Maddie Dempsey and Justin Foley were what people thought were the cliche highschool romance, and maybe at first glance they were, but when you look deeper into the story, the way Hannah Baker did, you'll see so much more.
{From: 5.18.18 Until: 6.30...
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Maddie made her way to the locker room for her gym class, she was one of the first students in the room because normally all the students walked laps or stopped at their lockers while Maddie did neither this morning. She quickly changed into a pair of spandex shorts that ends a little less than an inch above her knee and one of her practice shirts the dance team had made. As she walked out she was brought face to face with Jessica, who had her hand out ready to open the door. "Oh, h-hey Maddie." There was an obvious tension and Maddie nodded ackwordly, she wasn't sure what to say to the girl who had hooked up with her boyfriend, as much as she wanted she couldn't hate Jessica, she had a huge impact on her life and she was a big person in it as well, but now she was worried for Jessica, had she had sex with Justin and then when he left the room Bryce made his way in? Or had it only been Bryce? Or was Maddie and Hannah the only one's Bryce had attacked? She had so many unanswered questions all she could do was walk out onto her spot on the glossy gym floor trying to ignore the beautiful dark skinned girl.
"Do you want to be my partner?" Jessica asks in a small voice. Nobody really wanted to partner with either of them, they were considered popular which gave them a disadvantage at getting partners plus people thought Maddie was too compeitive. "Yeah, yeah, sure. Let's go to the left hoop." Maddie says picking up her basketball and walking over to one of the six hoops lining the court. "You have five minutes then half the court is girls against girls and the other is boys against boys. Everyone nodded and started to warm up.
It was nothing but the loud echoing chatter from the large class and the sound of the basketballs hitting the floor that filled Maddie's ears until Jessica spoke. "Maddie, I am really really sorry about what happened and I wish I would have told you but like I said I thought it would do more bad than good, I never wanted to hurt you, you were such a good friend." Maddie shot the basketball with a great amount of force making it shoot straight through the hoop and slam against the floor. Jessica winced at the sound and Maddie turned around to face the girl forgetting about the ball as her fingernails dug into her skin. "Are you positive that you and Justin hooked up that night? You remember, you remember him?" Maddie asks seriously as she tugs at her hair to tighten her ponytail. "I mean, I uhm, like I said I was pretty messed up that night." Jessica stumbled over her words as she speaks the shorter girl. "Jessica, I'm serious, are you sure you were with Justin?" Maddie asks and Jessica stays silent long enough for the coach to yell over the chatting to start the games. Maddie grabs the ball and walks over to the half court line waiting for instructions.
"Maddie and Brooke you two are the team captins." Coach C. adresses the girls before turning to the guys. Maddie picks her team and Brooke picks hers, Jessica being put on Brookes. Maddie gets the ball first so she checks it to Brooke before getting it back. Maddie, being the competitive and basketball loving girl she is, immeditally took off with the ball. She fakes left knocking Marie off guard and then shooting but as she does Brookes body clashes against her's, not hard enough to push her against the ground but hard enough to earn an effect. To everyones surprise the team captin and 'ball hog' of the blue team slammed onto the ground her head against her knees with her hands over her ears. "No, no, please stop. Don't touch me." She begs as she curls herself even more which forces herself onto her side. Coach C. goes to shake her shoulder but Jessica stops her. "Stop, Coach she's having a panic attack."
"Not everyone needs to stay in here." "But she needs us." "I'm the one that brought the inhaler." "I'm the one that brought her in." "Stop. All of you, one may stay with her." Maddie slowly opens her eyes and looks up to see Autumn, Rocky, Maddison, Jessica, Justin, and Zach. Maddie begins to look around even more beginning to get worried. "Hey, honey, you're fine." Maddie freezes at the voice trying to stay calm and she nods breathing deeply. "Would you like someone to stay with you while you rest?" Mrs. Nancy, the school nurse, asks kindly and Maddie nods as she looks up almost immediately making eye-contact with Justin, to his surpise. "Alright, Mr. Dempsey here is a note stating Justin will be staying back please give it to your teacher. Zach nods as he takes the note and walks over kissing Maddie head gently making her smile. Jessica waves with a small smile as she leaves and the girls from her team give her nice and gently fist bumps before leaving, how they even knew she was there, she wouldn't know till their next pratice.
When the nurse leaves the small room Justin sits on edge of the firm bed and Maddie sits up slightly with her back leaning against the pillows but Justin still reaches out to steady her. "Justin, I'm not a piece of glass. I can sit up on my own." Maddie says firmly as she crosses her arms weakly and Justin nods setting his hands in his lap. "So, what happened?" Justin asks and Maddie shuffles the tiniest bit under her thin cover. "I got pushed, I got scared, that's all." Maddie answers and Justin shakes his head. "I haven't been in love with you for basically seven years for you lie to me like that." Justin says quietly, he knew this was deeper than she was letting on. Sure she might have skipped a pill which would cause her with be scared and flinch at really loud sounds but for her to just barley be pushed and for her to have a panic attack that bad? No, there was defenitly something else going on.
"I just," Maddie rubs her arms and bites the inside of her lip before sighing. "It's nothing." Justin shakes his head. "Maddie, we both know I'm not that stupid." Maddie shrugs slightly. "Are we now?" She smiled but when he didn't smile back she sighed floating back down onto the pillows behind her. It was quite for awhile, and Maddie sighed. "Justin?" She asks and he turned to her, blue eyes on blue eyes, so intense she had to look down for a second. "Can we talk about it later? I have to talk to my mom first." Maddie says rubbing her arms. "You could come over after." Justin nods slowly, what could be so important that it had to be talked about at her house? And for it to be talked about to her mother as well? For someone whose anxiety wasn't normally high, it sure was high now.
The rest of the day went silently, Maddie sat with Zach most of the time keeping away from the others, of course she gave Monty a few hugs and fist bumps and such but she even tried to stay away from him for the simple fact that he was normally close to Bryce, she knew that if he knew what Bryce had Monty wouldn't forgive him, she knew that she meant too much to Monty to have Bryce hurt her but she didn't want to ruin Bryce's and Monty's friendship, Bryce was like a brother to Monty and Bryce took good care of him when he needed it. Who was she to hurt Monty like that? Maddie's pratice was good, she even got to run most of it though she wasn't allowed to do any tricks since Autumn made Coach aware of what had happened earlier in the day with Maddie.
"Yeah, I'll see you, hey thanks for the hair tie." Maddie smiles telling everyone bye before thanking Rocky, the head drill master, for the hair tie she gave her and throwing it back to her. "Anytime, see ya girl, be safe!" Maddie smiles at the goodbye and then makes her way to the car where her brother is already waiting. They're almost halfway back to the house before Zach asks her a question breaking the third song on her world tour. "I heard you invited Justin over?" Zach asks as he turns down the music in the car. Maddie nods before speaking. "Yeah, he wanted to know what happened this morning and to explain it takes more than just saying I freaked out because I was pushed, plus I have questions for him too." She asks crossing her arms thinking about the doubts she had about him hooking up with Jessica.
~~~Authors Note~~~ Hey guys! Long time no update, haha. Sorry I got really really busy but now my schools shut down till at least the 30th so I plan to update some in that time frame. Consider this kind of a filler with several misspelled words, but the next good chapter is being written as we speak and I'm excited! If you have any suggestions don't be shy as go ahead and comment so I can use them! Thanks for all the love on my book! It's amazing and really warms my heart!🥺❤️
