One in Four

by Lucinda Berry

“It’s Maddie,” she said, struggling to control her emotions. “She’s gone, Laurel. Maddie’s gone.”

She pointed down the long hallway to the patient rooms. Three on the right side—Preston, Maddie, and Spencer. Four on the left—Lyriq, Kendall, Tripp, and Javon. A camera on each end of the hallway. A police officer underneath each camera. Strategically placed so if anyone else decided to run, they’d be there to stop them.

She recognized them everywhere now. This club. That she didn’t know existed until she became a member. But she didn’t want any part of it. She never asked to join.

Being alive, but not really. She’d never understood more the meaning of undead.

It made her smile, and it’d been so long since she smiled. Really, truly smiled from the inside. That’s where that one came from. The deepest part of her soul. It felt good. That was all she knew, and nothing had felt good in a long time.

Either way, she was dead asleep until she stirred right around twelve thirty. That’s when she got up and shuffled to the bathroom.

“She was the only one who might’ve come to Crystal Meadows even if she wasn’t getting paid. Did you know her mom actually offered to pay us to treat her?

But Maddie? She’s still in the Hollywood scene. She’s just beginning to slide, at the start of a very slippery slope. And unlike all of them—she wanted to stop herself before she spiraled.”

She’d been working full time as an actress ever since. Landed multiple roles on the Disney Channel. Her face was synonymous with the new Tide commercial. She was the closest thing we had to a real celebrity in the house.

Spencer. Three different domestic violence charges. He beat up a 7-Eleven clerk after he refused to sell him alcohol because he—meaning Spencer, of course—was clearly intoxicated. Oh, and assault on a police officer after he was pulled over for his second DUI.”

The truth was I hadn’t gotten to Maddie’s worst secrets yet, and I knew it. She had plenty of painful secrets. That much I was sure of. She just never told them to me.

But those secrets couldn’t possibly have anything to do with this—could they?

He was the first one to attack and the last one to finish.

It’s not just fight or flight. Sometimes it’s freeze.

Buried herself deep in the most beautiful mahogany casket lined in silky white as he handed her off to the other monsters.

All her other notes had been at the bottom of the page. This one was in the side margin. The spot where the night staff would enter their comments.

If something bad happens to me tonight, it wasn’t an accident. Please tell my mom. I never wanted to die.

None of the stuff those detectives showed me today.”

Women had to be put together if they wanted to be taken seriously. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right. But it was the patriarchy we lived in.

My dad worked so hard that he worked himself to death, dying of a heart attack when I was only sixteen. He just dropped dead in the driveway.

That’s when my world fell apart, and I really started drinking.

Regular life is just too dull and boring after you’ve been raised in Hollywood’s glitz and flashing lights.

We were introduced at his twenty-seventh detox center, and his face looked almost the same today as it did then.

“They told me to do it. She said to do it.” “Who told you to do it? Do what?”

“You can’t hear anything. But you know that, huh? You know it all. The AC vent is too loud and right underneath that door—muffles everything.”

“I didn’t want you to get in trouble. So you wouldn’t get in trouble.”

He dropped his voice low. Clutched my arm. “I won’t tell anyone what you did.”

“I know what it’s like to be ugly inside. I see you.”

She didn’t know what was worse: being invisible, or them being cruel.

Sexual assault. That’s what it was called. What happened to her at the party.

So, all he did was confirm what she already knew—one in four girls experience a form of sexual assault by the time they’re twenty-four.

But I already told them what they’re going to find—ibuprofen. That’s what she took, because it’s the only thing she’s allergic to.

I’d thought nothing of it and given them to Maddie. What if they were ibuprofen?

I’m glad she got to be part of the study. She—” I put my hand up to stop her, interrupting her. “Study? What study?” “You must’ve been part of the blind group. Gia said there were two groups, and you couldn’t discuss the study or tell anyone what group you were in.

“I don’t know what group we were assigned to, but I’m just glad it was one that got to use the phone.” “And Gia gave you the phone?” I asked, my head whirling and spinning. She nodded. “And I gave it to Maddie, like Gia had asked.”

He violated her body, but they raped her soul.

And then it happened. At 10:43 a.m. Spencer and Gia cross paths in the hallway.

Gia gave Spencer the notebook. Gia gave Hilda the phone to give Maddie. Gia gave me the pills that killed Maddie.

On the first page of my Verizon statement. Maddie’s number. Right there. Added to our family plan. My stomach sank. Irked up the back of my throat. This had to be a mistake.

She raised the bat high, and my scream caught in my throat just as the aluminum cracked against my forehead.

What. The. Fuck!

Gia. And that’s when I remembered. Everything came flooding back. My insides went cold as I remembered the bat.

She would take her chances with the internal bleeding. Because nobody could ever know about what happened underneath the bridge.

“Why this? What have I ever done to deserve anything like this?” I shook my head. “Nothing.” “You sure about that?” Gia asked at the same time Noelle spoke. “Because you’re a liar,” Noelle said, her lower lip quivering.

“Alpha Kappa Alpha,” Gia sang out in a singsong voice. “Show them why that Southern spirit will never die. Banners high and we will fight! Fight! Fight!” My alma mater song.

But you know who’s responsible for Paris’s death?” She shoved her face even closer to mine. “You are, Laurel. You.”

It’s a marker that forever changes you. And if it doesn’t? Well, then it wasn’t real trauma. Because real trauma? You’re altered forever. Anything else is just a hard time.

Maybe it was okay not to want to live here at all.

Once you decide to let go and make the conscious decision to leave, the most peaceful process takes over.

Knowing she didn’t have to live a second longer in a world full of cruel and horrible people brought her so much comfort.

“You know why I believe in God, Laurel?”