Chapter 14 - Wherefore Art Thou, Romeo?
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Madison had always been pretty. As a child everyone had told her how pretty she was, but it wasn't until the eighth grade that she knew it for sure. She was a touch of a late bloomer, but when puberty finally hit, Madison blossomed like a magnificent orchid. After that her status as a pretty girl was evidenced by the amount of male attention Madison received and Madison, after an awkward adjustment phase, decided that male attention was one of her favorite things in the world. She enjoyed the way the boys flocked to her and got nervous around her. And she enjoyed the secret feelings she got when boys she liked came around. Armed with self-confidence in her looks, it didn't take long for Madison to become the most popular girl in her junior high school.
The next year she went to high school and joined the cheer squad. The number of guys around her grew exponentially, and Madison found herself included in the most exclusive social cliques of her high school. She never had to worry about dates to the dances, or invitations to the parties. She never had to pay for alcohol or drugs and if one guy bored her or didn't live up to her social standards, she simply got another guy. All this came because it was universally accepted that Madison was the prettiest girl in the school by the start of her sophomore year.
Madison always had a ride to or from school and never had to pay for her morning lattes from Starbucks. If a guy wanted Madison to ride to school in his car, her latte was the toll they paid. When she turned sixteen, her father bought her a car so she could rush into school just before the first bell and make a grand entrance. Even the teachers, especially the male teachers, went out of their way for Madison. High School life for Madison was mostly fun and enjoyable.
Unfortunately, along with the heady upside of high status and popularity came an unexpected downside. Madison had to quickly accept that, while it stunk, it came with the territory. Pretty Madison evoked a lot of reaction from both girls and boys. The girls were a constant source of social pressure. More than half of the girls were overtly catty around her, and most of the rest were, if not overt, at least covertly jealous.
On the other hand, the boys exerted a constant pressure of sexual energy. Every single one of them that approached her had the idea that somehow, he could have sex with Madison, and that was definitely not the case. Madison's list of possible recipients of her virginity was extremely exclusive, and even with that very short list available to her, Madison had kept her virtue intact until her senior year of high school, despite the persistent rumors to the contrary. Madison's status also brought a steady undercurrent of baseless rumors of her sexual promiscuity, usually spread by jealous female rivals, or jilted male suitors.
Everyone also proceeded under the assumption that Madison had a head full of feathers and couldn't appreciate anything except makeup, clothes, and parties. To those who didn't know her, Madison appeared to be a character from "Clueless" that somehow escaped the screen.
However, when it came to the downside of high status and popularity, all the other negatives paled in comparison to the weight of everyone's expectations. Because she was popular, everyone in the school, especially her friends, had a specific set of inflexible expectations of her, and everyone in Madison's life, from her parents to the people she never met that somehow knew her, shared those same inflexible expectations. The first and highest of those expectations was that she would date the right kind of boys, namely boys who played football. Football was king at Madison's high school and as a member of the cheer leading squad, Madison was expected to keep up appearances and date players from the football team. It was an open joke that a girl "earned" her varsity letter for Cheer when she took possession of her boyfriend's football fleece. As the prettiest girl in school, Madison was expected to date the best-looking guy in the school, and that was Miles the quarterback.
Madison and Miles had smiled at each other once or twice, but they were not yet an item. However, since this was their senior year and with prom in the not-too-distant future, everyone expected that to change, and as a result of being surrounded and immersed in that community expectation, Madison had expected it too. It was inevitable in her mind, just as the eventual loss of her virginity to Miles at an appropriate time, such as prom night. Madison found herself titillated by the prospect and constructed a little fantasy scenario in her head about it.
Despite the unexpected downside, life as the prettiest girl in school was pretty cool, but not every single part of Madison was satisfied with her life of privileged popularity and attendant expectations. Unbeknownst to the throngs of people that surrounded her, Madison was not the vapid Barbie Doll they all expected her to be, and despite the expectations of others, Madison was far from dumb. She enjoyed her studies in school and kept a high grade point average. She studied classical ballet and theater and read Shakespeare to feed her dream that some Romeo would come and sweep her off her feet and whisk her away from the daily crush of everyone else's expectations.
Truly what no one else knew was that inside the popular and privileged Madison there was a thoughtful, intelligent soul that yearned for expression. That part of her internally railed against the weight of the expectations and secretly bridled at the exclusive and cliquey nature of everyday life in High School. Sometimes Madison would witness some random act of thoughtlessness or cruelty in the hallways and that part of her would roil with indignation. Once or twice, she had almost spoken up on some victim's behalf, but the thought of the disapproval of her friends silenced her before she gave voice to her objections. In the end, Madison chose status over her twinges of conscience, and publicly, she followed the party line when it came to the weirdos, geeks, and nerds. Some people just didn't belong. Privately, however, she sometimes wondered if she wanted to belong. In secret, Madison the pretty cheerleader was a hopeless romantic.
For three years Madison held her peace and lived the double-edged life of privileged status and burdensome expectations. She cheered and danced and studied and partied and dated and generally lived the life that everyone in the world expected her high school experience would be like. She knew that because she kept tabs on social media and hers was the type of life every girl talked about. Even the ones that claimed to be geeky and nerdy ones mirrored the same expectations while they ranted against them, and that made it seem all the more normal.
Yet Madison still harbored a quiet little doubt that reared its head at random intervals and sought a means of expression. What that secret and silly romantic part of Madison wanted most was an opportunity to rebel and step outside everyone's expectations. And then finally, during her Senior year, just after her eighteenth birthday, Madison found her chance.
