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Cassie Howard was everywhere.
Maddy had just wanted to go home after seeing her exes hold hands and kiss all over the hallways, like she used to do with Nate and had always wanted to do with Cassie, though they had been too afraid to be public about their relationship.
But there was no escaping it. As soon as she stepped into her room, that blonde hair caught her eye.
A picture board on the wall, with polaroids of the two of them. Maddy stepped up to it, observing the pictures.
In one, they were twelve. It was Cassie's birthday, and the two of them and Lexi were sitting at the table. Cassie was blowing out the candles. In another, they were fourteen and had their arm around each other as Lexi took the picture. She had also taken the one beside it, where they were fifteen and curled up together on the couch, a blanket over them.
And in another, Maddy was sixteen and Cassie was still fifteen, and she was kissing the blonde's cheek, with a background of some amusement park they had gone to with their friends out in the city. Kat had taken it.
She couldn't look at any more, but she knew that she had the same lovesick expression in all of them.
For that bitch Cassie Howard, who had made Maddy fall in love with her and then done the one thing that would hurt her the most.
And she had loved her back, worshiped her, but was too insecure to stay.
In one swift motion, Maddy grabbed a hold of the picture of her kissing Cassie's cheek and ripped it down. Then, she did so to the rest of them, and smashed the poster board on the floor for good measure.
And then she screamed into her pillow until her throat was raw.
In another household, these sounds coming from her bedroom might have been a cause for concern, but her mother was slaving away at work and her father was passed out on the couch. There was no one to comfort her.
She lay there for a long time, watching her phone, waiting for it to vibrate, waiting for someone to remember that she existed.
With a sigh, she picked it up, opening her photos just to make herself suffer.
So many pictures of Cassie. Too many. She began to delete them, one by one.
Eventually, Maddy scrolled through her private folder, the one that required a password. And there they were, the other kinds of pictures she had of her. There was Cassie, sprawled on her back, her fingers in her mouth, with nothing on but a fully unbuttoned shirt and a simple gold necklace.
She looked like a pornstar. She looked like a whore, which was exactly what she was.
In most of the pictures she had sent, her face had been out of it, she was smart enough for that. But not these.
A cruel thought passed over Maddy's mind. Cassie had left her face in out of trust. And she had broken Maddy's trust. She didn't owe that slut anything.
But no, she was eighteen and the charges of child pornography would surely come for her. And that wasn't how she played her game, anyway.
But Maddy was going to get her revenge. On Nate. On that devil in angel's disguise she had once called her best friend.
"There's a party tonight," she suggested innocently to Jules and Kat the next morning by their lockers. "We should stop by."
"Oh, we kind of have plans," Jules said apologetically. "We're going on a double date," Kat explained. "With Rue and Ethan."
And she hadn't been invited. Because she was single and alone.
"Going to a party by myself is pathetic," Maddy complained.
"Bring Lexi," Kat said with a shrug.
It wasn't hard to convince Lexi to go with her, not when she promised to do her makeup for her.
"You're doing well," Lexi said carefully. "After everything with Cassie and Nate."
Maddy sighed, gently touching the eyeliner pen against the edge of the younger girl's lid. "I'm better off without them," she murmured. "Nate is an overall shitty person. Cassie is way too unstable to see anyone other then herself."
"She loved you," Lexi said, making her pause. "I know it doesn't mean much now, but she really did love you."
Maddy stood up, stepping back to admire her handiwork. "You look gorgeous," she said. "Now let's go."
She knew Cassie was going to be at that party. The host was Nate's friend, meaning he was going, which meant an opportunity to show off his shiny new trophy. She just hoped he would let her out of his sight.
Then again, she knew he tended to forget whether or not he had a girlfriend after a few shots.
Maddy mingled for about fifteen minutes, making conversation with some girls she knew, letting their boyfriends flirt with her but distancing herself when they started to use their hands instead of their words.
She lost Lexi somewhere near the living room, where she went to talk to Rue's dealer who's name she couldn't remember, but who was apparently her boyfriend. Usually a sixteen year old with a twenty year old would seem strange and a little bit wrong, but it was quite clear the amount of marijuana the man smoked had killed any brain cells he might use to take advantage of the teenager.
Maddy was standing near the bathroom when she was almost beginning to think that Cassie hadn't come after all. But speak (or think) of the devil because then she appeared, walking down the hallway in a skin tight blue dress which hiked up her thighs as the neckline almost touched them, the kind you wore when you were really everyone's girlfriend.
It was so painfully obvious that Nate had dressed her.
Before Cassie could even react, Maddy had grabbed her by the arm and pulled her into the bathroom and slammed the door shut, pushing against the knob and twisting it to lock it.
In an instant, her lips were on the pair of soft pink ones in front of her.
"Maddy- we can't," Cassie gasped, her lips flushed.
