PDA

PDA
Chapter	99 of 129 (list of chapters)
Published	December 4, 2017 (2017-12-04)
Page count	6
Major characters	Madison, Jessica, Lucy
Locations	Roseville High School
Collected in	Volume Seven
Chapter navigation
← Moments Apart	High Expectations →
Read chapter

Madison finally catches Lucy alone in a hallway and unloads every grievance she’s been saving up, threats and all. It’s a shame nobody warned her about Lucy’s ears. Luckily, Jessica knows just how to patch up a bruised ego.

Synopsis

Madison starts the day in a lovely mood, humming her way to her locker. Then Lucy walks past, and the smile snaps into a glare. Madison points at her back and screams “YOU!!!” — but Lucy just keeps walking.

Madison warns Lucy to stay away from Jessica, insisting that she’s spoken for and very happy. She immediately falters. “I.. um.. hope, anyway.” She spirals into a breathless speech about how Jessica is honestly too good for her, then catches herself and scolds herself out loud for tearing herself down yet again.

Madison recovers, and this time she’s sincere. She loves Jessica, she tries her hardest to make her happy, and she’s sure Lucy made Jessica sad by flirting with some boy. Hurt Jessica again, she warns, and Lucy will be answering to her. Lucy walks off without so much as a glance, and Jessica pipes up from behind: “I don’t think she heard a word of that.”

Jessica, losing her fight against laughter, explains that Lucy is half-deaf and tuned Madison out completely.

Jessica calls Madison over, takes one careful look around the hallway, and kisses her on the lips. “I love you. You’re adorable!” she tells Madison, adding that Madison runs circles around Lucy anyway. The two head off arm in arm.

Character dynamics

One quick check of the hallway first, naturally.

• Madison and Jessica: The two have been a couple since their debut in Golden Hour, but Madison has privately feared she’s just a stand-in for Lucy ever since David suggested exactly that. Jessica watches every second as that fear spills into Madison’s rant. She doesn’t tease Madison. She kisses her and says “I love you”, their first on-panel kiss and first spoken declaration of love. This is also the first chapter to show the relationship directly rather than secondhand.
• Madison and Lucy: Until now the grudge has run entirely one way, and always from a distance. Madison blew up over a mistaken name in Table for One, then greeted Lucy’s return with a profane outburst in Love Again. This is her first real attempt at a confrontation, and Lucy misses every word of it. From Lucy’s side, the feud still doesn’t exist. All Madison comes away with is a fresh vow of revenge.

Trivia & observations

• The publicly unlocked “Page Deconstruction” post for this chapter reveals two discarded scripts. In one, Lucy yells back in confusion, which was dropped as “not very.. interesting”. In the other, Lucy jokingly flirts with Madison to fluster her, which the authors rejected as “a terrible idea”. The scene was originally conceived to show Lucy’s maturity in not lashing out.
• Lucy has no dialogue and never once turns around in the whole chapter. Her deaf left ear got its full explanation back in Show and Tell. That chapter also ran the original version of this gag, with Yashy chattering away at a Lucy she believed couldn’t hear her.
• The “IDIOT SOMALI BOY” is Paulo, and “the Korat” is Mike — Madison just isn’t sure which of the two she means. Both breed labels were established in Show and Tell.

Related chapters

• Golden Hour: Madison’s debut and the reveal that she and Jessica are a couple. It’s also where David planted the Lucy-replacement fear that this whole rant is running on.
• Love Again: The direct setup. Lucy returns to school, and the mere sight of her sets Madison’s grudge boiling again.
• Pillow Talk: The backstory behind Jessica having “gone through a LOT”. The chapter shows Craig coercing her, Tess running a rumor campaign against her, and her original brawl with Lucy.