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10. You are not my mother.

      "Where in the fuck were you?" Madi is standing in the living room with her hands on her hips as soon as Adaline walks back in the door at roughly seven am.

      "Out," Adaline answers, walking past the shorter girl. Madi follows behind her, starting on her usual lecturing.

      "Addy, you can't just leave in the middle of the night like that and not answer your phone!" Madi half shouts, probably afraid of waking up Dante and Maira.

      "I was doing stuff, I didn't want to be rude," Adaline answers. It's not easy to deal with Madi when she gets overbearing like this. "I was just driving around with a friend, it's not like we were doing drugs or whatever."

Adaline reaches for the door knob to get into her room but Madi cuts her off, blocking the door with her body. Adaline crosses her arms and it's only then that she remembers that she's still wearing Clay's sweatshirt.

      "You need to tell someone if you're going out with a friend at two in the fucking morning, Addy." Madi practically seethes.

      "I'm a grown adult," Adaline shoots back. "I can hang out with my friends if I want to, you are not my mother."

Madi has always done this, always been overbearing of everyone but especially Adaline. After the time she disappeared in senior year. It's not like she was kidnapped or anything, but she was gone for at least three weeks, Madi, Maira, and Dante were the only ones who cared enough to look for her. That was when her mental illness was really bad, bad to the point where she would black out for what felt like seconds but was actually days or weeks or, on the rare occasion, months.

Like Theodore Finch and the asleep, from that one book she read and Dante forced her to watch the netflix adaptation of. It hasn't happened it upwards of a year but Adaline supposed Madi's still scared of what would happen if she did black out again, if she did disappear and come back like nothing happened, waking back up in her room as if she just spaced out for a few minutes.

But the thing about it is she didn't. She didn't black out and she didn't disappear for three weeks, she was just out with Clay. There shouldn't be a punishment for hanging out with her friend, even if it was a little irresponsible not to tell anyone. It's not like she thought anyone would be up when she got back. It's seven am on a saturday, nobody in the apartment has work this early. Why is Madi up this early?

      "Well it's not like I'm expecting you to go out in the middle of the night! Of course I'd be worried!" Madi huffs. "It's not like you have any other friends, why would that be the first thing that comes to mind?"

"What the hell is your problem today?" Adaline feels tears start to prick her eyes. Having no other friends has never affected her like this before, why is it that suddenly when Madi is upset with her that it hurts so much?

There's silence. Madi and Adaline look at each other, and over the few seconds that no words are shared Madi's expression softens, she moves out of the way of the door and lets Adaline through. She then storms off, but not to her and Dante's room, but out the door. Adaline watches her leave with a sort of dazed confusion at what all just went down.

Madi's not usually that upset, Adaline thinks as she enters the darkness of her room. There's no way she'll be able to fall asleep, so she might as well use this time to catch up on the homework she was supposed to do days ago, because Adaline Belle Brazier is perpetually behind.

She throws her lanyard on the bed and sits down at her desk, looking down at the papers she has to do and letting out a sigh. It's going to be a long day.