Walking home

Madison was stuck walking home after practice - David had offered Addie (who had once again sat around in the stands with Lil and her sketchbook) a drive, which she knew meant he wouldn't want her tagging along. It was all right, the walk wasn't very long, although she was still feeling a little off after the events of the previous few days. As she was leaving the gym she saw Lil, also heading across the school grounds in the same direction she would be heading. The tall girl hadn't spotted her yet, and for a minute Madison considered just pretending she hadn't seen her - despite the things they'd been through together, she didn't know her very well, and what she did know made her think Lil was frankly more than a little weird.

But a vague memory surfaced of Lil coming to her room to talk to her, and the recollection made Madison wave and try to catch her eye. "Hey," she called, "are you walking home too?"

Lil hesitated when she heard Madison - for one thing, she wasn't certain at first that the cheerleader was talking to her, but there was no one else really around. She'd gotten used to the others joining them at lunch, but figured it was just easier in a crowd. As spineless as David could be sometimes, she at least had to respect how little he seemed to care about what people thought he should do and who he should be doing it with. But Madison and Cecilia both seemed more rooted in that other world, the Popular Crowd, the Cool Kids, to ever want to have to much to do with her on their own outside of what they's all taken to calling 'weird shit'.

Except, well, they did have some things in common, afterall, and Lil still wasn't quite sure what to do with them. And there she was, waving, and smiling- if a bit nervously. Lil paused so that the other girl could catch up. "Yup. Lemme guess - David ditched you?" She knew he was driving Addie home - it wasn't a far stretch to imaging that Maddy usually rode home with him after practice.

"Yeah, it was either that or squish three of us into the truck, and that's just uncomfortable," she said with a shrug and an eyeroll. "For any number of reasons. Uh... you live in this direction too?" she asked, gesturing generally to the south of the school grounds.

Lil started to give her a strange look, but shrugged - she'd been to their place a few times now, and David had been to hers a few (mostly hanging out with Addie), but that didn't mean his sister knew. "Yeah - I live like three blocks away from you. On Fairview."

"Then David really is just a lazy butt when he drives over there?" she said with a smirk. "Either that or I guess it's so he can have an excuse to drive Addie home later..."

"I'm pretty sure it is all of the above. See if he were really clever, though - and less lazy - he could get her to walk to your place with him, first. Anyway, she crashes at my place half the time. Well, on weekends."

Madison nodded, a bit wistfully. For all that she had a fairly large number of friends, none of them were really the close kind who would sleep over all the time. "That's nice, your dad is cool with that?"

"Yeah." Lil glanced at Madison out of the corner of her eye. "It's not like I have a ton of other friends." Or really any - at least, she wasn't sure, not really, how to count the little crowd of people at lunch, but she was fairly sure they weren't coming around for her pleasant company... But here they were. "And he's friend's with Addie's dad, too."

"Cool." Madison took a few more steps in silence, trying to think how to ask the question that was on her mind. "Um... things are kind of blurry for me for a while there, so if I'm crazy, just say so. But did you come to my room to talk to me Friday night?"

"Oh, yeah." She hadn't really talked to the other girl after they'd rescued... or at least retrieved, her from her grandmother's place, having ridden home with Noah in David's truck. "I guess you must have been pretty out of it." She really wanted to ask more about what exactly had happened - had she really been possessed by her mother? But maybe it would be best not to pry *too* much. "Just, like, about your dad dating. You seemed pretty upset about it..." She shrugged. "I don't know, maybe it was the other stuff."

"Maybe," Madison admitted. "I still think it's pretty weird. Him dating I mean. And... the other stuff too, but this is a different weird. I mean, there hasn't been anybody that he's gone out with since... all this time," she shrugged. "As far as I know, anyway. I think he would have told us if there was. Maybe." She sighed. "Now I feel like I'm not sure of anything where he's concerned."

"Just because of the dating? Or because of the stuff with your, uhm, grandmother?"

"Yeah... all of that, I guess."  Madison fiddled nervously with the strap of her backpack.  "Like if he was keeping that from us, what else is there we don't know?  I guess at least he did introduce Kristen... Miss Vogel, whatever.  Even if it's kind of creepy, he wasn't lying about it."

"Yeah. At least it is just creepy in a normal way though?" She shrugged. "It always used to make me angry, if dad ever saw someone more than like, once or twice."

"Used too?" Madison glanced at Lil. "Did you get used to it eventually, or what?"

Lil didn't answer right away. The epic tantrums she'd thrown were a little embarrassing for one thing, but it was more complicated. It always was. "Well," she said finally, "it hasn't happened in a while." The last time, she'd been twelve. She kept expecting him to meet someone again now that they'd moved, but so far, he hadn't. "Now, I just kind of feel bad," she admitted after a while. "I mean, it's been longer for me. Him - us, I guess. Like - he's my dad. I don't want to share him with someone I don't know, or have someone else come and think that she can like... be my mother, or some bullshit. But... I don't want him to be lonely?"

Madison nodded slowly. "I know what you mean. Kristen seems like she might be the wannabe mom type, with bringing gross casseroles over and stuff. And like... at some level, I know she's just trying to be nice - I just can't deal with that kind of nice, it sets off all my alarm bells. But Dad seems happy lately, and... I do want him to be happy, I guess." She grimaced, trying not to sound like a selfish brat. "How long ago was it that, um, your mom died?"

"It was a long time ago. Twelve years." She could have been even more specific, but she shrugged it off for now. So far, Addie was the only person she'd talked to much about it since she'd moved to Ashland, but Addie has a weird relationship with her own mother. "May you need, or you and David need, to talk to your dad? I mean, tell him what your comfortable with, in terms of people he is dating? Like - no grosseroles, please. Or even like that - you don't need someone else to take care of you, as long as you still have him? He can date them, but that's not their job?"

"Yeah, maybe... I mean, in a couple of years David and I will be going to college, and we'll probably be off on our own somewhere." The thought was a little scary still, but she tried to make it sound like it was no big deal, or maybe even kind of exciting. "But then Dad would be all alone, and... I guess that would kind of suck for him." She hadn't really thought about it that way before. "I wish she wasn't so young, though, it's so gross. It's like if one of us was dating someone who was like 30 or something. Well... except not illegal. But still... eww."

"Yeah, not gonna lie, that's a little weird. I mean - how old is your dad? I always hear that, like, half your age plus seven is the cut-off for creepy."

Madison did a little quick arithmetic. "He's 45. And she sure isn't 29. I don't know exactly, but maaaybe she's like 25 or 26 or something? So yeah. Creepyville."

Lil shook her head. "Yeah man, I got nothin'. Maybe you could convince him to buy a fancy sports car instead?"

Madison gave an awkward giggle. "I wish. That would be a lot less icky, and plus maybe I'd get to drive it once I get my license." She sighed. "Maybe it won't turn out to be anything serious anyway... maybe they'll break up." She felt sort of bad for wishing for it to happen, but she couldn't help it. "I don't want a stepmother. Especially not one who can't cook."

"Yeah, I hear ya. Maybe you just need to feed him some of the casserole..."