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𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐑𝐓𝐘 𝐓𝐇𝐑𝐄𝐄
the whispers
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( omega; pt.ii )
HIGH school is a place of rumours, of gossip. It's impossible to escape. Being quiet earns you enough information because people forget you're even there, you hear things that other people don't want you to know, or things people wouldn't tell you in person. Hearing people talk about other people is much easier when you're not the other people. Unfortunately, it gets harder to tolerate when the things they don't want you to hear are about you. Maybe they don't even care that she can hear them because they aren't making an effort to quieten their voices.
Maddie keeps her hand on her locker, pretending to search through it as she listens to the people a few lockers down talk about her. She had already found what she was looking for, but then the voices came to her attention and she couldn't help but want to know more. The instinct of anxiety to understand what exactly people are talking about, especially when it's about you. It gets really hard to not just look over to them to make them aware that she can hear them, that all they're doing is making her more anxious, more self—conscious about herself. A part of her wants to look at them, make them aware, but another part of her is desperate to know what they think about her, what goes through their minds when they see her.
Her fingers press harder against the metal of her locker door, turning the skin white as her free hand aimlessly searches through her notebooks sitting in her locker, ears ringing with comments about how she just wanted attention and she wasn't actually hurt. That's what makes it sting the most; the fact that because she didn't have a mark on her, she was simply faking it for attention.
Attention is something Maddie despises, most days she's trying to hide her face from others as she walks through the halls, sitting in the back of classrooms or the sides so that she doesn't have too many people around her, staying silent when it benefits her so that she doesn't get people looking towards her.
All anyone knows is the narrative that's been pushes around the school, that Jackson and Harry found her and Lydia on the lacrosse field, Jackson took Lydia back to the school, begging someone to help him —— which makes Maddie think there's some good installed in Jackson, he could have very well left her there or not told Harry, but he didn't —— and Harry stayed with Maddie on the field as he waited for help, then her and Lydia went to hospital. They have no idea that she was in a comatose state for nearly a day and a half. All they know is that she looks perfectly fine, which begins the bullshit seeking attention excuse that everyone's using to explain it.
The fact that people then have the audacity to say she did it for attention makes tears start to well up. She blinks twice, making sure the tears don't fall, that's just going to make everything worse. Maddie leans her head against her locker, pressing her lips together when her head leans against her hand, pushing against the bruise on her temple. Enough concealer managed to somewhat successful hide it away from view, but it doesn't stop the pain. She can't sleep on her right side anymore, simply pressing her head against the pillow making her head hurt.
"At least she's not as crazy as Lydia," one of the girls whispers to her friends, audible enough for Maddie to hear and she clenches her jaw, begging herself to walk away but another part pleading for her to stay for her to hear the girl finish. "She's not running around like a lunatic, she's just looking for attention like a little—"
YOU ARE READING
Empathy ⌯ Stiles Stilinski
Fanfiction❝ the way he looks at her, i don't think he's never looked at me that way ❞ ❝ maybe you just weren't looking ❞ High school is supposed to be hard. The homework, the socialisation, the worry of deciding your future. At least, that's what's supposed t...
