CHAPTER THREE:
FULL BLAST
( trigger warning: mentions of a panic attack )

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A WEEK AFTER CARSON died, Maggie decided to go back to school. Despite her aunt and uncle's concern, she insisted on it, wanting to return back to normalcy, hating the feeling of being trapped at home while alone and desperately sad.

She knew there would be stares. There would be whispers. But she hoped getting back into the swing of things might chase away the looming nightmares and the endless mourning in her heart.

She was wrong.

The day had started out fine. Well, as fine as it could possibly be when your best friend had just died and you were the one to find him. Carson's funeral had been held the weekend prior, so everyone had him on their minds as they went about their morning. Maggie did her best to ignore it, taking up distractions anywhere she was able to find them. From Hayden, who came to school with puffy but determined eyes. From Zeke, who was by her side at every available opportunity, cracking the lamest jokes in a weak attempt to keep a smile on her face. From Dakota, who death-stared anyone who looked at her baby sister for too long. 

But Maggie couldn't hide behind Hayden, Zeke and Dakota forever.

It was her third class of the day. She'd almost made it to lunch, but no one else was in her Maths class with her. She had no one to block out the whispers, the looks, the suffocation.

"I heard she killed him," the girl sitting behind Maggie whispered ruthlessly to her friend, eyes staring daggers into the back of Maggie's head.

"Oh, yeah?" her friend challenged, voice thick with disgust. "Wouldn't surprise me. Isn't she the psycho who said her mum was murdered by a monster?"

Their harsh words hurt more than they should have. Maggie sat in her seat, staring up at the board as the tears pooling in her eyes blurred away the formulas.

Her heart was pumping a mile a minute.

Thump. Thump.

Thump. Thump.

Thump. Thump.

Every beat echoed in her ears, blocking out the laughter as their words repeated over and over and over again, taunting her with their wickedness.

Psycho.

Murdered.

Monster.

She couldn't take it.

Her chair shrieked against the linoleum floor as she flung herself out of it. She rushed towards the door with everyone's wide eyes focused solely on her.

Staring her down.

Glaring and judging.

She heard the teacher shouting after her as she sprinted down the corridor, sobs tumbling from her lips as she crashed into the first empty room she found; the bathroom. She didn't even stop to check if anyone else was in there, simply leaning over the sink and struggling to heave in each breath.

Just breathe! Her brain was shouting at her, but no matter how hard she tried, her lungs just couldn't cope.

"Maggie?" Kim Conweller was the one to find her, her bathroom pass long forgotten on the counter as she rushed to Maggie's side. "What's wrong?"

"C-Can't breathe," Maggie stuttered, struggling to get the words out with the world starting to spin.

The next few moments happened in flashes. Kim helped her to the floor. Maggie tucked her head between her knees and gasped for air. The room faded around her, making her feel sick to her stomach. She struggled not to vomit as Kim patted her on the back, attempting to get Maggie to copy her breathing.

It took what seemed like forever, but what came after was a strange kind of silence. She sat slumped against the wall, staring at the ground with tears trailing down her cheeks and mascara running to the edge of her jaw. Kim sat with her hand in Maggie's, the other holding her phone to her ear as she whispered hurriedly to the person on the other end of the line. Maggie didn't know who it was, failing to catch the name over her own sobs, but she couldn't bring herself to care.

A moment later, the bathroom door slammed open and in came Zeke and Dakota, the former ignoring the gender sign on the bathroom door as he dropped to his knees by his little sister's side.

"Mags, what happened?" he asked, eyes burning bright from worry and anger. "Who did this to you?"

"No one," she sniffed.

They both immediately knew she was lying.

"Tell us what you're thinking, Maggie," Dakota sighed, kneeling in front of Maggie and placing a hand on her knee.

"I can't do it," she whimpered, bottom lip trembling as her eyes darted from Zeke to Dakota to Kim, the latter of which was frowning as she lingered by the bathroom door, preventing anyone from coming inside as the lunch bell rang. "I can't."

"Hey, it's okay," Zeke soothed, sensing his sister's anxiety rising once again. "No one's pushing you to do anything."

The reminder seemed to calm her down. She took another slow breath in, closing her eyes for a second before she heaved a heavy sigh.

"I wanna go home, Zeke." She turned to her brother tearfully, gripping his outstretched hand for dear life. "Please take me home."

They had Wren sign the three of them out of school. Even Vera abandoned work early so she could come and pick them up. Maggie didn't say a word for the rest of the day, locking herself up in her room when Wren and Everett got home and refusing to come out for dinner. They heard her cries throughout the night but every time they knocked on her door she ignored them.

