MADISON

A piece of incessant music drills my head forcing me to open my eyes. I wake up lying on the floor of my room while my cellphone thwarts itself on buzzes playing that horrible melody that is my alarm telling me it's Monday and that time didn't stop running when my whole life vanished in lies.

I turn the alarm off and for a moment stay looking at the ceiling, what's next? I touch my forehead hoping I would find myself with fever but not even that is in my favor, maybe leaving this place would help me to get my thoughts together. I try to stand up and immediately feel how my head spins and weights me more than usual, I close my eyes for a moment and then finally get to stand up.

I look at me in the mirror and how I expected I am made a mess. My eyes are swollen and irritated for all that crying, my face red and my hair made a vine, but even with all that, I manage to seem a little better than how I feel. I walk to my closet and take a pair of denim jeans and a white sweatshirt, I put them on and when I look at me in the mirror a little smile gets formed in the corner of my lips just for imagining the disapprobatory look my supposedly mother is going to give me for dressing this way.

I brush my hair just getting to make it fluffy and then I remove with my fingers the makeup drained under my eyes and I put on some concealer, then a little bit of blush in my cheeks trying to look a little better, without success. I put on finally a pair of white converse and then open my door. I don't find anyone out so I go down the stairs in search for something to eat.

In the dining room, I find the rest of my family taking breakfast and as expected their looks immediately turn to me. I don't say anything, just limit myself to sit down at the other edge of the table ignoring Teo, who already was holding the chair open for me in front of my mother.

Sarah brings me a dish with my usual fruit and when she leaves it she forces me a smile to which I do not reply. I start eating without raising my eyes from the fruit, feeling the expectant looks of my parents over me, in fact, the looks of everyone in the house. The fruit is delicious, it creates a unique mix of different flavors that I enjoy with every bite I give. At least food still has the same flavor. It even tastes better than other times but I am sure it's only because I didn't eat anything last night.

"Madison..." my father begins to say just when Sarah changes my fruit for a pair of fried eggs with bacon that seems and smells exquisite. I only sigh and begin to eat, please don't say anything else, I useless think because then my mother decides it's her turn.

"Honey, you know we will always be here for you."

"That's right Madison, things don't have to change because of this," I try hard not to spit the food I have in my mouth at the nonsense words of my father and I gulp what I'm eating. Close my eyes for a moment and then finally look at them.

"Sweetie, sweetheart, honey, what's next?" I spit the words out without double thinking. I let them out just as they come through my mind. "Experiment, injections, tests, what else do I need to know?!" my rage increases as I let the words leave my mouth and they just look at me, surprised.

"We are sorry honey, everything was so fast," says my mother with tears on her eyes increasing my fury, I stand up pushing the table and the juice my father was drinking spills over the table and his fine suit.

"Madison we are really trying to explain you everything!" he gets mad this time at my apparent mess and I leave to my room striking the door behind me.

God this is a mess and it's just getting worse. I walk in circles around my room and my headache increases little by little, what am I going to do? What am I going to do?

Minutes later I brush my teeth and clean up the tears that were fighting to get out again from my eyes. I look at myself in the mirror one last time made a mess and take my backpack before leaving my room. I go down the stairs and Teo opens the door for me. Once I am out I find my father's van waiting for me, but this time Charles isn't driving. It's my father.

"Really? Now we are going to play the perfect family?" I turn around to start walking through the garden but the van walks interposing on my way. I cross my arms and look at him raising an eyebrow.

"Get in Madison, please, let me fix this."

"There's nothing to fix, I'm calling Levy," I say starting to call his number on my phone.

"Look, I promise not to talk about it. About anything. Let me drive you and then you can take the attitude you want to take," I raise my eyes from my phone and stare deeply into those green eyes somehow identic to mines. I had never seen them the way they are now, supplicants.

I open the van's door getting on the passenger's seat without any other option as he sighs and passes his hand over his brown hair a bit hoary perfectly and combed. As soon as I close the door he starts driving immediately as if he didn't do it that way, I would jump from the car. I give thanks to the infinity that he doesn't even try to do the minimum effort to start a conversation, he just concentrates on the road.

He has always been a distant and serious man, he hardly ever demonstrates the affection he has for people, it's rare to get to see him affectionate with my mother or any other person, to be honest. He only focuses on the truly important and essential things that present themselves at the moment and there's not a single thing he does without previously analyzing everything that could happen if he does so.

Although he seems older, in fact, he only is forty-five years old. I guess his work is pretty draining and that's the reason why he seems physically so exhausted, however, until now I understand that his personality is essential for the labor he does, if he wasn't that way, in what humanly possible way, would someone be able to cause pain on an innocent child if it wasn't with a hard heart?

