I spent prom night at Tanner's house, playing Dungeons and Dragons. Most of the people who had played with us the first time I had played D&D were there, and they chatted amongst themselves, debating on how the game was going to go. Tanner was busy getting snacks for the group, until all of a sudden, the doorbell rang.

Sean walked into the room, and as we soon discovered, he was even worse at D&D than I was. It took him forever to create a character, although Tanner was far more patient with him than he had been with me, and on his very first roll of the game, he rolled a critical failure.

"You can re-roll that," Tanner said.

Everyone else groaned, but Sean picked up the die again and re-rolled. Throughout the game, it was blatantly obvious that our Dungeon Master was playing favorites, but unlike some of the other party members, I didn't mind too much. Tanner and Sean were a cute couple, and they seemed to be having fun with the game.

Just as we were about to confront a huge group of orcs, Tanner's cell phone rang. "Wait a second," he said as he took out his phone. "I need to reply to this text." He laughed and then added, "It was from Ashley. She and her girlfriend are at prom right now, and apparently somebody pulled the fire alarm in the gym in the middle of the dance. They had to evacuate everybody."

"They're just having prom in the high school gym?" Sean said. When Tanner nodded, he exclaimed, "I'm glad we didn't go!"

"Me too," Tanner said. "D&D is way more fun. Now, why don't we get back to the game? It was Dani's turn, right?"

We returned to the game, and we played well into the night. I was exhausted but content when I finally got home, carrying my character sheet with me as I headed into my bedroom. Just as I was about to go to bed, I got a text from Tanner. "Don't forget about Quiz Bowl practice on Monday!" he wrote. "The state tournament is this week."

"I'll be there," I replied. Given how well we had done at conference and regionals, I didn't see why we couldn't succeed in the state tournament. We just had to keep practicing, and we could beat even the best Quiz Bowl teams in the state.

Devon quickly replied to say that he'd be there too, but Madeline didn't respond. I didn't think too much of it at the time. I assumed that she was busy having a good time at prom, too distracted to think of small things like our upcoming tournament. I turned off the light and went to sleep, assuming that everything would come together if we gave it a little bit of time.

That Monday, everyone was talking about the fire alarm at prom. A boy in my English class complained about how hot he was in his suit when he had to go outside, and a girl in my history class speculated on who had pulled the alarm. It seemed like everyone except for me had a story to share from that night.

When I left my history class, I spotted Madeline. "Hey Madeline!" I exclaimed, but she walked in the opposite direction, toward the orchestra room. She didn't acknowledge my presence at all. I shrugged and headed into the cafeteria, and after I had bought some dubious-looking macaroni and cheese, I sat in between Tanner and Devon. Neither of them seemed to notice that Madeline was missing.

Tanner read Quiz Bowl questions to us, and Devon and I eagerly answered as many as we could. He asked us about everything from classical composers to European geography to American history, and we did our best to give him the right answers, or at least guess if we couldn't figure it out. When the bell rang, Tanner reminded us one last time about practice, and we again assured him that we would be there.

Tanner, Devon, and I met in Mrs. Welch's classroom after school, but Madeline didn't come. We waited around for her, playing games on our phones, doing homework, and drawing on the board, but after fifteen minutes, Tanner asked, "Does anyone know where Madeline is?" Both Devon and I shook our heads. "It's not like her to ditch us like this."

"I can text Madeline and ask her where she is," I said. "I saw her earlier, so I know she was at school today."

"Sure, but we're going to have to start playing if Madeline doesn't show up right away," Tanner said.

I sent Madeline a text, and of course, she didn't respond, so Tanner, Devon, and I just started playing. It wasn't the same without Madeline though. Tanner decided to moderate to make the teams even, so it was just Devon and I playing against each other. I spent the whole practice wishing that Madeline was there.

We had practice again on Wednesday, and again, Madeline didn't show up. She had stopped coming to lunch too, and no matter how many times various members of the team tried to contact her, she never responded. It was like she was avoiding us. However, Tanner was sure that she would come for the state tournament. "Madeline cares about this team," he said during practice on Wednesday. "She'll come to state, even if she's missed a few practices."

