“Maybe I…” Maddie clears her throat. “Maybe I act like that because it’s easier than being real.”
“Easier than being real?” The shift in her mood catches me off guard. “What do you mean?”
She exhales sharply, her hands twitching in her lap. “Forgetit.”
“No,” I press, my frustration softening into curiosity. “Come on, dude, tell me. What’s really going on?”
My date hesitates, gaze lingering on the parking lot in front of us. For a moment, I think she won’t answer.
But then:
“Do you have any idea what it’s like to feel like you’re never enough?” She is almost whispering and I struggle to hear her. “To feel like if you’re not perfect—if you’re noton—then no one will care about you? Because I do. Every damn day.”
I blink, her words sinking in like stones in water. “Maddie…”
She cuts me off with a humorless laugh. “I have to post the selfies, have to have the right clothes and say all the right things—because if I don’t, no one will like me.”
“You think you say all the right things?” I ask, arching an eyebrow. “Really? Because half the time, you’re a pain in the ass.”
Her lips twitch. “Screw you, Westermann.”
“Well, you are, kind of.” I attempt to lighten the mood. “Why start lying now?”
Her lips curl up into a smile. “And yet, here you are—stuck in a car with me. What does that say aboutyou?”
I roll my eyes, but I can’t stop the corner of my mouth from lifting in a satisfied smirk. “That I have terrible taste in prom dates.”
She gasps, hand flying to her chest in mock offense. “Excuse me? I am acatch.”
“A catch with its claws out most of the time,” I shoot back, shaking my head. Still amused.
Enjoying myself at this turn of events.
“Better than being boring like Harper Conrad,” she hits back, a punch to the gut. “She’s the biggest freaking nerd.”
“Okay.” I take a breath, forcing myself to keep my voice steady. “That’s too far.” Harper didn’t ask to be involved in this mess; Harper is sweet and funny and—
Maddie cuts off my thoughts, her expression hardening into a deep frown. “How is that going too far? It’s not a crime to call someone a dork.”
“Harper isn’t a dork—can you stop being an asshole? Stop pretending.” I hold her gaze, not backing down now that I’ve found the courage to say my piece. “Be yourself for once.”
She stares, and I see her wanting to argue. Wanting to claw my eyes out, probably. And when she shakes her head and looks away, her fingers fidget with the pearly strap of her cell phone.
“Myself?” she whispers. “What if I don’t know who that is?”
The vulnerability in her voice cracks something inside me.
“What do you mean?” I push.
“I mean exactly that, Easton. I’ve been so busy being what everyone expects—queen of Instagram. The perfect, pretty, blond daughter, because my mother has a stick up her ass and an obsession with making me a pageant princess.” Maddie inhales and lets out a puff of air. “She was runner-up for Miss America the year before she got pregnant with me, you know, and expects me tobeher. Do what she couldn’t do, ya know? Do you have any idea what that’s like? She expects me to come home tonight as promqueen.” She tilts her head back, staring at the ceiling of Dan’s car. She swallows. “What’s left when I’m not theversionof me people see online?”
Her words hang in the air, raw and unguarded.
Huh. I had no idea pageants were still a thing, or that she was involved in them. I thought she spent all her time online.
This is a side of Maddie I’ve never seen, and I’m not sure anyone else has, either—including her friends. Or mine.
“Maybe what’s left is someone worth knowing,” I say softly. “Someone real.”
