Secrets and Lies ||mildie/sillie||

Chapter 26

Marina had become a firm part of their group, once they all got to know her they realised how much of an act she'd had to put on in the first place to be accepted by Maddie. Sadie empathised greatly, she knew she'd almost fallen into the same trap herself, and once in the trap it was almost impossible to escape, at least without help. It wasn't plain sailing though, even though Maddie would never openly cross Millie, she had many ways of bullying someone without it easily being traced back to her. Rumors about her were flying around school, 'Marina the slut,' 'whore,' 'sleeps with any man she can get, or woman too...she's not fussy' 'she's sleeping with a teacher,' no rumor was off limits seemingly.

Millie told her she had to ignore it, especially as it would only get worse once it became obvious she was pregnant, and that they'd been expecting all of this crap. In fact, the only thing they hadn't been expecting was the lack of rumors about her being pregnant, Millie just couldn't work out why Maddie was keeping that to herself until a couple of weeks later, during an ethics class they'd all been forced to take.

"OK CLASS!" bellowed the teacher, Mr Sanderson, who's idea of class control was just to shout louder than anyone else, it seemed to work though, more due to shock than anything. "Ok. This semester we've been given the task of having weekly ethics debates in front of the school." The whole class groaned as one, some people throwing up their hands in exasperation, hoping the god of 'please someone burn the school down right now' would be listening, others went the more traditional banging their heads on their desks route. "Wow, the enthusiasm in the room is palpable" he said, deadpan. He picked up the paper filled with the instructions he'd been given and read them out in a bored monotone voice, "right, every week two of you will be chosen to debate some sort of moral or ethical question in front of the school, you'll have a week to prepare, you can choose someone to help you, Mr Greene will moderate. I asked Maddie here," who stood up beaming angelically to the teacher, "to volunteer to choose the groups, so she's spent the past 2 weeks working out a schedule for the debates and the pairs involved. A list will be put up on the board at the end of the lesson."

Millie had an uneasy feeling about these debates and zoned out for the rest of the lesson. As the bell went the whole class rushed to the notice board to see what the topics were and who had been assigned to the first one. Millie hung back with the gang, waiting for the crowd to dissipate. Finally, upon reading the sheet, she closed her eyes and looked down, oh shit!

'Maddie and Marina – Topic 1: teenaged pregnancy and abortion'

"What a fucking bitch" exclaimed Finn loudly, putting his arm around Marina who was trying to keep her emotions in check.

Millie raised her head. Looking around she found what she was looking for, Maddie waiting to see their reactions. They locked eyes, Maddie giving her a smug 'beat that, bitch' look, Millie could only respond by narrowing her eyes, vowing to herself there and then that she would crush that bitch into the ground.

They all walked home in silence that afternoon, everyone trying to think of a way to deal with next weeks' debate. As they came to go their separate ways, Millie turned to Marina and said "prepare for the debate, ok? I'll think of something, I promise." Marina didn't want to believe Millie, but she had such a look of steely determination on her face she allowed herself to hope that everything would be ok.

Millie climbed the stairs to her room slowly, when she reached it she slumped on her bed what the fuck am I going to do about this!? she asked herself, head in hands. She heard small feet running up the stairs "Millieeeeeee" shouted Ava enthusiastically, jumping on the bed and then on Millie.

"Ugh" Millie responded to being jumped on, "Ava, careful!" She just giggled in response. "How have you been today?"

"Good" Ava responded.

"Eat all your lunch?"

"No" she replied, shaking her head, "bad" she added, sticking her tongue out implying it wasn't nice.

"What was it?"

"Cawwot, blurgh."

"CaRRot, come on, say it right" Millie insisted.

Ava just stuck her tongue out and ran off to her room. Millie stayed lying on her bed, looking up at the ceiling for inspiration. None was forthcoming.

"Millie? You ok?" said Kelly, knocking on her open door gently.

"Hey mum...no, not really" she answered plainly.

"Is it to do with Sadie?"

"No."

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"...yeah, I do actually" she said, sitting up. She told her mom everything that had happened, Marina had said to do what she needed to do, and right now she needed to tell her mom the truth so she didn't feel as though she was breaking her trust. "I don't know what to do" she said finally.

"Why do you need to do anything?" Kelly asked.

"I promised I'd help her..."

"Why do you do that, though? Why do you feel the need to help everyone...to your own detriment?"

"I don't know" Millie said quietly, "...actually...I do know..." she admitted, looking down. Kelly looked at her expectantly, they hadn't talked like this for a long time, not for want of trying, but more that Millie never opened up like this, not since she was attacked. "No one was there to save me...if I can save one person, then it's worth it, no matter the cost." Kelly pulled her into a hug, grateful that Millie was opening up to her. Knowing how hard her life had been recently and feeling so helpless was a terrible feeling for any mom. Millie was clearly deep in thought when she let out a big sigh, "I think I know what to do...but the fallout could be huge."

*~~~~~~~~~~~~*