I first met the Holleran family in the summer of 2014, six months after Madison’s death. We sat at their kitchen table and I told them I hoped to be able to earn their trust and promised to do justice to Maddy’s story. I hope I have fulfilled that promise. Even while dealing with the greatest pain imaginable, the Holleran family opened their home, and their hearts, to me so that we could tell this story: first as a piece for espnW and ESPN The Magazine, and now in this book. They answered my calls and e-mails, passed along the cell phone number of every one of Maddy’s friends, and even granted me access to Maddy’s computer, including her documents, e-mails, and iMessages. A higher purpose drove their transparency: they didn’t want Maddy’s death to be an isolated tragedy, but rather a catalyst for change. The Madison Holleran Foundation is already doing work to assist those in crisis, placing a special emphasis on preparing high school seniors for the transition to college, which can often be more challenging than expected. In 2016, New Jersey signed into law the Madison Holleran Prevention Act, requiring that New Jersey colleges provide students with around-the-clock access to mental health services.
The content of every document, e-mail, and text reproduced in this book is real, though I have occasionally changed or abbreviated the name of the sender when I thought it appropriate. Madison’s death has already created much heartache, and I took extra precautions so as not to create more.
No premeditated reason exists for why I alternately refer to Madison by both her full name and as Maddy, though it is true to say I felt that, by writing this book, I came to know her—at least in some small way.
CHAPTER 1
Shattered
The night before returning to the University of Pennsylvania for the start of second semester, Madison Holleran broke her iPhone. She was with her whole family at the local TGI Friday’s, one of their go-to spots. The iPhone 4 slipped from her hand while she was walking to the car after dinner. She picked it up from the ground and looked at the glass: shattered.
“I can’t go back to school with my phone like this,” Madison told her dad, Jim.
He smiled. He knew that she couldn’t; she depended on her phone. Over the years, father and daughter had spent countless hours in the car together, driving to and from school and practices, Maddy always doing something on her phone, posting photos or sending texts. Jim wasn’t big on social media, so he didn’t much concern himself with precisely what was capturing Madison’s attention. And anyway, she was no different with her phone than any of her friends or anyone else her age—the device was an extension of her hand.
“We’ll stop at Verizon on the way back to Penn tomorrow morning,” Jim assured his daughter.
The phone did need fixing, but it wasn’t broken-broken; the problem was cosmetic. So that night, Madison texted with some of her friends, letting them know about the shattered screen—so annoying, right?—and making plans for the following afternoon, when she would meet her good friend Ingrid Hung at the Penn women’s basketball game. The Quakers were playing Princeton, and one of Maddy’s best friends from high school, Jackie Reyneke, was a freshman for the Tigers. Attending the Friday night game meant that Madison had to arrive back on campus three days early. Not ideal. She would have preferred staying at home, spending the weekend with her family in Allendale, New Jersey, working out and sleeping, but she couldn’t miss seeing Jackie, with whom she had won two state soccer titles at Northern Highlands, the large public high school they had both attended.
The light tone of Madison’s texts camouflaged a truth only a handful of people knew: she dreaded returning to Penn for spring semester. But she was going back. She was continuing to put one foot in front of the other, trying to believe that maybe with the next step she would finally feel solid ground, some semblance of the equilibrium she had known before. At the same time, she couldn’t shake the feeling that something had shifted dramatically—something she couldn’t quite name. And whatever it was had fundamentally changed how she processed the world.
What was happening to Madison was the inverse of what had happened to her iPhone. She was breaking on the inside.
The next morning, Madison and her dad packed his white Ford Edge. Most of her stuff was still in her dorm room, so all she had was a suitcase and a standing lamp that she had bought while home for Christmas. Her room didn’t get much natural light, and she hated the unforgiving overhead glare.
The first stop was at the Verizon on Route 17 in New Jersey. The salesperson took one look at the screen and sent Jim and Maddy to the Apple Store, since that company could likely fix the glass much more cheaply. The stop at Apple in the Garden State Mall was quick. And $200 later, father and daughter were back in the car, heading south to Philadelphia.
The drive was two hours, mostly on Interstate 95, the main corridor between New York City and Philadelphia, a boring stretch of highway broken up only by the occasional exit sign. Jim’s mind whirred with everything said and unsaid between them. Just two days earlier, he had attended Maddy’s most recent counseling session in the town neighboring Allendale. Before they’d driven over, he’d asked his daughter if she needed to go alone, but she’d said she wanted him there. The session had terrified him. During it, Madison had admitted to suicidal thoughts. He glanced now at his daughter. She was downloading something onto her phone, her brown hair pulled into a ponytail, her eyes focused on the screen.
How have we gotten here? he wondered. Just months ago, she was winning the 800 meters at the New Jersey State Championships, anticipation in the air, the stands filled with a rainbow of school colors, Maddy powering through the finish line as if she could have done yet another lap. In high school, when a practice was too easy, she would come home and run circles around their backyard, actually creating a visible path in the grass.
Now she looked fragile. He couldn’t believe he was using that word for her.
Like most parents, Jim prided himself on having solutions when his kids faced problems. Sometimes they took his advice, sometimes they didn’t—but at least he had guidance to offer them. Right now, though, Jim had no idea what to say or do. He kept rummaging through his mental toolbox, grabbing at whatever he could. And he kept landing on the same thought: Madison must be going through what Ashley went through. Two years prior, his older daughter had enrolled at Penn State University. She hadn’t liked it. She was home almost every weekend, and the family knew she needed to transfer. By sophomore year, she was at the University of Alabama and everything was back to normal.
Maybe that’s all Madison needed: a change of scenery. Jim looked again at his daughter. She was so thin, so pale. Energy seemed to be leaking from her as if there was a pinprick nobody could find. Every few minutes, she looked out the window. Jim doubted she was taking in the scene; she seemed to be looking past it. Then she would look back at her phone, continue reconfiguring it.