In spite of her crush on Mason, as silly and insignificant as it’d always been, Bailey had spent much of her childhood too intimidated by Madison to spend any sort of one-on-one time with her. She was always older, prettier, wilder, and although Bailey knew, logically, that a five year age gap meant a lot when it came to things like that, it still created a divide between the two girls. Now, though—or at least, ever since the Ripper texts began—Madison seemed to have become a fixture in Bailey’s life. Her apartment had become familiar in a way it had never been before, and her friends did, too. She’d always known who Keegan was—who didn’t?—and if you knew who Keegan was, you knew who Easton was, and to a lesser extent, you knew of Jace, too. They’d never been friends, though. They’d spoken, but they’d never been close. However, sitting on Madison’s couch, a glass of water sweating in her hand, Bailey suddenly felt as though she’d known them her entire life. Madison was at the door, paying the pizza guy and flirting loudly, and Jace was on the other end of the couch, his arm looped around his girlfriend, who looked like she’d rather be anywhere else in the world. Keegan and Easton were sprawled out on the floor in front of her, Xbox controllers in their laps and their game paused on the TV, engaged in a one-sided conversation about the faults of society or... something. She’d lost track of it all. All she knew was that, one moment, Easton was nodding along in silence, and the next, Keegan was saying, with more conviction than she’d probably had in her entire life, “Society needs to crumble, we’re just too chicken shit to let it.” Against her better judgement, she snorted. He didn’t actually believe that, did he? Based on the look he—and everyone else in the room—gave her, he did. When he asked her, his voice cold and accusatory, “Do you have something to say?”, all she did was shake her head. They may not have been friends, but by now, she knew better than to argue with him.
