A Monster Dream

25

I woke up, the sun blaring through the window, blinding me. I sat up immediately, rubbing my eyes. God, I hate this room, the East window is going to drive me crazy every morning. But I can't take Stefani's bed from her. That would be wrong. I decided since it was Saturday that I'd spend the day at Alicia's house. I wrote a note to tell them where I'd be, put the note in the kitchen, and left. 

When I got there, I rang the doorbell. Alicia's mom answered it, as always. 

"Madison! It's nice to see you again! I haven't seen you in so long."

"Yeah. I've been...well, I was adopted by...someone so, I've been spending time with them."

She smiled sweetly. "Come in."

I silently thanked her for not prying and went to Alicia's room. She was reading a book when I got there.

"Hey, Alicia!"

She looked up, "OMG, Madison! I'm so happy to see you! One sec, I need to finish this. It's homework."

"You think, I'll have a million homework assignments to catch up on."

"Nah, I'm sure they'll understand and give you a break."

"Thank god. That would've been horrible."

"No kidding."

She went back to reading and I sat on the bed beside her. When she finished, she wrote something on a piece of paper, and then put everything in her book bag.

"Done," she said, triumphantly.

I smiled. Honestly, being here with Alicia was helping me forget about Stefani. It was like everything was back to normal. The way it was before I met her. Not my life was great then, but at least I felt like I could trust my parents' promises to me.

"So what's new with you?" I asked, to distract myself from the reminder of Stefani's betrayal of my trust.

She started telling me stories about her other friends in school, that didn't share a lot of my interests so we weren't really close. I liked them, but we had nothing to bond over. Alicia was kind of a combination of me and them in her interests. I wouldn't have thought it were possible, but...Alicia managed it. Then she told me that yesterday at school, after news broke that I was found, she squealed so loudly, that some 'cute boy' noticed her. And even though she was really embarrassed he was really nice to her and they decided to hang out more. I could tell from the way she talked about him that she was really into him. I hoped that they would hit it off. She deserved it, after Brian played her as much as he played me.

Then she asked me how Stefani was doing and I froze. What should I tell her? I don't want her to know that I've been avoiding her but I don't wanna lie to her.

"She's fine."

"That's good, because I was there for her as much as I could with homework and stuff and I could tell she was fighting every second to stay strong...and then the case went cold. I watched her will to fight falter, but three weeks later, she stopped coming out of her room. So, I stopped going over there. It was starting to affect my grades anyway. I just wanted to know how she was doing. I was worried she'd killed herself or something."

She stayed strong that long...it was only three weeks after the case went cold that she stopped taking her anti-depressants. Maybe she was intending to keep her promise, but just thought I was dead, so didn't want to live without me.

"Alicia, I have to go. I need to talk to Stefani, ok?"

"Of course. Bye, Maddie!"

I said bye and rushed home.

But what I saw when I got there broke my heart.