I was chatting to Jessie when I came out of school. Our Mums would be coming to pick us up, but they were always pretty late, so we would have a long time to stand in the schoolyard talking. Sometimes Lyra would be with us as well, but she'd been less talkative since she had the virus, almost like she was too embarrassed to hang out with her friends even when we tried to include her. So today I thought I'd have plenty of time to talk to Jessie. But as soon as we came out of the building, I saw Sarah's former friend, Madison, leaning against the other side of the fence. If I hadn't known right away that she was looking for me, the way she turned in my direction would make it clear.
"Sorry, I need to talk to her," I said. "One of my sister's friends."
"Helping you find her a birthday present?"
"Heh," I tried to make it a laugh. "Not quite, but something like that. I'll be back soon, I promise."
Madison straightened up as I came closer. I wondered if there was anything I needed to say to her, but nothing really came to mind. She might have said she wanted to help, but I still wasn't going to tell her any of Sarah's secrets; and absolutely not the one I now knew about Scott.
"Hey," she said. "I think we need to talk."
"I don't want to talk about my sister," I said. "Mum worries about her, but she's got enough problems. I don't want to cause more."
"I was nervous to tell you why I was interested," she said. "After yesterday, I think I don't need to be. I know now it's similar to what happened to me, you don't have to confirm it. I just want to understand it better."
"Yesterday?" I asked, suddenly confused. I tried to think about what had happened the day before. There had been a lot of things that seemed to be important, at least to me. But none of those were things that this girl would know about. Sarah had gone out early in the morning, maybe that was what she meant. She couldn't be talking about Mum giving me permission to wear cuter diapers but imposing a set of rules that I couldn't see the sense in. And everything else followed on from that. As I left Mum's bedroom, I had seen two more things that I couldn't really understand, but neither of them were connected to Sarah's school friends.
"Same as what happened to me?" Madison said. "Or similar, anyhow. Look, I know you don't want to say anything about your sister, you don't want her to be embarrassed. So how about I tell you my story, and you can say how much it's the same. Right? I'm just curious. If I can help her out, and maybe understand a bit better along the way..."
I just nodded. She walked along on the other side of the fence, and I followed her, until we were sitting together at the bus stop. The teachers probably wouldn't have been happy about that; I wasn't supposed to leave the school grounds without Mum or somebody they trusted to pick me up, but nobody was looking right now.
"You know I used to be..." she started. "A bully, I guess. Back when friend groups started turning into cliques, and you were either popular or nothing. I was a cheerleader, right? That used to be like a hobby, and you'd hang around with other girls doing the same. But then in high school, suddenly it mattered. People acted like you're important just because you're wearing clothes that probably aren't too age appropriate, learning to show off assets you haven't really got yet. And a couple of us, it went to our heads. Sarah and me, we were the queens. Nobody dared argue with us, because we decided who was cool. I mean, it wasn't guaranteed. Bella Langtree was popular too, and we were always jostling for the top spot. Being the most popular, the most desired. It's a rush. Me and Sarah were like old friends, besties, and we trusted each other with everything. It was friendly rivalry, I thought, while Bella was... something else. She didn't have a free pass to the top just because she did the right sports. But she understood that popularity is a game before we did, and she was a cut-throat manipulator. Always ready to stick the knife in your back. Is there anybody like that in your class?"
"No," I said, shaking my head. I had friends, and people who weren't really friends, but nobody who cared about how many friends they had. It was always just hanging out with the people you have the most fun with. "No, there's no bullies. I mean–"
"There are," she said. "There always are. You just haven't spotted them yet. And in the next couple of years, they'll use you. Trust me on this, at your age you'll learn soon enough that not all of your friends care about you. And it's better not to learn the hard way. But anyway... we had Bella, right? Me, Sarah, and Bella. Always wanting to see who's on top. And one time, I was being... well, unnecessarily cruel to this cute redhead with glasses. Calling her a nerd, trying to make her feel bad about herself because somehow I thought it was okay to laugh at somebody like that. Hey, I never claimed to be a saint. And when the apologies came a couple of years later, we found out we had a lot in common, and one thing led to another... but that's not the point now. I'm just saying, I was being a bully. I pushed this girl, and she pushed me back, and I stumbled on the stairs. And I sprained something, stretched a ligament and damaged it."
"Ow..." I muttered. I'd managed that once before when running, and had barely been able to stand up for a couple of days. "So you couldn't walk?"
