Twenty-two.

I slammed my palms on the glass, but they didn’t leave any smudges or prints. The me on the other side didn’t raise a finger. She smiled, that warm, fake, sickly smile. I was cold all over. I could see my breath in front of me. Everything was so dark…

“Stay put,” she mouthed, words absent and lost on the other side of the mirror. But I knew them well. She always said those words. I balled my hands into fists and hit the glass with the full swing of my arms. It rumbled and failed to crack. Tears dripped down my cheeks.

I watched her walk away, the Jamie behind the mirror, free on the other side. Straight in front of me, across the hallway, was another mirror, staring back at me. But there was no girl in this reflection. I dragged my fingernails along the glass, but it made no sound. I screamed, but no one could hear it.

For the first time in a long time, I threw up. I hovered my head over the rim of the toilet, still lost in a senseless, sleeping delirium. Everything felt like the dream was only a tug away. At any point, it could pull me back in. I threw up again.

“Jay?”

“Mmm…”

“You okay?” I heard from the other side of the bathroom door.

“Mmm. Yeah.”

“Want breakfast?”

“No thanks,” I mumbled, fighting to keep my eyes open. Was it morning? Had I fallen asleep again? I flushed the toilet and pulled myself to my feet. On my way to the sink, I avoided looking in the mirror. I splashed water on my face. It wasn’t helping.

“You sick?” Mom asked when I got out of the bathroom.

“Seems so,” I sighed and fell into my chair at the kitchen table.

“Want to stay home?”

I shook my head.

“You sure?”

“I’ll feel better when I get to school,” I told her. I’d feel better when I got to Biology.

Sure enough, the second I saw that bright smile, those beautiful milky brown eyes, it was like last night had never happened. Madison Bell was a dream herself, one that beat out the badness of even the worst nightmares. She was reality’s reciprocal to the imaginary. She was serenity.

“Okay, so,” Madison started, “I have this paper due on Wednesday, and I thought instead of writing up a draft and messing it up a hundred times, I’d just come to you right away! So here I am. I was thinking, dinner tonight? We can go over an outline. And we can go anywhere you want - my treat - to pay you back. Sounds good, right? I thought so.”

“Yeah, yeah. Whatever excuse you need to buy me more food, right?” She was in a good mood today, wasn’t she? Madison had taken to sitting at the desk right beside mine. Ellen’s desk, to be specific, which irritated her to no end. But that was the thing about Madison: you just couldn’t stay mad at her. I knew firsthand. So Ellen started sitting in the seat in front of her old one - an empty one - and Madison permanently moved in.

“I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.” Madison tried to hide a smile. I rolled my eyes.

“What about lunch?” she went on. “You gonna be in the Writing Workshop?”

“Probably.”

“Okay I’ll see you there too, and I’ll bring some M&Ms or something.”

Ever the child. But since my Christmas money had started to dwindle, lunch had become an ‘every once in a while’ thing, rather than an ‘everyday’ thing. I hated to think of myself as taking advantage of Madison, but with how much money she spent on me… well, it was hard not to draw a comparison.

At lunch, Madison brought candy bars and M&Ms. I wondered if, left to her own devices, she would eat nothing but junk food. I opted out of her M&Ms.

“You aren’t going to eat?” she asked. “You didn’t have breakfast, did you?”

I shrugged, reading over one of the papers I was editing for an author on the east coast. He published a book last year. I loved editing his drafts.

“What’s up? Everything okay?” When I didn’t answer, Madison poured the whole pack of M&Ms over the paper I was reading. They clattered together and distracted me away from the print. I sighed.

“You buy me too much stuff.”

“That’s what you’re worried about?” she asked. “I don’t buy you anything. My parents do. And you don’t even like them, do you?”

“Not exceptionally,” I admitted.

“So let’s just spend all their money together.”

Together. I liked that. So I ate an M&M.

“There we go!” Madison smiled like an angel, like she looked wrong without a halo. After a minute of quiet admiration, I decided to turn the tables on her line of questioning. If we were going to get personal…

“So why can’t I come over during your Little Days?”

“We are at school,” she said with a sour tone, but I watched color filling up her cheeks. “Can’t we talk about this later?”

“We’re alone.” No one ever came into the Writing Workshop during lunch. Well, with the exception of present company. “And I want to talk about it. I’ve babied you before.”

“Jamie!” She gave me a hard look. That was something entirely new. Madison never used to show frustration, not unless she was pushed to it. I was finally seeing all these new sides to her, all these new angles, new corners, new colors. It was starting to paint a fuller picture of the honest truth: I was absolutely smitten with this girl.

“There’s nothing to be embarrassed about.”

“Like hell,” she said flatly, coloring herself with a darker shade of pink. Wow, Madison blushing…

“We talked about this,” I reminded her. “It makes you happy. It helps you when your thoughts are all over the place. And it’s cute!”

“I think you are mixing up the definition of cute with weird.” She stuffed her face with a Snicker’s bar. How is that not cute?! How could she even deny it?

“It’s weird, but in a cute Madison-esque way. Like. Uniquely you. And I liked it. Taking care of you. Isn’t that what being little is all about? Being safe and cared for?”

Madison didn’t have an answer for me, but I didn’t need one. I already had an answer. She just stared at the table between us, drawing with her index finger in some imaginary coloring book.

“So you like it. I like it. What’s the problem then?”

And then Madison said something I really didn’t expect. Her tone was quiet, nearly a whisper, and her eyes wouldn’t look up at me.

“It’s not your job to take care of me.”

Well, she had a point, didn’t she? It wasn’t my job to take care of her. It was her mom’s job, or her dad’s job. But they weren’t doing a very good job at all. Was I just filling in? No, that wasn’t it. I liked to see her lips turn up the right way. I liked to watch the shimmer in her eyes reflect off the insides of her glasses. I liked to make her heart fill up all warm and soft. I loved it. I loved making her feel exactly the same way she made me feel every single day.

“It’s not my job,” I admitted. “It’s my pleasure.”