telling each other what they had said wasn’t bad, that Glory Girl was being a bitch for overreacting, but they were wrong. I felt ugly for the first time since the night started. The magic suddenly seemed gone. It took only a few moments but soon Emma was talking about how Glory Girl wasn’t cool at all. I knew where it would go from here, soon Emma would be convinced that one of her heroes was a slut or a bitch or something else and that would be that. That was something I couldn’t take tonight. I ignored it best I could as I looked to where the heroes had gone, talking with the girl in the brace with the crutches that went around her arms. Her eyes met mine for the first time and I could see the smile she had talking with the heroes dim, just a bit, and I thought I might throw up. As soon as one of the other girls joined in on bashing the heroes with Emma I had enough.
“She’s right,” I said as I stood, shooting a glance at the rest of them. I sniffled a bit but kept my head up. “We are a bunch of bitches.”
With that I walked away, ignoring Emma’s call of “Madison” as I headed towards the group of heroes. They stiffened as I got close to them as if I was going to attack or something. That felt nearly as bad as when Glory Girl called us out.
“Hey,” I opened, looking right at the girl in the crutches, trying my best to ignore the looks I was getting. “I’m…sorry about what I said. That was really mean and you didn’t deserve that.”
“Umm,” the girl shot a look around for a moment before biting her lip. “I-it’s ok I guess. Thanks.”
I could have pushed more and told her that it really wasn’t ok and that I was a shitty person, but I didn’t want to take up more of their night. I just nodded and walked out into the cold evening. As I walked I forced myself not to look at either group. This wasn’t about showing off or showing the others up. It did make me feel a bit better, apologizing, but I couldn’t help but think about all the other times we might have gone too far with stuff like that. Giving grief to the waiters when we went out to eat, and making a mess in the movie theater because we knew the people who worked there would clean it up. All that stuff at school. Telling myself that it was just normal high school fun suddenly didn’t ring true anymore.
I must have been more out of it than I thought because I didn’t realize that someone had joined me until they spoke.
“That was really nice of you,” Glory Girl told me as she floated a bit to my left. I jumped a bit at her words and simply stared up at her. After a minute she seemed to realize how out of it I was because she added. “Saying sorry like that.”
“You were right,” I said with a shrug. “We were a bunch of…you know. Talking about that girl like that.”
“Her name is Cate by the way,” the hero told me with a small smile. “She’s actually pretty cool. And it might not have been your best moment, but at least you tried to make it right.”
“It’s not just with her,” I sighed. “We, I, am not a nice person. I never really thought about it before. It always just seemed like having fun, being a teenager, but I guess I’m starting to realize just how nasty it all was. How much that sort of thing hurts.”
“Well, it’s never too late to stop and try to be better. You might want to find better friends though, they didn’t seem happy you left.”
“Yeah,” I rubbed my arms to warm them up, suddenly feeling the cold air a lot more. “They get like that if someone stands up to them. Emma really hates it if she thinks you stabbed her in the back. But you’re right, I should try to be a better person.”
“You’ve got a good start,” Glory Girl’s smile widened. She had a great smile. “If you want you can hang out with us, it’ll be another hour or so before the show is done.”
“Nah,” I waved her off, my heart was no longer into the whole event. “I’m just going to catch the bus home. It was a nice night, though.”
“If you want, but before you go here,” Glory Girl pulled out a small piece of paper and a tiny pencil from her belt and quickly jotted something down. “This is my PHO account, the private one. If you need someone to talk to about getting better just send me a PM and I’ll get in touch.”
I took the slip of paper and the first pinpricks of tears started to form in my eyes. She shouldn’t be this nice to me, after what happened. Though maybe that’s what makes her a hero, she’s nicer than normal people.
We said our goodbyes quickly and I headed down to the bus stop. People were getting a headstart on their Christmas lights even though December hadn’t even started yet. Mom would be surprised I was home so early but that was fine. I could tell her I had a big assignment on Monday that I needed to finish. Though I should probably tell her what happened. That’s what someone like Glory Girl would do. If I was going to be a better person, I had to make some real changes, and I knew exactly where to start.
When the bell rang for lunch I headed straight to the library. It was the one place I knew I could find her. We had messed with her so much in the cafeteria that she never came there. For a while some of the girls talked about finding ways to make it so she couldn’t eat in the library, claiming she stank up the place or something stupid, but Emma told them to lay off it. The last few weeks Emma and Sophia had made a point to avoid going at the girl, they claimed that someone had come down on them about it, but I knew them. There was no way they were letting her off the hook for no reason. After I apologized I’d be sure to warn her.
