Who was I going to tell? Josh? I doubted he cared about Jenna’s personal life any more than I did, which was already very little. “So you’re saying it’s okay for somebody to be mean because they have crappy parents?”
Maddy sighed and tossed the TV remote aside. She was irritated, as if trying to explain her best friend’s motives to me was a chore. “No, Ella, I’m saying her life sucks. Dad doesn’t care whether I make the varsity team this year or if you end up valedictorian. And Mom doesn’t swallow a handful of pills just so she can get out of bed and put her makeup on each morning. Jenna’s the way she is because not being the best at everything isn’t an option for her. It’s the only way to get her parents’ attention, the only time her father ever acknowledges her existence.”
I didn’t buy that excuse three years ago when Maddy first fed it to me, and I wasn’t buying it now. Sure, maybe Jenna became self-centered, competitive, and mean to earn her father’s attention, but somewhere along the line it stopped being about her parents’ approval and became all about her.
“She’s your best friend,” the girl said to Jenna as she smoothed out the wrinkles in the center of the poster. “Don’t you think you should talk to her? I mean, maybe see if you can help?”
I smiled at her words. I may not have known who she was, but the way she quietly tried to defend me made me feel better and more at ease with some of my sister’s friends.
“Alex will make sure she’s okay,” Jenna replied as she adjusted one of the streamers so it didn’t cover the poster. “And, according to him, she’s steps away from a total breakdown. I’m supposed to give her some space and not bother her too much.”
She was right, I’d give her that. Since I’d come home from the hospital, I’d refused to leave the house, refused to see anyone but my parents and Alex. He’d been given depressed-Maddy duty. Jenna had called a million times the first few days, but I’d either let her calls go to voice mail or had Alex talk to her. The longer I refused to answer, the fewer calls came. Or so I thought at first. Then I realized the calls had kept coming, but they were now going to Alex’s phone and not Maddy’s.
“Wait. What? You’ve been talking to Alex? We asked him how she was doing, but he won’t tell any of us a thing. He keeps saying she’s fine. How did you get him to talk to you?”
“I’m her best friend, remember?” Jenna’s sarcasm had me wanting to reach through time and space to grab my sister and shake her. Maddy could have done better than this, she’d deserved a better friend than Jenna. “Plus, I have known Alex since first grade. I probably know him better than Maddy does. Of course he talks to me. About everything,” Jenna added.
I didn’t know Alex well, but I’d stake my life on the fact that he didn’t tell Jenna much of anything … not when it involved Maddy, anyway. He kept her secrets safe, protected her with a fierceness that almost made me jealous.
I watched as Jenna unrolled a giant poster, one that, from the looks of it, had been professionally printed. She had matching tape, too—the exact same shade as the pink block lettering she’d used to spell out her name.
“You sure that’s the best place for that?”
“Hallways are fair game,” Jenna said as she reached up and put her Snow Ball queen poster dead center above Maddy’s locker. “The only place we’re prohibited from soliciting votes is in the field house and the locker rooms, although—”
“I think you’re wasting your time. Maddy’s gonna get so many pity votes that you won’t be able to compete. I mean, she may look like crap, but who wouldn’t vote for her after what happened?”
“You, for starters,” Jenna said. I heard the calm threat in her voice. Somehow she’d figure out who would vote for her and who wouldn’t. For that girl, casting a vote for Maddy would be equal to social suicide.