Yet, every time I ran into Madeline in the hall that week, she walked away, always with a desperate, forlorn look on her face. Something told me that Tanner was wrong, and she wasn't coming to the state tournament, not like this. I had no idea what had suddenly changed, but it was as if she was keeping some deep secret that was eating her alive. It was like something inside her was broken.

Friday was Decision Day at William McKinley High School, and every senior in the school was wearing something from their college. I still remembered the previous year's Decision Day, when Blake had come to school wearing a Harvard T-shirt, despite the fact that he had no intention of going to college. The memory still made me laugh, even though Blake and I weren't friends anymore.

Madeline didn't show up to lunch, and even stranger, neither did Tanner. Devon and I did some last minute studying, but it wasn't the same without the other half of our team. "I wonder where Tanner and Madeline are," I said at one point.

Devon shrugged and said, "They're probably re-reading The Song of Achilles or something dumb like that."

"They'll show up to the tournament, right?" I said.

"Of course," Devon said. "I saw both of them earlier today, and Tanner seemed really excited for the tournament this morning. I don't know why he wouldn't come."

I trudged through biology, Spanish, and physics, and after my classes were over, I went straight to Mrs. Welch's classroom. Tanner and Devon both showed up shortly after I did, although Tanner seemed kind of moody. He hardly spoke to Devon or I as he packed up the buzzers and threw on a Quiz Bowl T-shirt over his Oberlin College one.

Although we waited around for Madeline for a long time, she never came. "We're going to be late if we don't leave now," Mrs. Welch said after about twenty minutes of waiting for her. "We're just going to have to play without Madeline."

Tanner, Devon, and I all got onto the bus, but instead of chatting or quizzing each other on random facts, Tanner gloomily stared out the window, and Devon worked on his math homework. I put on my headphones and listened to some of my favorite songs, but I took them off when I saw Devon turning around to talk to Tanner. "What's wrong?" he asked him. "You seem a little bit off today."

"Sean broke up with me," Tanner said suddenly, still staring out the window.

"What?!" Devon and I said in unison. It seemed impossible. For as long as I had known them, Tanner and Sean had seemed happy together.

"He's going to school in California, and I'm staying in Ohio. He doesn't want to be in a long distance relationship, so we broke up. I think that we could make it, but Sean doesn't even want to try," Tanner explained.

"I'm sorry," I said. "That must be hard."

Tanner took a deep breath and then said, "It's okay. I can make it through the tournament, and then I'll go home and eat some chocolate and feel sorry for myself. Don't worry about me." He sounded like he was on the verge of a mental breakdown, but he forced himself to smile. "Why don't we try a few last minute practice questions?"

We studied for the rest of the drive, but Tanner still didn't seem like himself. When we got there, we were already running late, so we went straight to the first round. We were playing against St. Victor High School, a team from the other side of the state. Tanner introduced himself and our "despondent" coach, Mrs. Welch. He then said, "My teammates will introduce themselves in order of their level of searing emotional pain."

Devon and I ignored him. We tested our buzzers and introduced ourselves, and then St. Victor did the same. After we were done with introductions, the game began. The first question was for St. Victor. "Answer these questions about trees and plants in American poetry," the moderator read. "What author wrote 'I think that I shall never see a poem as lovely as a tree' in his poem 'Trees'?"

"Kilmer," a girl from St. Victor confidently answered.

"Correct," the moderator said. "What author of the essay 'Nature' and essay collection 'Representative Men' wrote about 'The self-same power that brought me there, brought you' in his plant poem 'The Rhodora'?"

I looked toward Tanner and Devon, but neither of them knew the answer. I had a nagging feeling that Madeline would know, but she wasn't here. "Johnson?" Tanner guessed.

"That is incorrect," the moderator said. "The correct answer is Ralph Waldo Emerson." She then started to read the next question. "One poem by this author asserts 'Earth's the right place for love: I don't know where it's likely to go better.' That plant-centric poem by this author describes how ice-storms cause the title plants..."