"Why not?" Maddy asked with a smirk, pressing her harder against the door.
"I'm Nate's girlfriend now," she said in an almost apologetic tone. "We're happy..."
"Happy?!" Maddy snarled. "You don't even know what happy is."
"He loves me!" Cassie shot back.
"I loved you!"
The two of them stood there in silence for a moment, staring at each other.
"Maddy," she started, in a soft voice. "I love you."
"Don’t say that," Maddy replied in a shaking voice.
"I’m sorry for how everything turned out, but I still do. I’ll always love you-"
"Don’t say that!" Maddy cried, hitting her fist against the door out of anger, two inches away from Cassie’s head. She didn’t flinch, and her blue eyes never wavered away from her own.
"I hate you," she said coldly. "I gave you everything, I treated you like a queen, and you still went and fucked Nate. Nothing is ever good enough for you."
Cassie didn’t reply, she just reached out and tucked a strand of Maddy’s black hair behind her ear. "I’m sorry," she said. "But… we couldn’t be together, we can’t-"
"Oh shut up," Maddy said. "I don’t want to hear your excuses. Not only did you cheat on me, you cheated on me with him. With the one person that you knew would hurt me the most."
"I wasn’t trying to hurt you! I can’t help who I fall in love with!"
"You’re not in love with him, and he’s not in love with you You’re in love with the idea of him, the perfect, rich, football boyfriend who gets you flowers everyday and buys you gifts."
"He does that because he loves me," Cassie said, but she was starting to sound unsure. "We’re happy together. You have to let this go."
Maddy barked out an angry laugh. "Let this go? You said you were going to be mine forever. And I think you meant that when you said it. But you couldn’t keep your promise because you were too weak, too insecure and pathetic to say no to a man!"
She had half expected Cassie to try and fight back, to insist that she was wrong, but instead, she began to cry, hanging her head and desperately wiping her eyes.
Maddy sighed. "Cass, come on, don’t cry."
She felt an apology at the tip of her tongue but she held it back. She didn’t owe that girl anything.
"You’re right," Cassie sobbed. "I am weak, and insecure, and pathetic. I didn’t betray you because I loved Nate. I don’t, not really. I wish I did because then this would feel like it was worth it, losing you."
"Why don’t you love him?" Maddy prompted.
"He controls everything about me. What I wear, what I eat, who I talk to, when we have sex. I let him at first because it made me feel loved, but now I hate it. I’m like his slave. I hate him so much."
"You hate Nate?" Maddy repeated, surprised she was admitting it.
"Yes."
"Well, I won’t say I told you so."
And she had. That fateful day when Rue had revealed the truth. When Cassie had locked herself in the bathroom. As her anger had transitioned to sadness, she’d tried to explain to her best friend and girlfriend what being in a relationship with Nate was like, and why she should stop when she had the chance.
As one could guess, her advice had been ignored.
"You were right," Cassie said tearfully. "About everything. I wish everyday I hadn’t betrayed you…"
"And why do you wish that?" Maddy asked. This was more satisfying then she had expected.
"Because I love you. I’ve always loved you, ever since we were kids. It’s always been you. If I could do it all over, I would have stayed with you, made our relationship public, never gotten entangled with Nate. Can you give me another chance?"
Maddy thought about that for a moment. "Get on your knees," she said quietly.
Cassie obediently sank to her knees, looking up at Maddy imploringly. "Please give me another chance," she begged. "Please. I love you, and only you. I’ll go break up with him right now, I promise."
It was a tempting offer, she had to admit. But Cassie was damaged goods now. Maddy would never be able to kiss her without tasting Nate, never be able to touch her without remembering that he had to.
"Go back to your boyfriend," she said. "You’ve already made your choice."
Later that night, as Maddy sank into her bed, she pulled out her phone, looking through it for any notifications before opening Instagram.
She’d posted a few hours earlier, a picture of her and Lexi in their outfits with their makeup done, about to leave for the party. Over two hundred likes, in the past few hours. She had a large following, of people in their grade, and the rest of the school, and even some from other schools.
Now, Maddy prepared for a second post that evening, one that would get far more attention then her previous.
Before the opened the posting format, she decided to watch over the video again, maybe edit it a little bit to make it shorter, as she knew her classmates did not have a very long attention span.
As she opened the file, Cassie’s voice, and her own played back at her.
"I am weak, and insecure, and pathetic. I didn’t betray you because I loved Nate. I don’t, not really."
"You hate Nate?"
"Yes."
"Get on your knees."
"Please give me another chance, please. I love you, and only you. I’ll go break up with him right now, I promise."
Maddy grinned. There was no need for more then an audio file. Everyone would know who the conversation was between.
She opened the posting format, but just as she was about to upload it, she had an idea. Just a little cherry on top.
Opening the tagged people category, she typed in Cassie and then Nate’s usernames.