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“That’s not true,” Charlie said, even as she began to wonder if maybe it was. She couldn’t remember the last time she exchanged more than cursory small talk with someone outside of class or the insular world of their dorm. Realizing that Maddy was right only made her more angry. “I could talk to a ton of people, if I wanted to.”
“And that’s your problem,” Maddy said. “You don’t want to. Which is why I’m always the one trying to force you into it.”
“Maybe I don’t want to be forced.”
Maddy coughed out a sarcastic laugh. “That’s pretty fucking obvious.”
“Then quit trying,” Charlie said. “Friends are supposed to support each other, not change them.”
God knew she could have tried to change Maddy. The flightiness. The drama. The clothes that were more like costumes. Things so dated and preposterous that sometimes people rolled their eyes when she entered a room. But Charlie didn’t try to change those things. Because she loved them. She lovedMaddy. And sometimes—like that night—she questioned if Maddy felt the same way.
“I’m not trying to change you,” Maddy said. “I just want you to live a little.”
“And I want to go the hell home.”
Charlie tried to walk away, but Maddy latched on to her arm again, pleading. “Please don’t go. You’re right. I brought you here, then ditched you, and I’m sorry. Let’s go back inside, have a drink, and dance our asses off. I won’t leave your side. I promise. Just stay.”
Maybe Charlie would have stayed if Maddy hadn’t said whatcame next. She was ready to forgive and forget as she always did. But then Maddy took a deep breath and said, “You know I don’t like walking home alone.”
Charlie flinched—truly flinched—when she heard it. Because it meant Maddy still made it all about her, like she always did. This wasn’t about her enjoying Charlie’s company or having fun together. She simply wanted someone to walk her drunk ass home when the party was over. It made Charlie think that maybe Robbie was right. Maybe Maddy didn’t think of her as a friend. Maybe shewasonly an audience member. One of many. One who was enough of a pushover to let Maddy get away with whatever bullshit she decided to pull on any given night.
Except that night.
Charlie refused to let that happen.
“I’m walking home now,” she said. “You can join me or not.”
Maddy pretended to consider it. She took a tentative step in Charlie’s direction, a hand raised ever so slightly, as if reaching out for her. But then someone left the bar and music blasted out the open door into the alley. A rackety version of “Just Like Heaven.” Hearing it, Maddy turned her gaze to the bar, and Charlie knew she’d made her decision.
“You’re an awful friend,” she told Maddy. “I hope you know that.”
Charlie turned and marched away, not even pausing as Maddy called out, “Charlie, wait!”
“Fuck off,” Charlie said.
It ended up being the last thing she ever said to Maddy.
But that wasn’t the worst part of the night.
Far from it.
The worst came twenty steps later, when Charlie turned around, hoping to see that, despite the fight and the “Fuck off,” Maddy was right behind her, struggling to catch up. Instead, Charlie saw her still outside the bar, her cigarettes finally freed from her purse, standing with a man who’d seemingly come out of nowhere.
Charlie couldn’t see him clearly. His back was partly turned to her, and his head was lowered. The only part of his body visible to her was his left hand, which was cupped around the small flame of Maddy’s lighter. Everything else about him was shadow, from his shoes to his hat.
That hat—a basic fedora that all men used to wear until suddenly they didn’t—tipped Charlie off that something about the scene wasn’t right. It was 1991. No one wore a fedora anymore. Also, everything was too stark, too stylized. A single shaft of white light slanted between Maddy and the man in the fedora, splitting them into two distinct halves: Maddy glowing in the light, the man swathed in darkness.
It was, Charlie realized, a movie in her mind, brought about by her fight with Maddy.
Rather than watch the scene return to normal, which is what she should have done, Charlie turned around and kept walking.
She didn’t look back.
When Maddy didn’t return to the dorm that night, Charlie had assumed she’d hooked up with someone from the bar. Fake Bon Jovi, maybe. Or the guy in the fedora. If he existed at all. Charlie had her doubts.
Worry didn’t set in until noon, when Charlie returned from class to find the dorm room still untouched by Maddy’s presence. Charlie couldn’t help but think of the day her parents died. How she had remained unconcerned as time slipped by, oblivious to the fact that she had become an orphan. Refusing to let history repeat itself, Charlie spent the rest of the day going from dorm room to dorm room, asking everyone in the building if they’d seen Maddy. No one had. Charlie’s next move was to call Maddy’s mother and stepfather, asking if they’d heard from her. They hadn’t. Finally, at midnight, exactly twenty-four hours since she’d last seen her, Charlie called the police and reported Maddy missing.
She was found early the next morning.