I found her sitting at the table furthest to the back. She noticed me before I said anything, and the flinch she had when she saw me made me feel that sick feeling in my belly again.
“Uhh,” I tried to remember what I had planned to say, but looking at her brown eyes I froze. The look was honestly painful, she was sad and scared and pissed all at once and I knew my planned sorry wasn’t going to cut it. “H-hi, I um. I’m really sorry about everything.”
“What?” She asked as if I had just told her I was actually Ediolon in disguise. Or may Jack Salsh given how she looked at me.
“All the…bullcrap we put you through. I know it doesn’t come close to making up for any of it, and you have every reason in the world to hate me forever, but I just…I realized how much of a, a, a, bitch I was with that and I don’t want to be that person. So I’m sorry, Taylor, for all the stuff we did to you. It was awful and you didn’t deserve it.”
Taylor just stared at me, her sandwich drooping almost comically in her hand. We stood there for what felt like minutes before I tried to swallow the lump in my throat.
“I’m going to go now, I guess. But umm…before I go, I hope I’m wrong, but I think Emma and Sophia are planning something. I don’t know what or why but they’re trying to make everyone avoid you, and I think it’s because they want to ambush you. So…um, just keep an eye out I guess.”
Taylor continued to sit there, looking totally confused. I almost wanted to give her a hug or something, but I’m not sure she wouldn’t freak out if I got near her. After another awkward moment, I took off, wiping my eyes and trying to push down the feeling like I wanted to throw up. I spent the rest of lunch just wandering around the school halls until the bell rang again. I had barely focused for the rest of the day, and almost made it to my bus without saying a word to anyone when a strong hand grabbed my bag and pulled me back, almost sending me sprawling down.
“Ow,” I yelped as the shadow of Sophia loomed over me. The girl scared me in a way not even the gangbangers at Winslow scared me and that was when she was friends with me. Now, looking at her glare, I honestly felt like she could kill me and not even blink.
“Where do you get off calling Emma a bitch,” Sophia growled, and of course, that’s all she cared about. I’ve seen pet dogs with less loyalty to their owners than Sophia had to Emma. The girl was the first person I ever met who was “whipped” without even getting to kiss the girl.
“Leave me alone, Sophia,” I tried to sound as tough as I could, which had very little impact on Sophia’s glare. “I’m done with all that mean girl stuff. You and Emma should try it out, maybe she wouldn’t get called the c-word by an actual superhero.”
“Glory Hole is barely a hero,” Sophia’s smile was all teeth. “She’s just a PR Barbie like all the rest of those losers who work for the government. People like me and Emma are better than that, we’re predators.”
“You’re high school girls playing mean pranks,” I snarked against my better judgment. Sophia seemed to agree because she punched me hard enough in the gut to send me to my knees.
“Alright, Mads” Sophia cooed as she knelt down to where I was gasping for air. “This is gonna be one of those-what do you call it-Ultimatiums. Either you say sorry to Emma by this time tomorrow and maybe we consider letting it slide and you can hope to get into our good graces again or it’ll be open season on you. Got it?”
I couldn’t get any air into my lungs to respond so I just curled up into a ball and waited until she went away.
The next day I avoided Emma entirely, and the day after that, and the day after that. I wanted to be the sort of person Glory Girl would smile at, not someone Sophia would smile at. Part of me hoped that they’d just leave it be and forget about me it was three weeks until winter break and maybe they’d just give up on me. I should have known better. Emma always expected betrayal of some sort and she always got it even when it happened. By Friday none of my friends talked to me anymore, not that I really wanted them to. The next Monday as soon as I sat down to eat lunch one of the boys from the track team poured milk all over my food. That Tuesday when my head was turned Julie grabbed my tray, and when I tried to get it back she dumped it on the ground. I knew what it meant, the lunch room was off-limits for me.
By Wednesday I started taking my lunch box into the library to eat. I sat at a table alone and ate quietly. It sucked, really really bad, but at the same time I didn’t feel that sick feeling I used to when we did stuff like that to others, and if Emma’s friends were focused on me they’d leave other people alone. I wasn’t a hero like the Wards but that was sort of heroic right? To be the bigger target?
