Twenty-five.

I didn’t go home that night. It wasn’t safe to leave Madison on her own, but that wasn’t to say she was a burden. If it was up to me, I would have spent the night with her months ago. But this wasn’t like I’d imagined.

She didn’t sleep very much, not at first. She sat with her blanket pulled up to her neck and watched the little TV in the corner of her room with very little interest. I was starting to believe the TV was only on for my benefit, but I was paying attention to Madison. The television would glisten off her glasses, but her eyes wouldn’t respond to the light. Her thoughts had led her elsewhere, away from the TV, away from her room, away from me. I didn’t like that.

After a few hours, I went downstairs to get some water. Madison had to come with me, much to her displeasure. That’s when I realized her parents weren’t home. I checked my phone. 11:25. The night before their daughter’s birthday? Assholes.

“Hungry?” I asked.

She shook her head. Great…

When we got back to Madison’s room, I knew that I had to take a stronger approach to this. With me at her side, I knew Madison was safe. But she needed to sleep. She needed to eat.

“Where are your sippy cups?” I asked.

“Huh?”

“I know you have some, so where are they?”

Madison stared at me with parted lips, like she was ready to argue. Like she had something to say. But whatever words she was trying to push past her tongue were just too heavy. Exhausted, she gave up. She pointed at her dresser. Bottom drawer.

I spent a lot of time online looking up little stuff over the past few weeks, so I was prepared for what I found. The websites left me with a ton of questions, but one look in Madison’s dresser drawer answered most of them. I fully expected Madison to be blushing when I turned back around, but she wasn’t. She was sitting on the end of the bed again, pretending to watch the TV. She didn’t seem to care at all, actually.

Well, that’s not a good sign.

“Come on, we’re going back downstairs.”

I led her around by the wrist, down the stairs, to the kitchen, until I filled her cup with chocolate milk. Then I pulled her right back up toward her room. The clock on her beside said 11:40. I had to get this girl to sleep before midnight. If this was how she acted in preparation for her birthday, I couldn’t even imagine what it would be like tomorrow.

With the sippy cup in hand, I tried to pull Madison down into my lap. She stubbornly refused.

“I can do it myself,” she said flatly, almost annoyed, like if annoyed had less energy.

“I’m sure you can, Maddie.” The nickname was new. I had come up with it on the spot, and it tasted strange in my mouth. But Madison seemed to have opted out of arguing. I helped her down on my lap, so her head was against the waistband of my jeans, and put the sippy cup between her lips.

At first, it seemed like she wasn’t interested at all. She sipped at the spout until a quarter of the milk was gone. I ran my fingers across her forehead, in her hair, and I watched her eyes slip shut.

“Shh… it’ll be okay. Everything’s okay.”

I couldn’t be sure, but it felt like her sipping had gotten softer. I curled my fingers in the tips of her hair. When she opened her eyes again, they found their way to the TV. Her eyes seemed to focus through her glasses, up at the flashing screen. She was paying attention to the television, or at least trying to. I tilted the cup a little so she could see better.

The milk was gone a lot faster than I expected, but I kept her head on my lap all the same. I hummed a quiet song, a song I knew Madison probably wouldn’t know the words to.

It was 12:15 when Madison Bell fell asleep on my lap. I didn’t dare move.

Finally, the weight of the day could come crashing down over me. Exhaustion built up in my shoulders and in my temples. I had to close my eyes. We had school in six hours, but sleep took me in less than six minutes.

“Rise and shine sleepyhead!”

Madison pulled the covers off the bed. I groaned.

“You’re going to be late for school.”

Why was she so damn chipper? Wasn’t it her birthday or something? I sat upright and pushed my palms into my eyes. Everything about this day told me to go back to sleep.

“Let’s stay home,” I said, reaching out to grab Madison’s hand to pull her back into bed with me. She was a half-step too far away.

“Let’s not.”

“You can’t honestly want to go to school today,” I mumbled, searching around for a blanket. I’d slept in my jeans. It would have been uncomfortable if I hadn’t of crashed so quickly.

