Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
If there was one thing Maddie prefered about Shadyside, it was that most things were close enough together than she didn't have to catch the bus unless she really needed to. Technically, she could have walked anywhere she needed to go in Shadyside, even though some things were a thirty minute walk away.
The football game that night unfortunately required a bus. It wasn't the concept of the bus Maddie hated, more the closeness of the whole thing. In Georgia, there had been times when she'd gotten on the bus and had to sit beside a stranger, which was basically just torture for half an hour. The school bus, which contained the entire football team, the cheer squad and the marching band, was rapidly filling, such as Maddie was. While the bus was filling with teenagers, Maddie was filling with anxiety.
She'd selected a seat towards the middle, making sure to get seat early so in the event that she would have to sit beside someone, she wouldn't have to ask, and could instead establish dominance as the original occupant of the seat.
But she regretted her actions when Kate Schmidt stopped in the aisle beside her. "This seat taken?"
"Yes," Maddie blurted. Kate had been her best friend before the party. While she'd loved the others, Kate was her soulmate. The two shared everything with each other, and Maddie knew her almost as well as she knew herself. The look of hurt on Kate's face sent a pang of sadness into Maddie's chest. She hated this. She missed Kate.
Kate looked at her for a moment before sitting down anyway. "No it's not," she said simply. "What happened, Maddie? Why are you avoiding us?"
"I'm not," Maddie should have sucked it up, maybe then she'd be sitting in awkward silence beside a footballer, trying desperately not to touch their leg with her leg, half sitting in the aisle. It would have been better than this.
"Don't bullshit me," Kate said. "Come on, I'm your best friend Maddie, and I know the whole thing with Simon really freaked you out, but-"
"What thing with Simon?" Maddie interrupted, forgetting she was supposed to be deflecting as much as possible.
"You know, you thinking that everything's going to be weird, all of a sudden," Kate rolled her eyes. "You're the one making it weird!"
"It's not Simon," Why would it have been Simon? Did he tell Kate they'd hooked up? No, he wouldn't have. He wouldn't have... right? "I just... decided that you guys are kind of fucking losers. I don't need that in my life," Okay, she overshot her intended tone of brusk and went straight to way too fucking harsh, madeline, what the fuck?
But Kate didn't even bat an eye. "I thought I told you not to bullshit me. I can tell when you're lying, Mads. Come on. Talk to me," it wasn't harsh, like most of what Kate said. Kate didn't really like talking about her feelings much, instead preferring to just shove problems to the side. If a problem wasn't right in front of her, she didn't need to worry about it, and it went away. But talking to Maddie, she was soft, she wanted her best friend back.
"This is Shadyside," Maddie said gently, looking down at her lap. "I mean, Heather fucking died last night. Timothy died, and even though he's alive now, he was still dead. He was dead, Heather's dead, and I could be next. Any one of us could be next. You could be next. You, or Deena, or- or Simon. But if it's me, then my family is screwed. Because my dad's gone and my mom's trying to be sober and I can't leave my siblings,"
"Maddie," Kate didn't know what to say. She and Maddie had usually been on the same page with things, and sure, they talked about difficult stuff, but it was usually when they were drunk at one in the morning with a cheesy movie on in the background. While Maddie had been so focused on whether she could handle Simon Kalivoda in the light of day, she hadn't realised that maybe she couldn't handle Kate Schmidt in the daylight.
"I just, I don't have time for people anymore," she admitted. "No matter how much I love them,"
Kate sat there for a moment before standing up and moving a few aisles in front, ushering a band kid off his seat and taking it for herself. Kate understood not having time for people. She didn't have time for 99% of people, but she made time for the people closest to her. Deena, Simon, Sam and Maddie. Not anymore. If Sam and Maddie weren't going to make time for her, then they didn't deserve her time.
Maddie watched her go. It was better this way. The less Kate invested in her, the less Maddie would have to hurt her. She loved Kate, and Kate forcing her way back into Maddie's life was just going to hurt both of them.
Maddie moved her backpack off the floor of the bus and placed it on the seat beside her as the last few stragglers got on. The bus pulled out of the street and every second they got further away from Shadyside, Maddie felt the knot in her stomach tighten.
They were on their way to Sunnyvale. The golden child of towns. Filled with rich white people who, in turn, were filled with arrogance and hatred. Hatred for those beneath them, different than them. Hatred for people who weren't born into the same lives as they were. Hatred for Shadyside, and everyone in it.
Sunnyvale, the town every bit as sunny as the name suggested. The town that Samantha Fraser now called home.
But with Sunnyvale receiving all the natural light, no one had ever considered that they were stopping the sun from reaching their neighbours. Sunnyvale was above Shadyside, and yet no one had considered that the thing that cast the enormous shadow over Shadyside was the town right next door.
That its high walls built painstakingly from glory and wealth towered over even the tallest building in Shadyside. With Sunnyvale absorbing each ray of sunshine, leaving the soil over the town line dark, cold and empty. Doomed to rot for all eternity.
That maybe, Shadyside was dark because Sunnyvale was bright.
────────── ⋆˚✿˖° author's note this is a very obvious intentional nod to simon's "kate doesn't have time for most people" towards the end of the first movie, it's rlly meant to showcase like, why kate is so upset w maddie because i feel like it's super easy to see them both as overreacting
i highkey struggled writing this chapter but i am super super proud of how it came out. i think these movies can be sorta disregarded as your typical high school horror movie but they've got such a strong social commentary and if u know me you probably know that i eat that shit UP anyway i hope u enjoyed i love u all <3333
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
