30 | Alliances

Sunday, February 11, 2018

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Insanity:

Having a sleepover an hour away from 10 PM on Thursday to 7 AM on Friday.

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            Yara left earlier that week, and I was sad to see her go. She had brought an innocent light to the apartment—free of the drama and issues that wracked us for most of the time.

            Speaking of which.

            Since the beginning of the semester, Paige and Madison had started to become remarkably close. It was a strange thing for the rest of us to witness, seeing as Paige had strongly disliked Madison for the majority of our Fall semester. It was also strange because, well...Madison made it strange. (1)

            There had been a few times in the past week alone where I would be sitting on the couch in the living room with Ashley and Madison—not speaking to Madison, naturally, after everything that had happened on the previous Sunday. The front door would open, and Madison's head would whip around to see who was walking in the apartment. On the off chance that the person walking in was Paige, Madison would jump up off of the couch, shout "Paige!" at the top of her lungs, and spring to bury the other girl in the biggest hug that her bony frame could muster.

            Ashley and I had considered doing the same thing when one of us got home to mock the two, but we couldn't force ourselves to do it. The act itself was just so strange and remarkably embarrassing, and we couldn't do it even for the sake of mockery. (2)

            On Monday night, Paige had called a meeting with the entire apartment to establish a 'ten o'clock quiet rule' for the apartment. Evidently, Ashley and I were far too loud late at night and were keeping Paige from being able to sleep when we played music out loud past 10:00. We agreed, seeing as the apartment should have been a comfortable and safe place for everyone, (3) even if 10:00 was an absurdly early time to demand absolute silence in a college dorm.

            Ironically, the Wednesday after this rule was established, I was taking full advantage of it by going to bed early so I could wake up early the next morning to take an exam. It was close to 10:45 and I was just beginning to fall asleep when the front door to the apartment opened and closed loudly, accompanied by two voices screaming at the top of their lungs.

            I had rolled out of bed after about five minutes of trying to fall asleep through the noise and walked into the hallway to see Paige and Madison standing directly outside of my bedroom door, exchanging loud stories about their evenings.

            I wasn't going to be that roommate who got angry over people talking before 11:00 PM. But as I walked back to my bed and climbed in, wrapping the pillow around my head, I couldn't help but note the irony.

            Thursday night brought about another strange occurrence: one o'clock in the morning arrived without Madison coming home, and I walked into Ashley's room in confusion—the girl was usually home before midnight, since she was such a stickler for the curfew imposed by Legered University's on-campus housing.

            "Hey Ash, any idea where Madison is? If she was kidnapped, I'm torn between being worried and grateful." (4)

            Ashley laughed, looking up from the book she was reading.

            "I'm not sure, honestly. I don't think that she's been home all night."

            I raised my eyebrows, nodding slightly before returning to my room. It worried me, going to bed before Madison. I didn't exactly trust her to not murder me in my sleep.

            On Friday morning I had woken up to Madison entering the room, completely dressed for the day and wheeling a tiny suitcase behind her. The door to our bedroom was open and Paige was walking past, with a large duffel bag slung over her shoulder.

            "Are you just now getting home?" I asked groggily, checking the time on my phone. 7:43 AM.

            "Yeah. I have to make it to my 8 AM class." Madison replied, grabbing her backpack off of the ground beside her desk and slinging it over her shoulder, "Paige and I stayed the night at her family's house in Payson."

            I nodded slowly, my brain still trying to register why she and Paige would have had a sleepover on a random Thursday night instead of a weekend like normal people.

            "Oh, fun."

            "It was, actually." Madison replied, looking down her nose at me. "Sorry, she only wanted me there."

            I held back a laugh.

            "I think I'll get over it." (5)

            I rolled over to face the wall and went back to sleep. I didn't have to be up for another half hour, and I didn't feel like speaking to Madison for another second if I could help it at all.

            Today was Sunday, and I was more than happy to spend my time after church sitting on my bed and getting some writing done. I had been severely slacking on the novel I had been writing on the side, separate from all of the Creative Writing homework that seemed to be piling up around me. (6)

            Church had been different. I was still refusing to spend any time with Madison if I could help it and figured the only reason I had spoken to her on Friday morning had been because I was half-asleep. Ashley and I had gone to church separately from the rest of the apartment, sneaking out five minutes before we usually left so that no one would notice and attack us for excluding them. We sat far away from everyone else that day, and it was one of the most rewarding things I had ever done.

            Church wasn't supposed to be filled with hate. (7) Sitting with Madison would have made it far more difficult for me to feel anything remotely spiritual.

            Writing made things easier, though. So, coming home from church and just writing as much as I could was one way for me to feel as if I were doing something worthwhile instead of harping over the fact that a mean girl called me a slut.

            After all, as Paige so lovingly put it, I should just...not get offended by it.

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Theory:

I think they just...wanted to flex?

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(1) Madison made everything strange, though.

(2) Side story, because I forgot to include this in the book: at one point, both Ashely and Paige were dating guys named Josh, and Madison felt it was her personal duty to greet Paige's Josh whenever he was at the apartment. One night, Paige walked back in the hallway and said something about Josh, and Madison jumped out of bed, ran into the living room, and screamed "Josh!" at the top of her lungs. Ashley and I never did it, but we were dying to get Ashley's Josh to come over and tell Madison that "Josh is here!" and watch her run into the living room and embarrass herself. I really wish we had done it.

(3) (this is me laughing right now)

(4) That is a fat lie. I would have been grateful.

(5) I also didn't ask.

(6) I say this as if I actually did the readings. What ended up happening was that I didn't do the readings for the quizzes we had, and while I was frantically searching the books for answers during the quiz, Neil would roll his eyes and begrudgingly tell me the page number to find the answers. I think he felt bad for me. He was also definitely exasperated with the fact that I didn't do any of the readings. That's why he ended up with a 104% in the class and I only got 102%.

(7) One of my friends mentioned something insightful today: "Christianity is incompatible with intolerance." I kind of want to fish Madison's number out of the depths of my contacts and send that to her.