The next morning, none of the Sullivan-Atearas expected to see Maggie at the kitchen table, but she came down from her room just as breakfast was ending, red-eyed and looking like she hadn't slept a wink. She sat down in the empty chair across from her aunt, timid but determined.

"Aunty Wren," she murmured, swallowing nervously at the woman in question as she smiled at her. "Can you take me back to counselling?"

And that was that. 

Maggie never told them what happened that day at school and they knew better than to push her on her already fragile road of recovery. She needed them to be supportive, and so they were there every step of the way.

By the time she was ready to go back to school again, weeks had passed and the rumours had begun to die down. They were still there in one way or another, in the stares and the unspoken words, but rumours, as Maggie had come to realise, were always present. She couldn't do anything about it.

Take the departure of the infamous Cullen family, for example.

It was the day after Bella Swan's disappearance. The hallways of La Push High School were full of whispering teenagers, a sight that Maggie hadn't seen since Carson passed away. For a second, she lingered by the entrance, swallowing thickly at the gossiping teens.

"Mags," Hayden called out from where she stood beside her locker with Quil and Embry. "Mags, over here!"

Maggie slowly approached her waving friend, frowning when she spied a cheering Paul and Jared at the other end of the corridor.

"What's going on?" she asked, opening her locker in the search for a distraction.

"Haven't you heard?" Hayden rolled her eyes. "The Cullens left town."

The Cullens were quite the anomaly in La Push. An elusive family from Forks, they were rumoured to be the Cold Ones from the ancient Quileute legends. While most of the teens in the hallway didn't believe these stories, there seemed to be this mutual dislike or unease surrounding the Cullens, so everyone was in good spirits hearing that they were gone. Paul and Jared in particular.

For a moment, Maggie watched the two of them joke and laugh together, and she found it hard to believe she'd spoken to them only the night before. Just for an instant, she wondered if she'd dreamed the whole thing. But then Paul caught her gaze, his brow furrowing the same way it had that night, and reality kicked in.

"Hello? Earth to Mags?" Hayden chuckled, waving a hand in front of Maggie's face.

"What?" Maggie blinked at her, burying her head in her locker when she caught Hayden trying to follow her gaze.

"Were you staring at Paul and Jared?" she smirked, to which Quil and Embry — who Maggie had forgotten were still standing with them — shared a disapproving glower.

"Of course not," she shook her head, though Hayden didn't seem convinced. Maggie sighed at her friend, sparing the boys in question another brief glance. "They just seem happy."

"Of course they are," Hayden shrugged, eyes still glowing with amusement. "They hated the Cullens, from what I've heard."

"Finally something we can agree on," Jacob Black announced as he joined Embry and Quil beside the two girls.

Maggie stood there in silence while Hayden and the boys grumbled about their first class of the day. Hayden and Quil had teamed up to tease Embry and Jacob before the bell rang, and the two shared a shy grin as their group got ready to disperse.

"Walk with me to class?" Quil asked her, ducking his head to avoid Embry and Jacob smirking at him.

Hayden grinned, "Sure." Then, with one last wave to Maggie, "Catch you later, Mags."

Maggie slowly followed behind Embry and Jacob to their classroom, shuffling through the textbooks she'd grabbed for the first part of the day. Without realising where she was going, she slammed into someone's chest, a move right out of some cliché teenage coming-of-age movie.

"Would you watch where you're going?" Paul Lahote hissed before he noticed who had run into him. "Oh, it's you, Maggie."

"I'm so sorry," she blurted, dropping to the floor to gather all of her fallen textbooks together. "I wasn't paying attention."

"It's fine," Paul muttered, a muscle in his jaw ticking as he reached for her conspiracy themed pencil case, dropping it into her arms once she was standing upright again. "I should've been more careful."

"Right," she sighed, mustering up a tiny smile that he barely returned. "I should get going..."

"Yeah, okay." He stepped out of her way, then he was rushing off again. Maggie paused and lingered to watch him leave. She gripped her books tight against her chest, her rapid heartbeat dropping to a steady rhythm once he'd disappeared out of sight.

"Hey, Maggie!" Jacob called out to her from their classroom doorway, frowning at her frozen figure. "You coming or what?"

Blinking out of her daze, she called back, "Yeah, of course."

Then with one last lingering look at the empty corridor, she turned away and made her way to class.

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A/N: Okay, so this is a bit shorter than my other chapters, but I'm so happy with it. This chapter alone has given me so many ideas on where I can take Maggie's character and I'm super excited to see if I can execute them. Make sure you let me know what you thought, I hope you enjoyed it <3