Make Me Bad(33)

Like right now, I’m in the break room at the library eating a ham and cheese sandwich on a warm baguette. It’s delicious. Eli is sitting across the table regaling me with stories from a trivia night he went to with Kevin and some of their couple friends. I’m genuinely entertained. I’m not at all bitter that I was not invited because I do not qualify as a couple. I’m just Madison, party of one.

Mrs. Allen has tried her hand at baking again and there’s a nice deflated thing sitting on the break room counter, waiting for us to devour it. It could be a cheesecake or it could be a door stopper. Either way, yum.

Katy (my glorious intern, Katy!), has arrived at work nearly on time all week and has even kind of listened when I’ve given her tasks. Sure, yesterday I found her sexting with her boyfriend down in the storage room (I know because she bragged about it), but that’s nothing a quick Clorox wipe to my brain can’t take care of.

Things are looking very good. My tattoo is healing surprisingly well, and even if that’s the craziest thing I do before my 26th birthday rolls around, I’ve decided I’m still calling this year a win.

I’m a wild child.

A rebel without a cause.

Ben Shmen, if you ask me.

A phone somewhere in the Western Hemisphere vibrates and I lurch forward to check my screen as if my life depends on it.

Eli notices. “Are you still hoping he’ll text you?”

I decide to throw him off my scent by seeming overly confused. “To whom are you referring?”

Eli knows everything. He knows I snuck off with Ben at the party, knows I slipped out of my panties in response to a dare he delivered. He knows that while I was getting a tattoo permanently inked onto my skin, Ben was cradling my palm and permanently inscribing doodles onto my soul. He knows I pushed Ben to set me up with Andy as a way to make it seem like I wasn’t a total loser. I have options. See?! Maybe your friend wants me. God, it’s so pathetic I want to let my face fall onto my sandwich. I’m really not good at this stuff.

“Look at me,” Eli insists.

I look at his shirt.

“Look at me.”

I glance at a point on the wall just over his shoulder, eyes narrowed.

“Madison, look at me.”

I finally force myself to meet his gaze and it’s just as I feared: intense. He looks like my dad when he’s about to impart some wisdom to me. Oh god, he even puts down his Cheeto. This must be serious.

“Please don’t fall for Ben. I don’t want to be harsh, but I feel like you need to hear the truth. He’s not the guy for you, Maddie.” A knife thrusts itself right into my stomach—a rusty one with a dull blade. “You need someone less…I don’t know. Someone a little bit more attainable, you know?” He bends his head to try to catch my eye because the second he spoke my gaze jerked down to the table. He reaches out for my hand. “It’s better if you two just stay friends. C’mon…Ben Rosenberg? That’s not the guy you want for your first time. Believe me. Need I remind you about Patrick?”

I shake my head. “No, you’re right. Jesus, did you have to say it that way though?”

“It’s better, I swear, like ripping off a Band-Aid. I could have totally tiptoed around it and built up your hopes about him, but then what? You don’t need someone telling you to go for it with a guy like him. That has disaster and heartbreak written all over it.”

“I know.”

They’re the only words I can muster because there are tears burning the corners of my eyes and my throat is closing up tight.

I hate that Eli is right about this.

I hate that I’m such a cliché. How many of us are out there roaming the earth waiting for Ben Rosenberg to text us? We should form a support group. Make t-shirts. Cry on each other’s shoulders while we stare lovingly at life-size cutouts of him.

I should feel embarrassed to be a card-carrying member of this group, but I’m not. Maybe it’s okay to be a cliché, to reach for something that might be unattainable. I know how it feels to have lived twenty-five years with a safety net. I know how it feels to stand on the sidelines and watch other, seemingly more deserving girls get the guy.

The whole point of my birthday wish was that I want this year to be different. The funny thing is, if someone asked me now, in this moment, if I would proceed forward knowing there’s a good chance Ben will ruin me, ruin my life, leave me heartbroken and sad, I’d still press down on the gas and take the leap, if only to see what happens.

Who cares if I go SPLAT against the ground? I have the rest of my life to recover. I’ll be old and weary, rocking back and forth on my front porch, dreaming of the time I almost, nearly got Ben Rosenberg. And yes, even in old age, I’ll still be wearing the support group t-shirt, threadbare and all.





It’s Saturday and Ben is scheduled to volunteer this morning. I hardly slept, I was so anxious to see him again. I hop out of bed with so much enthusiasm I’m liable to break out in song. I put on a long-sleeved white sweater dress and my brown leather boots. I tell myself I’m not really doing my hair, just curling it a little. This makeup is really what I normally do for any ol’ workday, just…jazzed up a little. It’s Saturday, after all! Everyone wants to feel pretty on Saturdays!

I’m in the auditorium setting up for toddler story time when I hear the door open behind me. The library doesn’t open for another hour. It could be Lenny, the security guard, checking in on me, but he prefers to keep to himself. He’s into watching sports on a little TV at his desk. Sometimes, when his team surges ahead from behind, his whoop of joy carries through the whole building.