Madison

----
With a kick off the instacrete wall, Abigail propelled herself just high enough to grip the ladder of the fire escape. Effortlessly, as she has done many times before, she hoisted herself up to the next floor. Thirteen flights of stairs later, she found herself on the roof.
She repeated the motions she did seven days ago, and seven days before that, and another seven before that. The sound of the radio playing in the windowsill of the apartment across the alley drew her in like a siren.
She took a seat on the roof's edge, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath to steady her heart rate. The air was clear up here, and the sounds from the street below were distant enough that they just faded away in her mind. She laid down on the half-wall that framed the rooftop, and the chill of the instacrete on her back was borderline therapeutic.
Of all the places Abigail had escaped to these last few years, this spot was the best. She could get lost in tranquility for hours.
"Hey, kid. What're you doing up here?"
The girl opened her eyes and turned her head to face the source of the voice, but she made no effort to sit up from her resting spot.
A young woman, no more than five years older than Abigail, stood in the window that the radio called home. She wasn't angry, or annoyed, or wanting to drive Abigail away with a broom.
She seemed to just be curious.
"Got a name, kid?"
Abigail realized she was yet to answer the first question that was asked, but wasn't about to object. This question was easier to answer.
"Abigail."
"Abigail? I'm Madison."
"Nice to meet you, Madison." Abigail was terrible with remembering names. She knew she would need to ask for hers again if they ever spoke after today.
"I've seen you here a few times. Do you like the music?"
"Yes. It's nice."
"How old are you, Abigail?"
"Fourteen, I think."
"You think? You don't know?"
Abigail did not want to answer that. She cursed herself for the involuntary slip of the tongue. After a moment of silence, she rolled her head away and looked up at the clear sky.
"You don't have to answer that. That's on me for asking too many questions upfront."
"You're just curious about the strange girl who visits your window every week. I get it."
"Well, I don't get many visitors, and those I do usually come to the door."
"I can leave."
"No, no. You can stay if you want to. I'm not trying to scare you off or anything. You seem like a well mannered kid."
"Thank you?" Abigail looked back towards the window. Madison was leaning out of it now, her hands cupped together as she braced herself on the windowsill with her forearms. Abigail could better see her compared to when she stood deeper in the room. Madison had a darker complexion than Abigail and wore her hair in braided cornrows. It looked much better than the utilitarian short bob cut Abigail was required to maintain.
"Don't look so gloomy, Abigail. It was a compliment. Your mother must've raised you well."
"No, she didn't," Abigail responded after a momentary delay. She caught herself looking away again, and returned her eye contact back to the other woman. "I never knew her."
"Oh, I'm so sorry. I didn't know. I hope I didn't—"
Abigail interrupted Madison with a shake of the head. The woman acknowledged her response with a sigh.
"I still shouldn't have assumed. Where are you staying then?"
"We call it the Campus." Abigail thought back to the facility she's lived in for the past eleven years: a huge complex of repeating soulless buildings and an uncountable population of children. "It's got some long government name I can never remember."
"Oh, you mean that eyesore by the spacedocks?"
Abigail suppressed a laugh. "Well, I live in the part in Sector 4."
"That's miles from here."
"I ride the sky tram."
Madison spent a moment in contemplation. "You journey that far from home, alone, every week, just to listen to some music?"
"And I enjoy the clear skies. I like the view." She glanced back up to the cloudless sky. Luyten's twin suns shone back down at her with a calming radiance.
"Oh, this is nothing. My family has a cabin out by the Gorges where you can really stargaze each night."
"I don't think the staff would like me sneaking out that far." Either through negligence or mismanagement, Abigail had been able to avoid drawing attention to herself each week as she escaped to explore the city. So far, she was able to return in time for role call each time she had done so. But leaving the city? She couldn't imagine how long she would be away. If the Campus issued a missing person's report and the police got involved, she'd never be able to sneak away again.
"Well, maybe one day that can change. Did you want to come inside? I'm sure it's safer than hanging off the side of a roof."
----
"I think today's the day, Abby."
"I told you to stop calling me that," Abigail responded with a tone of poorly-feigned insult. She popped her head over the back of the couch, spotting her friend pouring a bowl of store-brand cereal in the miniature apartment kitchen.
"I know, I know." While Madison Green never looked up from the breakfast, she still rolled her eyes and smiled. "I thought you'd be more excited?"
"I am excited," Abigail replied as she stood up from her reclined position. She paused the video screen with a hand gesture. "It's just that… not much is gonna change."
Over the last several months, her friendship with Madison had rapidly blossomed. Despite initial protest from Abigail, her new best friend had been working diligently to officially secure custody of the kid. After all, she had been spending whole days at her apartment for months now, even if she wasn't supposed to.
"Well, for one, you're finally able to spend nights in a new bed."
Abigail didn't bother suppressing the half-laugh, half-snort that followed. "What bed? The couch?"
"I'm still working out the last of the details, but you can use mine while we figure out a more permanent solution. I can take the couch."
"Am I going to have to start calling you mom?" Abigail asked as she approached the counter, a mix of sarcasm and genuine curiosity in her voice.
"I wouldn't expect it from you."
"Good, because I wasn't planning on it."
"Don't worry, nothing is going to change between us. We're still friends first. This is just to get you out of that place and into a real home." Madison slid the cereal bowl across the counter.
"A real home, with real food like Drac-O's and energy drinks." She retrieved two spoons from the drawer by her hip, handing one to her friend.
"We'll make it work, Abby." Madison was pouring herself another bowl. "I can arrange something with my boss. We can use the cabin if we have to."
"Yeah, yeah. Whatever you say, mom."
"Okay, you've made your point. I won't call you Abby, if you don't call me that."
Abigail's eyes glanced down towards a packet of papers at the edge of the countertop, sitting alongside that old radio that drew her in back in the early months. The front sheet of the packet was emblazoned with a Colonial Administration Authority letterhead. Near the top of the form read a name: "Abigail Green."
Abigail Green. She could get used to that.
Category:Shattered Glass Stories