He parks right in front of the principal entrance of the school. I put on my backpack over my shoulder and open the door getting out as fast as I can. "Madison," he calls me, "try not to say anything to anyone." I close the door and then just turn around trying to get to the building.

I celebrate on the inside when I literally pass unadvised until... "Madison!" Sam shouts from the other side of the hallway and as expected, all the looks in school turn to see me.

"Why today?" I tell to myself and turn around walking back from where I came till I am out again.

"Madison!" he says again and this time he takes me from my shoulder making me turn around. "Wow, you look good even when you look bad," he says and I roll my eyes before I turn around to continue my exit. "Hey... how was your weekend," he insists.

"Awful," I say sitting down on one stone bench and force him, as I can, a smile at the end. "What about you?" I say just to end up with his stupid look and luckily, I succeed.

"In fact, fantastic! We won the pass to the finals with a touchdown of mine that was pretty awesome, you should have seen it..." I get lost halfway into his phrase and pray to the lord a bus drives over me right at this moment.

"Hey Sam, I saw you on Friday's game, you were amazing..." oh great. Anne joins us to increase Mr. Popular's ego and just when they get into the same conversation about Friday's game I take advantage of the opportunity to run unadvised.

The rest of the day in school goes by incredibly slow, one class after the other, teacher after teacher, minute after minute, hour after hour and me just sitting there existing without really paying attention to anything. My mind comes and goes wandering about all those people that share classes with me. On what moment did their parents decide to have them? How many of them really needed to be here and how many of them are just the consequence of a night of drinking where something went wrong? How many of them carry diseases on their DNA? Who decided that Melanie Arlington's hair from my French class should be red? Who decided that the boy on my Biology class couldn't walk? Or that Mrs. Harrison couldn't pronounce the right way some words?

The answers to all those questions I don't know them, however, I know that at some moment more than nineteen years ago, in some place, a group of scientists gathered around a big table discussed the best way to prove some things on a child. They selected among more than a thousand eggs the apparently most healthy of all and they joined it with a sperm selected from among other millions of them to create a new life, then they analyzed every single gene that formed the DNA and took out those that didn't seem necessary for them to replace them for others that to their eyes were better till they got the perfect embryo.

Then, they injected it on an unknown woman's uterus that was going to be in charge of that valuable product for nine months to then, give it away to the people that would test even the slightest thing of that baby to finally confirm it would be useful for them, to later practice an outnumber of tests until it wasn't useful for them anymore and then that baby would proceed to be named Madison and get to live the rest of her life in a big lie, surrounded by people that hurt her on the past and now want to continue like nothing ever happened.

"Madison, are you alright?" someone puts a hand on my back and I turn to find Levy next to me. I look around noticing that we are the only ones left in the classroom.

"Where's everybody?" I say cleaning the tears from my eyes that I didn't know were getting out of my eyes.

"The last class ended up more than half an hour ago, I have been watching you lost for the last two classes," he bends down to look me in the eyes and forces a smile. "What's wrong?"

I look at him and involuntarily the tears start getting out till they made me an ocean of tears, he stands up and hugs me sitting next to me till finally, I get to talk. "My whole life has been a lie," I sob against his shoulder and for some reason, I don't want to let go. It's like he is the only real part of my life and if I don't cling to it, it will also turn to lies.

"Why would you say that?" he says letting me go after a while and putting a lock of hair behind my ear.

"Do you remember I told you what my parents' job is?" he nods and I gulp staring at him. "Turns out I am part of that job," I say staring at the floor. When he doesn't say anything, I look at him. He's perplexed, looking from one place to another without knowing what to say. "Levy, I was an experiment, my parents' are not my parents and in theory, I shouldn't be alive."

"Madison, I... for the first time I don't know what to say," he says and I smile for his words. "At least that worked" he laughs and I nod letting out a giggle. "Did you talk with your parents' about this?" he asks after a while thinking of it.

"I can't even look at them in the eyes, they just try to feel less guilty," I reply. "I'm sure they are making that other girl suffer right now while I am not there."

"What are you going to do?" he asks and I shrug. "That's not possible, Maddie always has a plan, unless this new disheveled version of Madison ended up with the real one," he says making a gesture with his hands about my new appearance. He gets to make me laugh.

"I guess you'll have to get used to her."

"I don't have anything against the new Madison. I'm sure that even Sam will like her," he jokes and I remember my little encounter with him earlier.

"When he saw me he got speechless for the impression," I say. "You look good even when you look bad, Madison," I imitate his serious voice and we both burst into laughs for a while. This is what I love from my best friend, no matter what's happening, he always finds a way to make me laugh.

"I think I'm going to run away," I say a few minutes later and he looks at me seriously. "I am taking that girl and I'm going to leave, far away. Maybe to Hawaii."

"Are you serious?"

"I don't even know what's real and what's not anymore."