"Yeah, but... it wasn't one of the obvious ligaments. Like, it was something on my pelvis. It was hard to walk for a few days, and I milked it a bit. Got Mum putting a dressing on it because I'm too weak to do it myself. But that's only the start. Because I started having... problems. You probably heard the gossip, even if you didn't know the details."
"You wet the bed," I guessed. I'd heard something like that about one of Sarah's friends a couple of years ago, and if that was the case, it made sense that Madison would be talking to me now. If she wanted to get revenge, and there was the slightest hint that Sarah was having the same problem, then she would want to know more.
"Yeah. Started a couple of days after the injury, which was weird, but the doctors said it's not unheard of. Apparently it takes a dozen muscles to hold your bladder where it's supposed to be, and any damage around there... They said the ointment and the shots should help the ligament recover faster, just a couple of weeks, but it might take a few weeks more for my brain to get used to which muscles it needs to use now. Like training all over again, except this time I know what I need to do. I mean, the doctors were great, and Mum tried to help. They put me in diapers, and I hated that, but I knew I didn't have a choice. At least nobody would know. I was wearing them the first days back after my sick days ended. My only worry was that I couldn't risk showing my underwear in cheerleading practice for the first week or two."
"Wow, that's got to be hard," I said. I'd seen enough cheerleaders practising to know that their outfits barely covered anything.
"Yeah. I wondered if there was a way we could get the squad tryouts pushed back a few weeks, until I was healthy again. And I asked Sarah if she could suggest it to the coach for me. My oldest friend, you know? And she asked if anybody had ideas for how to hide my diaper. In front of the coach and the whole squad. Everybody knew, and they never let it drop. I quit cheer, but they were still laughing at me. That was the end of my popular phase."
"Maybe she thought–" I started, but I knew that I was making excuses for my sister. I didn't want to think she was the kind of person who might do that. I knew she'd been one of the bad girls almost since she started high school, learning from Bella, but that kind of cruelty seemed too much.
"No," she said. "I thought she was just claiming the top spot, like we always did, and she didn't know how they'd react. But then later, I thought back about it, and I thought maybe I was wrong. We were so close, you know? Even if we were rivals, we could trust each other. And I think she didn't mean it to turn out like that. She really thought the whole squad would come together to support one of their own through adversity, like it would show me how much I could trust my friends. Since then, a few times, I've seen her helping out people in trouble. We all had a bit of that... mean girl streak. But I think Sarah really trusted her friends until then. I mean, I didn't see it at the time. I tried to get back at her, sharing all of her darkest secrets that she'd trusted me with, and we've not really spoken since. I wish I could take that back now."
"You'd forgive her?"
"Yeah. I didn't then, but I was projecting so much.People called me baby, laughed at me, tormented me. I couldn't sleep properly, couldn't think straight, and I ended up repeating a year of school. And after all that, I understood. It wasn't your sister's fault. And I guess... I was the mean one back then. I assumed she told everyone to get me kicked off the squad and laughed at... because that's what I might have done. It wasn't until I was on the other side of it that I realised I'd been a bully. And I've kind of... Kinda been trying to be the kind of thoughtful person your sister is. Accepting any popularity, if anybody will even respect me now, but not letting it go to my head. So like... I think it worked out well. In the end, it took me nearly six months to shake the... bladder issues. And some time in there, with everybody calling me baby, I kind of... got some comfort out of playing the part, I guess. It was a huge change in my life. I almost believed I was a baby for a couple of months, and when I came out of that, it was like growing up all over again. So I'm a different person now, I really feel that. A better person, and as soon as I can leave those rumours behind, I've got a bright future in front of me. I mean, I'm looking at going to college to be a lawyer. I would never have had the determination if I was still trying to coast by on my reputation."
I didn't know what I could say to that. The way she said it, she'd only glanced over most of the details. But it was so easy to imagine how she must have felt. Being called a baby, afraid to spend time with her friends, until somehow the very things they accused her of started to feel appealing. It was strange, but somehow I could imagine that. But there was still one question I needed to ask.
"You said Sarah was being withdrawn. Do you mean like... like you were, when people were picking on you? Like, you think she's not going to be one of the popular ones anymore?"
"I did wonder," Madison said, quieter now. "I thought maybe the big clique was starting to turn on her. She's empathic enough, she would feel it coming, and that would explain her being so nervous. I thought... after I reinvented myself, I might be able to make it easier for her, if she was thinking about a similar path. But I didn't realise just how similar our situations were until she pissed herself in class yesterday."