Maddie's Girls

Chapter 4

Ever since Lottie's party, I've done my best to stay clear from Maddison and Lottie. It wasn't that hard because Maddison and I didn't talk and the only friend we had in common always managed to split his time between the two of us. And Lottie... well, she had her own life and only hung out with me occasionally.

I did want to know, though, if Maddison ever got close to Sam. I knew it was none of my business but... I just sort of wanted to know. I couldn't ask Lottie because... well, obvious reasons. I couldn't ask Maddison because if I did, she'd know I really cared about it, and she'd probably end up doing it just to mess with me. That's when I thought about asking Danny. And I could have, but I didn't really know how to.

"What are you thinking about?" Danny asked, forcing me out of my head.

He was looking down at me, holding a sandwich in one hand and in the other a Capri Sun.

"Why are you here?" I lifted an eyebrow, looking at him funny. On Wednesdays, Danny had only two lessons in the morning, he never needed to stay for lunch.

"Woah, sorry if my presence bothers you," Danny took a bite of his sandwich, sitting beside me. "Maddie asked me to wait for her... we're going home afterwards."

I rolled my eyes and carried on eating. Danny was telling me about an argument he was having with his parents at the moment. It was about his deadname. Changing his name was something I thought Danny had already done because everybody called him Danny, but in school papers and his ID, it still said a name that's not his.

"If you want I can do it with you," I said, pushing my bag of chips closer to him when I started feeling full.

Danny throws his head on his hands, harshly rubbing his eyes with the palm of his hands. "Please," he said, his voice low and raspy.

One of the reasons why Danny didn't want to change his name yet was because he wanted to do it when he could also change the little F into an M in his documents. And the law says you have to have lived at least 2 years in the 'acquired gender' before you can do that.

"What would you do without me?" I asked him, bringing my hand to his head and brushing his hair. I loved brushing Danny's hair.

"I wouldn't have anyone to die my hair," He said, lifting his head up to face me, his eyes tired.

"Talking about—"

"No," He said before I could even state my offer. I rolled my eyes.

"Daniel," I whined, moving my hand away from his hair. Danny said that I had a free pass to die his hair as much as I wanted as long as I didn't mess it up. So far, he had his hair red and purple. I was thinking of trying blue, but I don't think he'd let me do that.

Besides, I'm pretty sure Maria, Danny's mum, wouldn't be happy with it. I was already walking on a thin line. I guess she wasn't too happy when she got home from work to find Danny with bright red hair. 'What is it with you and his hair?' she had asked me, exhausted from her long shift at the hospital. She was a nurse.

"Too many colours, too soon," He said, shoving what was left of his sandwich inside his mouth. I looked at him funny. "When I get bored of it, you can do another colour."

I rolled my eyes at him, grabbing my phone and googling 'change of name and gender gov.' I opened the GOV website and began to read through it. I was looking through the options we had when a loud bang startled me.

"What the fuck," I gasped, looking around the cafeteria until I found a little group of people, all ganged up, and soon enough, the shouting began.

"What the hell did she do now?" Danny sighed, standing and walking over to the little mess, I followed behind.

"That's your friend, surely you know what she's done," I snorted, standing behind Danny. We were close enough that we could see exactly what was happening.