181 Days of Madeline Jesty

Chapter 39: Meat Loaf

Today the only person I could have a decent conversation with was Mickey, but as Ms. Lilian advised, I should refrain from doing so or else Sister Antonia would suspect. I made hand signals so she would notice, and good thing she understood.

Meanwhile, Steph avoided me the whole day. Our classmates noticed this; some even asked if we had a feud. I couldn't blame them, though. We were inseparable until the incident last Friday, so it might have been obvious. I was a hundred percent sure that they had an idea about what happened—that my closest friend's uncle strangled me—and they wanted to get a hold of the nitty-gritty, probably for their own entertainment. Even in a sectarian school like ours, rumors spread like wildfire. Minding one's own business was indeed a difficult value to teach.

Fuck you, Michael, I thought as I slammed the book I was reading to pass time on my desk. If my friendship with Steph would be jeopardized, I would haunt him, even on my deathbed.

This wasn't my plan.

My plan was to try to live. To experience being adored and move freely like the woman I dreamed to be. Now there were so many things going on in one frame just because of a plan I didn't agree with, a plan someone else formed. I thought I could just put this aside since I would die anyway, but disregarding this had worsened my situation and therefore produced more troublesome days that I should be enjoying instead.

As I was pondering about these on the way home, I realized that I hadn't asked Troy about his short visits to the café during the weekend.

"Did you visit the café? Is Amielle there?"

"No, Ms. Maddie," Troy replied. "Your friend seems to have changed schedules."

And my plan included protecting the people I considered important, but I was far from my goal. And what . . . I had a hundred and forty-three days left? Was I really destined to spend my remaining days full of worry?

Something needed to change.

Gripping my hands, I hurriedly walked to my room as we arrived at our house and wrote notes for tomorrow.

***

The next morning, I had Troy peek at the café to check if Amielle was already there. He came back with his coffee, my breakfast, and a question: "Good news or bad news?"

"Good."

"Your friend's there."

Never had I removed the stuff on my lap so quickly. But just as I was about to go out of the car to rush to her, Troy stopped me and placed my takeout food on my seat. "Bad news is . . . her aunt's there."

"Oh." I paused and sighed. "Wait, how did you know that's some bad news?"

Troy went to the driver's seat, put his coffee into the cup holder, buckled his seatbelt, and fixed the mirror as he said, "There's a letter."

"A letter?" When I checked inside the paper bag, the back of the receipt had something written on it. The handwriting was so small that I had to squint my eyes. It was Franco's name I saw first.

Hi, Ms. Maddie. Amielle said she didn't want to talk to you anymore. I'm writing this to let you know.

Also one thing. She was obviously lying. She wanted to talk to you, but she may think she's not deserving of your time, I guess. I mean, why would she start talking about how nice you are and then proceed with telling me that you'll both be "safer" by not talking to her. Doesn't make sense. Maybe you know where she's coming from.

—Franco

Safer? Something was really going on. I already had a guess based on my observations: Cornelia—I wouldn't give this woman an honorific anymore—was controlling Amielle and made Amielle her own emotional and physical punching bag. She had a questionable number of CCTVs installed in her café, maybe to spy on Amielle's interactions in all corners, leaving no blind spot. Aside from that, there was a mic on Amielle's collar, which was not been there before and might mean that her aunt was also hearing her conversations.

But why did Franco tell me this Cornelia wanted to take note of my orders and treat me special? It didn't add up.

There's something much more behind what's going on, and I needed to find that out.

Just as I was thinking about my interactions with Amielle before I met Cornelia, I bumped into Steph. I smiled, but she responded by running away.

However, I knew her fully well. At times like this, I knew where to find her during breaktime.

***

Recess was only twenty minutes, so I decided to drop by Tanky—the huge water tank in our school—during lunch; at least I had an hour. This place was where Steph would go to when distraught, and although she might want to be alone, I needed to confront her and assure her that any of this wasn't her fault. I would respect whatever her response would be, except that I'd devise a plan that would make Michael regret getting too familiar with my family, the Jacobs.

"It's not your fault." I spoke directly, which shook her, making the piece of meat she was about to eat flew in the air.

"Geez, Maddie!" Steph frustratingly complained. "Poor meat loaf!"

I laughed at the accidental comedic deed. "I'm sorry."

"Yeah, you really should apologize! Why do you walk like a ghost and sneak in?"

"Hey, I wasn't sneaking!"

"Then why didn't I hear you coming?"

"You got your head in your clouds."

"Stop it, Ms. Rank One. I know that's an idiom, I just don't know what it means."

We both laughed. Although next to our giggles was silence, I felt the tension ease. I sat beside Steph, who continued eating her lunch, and continued my speech. "It's not your fault, so don't be too hard on yourself."

"I know, Maddie. I know. It's just that . . . I'm embarrassed about what Michael did to you. Yeah, sure, he's my uncle, but you're my best friend. You even feel more family to me than him, and I won't forgive him for laying a hand on you. That son of a bitch!" she shouted before aggressively shoving another slice of meat loaf into her mouth. "I'm just . . . embarrassed that we're related . . . and . . . and that he was there because of me . . . but he saw you and—"

"Steph, it's okay." My voice softened. "It was actually during my conversation with him that I deduced why you were going home early the past few days. You even lied to him that I had activities after school so he wouldn't nag me."

"Y-you're not mad at me?"

"Why will I be?" I pinched her cheek twice. "I'm disgusted at Michael, not you. Even though you're in one clan, you're still two different people. You can't control his actions, and neither can he."

Tears began to form in her eyes, but she wiped them as soon as it clouded her sight. "Stop being cheesy in front of my dead meatloaf."

"That's redundant."

I leaned on Steph's shoulder as she continued munching her lunch and badmouthing her own uncle. She also began to tease me to Mickey, saying how she was my knight in shining armor, and suspected there was something going on between us. When I didn't speak, she spoke like a broken record and didn't stop questioning even when we arrived in the classroom.

My eye caught Mickey smiling, as if relieved that Steph and I were back to our usual interaction. Relieved, I smiled back and tucked some hair strands behind my ear to acknowledge her. She blushed.

Of course there were still a lot to fix, but knowing that I had a few loyal allies on my side—I didn't need many, I just needed the people I cared enough—I knew I could get through this.