Macie

Prologue

Everyone loved Macie. She was that cute quiet girl next door who had memorized everyone’s birthdays and favorite colors. She knew your favorite songs and she would sing them when you walked by just to make you smile. She was the one you went to when you wanted a laugh, or a hug, or a just someone to talk to. She seemed, essentially, perfect.

But Macie couldn’t keep secrets. Even when she tried to, she would drop hints about whatever it was she wasn’t supposed to say and make it so obvious to everyone around her that most people would guess her thoughts before she had the chance to say them. Most people thought of this as a positive thing. They liked that Macie was honest and didn’t lie to her friends. But I knew better.

There was always a part of Macie that didn’t quite fit in with the rest of her. Part of her that seemed like the opposite of the Macie that everyone knew and loved. When she didn’t keep her friends’ secrets, it wasn’t because she wanted to be honest to people. It was because part of her loved the feeling of being in control. The feeling of deciding exactly what people were going to find out about these little secrets people had trusted her with.

After a while people stopped telling Macie their secrets, but no one ever got mad at her. I mean, how could you? She was the nicest person in school and as far as they knew, she would never do anything to hurt anyone.

The only secrets that Macie could keep were secrets of her own. Secrets that she wouldn’t even tell me, her best friend. The part of her that so badly wanted to feel in control never allowed her to tell me about the things that were going on inside her head. This didn’t bother me, though. We didn’t really discuss personal topics, so it wasn’t as if I was expecting anything more. I always had the sense that something was not quite okay with Macie, but I didn’t want to upset her, so I didn’t mention it.

Macie had another friend in school who was a year older. They played on the high school junior varsity soccer team together. I never really knew Chrystal that well, but Macie talked about her a lot. She would tell me about “something funny Chrys did at practice” or how “Chrys said she would introduce Macie to all her 9th grade friends.” I didn’t mind hearing about Chrystal all the time because Macie would always finish her story by saying “don’t worry though, she’s nowhere near as good a friend as you are.”

One Friday night, Macie and I were having a sleepover at my house. It was nearly four in the morning and we had both agreed we were too tired to stay up any longer. A minute later Macie started talking to me again, this time her voice sounded shaky. “Nash?” I tried to read the expression on her face, but the room was to dark.

“Yeah, Macie?” I replied, sitting up.

“If someone wanted you to do something with them, like hang out somewhere or whatever, would you do it even if you weren’t sure it was a good idea?”

Something about her tone of voice worried me. “Is this about Chrystal?”

“No,” she said firmly. “It’s nothing, really. I was just wondering.”

“Well,” I didn’t really know what to say. “I guess so. If it’s just hanging out, what harm can it do, right?”

“But what if-” Macie stopped. “You know what? Never mind. It’s not important.”

“Okay, if you say so.” I put my head back on my pillow, but a minute later I sat up again. “Macie?”

“What?” Her voice sounded shaky again. Maybe she’s just tired, I thought to myself.

“If you want to talk, I’m here to listen.”

She seemed to consider the offer, but instead said, “I’m tired, Nash. Let’s go to sleep.” With that, she turned over on her side and fell asleep.

That was the first time I ever truly worried about Macie. I worried mostly that I had said or done the wrong thing. What did she want me to say? Did she want me to make her talk more about whatever it was that seemed to be bothering her? I wasn’t good with this kind of thing, and Macie knew that. That was why we were such good friends; I did the planning and she did the talking.

The following week, Macie seemed completely normal. She cracked all her usual jokes at lunch and complained about our crazy science teacher just like she did every day. I had almost completely forgotten about our brief talk the Friday before. Almost.

I found it strange that Chrystal wasn’t in school that week. Of course, I didn’t realize this right away, being that the high school was separate from the middle school, but I did notice that Macie didn’t tell stories about soccer practice with Chrystal or the mall after school with Chrystal. I kind of liked getting all of Macie’s attention that week, so the absence of conversations about Chrystal didn’t seem important enough to bring up at first. I did bring it up on Thursday of that week, however, because Macie hadn’t been in school the day before. Macie and I had just changed back into our regular clothes after gym class, and the locker room was empty.

“So where’s Chrys this week?” I asked casually.

Macie seemed to concentrate hard on folding her dirty gym clothes before putting them into her bag. “What do you mean?”

“I mean,” I began, “you haven’t mentioned her all week so I was wondering if she’s away.”

“God, Nash, you’re so annoying.”

I blinked. I had never heard Macie snap at anyone. “Huh?” I was waiting for her to laugh and tell me it was a joke. She didn’t.

“Just because I don’t mention Chrys for a few days, suddenly she’s on your missing persons list? Jeez, calm down.”

I didn’t like where the conversation was going, so I tried changing the subject. “So, uh, were you sick yesterday?”

“Nash! Stop with the interrogation!” Macie shut her locker and walked over to the locker room mirror to fix her hair.

I sat down on a bench, trying to figure out what I had done wrong. “I’m sorry,” I said quietly.

“No, I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s just, I’m on my period and I get moody. I didn’t mean that. You’re not annoying.” Macie walked over to me and gave me a big hug. That was another thing about Macie; she gave the most convincing hugs. Even if she had just met you, you’d think she had been your friend forever. “Forgive?” she smiled.

I smiled back. “Yeah, it’s fine.” And when I said that, I really, truly thought that it was fine. But it wasn’t. Nothing about Macie was fine. But I was too blind to realize it.

***