Again, I was sure that Madeline would have known the answer if she was there. A boy from St. Victor buzzed in and shouted, "Frost!" The moderator told him that was correct, and then moved on to the next category.

The whole match went on like that, with every question seeming like something that Madeline might know. Devon got a few of the math questions, and we scored some points in the alphabet round, but St. Victor still crushed us. After the game was over, our team was out of the tournament, so we got back on the bus and drove back to Hackberry Heights, defeated and heartbroken. We had lost, and our season was over.

On the bus, Devon ranted endlessly about what we could have done better. Most of his rants started with, "If Madeline had been there..." If she was there, she would have gotten the Frost question. If she was there, she would have known the name of the fourth movement of Peer Gynt Suite No. 1. If she was there, she would have answered all of those literature questions in the final round. If she was there, we wouldn't have lost.

Needless to say, everyone on the team was furious at Madeline. We had no idea why she hadn't shown up at the most important tournament of the year, but there was no excuse. She should have been there. On the bus back, I told myself that I would talk to Madeline next Monday. She needed to know that she had let all of us down.

On Monday, I caught Madeline just as she was about to walk into one of the practice rooms with her lunch and her cello. "Madeline!" I shouted, and she turned around to face me

"What do you want?" she asked me bitterly.

"Why haven't you been at Quiz Bowl?" I asked her. "We needed you at the state tournament."

"Dani, can we talk about this later?"

"No," I said. "You've avoided us all week, and you've let the whole team down by not coming to the state tournament. We deserve to know why."

Madeline panicked. There was a strange fear in her eyes for a moment, and then she looked directly at me and said, "Fine. I'll tell you why I didn't come, but you have to promise me that you won't tell anyone else."

"I promise," I said.

"Follow me," Madeline said. She led me into the practice room and then locked the door. There was hardly enough room for the two of us in there, especially with the piano taking up so much space. Madeline leaned her cello case against the door, and then she sat down on the piano bench. She was silent for a moment, and then she said, "You know that Blake and I went to prom together, right?"

"Yeah," I said. "You wouldn't shut up about it after regionals."

"It started out okay," she said. "He bought me dinner and flowers, and he played all of these lovely, romantic songs as we drove to the high school. He loved my dress - he said that it made me look like a beautiful purple butterfly emerging from a chrysalis." She laughed bitterly and then continued her story. "Most of my friends didn't go to prom, but I had Blake, and I thought that was enough. We danced together all night, and for a while, I thought that it was going to be a magical experience, just like prom always is in the movies."

"What happened next?" I asked.

"About halfway through the night, Blake asked if I wanted to go outside and get some fresh air. I said yes, so we left the gym and went outside. I thought that we were just going outside to get away from all of the people in the gym. At most, we would stay out there to cuddle and stargaze, but as soon as we got outside, he pinned me against a wall."

Madeline continued to speak, and the scariest part was that I could see it all happening. I saw him there, holding Madeline against the wall while he groped her. I heard Madeline's muffled cries, her pleading him to stop. There was Blake, playing with the zipper on her dress. Madeline, looking around in the darkness for someone, anyone to help her. Blake, whispering in her ear, "You know, most girls would kill for this sort of attention."

All of a sudden, there were sirens wailing, and Blake let go of Madeline as students rushed outside. Madeline bolted away from him, letting herself get lost in the crowd. When the students were allowed back into the school, she ran into a practice room and locked herself inside.

"If it wasn't for the fire alarm, I don't know if he would have ever stopped," Madeline said, tears falling down her face as she sat on a piano bench in the same practice room over a week later.

What were you supposed to say after something like that? There were no words that I could have said to comfort her, no words to express how revolted I was by what Blake had done, so I ended up asking, "What happened next?"

"One of the girls who plays the cello with me in orchestra found me in the practice room, and she asked if I was okay," Madeline said. "I lied and said that my date had ditched me. She offered to drive me home, and I accepted. I didn't tell her that I was too afraid to go home with Blake. I was scared of what he might try to do.

