They Called Me Beautiful

Six: They Called Me Beautiful

Something happened over the summer of ’08. Maddie never told me what it was, though I knew she’d given up her online life with Gael around that time. But I don’t think that was all of it. A new family, the Millers, moved to our church, and one of the boys became close friends with Damian. His name was Justin, and he could make Maddie’s eyes shine in a way I hadn’t seen for a long time.

Of course, I couldn’t stand him.

They were never more than friends, but a friend was all Maddie needed at that point. I just wished it could have been me.

She and Justin and Damian had so many inside jokes it drove Irene and me crazy. We hated to even be around them. Then Damian joined the high school room for Maddie’s senior year. He’d grown up a lot, and even I had to admit he was amusing at times, but like I mentioned before, Irene had a crush on him. He didn’t give her the time of day. That was unforgiveable to me. I couldn’t bear to watch Damian trample over her feelings as if he had none of his own. But there was nothing I could do.

All of Maddie’s other friends had graduated ahead of her, and I had high hopes for her senior year. I soon saw, however, that with Damian around, I wouldn’t be getting any closer to her than I had when Janae and Annalena monopolized her company.

And she was even more fun than she had been when they were in school. Her depression was gone, or at least buried, and she’d morphed into an even more striking creature than what she’d been as a child. A lovely seventeen-year-old, I had visions of her being snatched up into marriage before I ever called her a friend again.

I think I gave up on Madeleine Proctor that year. I shouldn’t have. But I couldn’t have known that her happiness was all an act. I didn’t find that out until she told me, and that was years later.

Things didn’t change for only Maddie though. My household as well was changing, and I wasn’t sure if it was in good ways or not. In November Stefan married Suze, a mousy little twenty-year-old from back east, and moved away. Leah was teaching school in North Dakota again, leaving us three younger girls to fend for ourselves at home.

My drawing became as much of an escape to me as Maddie’s poetry was to her. I didn’t play with my paper dolls anymore; I drew them. I drew their stories, their heartaches, their joys. They lived and breathed through me, and it gave me a sense of power.

Of course, it wasn’t real power, not the kind Maddie had. But it was the closest I could get.

Then one day in early 2009, someone said something to me that changed my life. “You’re so beautiful, Kate.” It wasn’t even a relative. It was someone who had no reason to flatter me.

Maddie.

Madeleine Proctor told me I was beautiful.

Even when my husband asked me to marry him, my heart didn’t stop the way it did then. There she stood before me, so radiant herself, telling me I was beautiful. I couldn’t believe it. It felt like a dream.

March 3, 2009.

“You’re so beautiful, Kate.”

I can’t believe the words coming out of Lane’s mouth. Is she trying to make me look stupid? Is this some kind of backwards compliment? Is she expecting me to demure and say she’s so much prettier than I am?

A full analysis will have to come later. I’m having a hard enough time just catching my breath. Madeleine Proctor doesn’t say stuff like this, not to me anyway. She’s the one who’s gorgeous. She’s the one who’s got it all.

She’s laughing now. At me.

“Don’t tell me no one’s ever told you that before. I bet you get it all the time!”