The Group
Part 39

I was too depressed to do anything but sleep. As I walked up the stairway, I thought about life, and people, and happiness. My thoughts continued as I flopped my body onto my bed.
Suddenly, the image of Maddy's mother came into my head.
'Looks can be deceiving.' I heard Maddy's mother's voice say inside my head.
What does that mean? Does that mean that...that Jack looked like an innocent boy, but he wasn't? Can that saying be applied here? Surely that wasn't what her mother was talking about, so what did Maddy's mom mean?
I needed to call Maddy.
I pulled the cellphone out of my pocket, remembering that I never took it out.
I dialed and waited as it rang.
Her mother answered the phone hysterical. She was screaming and crying.
"What's wrong?" I yelled through the phone. "What?!"
She couldn't answer. She was just screaming.
I started screaming too. It was like it was contagious. I knew I had to go to Maddy's house.
I threw on a jacket and ran a couple blocks to her house.
I became hysterical when I saw ambulances swarming in and out of her house.
I ran up her stairs. A firefighter threw his arm in front of me and said, in a stern voice, "You cannot enter unless you're family."
"I am family," I said as pushed his arm out of my path.
I entered the living room. I couldn't believe what I saw. I...I was speechless and....and I still am. It felt like someone had punched me in the ribs.
The wind was knocked out of me. I couldn't take this. I started throwing up everywhere.
'This isn't real,' I told myself. 'Hush your heart. This isn't real.'
But no matter how many times I said it, I knew that what I saw was no nightmare.
Maddy was really dead.

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