"Anyways, I can't stand being in this building longer than I have to. Every time I walk through the high school, I have these awful flashbacks from prom night. It just won't stop playing in my mind, over and over again. I'd cut class, but my parents would kill me for it. The practice room is the only place that feels safe. That's why I haven't been coming to Quiz Bowl, Dani. I have to go home right away, or I'll lose my mind."

She was crying again. "Madeline, this is horrible, but you should do something about it," I said. "You could call the police on Blake for this."

"Yeah, and then I'd have to tell this whole story all over again," Madeline said. "It's not like I already have to relive it every day at school."

I considered pulling out my phone and calling the police right then and there, but I didn't want to betray Madeline. I had already promised her not to tell anyone. "You have to do something though," I said.

"I'm just going to move on and forget that this ever happened," Madeline said.

I wanted to argue, but just as I was about to open my mouth, she picked up her cello and looked straight at me, as if she was daring me to leave. Then, she started playing through some scales, and I left the practice room. "I'm sorry," I said to her, but somehow, it didn't seem like enough.

I shut the door, and Madeline and I never spoke to each other again. There were a million emotions coursing through my veins: anger, fear, empathy, hopelessness, soul-crushing despair, but more than anything, I hated Blake. It was far easier than it should have been to reconcile the Blake that I knew, the friend who had introduced me to Weezer and brought me a cake on my birthday, with the boy who had assaulted Madeline on prom night. It disgusted me that I had ever been friends with him, but at the same time, memories kept popping up of all of the good times that we had shared. I did everything that I could to push those thoughts out of my head, to forget that I had even known Blake Pinkerton before Madeline told me about him. It would have been easier if he was just some faceless creep instead of someone I had thought of as a friend.

I went through the rest of my day, hardly able to focus. When I finally got home, I crashed onto my bed, but the room was filled with reminders of my friendship with Blake. As I saw all of the memories pinned up on the wall, evidence of a past that I would rather forget, I was suddenly filled with a desire to destroy it all. I wanted nothing more than to purge my life of all traces of Blake.

I leaped up from the bed, and I tore every single one of those pictures down, ripping them into shreds. I then dug through my dresser, and I found even more photos: memories of Blake and I eating ice cream at his house, Blake and I at a carnival, Blake and I playing our first Love Martyrs show. I pulled all of them into pieces and then tossed them in the trash.

However, there were even more traces of Blake. I found a pair of headphones that Blake had given me for my fourteenth birthday, a T-shirt that Blake had bought for me on one of our shopping trips, and a favor from a party that we had gone to together. I got rid of all of them, along with anything else that reminded me of Blake. Before long, almost my entire room was bare. The only thing I kept was the maneki neko: it reminded me more of Japan than Blake, and I needed the protection from evil spirits more than ever.

My bass was still sitting next to my dresser, and when I opened up the instrument case, I realized that I needed to leave the Love Martyrs. I couldn't be in Blake's band anymore, not when I knew what he had done to Madeline. Besides, if Madeline couldn't bring herself to call the police on him, then I could at least prove a point by quitting the band.

The perfect opportunity came when Blake suddenly texted me, "Hey, do you want to practice tomorrow?"

"No," I replied. "I'm quitting the band."

"Why?" Blake asked.

"You know what you did," I wrote.

"I don't know what you're talking about, Dani."

I was sure he was lying, so I didn't reply. He texted me constantly, asking me again and again if I was going to practice with him, but I simply turned off my phone. Then, I picked up my bass and smashed it against the ground, watching as it splintered into a million tiny pieces. There was no turning back now.

Every token of my friendship with Blake was gone, but something still felt wrong. I walked up to the mirror in my bedroom, and I realized that it was my hair. Blake was the one who had convinced me to dye it blue, and all of a sudden, I hated the look. How had I let Blake do this to me? How had he weaseled himself into my life like this, taking over until there was nothing left?

I picked up a pair of scissors, and I cut my hair, snipping away every piece of blue. When I was done, my hair was choppy and uneven, but it was better than being reminded of Blake every time I saw my reflection in the mirror. I've grown my hair out a little bit now, but I've never gone back to blue.