“I do, actually.” She smiled, but it wasn’t one of her real smiles. “I could use some distraction.”

I couldn’t argue with that, could I? I looked her up and down - a sundress and a warm cardigan. She was already dressed.

“You’re not hurt, right?” As in, she hadn’t hurt herself since she’d woken up. But she shook her head.

“I’m okay. I just need to act normal to feel normal.”

I sighed. “Alright, I’m up.”

We were in the car on the way to school. I had never driven Madison to school before; I’d only driven her home. I thought a morning with Madison would be great: a sunny start to the dreary tedium of academia. But today I was worried.

“You’ll text me if you need anything?” I asked her. “I don’t like leaving you alone right now.”

“You’re worrying too much,” she dismissed.

“But you will, right? Text me? And you’ll eat lunch with me, too?”

“Sure,” she said.

“And you’ll be safe?”

“I’ll be safe.”

We had parked in the school lot before she said:

“Don’t tell anyone, okay?”

“About your arms?”

She shook her head; she wasn’t worried about that. She was more worried about the day of the year.

“I won’t tell anyone,” I promised.

“Thanks.”

I wanted to wish Madison a happy birthday. I wanted to tell her she was just as cute as she was yesterday. I wanted to tell her that tomorrow and for another three hundred sixty four days she’d be seventeen. Stopped in time. But I thought, maybe, telling her those things counted as telling somebody. She just wanted to get through school without anyone saying the word birthday.

I texted Madison in every class and passed her notes in Biology. I asked if she was okay so much I swear I was annoying her. But she didn’t act like it. She wasn’t acting like much of anything, actually. But whenever she had to talk to someone, I got a fresh glimpse of the past. Madison, before I got to know her. Madison, chipper and bright and radiant. Madison, false. How had I been so oblivious before? How were her friends - my peers - so oblivious now?

At lunch, Madison and I ate in the Writing Workshop. I liked the privacy. I wasn’t a huge fan of other people in a general sense. Other than with Polly, I think I could only be described as amicable. That didn’t mean Polly and Madison were my only friends - they weren’t - but they were the only important ones.

“I wanted to buy you a gift,” I told Madison as she picked the wrapper off a Starburst. She hadn’t been eating them, just playing with the wrappers.

“I don’t want a gift.” Her answer was sharp and quiet. Bored. Uninterested.

“Friends get other friends gifts on—”

“Don’t say it.”

I sighed and pulled out my phone. It was something I’d been looking into for a couple days now. I never thought about Madison’s birthday or when it could be, but I was falling for some of the clothes I found online. I turned the phone around and slid it across the table to Madison.

“That one.”

“Oh.”

That was the first time I’d heard an honest inflection out of her all day! Her cheeks took on a touch of color and the corners of her lips a hint of a smile. She reached out and turned the phone over so the screen was facing down and ate one of her Starbursts.

“I can’t buy it yet,” I told her. “But I’ll have some money in a few weeks.” After my birthday. Then I could afford it.

“You don’t have to—”

“How old are you anyway?”

She stared at me, bewildered, and I could see the anxiety and frustration rising in her chest. It puffed her out like a balloon and sucked her in like a crushed paper cup. Damnit, why was she so cute?

“When you’re little, I mean.”

I watched the stress pour out of her body. It was like watching bathwater swirl down the drain rather than spill over the rim. But her cheeks were still red with frustration. She started to unwrap another Starburst.

“Five,” she answered.

Huh. I expected younger after getting a glimpse of her Little Drawer.

“Well I’m going to buy you that,” I told her, tapping the top of my phone. “Happy fifth birthday.”

I wasn’t sure if I was making things better or worse, not really. I knew how much she hated her birthday. I knew how it made her feel. And I knew that she would rather hurt herself than deal with that reality. But maybe I could drag this day - like every other day - away from reality. Maybe her birthday didn’t have to be a bad thing next year, or the year after. Maybe she could turn five for the rest of her life, and maybe she’d start loving it again. Maybe she’d even let me celebrate those days with her, from now until she turned six. That was, from now until the end of time.