Her face hardens.
“I never want to be like that—likeyou. So unhappy with myself that I have to make others feel less so I can feel more.”
She takes a step forward and it carries the entire weight of the building. The hallway had been quiet before, but now as she gets closer, it carries the substance of a brick of gold.
Each footfall more momentous than the last.
This is one of those rare moments where the air shifts. A single strand of anything and you’re hit in the chest with a force so strong you don’t know what to do.
Goose bumps pebble their way from your neck to your toes.
You don’t know if you should join in, applaud, or look the other way. Your mind completely numbs and all you can do is take in the absence of sound.
Stunned completely and wholly to your spot.
That’s what happens as she bends down, meeting Madison at eye level. Making them equals.
“This is me extending the hand,” she starts. “The one you don’t deserve but the one I’m giving you because we are not the same.”
Her posture loaded and foreboding even in her hunched state.
“We are not the same, Madison.”
The casual tilt of the girl’s head is one of triumph. Her spine straightens. Standing taller than before as she heads back toward the crowd.
Her words more metaphorical than literal since I still have Madison’s hands locked in my hold.
Madison’s posture goes lax against my legs. I don’t doubt that if my knee wasn’t here, she’d have collapsed completely. The girls’ words hitting her harder than if she’d thrown empty mockeries her way.
Cut deeper than any of Madison’s artificial ridicule.
My ribs unfurl like a box of sand so I can only imagine how hers must feel.
Dropping her arms, I pull the paper from her mouth. It’s like a yellow, soggy ball of biscuit dough.
I lean around, meeting her at the same eye level as the girl before. She looks weak, I want her gutted.
“Everything we do has a consequence.”That girl single-handedly decided yours, I want to add, but decide it’s unnecessary. Everyone saw that it was. “Do you understand now?”
Carefully, those eyes with lashes thickly coated in a now smudged layer of black mascara watch me. She rubs at her throat but says nothing.
I lower my voice. This part isn’t for show, it’s not for everyone else like before. These words are for her and her alone.
“I know what it’s like to have sucky parents. Ones that have a heavy hand...” I pause. Making sure she understands what I’m getting at. What I witnessed at the Caspers when they came over for dinner.
Her wince tells me she does.
“But just because they do awful things to us doesn’t mean we are allowed to do the same to others. Our actions are our own. The fallout the same.”
Her eyes hood over.
I keep my face neutral, emotions veiled. I won’t feel sorry for her.
She didn’t ask to be put in the situation with her family, sure, but her actions outside of that are her decision.
I glance behind her. “I want it all taken down by the end of the day.”
Eli’s smirk telling, widening the closer I get. Arms crossed with a shoulder perched against the wall. Standing off to the side of everyone else.