I turned my phone on again later, and I saw that I had a million texts from Blake. Most of them were reminding me that we had a concert that weekend, but I already knew that I wasn't going. How could I? I didn't even have a bass anymore.

The school week went on, but it wasn't quite the same without Quiz Bowl. I still sat with Tanner and Devon and all of Madeline's old friends every day at lunch, but Madeline never joined us. Occasionally, we passed each other in the hallway, but we didn't acknowledge each other. I left her alone, keeping her darkest secret stored up inside, and in return, she did the same for me. As far as I knew, she was spending every spare minute in the practice room, fighting back her memories with a bow and a folder full of sheet music.

The weekend came, and I didn't go to the Love Martyrs concert. Blake played on his own while I stayed home, locked up in my room. I spent some time alone, re-reading The Lord of the Rings trilogy and creating D&D characters that I would never play. Anything seemed better than thinking about what Blake had done.

I knew that I should have blocked Blake's number, but for some reason that even I didn't quite understand, I kept letting his texts flow in. Most of the time, I ignored them, but sometimes, he told me something interesting. At one point, he texted me, "Madeline broke up with me!", followed by a crying emoji. I didn't know how to feel about that. I was glad that Madeline had gotten out of the relationship, but what would he do now? Would he just do the same thing to some other girl?

After weeks of texting me constantly, Blake realized that I wasn't going to reply, no matter what he said, so he stopped. Not long after he stopped texting me, he posted a long message on the Love Martyrs website, explaining I had left the band, and that we were breaking up. Just like that, the Love Martyrs were over.

Most people didn't seem to care, but there were fangirls posting all over Blake's social media accounts, begging him to play again. By that point, I had deleted all of my accounts - there were too many painful memories there - but I'm not sure that the fans would have turned to me after the breakup anyways.

Only a few days after the breakup, a post from a girl in Japan changed everything.

My name is Keiko Tamaki. To be honest, I am pleased that the Love Martyrs have broken up. A few months ago, I wrote a letter to Blake Pinkerton. I am fourteen years old, but I told him I was eighteen years old. That's because that's how old he is, and I wanted him to think I was cool. My letter was an innocent letter asking about his favorite food, hobbies, and birthday. This is how he answered.

Then, she posted a picture of Blake's letter. I won't rewrite the letter here, as it still sickens me to this day, but I had seen him trying to write it, back when we were still friends. It was far too easy to believe that the letter that Keiko had posted, with its questions about how she touched herself and others that were so much worse, was the final product.

Blake said over and over again to anyone who would listen that Keiko was lying, and that she had written that letter herself. However, most of our fans sided with her. A few other girls posted similar letters that they had received from Blake, proving that Keiko was far from the only girl who had gotten a creepy letter from Blake Pinkerton. Before long, the Love Martyrs' fan base had disappeared. Nobody in the music industry wanted to be associated with our once promising young band - Blake's career was gone overnight. I only managed to get out unscathed by pretending that I had never been in the band in the first place.

I don't know what happened to Blake after Keiko posted that letter, and honestly, it scares me to think about. My best guess is that he returned to meaningless sex, repeating the same three chords on his guitar endlessly for girls who believed him over Keiko Tamaki, but maybe what he did to Madeline turned him into a monster. I should have just called the police on him while I had the chance. I don't know how he ended up in Florida, or what drove him to get the Love Martyrs back together after all these years. Sometimes, I wonder if I ever knew anything about Blake at all.

In the end, I only have my side of the story. I don't know what happened to Blake or Madeline or anyone else after I stopped being friends with them, but I remember what happened to me. I remember walking through the music hallway on the last day of school, and I remember seeing Madeline enter a practice room with her cello. Our eyes met, and for a moment, we were two broken souls, tied together by a secret tragedy. Then, she ducked into the practice room, desperate to get away from the memories that were haunting her, leaving me alone in the middle of the hallway. All of a sudden, I was lonely, friendless, and afraid, just like I was before I met Blake. He had taken everything from me, and now I was left to pick up the pieces, to figure out who I was if I wasn't his butterfly.