Never Fair

Who: Maddy
Where: Around Town/Hill Street Theater
When: Morning

Pepper’s ‘funeral’ was uneventful. No one was sure if they had anything to say so the group ended up just standing around under the winter-bare elm tree staring into space. Contemplating their humanity and mortality and how it was just an inevitable fact that they’d all slowly die off.

Maddy stood with Roy and Ethan, quiet, for once, and solemn. She was too drained to say anything and she was resolutely not crying because dammit, she was sick of crying and Pepper would be pretty annoyed with her if Maddy kept on with the whole thing. So she ended up just staring at Pepper's cross that Roy hammered into the ground between the graves of Maddy's parents. That sent her thoughts drifting to where Jack was. If he missed her. If he was okay. Why hadn't he come to look for her.

She took brief note of the other faces that had shown up. A few of Dodge's boys came, looking melancholy and very small but Dodge himself was nowhere to be found and Maddy wasn't quite sure if she should feel upset over that or relief. Upset that he didn't show up; Pepper was his friend too. Relief because she wouldn't have to see him after everything, and relief that chances for a fight weren't there any more.

Her thoughts after that drifted to the orphanage. Kids died every winter. Maddy herself had been on the cusp more than a few times when she was younger, but there were never any funerals. Something about morale, maybe. Children didn't need to always attend the funerals of their friends. How lucky did that make her? That she'd dodged death so many times. It could've just as easily have been her that the group was gathered for. If she didn't live where she did, how easy it would be for someone to come and take her in the night like Pepper.

Eventually, the group disbanded and Maddy headed off with a promise that she'd be back at Roy's that evening, she just had things to do.

Really, she just wanted to be alone for awhile.

She ended up going back to the theater first. People were gathered in the theater to continue work on the sets and Maddy bypassed them to head up to the attic which is where she found two of Dodge's boys waiting for her. At first, Maddy got nervous but they smiled and said that Dodge had got her something and Maddy opened her door and let them put their bundles down before they scampered away. "What the hell?" she muttered when she took all of it in. Pallets of paint, new brushes, a box of charcoal, water colors, two rolls of canvas. Maddy sat there in stunned silence for awhile, just staring at everything and wondering where the hell he had gotten it all. She hadn't grabbed a paper that day, so for all she knew, there'd be an article about a break in to an art supplies store. Pawing through the rest of the wares, she found a long, narrow jewelry box with an envelope attached to it.

Oh, this was not fair. This was not fair at all.

The necklace in the box had to be stolen. This all had to be stolen because no way did a street kid pawn enough things to afford all that paint supplies, let alone the pretty necklace in the box. It had her feeling sick, her stomach in knots as she carefully opened up the letter and read the note.

Maddy promised herself she wouldn't cry and she didn't. Her hands weren't even shaking as she looked at all the words that she ever wanted to hear from him. Somethings weren't addressed, which bothered her, but others were so it wasn't as bad. He seemed to have gotten most of the point she had been trying to make the day before.

It still wasn't fair though. He wasn't allowed to do this. He wasn't allowed to buy her things and beg forgiveness or ask for her help or tell her she was the best thing. Not after everything he did. Not after how hard it was to tell him what she did. She was still so angry with him. He'd treated her horribly, he'd blown her emotions to bits and when she thought back on the past two weeks, she felt filthy and weak and Maddy hated it.

She hid the necklace under one of the floor boards with the letter and shoved the board back down and piled a box of old playbills over it in the corner of the attic. Dodge wasn't allowed to do this. He wasn't.

Why wasn't anything ever fair?