Thursday brought the biggest surprise of all. As I sat down in the library at the table I’ve now decided was “mine” a figure sat down across from me. I looked up and my heart skipped a beat as Taylor started pulling food out of her bag.
“Hey,” she greeted quietly with a small smile.
“Hi,” I replied.
That was nearly the extent of our conversation while we sat there, but it was nice. Lunch didn’t feel so lonely. It started to become a thing with us. At least for the last few weeks before break. We talked a bit, never about anything really meaningful, or we’d swap notes for Mr. G’s class, and that’d be about it. I couldn’t say we became friends, but I felt like we might start down that way. It was something to look forward to after the break. If I only knew.
The first day back after Christmas break was always weird. People who saw each other just a few days ago acted like they’d been separated for months. Classes were basically nothing but videos because so many kids ditched. So I didn’t really think anything was off when I didn’t see Taylor in second period PE, we had different teachers even though we had class at the same time so she could have even been there and I wouldn’t have seen. I was honestly too busy being pissed that someone stole my clothes out of the gym locker and threw them in the trash to care when we finished for the day. There seemed to be a lot more snickering and gossip from Emma’s friends, but I stopped trying to listen in a long time ago.
Then the ambulance showed up.
Word spreads in a high school faster than a virus. Taylor had barely been dragged out of her locker before I heard what happened. I wanted to run, to find her and say something. Anything. But as I hurried to where she was I was tripped to the ground and a pair of strong hands pinned me to the ground.
“Where are you off to in such a hurry?” Sophia whispered into my ear.
“What did you do?” I demanded, heat rushing to my face. I hadn’t felt this angry in a long, long time.
“I didn’t do anything, you did.”
“What?” I could barely breathe with her on my back, but that made me gasp.
“Oh yeah,” Sophia snickered. “If you decide to do something stupid, like make that fucking worm Hebert think she knows who did what we’ll make sure that it’s your name that gets put out there.”
“That’s crazy,” I protested. “No one will buy that.”
“Our word against yours, and our word will win. Just keep quiet and take it like a good little girl or you’ll be sorry. Got it?”
All I could do at that point was let out a little cry. It was pathetic and fucked up, but that’s all I had left in me. I knew Emma and Sophia were bad people, and they liked to hurt others, but this was on a whole different scale. They were monsters and I couldn’t do anything to stop monsters.
After a moment Sophia stood off my back. As I tried to get up she landed a solid kick right to my ribs. I fell back to the ground, crying for real this time, and holding my side.
“And that’s so you remember your place,” Sophia growled before she walked away.
As soon as I could stand I fled the school. I didn’t need to know if the pair had any more bright ideas for me, and I knew better than to think they’d keep their word about not blaming me if I kept quiet. Odds were they were already telling Blackwell and the cops that I had planed the whole thing. I needed help, and there was only one person who might actually be able to do something.
As soon as I got home I jumped on PHO and quickly fired up the messenger. I hadn’t actually sent anything to Glory Girl before now, not wanting to look like I was trying to kiss up to the famous hero, but this was a problem I couldn’t solve on my own.
FlippinMad: Hello Glory Girl? This is Maddison, the girl from the photoshoot a few weeks ago. I don’t know if you’ll see this but I need help. Something happened at school and you’re the only person I know who can help me.
FlippinMad: It’s serious, like crime serious.
FlippinMad: Please.
Point_Me_@_The_Sky: Maddison?
Point_Me_@_The_Sky: What is happening,
Point_Me_@_The_Sky: shouldn’t you be in class?
I sort of laughed at that, in a dark sort of way. Leave it to a superhero to care about cutting class.
FlippinMad: My friend was attacked by one of those girls who I was with at the photoshoot and they’re planning on blaming me. They’re good at that sort of thing.
FlippinMad: It was something I used to do a lot.
FlippinMad: I can’t let them get away with it, and you’re the only one I know who might help.
Point_Me_@_The_Sky: Tell me everything.
Point_Me_@_The_Sky: Make sure to be really thorough.
Point_Me_@_The_Sky: Then tell your parents and make sure your friend is safe.
Point_Me_@_The_Sky: We’ll figure it out from there.
I breathed a sigh of relief at that last post. My heart finally stopped feeling like a stone in my chest. I started to type.
FlippinMad: It all started the Monday after the photoshoot…