When In Doubt - Freshman Year

Chapter 27

Madison

Matt needed to mind his own damn business...

He'd thankfully kept quiet after their quick dinner, but Madison couldn't help but notice how he'd still snuck glances directed at her when he'd thought she wouldn't have noticed, and it had gotten on her nerves and more paranoid.

What could he possibly know, anyways?

They'd all returned to HKMC and set up camp out in the lounge, doing what every other freshman art student had been doing for weeks: slaving over their godforsaken outfits for their Fashion-without-Fabric costume. Madison had worked on the pants made from black garbage bags, and had Matt stand in place to get his measurements. She'd also unraveled two yellow shower loofahs to hot-glue them along the hips and down the sides.

They'd decided Matt was going for a futuristic, French Revolution-era style outfit that looked similar to the Capitol citizens of the Hunger Games movies. They'd already constructed a yellow shirt made out of plastic tablecloth and had tissue paper accenting the edges, and while Matt went about getting a pompous judge's wig and creating the hat from cardboard, Madison had almost finished the military-style jacket and cape.

Eden and Peter were off to the side, meticulously gluing a skirt together made entirely of envelopes. They'd spray painted a robin's egg-blue ombré style on each individual one and then glued them over a belt. Their project was going to look absolutely fabulous when it was complete. Peter had tried play a bunch of Macklemore, Skizzy Mars, and other obscure rap artists that no one had ever heard of off his laptop, so they'd switched to Eden's playlist which had more chill, acoustic covers to listen to.

Matt who picked up his phone as it'd started vibrating on the table, stealing everyone's attention. "I'll be right back, I have to go check something," was all he'd said as he'd walked out towards the girl's side.

No one had really thought much of it, and all was pretty quiet up until about 20-minutes later. They'd all heard a loud, shrieking yelp of pain. The three of them jumped up in their chairs.

"What the fuck was that?" Peter asked as he'd tried to look over the encasing ledge of the wall.

"It sounded kind of like Matt," Eden followed him and looked out into the girls hallway. Girl's voices could be heard laughing from someone's room, Heather's door was wide open.

Madison recognized one distinct laugh over the others; one of them was Ali. Irritated that somehow Matt was involved, Madison shot out of her chair and wandered down the hall.

Low and behold, Matt was indeed with the girls, and he'd been sitting in a desk chair in the center of Heather and Lindsay's room; the two of them along with Ali surrounded him. For some reason, Matt had thought getting a spa treatment while they were supposed to be working on their project was a good idea, so with a towel wrapped around his head, he was being dotted on by the girls giving him a mani-pedi.

A fucking mani-pedi...

Madison had actually started to feel one of her eyelids twitch, and her hands curled up into fists; she couldn't breathe and saw red.

Matt's eyes widened into saucers when he'd spotted her fuming in their doorway.

"He-Hey Madison..." he'd sputtered, totally guilty.

Lindsay turned to her and beamed. "Hey Maddie! Your just in time! Matt let us treat his hair and do his nails!"

"You didn't tell me it was going to burn," Matt muttered, his face had gone red and stared at the floor.

Ali chuckled. "This queen also let me wax him, so I took out a chunk of his leg hair, see?" she'd pointed to a spot along Matt's ankle where there was a large, smooth expanse of skin.