Ava pushed herself onto one elbow. “It’s private.”
“Private?” Madison repeated. “You mean you’ve been collecting excuses.”
She tore out the first page.
The paper ripped loudly.
Ava reached for it, but Madison lifted it above her head.
“Stop,” Ava said.
“Or what?”
Madison tore out another page.
The classroom stayed frozen. A boy near the door looked at me, then lowered his eyes. Someone’s phone buzzed. No one moved to help.
I knew why.
Madison’s mother chaired the school fundraising committee. She had donated equipment to the gym and reminded people about it whenever she wanted something. Madison had spent years learning that adults treated confidence like innocence.
Ava had no such protection.
Her father worked overnight shifts at a distribution center outside town. Her mother cleaned offices downtown and slept during the day. Ava came to school early, left as soon as the final bell rang, and never stayed for clubs or parties.
Madison had noticed.
She had noticed everything that made Ava easy to isolate.
The first time I met Ava, she was sitting alone on the bus with a library book balanced against the window. She had offered me the empty seat beside her without saying a word. I sat down anyway.
For three weeks, we rode home together.
Then Madison started sitting behind us.
She called Ava “the ghost.” She asked whether Ava had been invited anywhere that weekend. She laughed when Ava said she had to go home.
I had laughed once too.
Not because it was funny. Because I was scared Madison would turn on me next.
That one laugh had cost me Ava.
After that, she stopped saving me a seat.
Now she was on the floor, surrounded by the pieces of the one thing she had trusted enough to write down.
Madison dropped the torn pages beside her.
“You should write this part down,” she said. “The part where nobody comes to save you.”
Tessa let out a small laugh from the counter.
I looked at her. “You think this is funny?”
The room became even quieter.
Tessa’s expression tightened. She was not as fearless as Madison. She only acted that way when Madison was nearby.
“Stay out of it,” Tessa said.
“I’m asking you.”
Madison stepped between us.