This Cheerleader's Trouble (And she's all mine) | Santana Lopez

6

A/N: Who's here?

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The night trains around New York City were much quieter. The same metal grinding against metal sounded through the tunnels, but there were less people. Less foot traffic meant more seats. More seats meant less random people pushing against her. Madison liked the city at night.

"You're going to hurt yourself!" June, a sophomore with dark hair and bright pastel clothes, shouted at her twin brother.

Justin waved off his sister and continued balancing on the bricks at the top of a ledge with Rossi. Both boys were in the choir group at Kingston Prep. Rossi was a theatrical sophomore with a cute smile and Justin was a messy haired boy that lacked fear, and Madison was about to find out if common sense combined with that.

They were at a park near Flatiron. The tall buildings hid the stars and the bright lights around the city never dimmed. There was a big clock with a dim light across the park to a church-like building with exquisite structure. A random Petco was off the right beside a man in a little hut selling different types of meat. Alexa said they liked to eat at a few of the stops, but not the ones near tourist areas. Those were over priced and badly portioned.

"It's pretty, right?" Alexa leaned back against the bench and slipped her hands in the pockets of her jean jacket. She looked up at the stars with Madison and smiled. "They're not that noticeable here, but that's because the city is like one huge star. It drowns out the other stars—the real stars."

"That's shitty."

Alexa turned her head and laughed when Madison winced. She bumped her shoulder with the girl and looked around at her friends.

"Hey, don't worry. Curse, bitch, throw a fit . . . You look like you have a lot going on and need to decompress somehow."

"Yeah." Madison looked down at her sneakers and kicked her feet lightly.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Alexa tilted her head. "If you need to rant, we're all good listeners."

"I—" Madison rubbed her hands down the bench and exhaled. "I . . . I moved pretty abruptly from Ohio. Turns out my cousins were actually my mom and aunt."

"Whattttt?" Ralph looked away from his conversation with June and gasped. "Dude, your parents are cousins?!"

"No, dipshit." Alexa spat. "Her mom lied about being her cousin. She's actually her mom."

"Yeah." Madison glanced at Alexa when she noticed the other kids starting to pay attention. "I met this guy at a bus stop one day when I was planning to run away. Turns out he was my dad."

"Shit. That's tough." Rossi jumped down from the platform and leaned against the wall nearby. "How did you end up here?"

"My adoptive dad was using my name to take out loans and money schemes. He used my name to pay for his wedding ring to his new wife . . . ex-wife. Stuff like that. It's a big court issue still because my credit sucks now." Madison looked down at her shoes. "And my adoptive mom died."

"Gosh, that's . . ." June crossed the benches and sat beside Madison. "Were you close to them? Did you know they were doing that?"

"My Mom tried to save me. Turns out my dad was involved with a lot of bad stuff. When she died . . . when she died there wasn't anyone to stop him." Madison swallowed. "He's in jail and my real dad has custody of me."

"Well, we're glad you made it here." Alexa bumped their shoulders and grinned. "No matter what, if you need to talk, we all are here. We got bucket loads of trauma. We live in Queens!"