Twenty-Six

Matt thought the bruise on his arm made him look a little awesome.

Cute little Madelyn Harrison had actually commented on it, one day. That was two days after Derek went completely schizo on him and tried to beat the crap out of him. Matt had worn short sleeves and the bruise had looked ridiculously heinous, a mottled purple and pink and blue, like the colors in the sky when the sun was just starting to rise.

Or at least that was what Maddie had said. It certainly was a poetic spin for his disgusting bruise. And after that, they'd started talking.



So, really, Matt should have thanked Derek for everything.

And so he and Maddie became friends. And they started texting, and then he called her a few times, and they chatted, comfortably, because they were friends.

There was a minor setback when Derek asked Madelyn out, but Maddie had said no immediately--Matt heard both sides of the story. He understood from Derek why, precisely, his best friend had suddenly tried to beat the crap out of him.

And he had from Madelyn that she had said no immediately, but then thought that maybe she shouldn't have said no at all, but then realized that the only reason she thought that she shouldn't have said no was because nobody had ever asked her out before, and that it was interesting and new.

Not too long after that, the flirting had started. Maddie reciprocated beautifully, laying her head on his shoulder, letting him, every now and again, put his arm around her. He called her, she called him, they went out to the movies after he met Maddie's fretful mother, who had demanded exact times for when they'd be getting to the movies (as freshmen, Matt's mom had had to give them a ride), for when the movie would be done, when they'd be leaving the ice cream parlor next door, when they'd be home.

("It's because of my sister," Maddie explained in a hushed whisper at the movie theatres, as if her mother could still hear her, twenty miles away. "She's a bit nervous about everything since Lena disappeared. Not that she wasn't nervous before, but it's gotten way worse.")

And when Matt became the second boy to ever ask Madelyn out (and she knew it was coming; you could accuse Maddie of being a touch naive, but she most certainly was not stupid and the signs were quite obvious) she said yes immediately. And she didn't second-guess that judgment.

Derek was furious.

Lena would have been furious.

But Matt and Maddie were giddily happy, as only kids who fancy themselves in love can be.