I'll Walk With You

Max's house is silent as the grave. She isn't surprised, it's been like this nearly all the time since the summer. Her stepfather will drink himself back to sleep on the couch, and her mother will say nothing. Max won't say anything either. The day has barely begun and it's already shit.

Most of the time she escapes the horrible atmosphere inside her house by going to school, but it's Spring Break now and she has nowhere to be. She'll be stuck with her thoughts all day if she doesn't find something else to do, so after nearly two hours of trying in vain to entertain herself, she decides to head out and see if Lucas is free. She knows Dustin already left town with his mom the night before, and she's not willing to have Mike third wheel her and Lucas, so she hopes he's down to go do something with her. He's good at distracting her from the inescapable cycle of guilt and anger she feels constantly nowadays.

Except when she gets to his house, his parents are in the garage putting things into the trunk of the family car. She stops at the sight. Erica is nowhere to be seen but Lucas is standing in the front doorway and sees Max coming right away. He meets her in the street.

"Max, hey," he says. "What's up?"

Max gestures to his house. "I came to see if you wanted to hang out, but it looks like you guys are going somewhere."

Lucas frowns. "I thought I told you, we're going to visit my cousins in Chicago for a few days."

Lord, a few days? Lucas must see it on her face because he scrambles to assure her it's not for the whole week.

"I'll be back Wednesday," he promises.

"Today's Sunday," she protests. She knows there's literally nothing to be done about it, but it still sucks. What's she going to do all week?

"I swear I told you," Lucas repeats.

"Yeah. Yeah," Max answers. "You probably did. I'm sorry, just... forgot."

He frowns again. Max has been forgetting a lot of things lately. She's not sure why, it just feels like everything in her life is too much and her brain can't handle it the way it should. Freshman year has not been the greatest so far.

"You okay?" He asks her, reaching for her hands, and his concern makes her heart squeeze painfully in her chest. He's probably the only person who actually cares about her well-being, seeing as her mom clearly doesn't.

Max nods. "Yeah. I just didn't want to be at home, but I guess I'll find something else to do. Bye, Lucas," she says, squeezing his fingers gratefully before turning away to bike off back down the street.

"Hey!" He calls. She turns back. He motions to the big house next door, equally familiar to her. "Mike's still home, maybe you can ask him?"

Max crosses her arms. "Like he would want to hang out with me," she scoffs.

Lucas sighs. "Look, I know he can be a bit of an ass sometimes-"

"That's putting it lightly."

"-But he's not a bad person, Max, you know that. He's dealing with a lot right now," Lucas finishes.

Max rolls her eyes. "Yeah, well, he's not the only one," she says bitingly. She has never gotten along with the third boy in their group and at this point she isn't sure she ever will. She's also not really in the mood to look at his stupid face today, considering it'll more than likely start an argument and she doesn't have the energy for that.

"I know ," Lucas says. "I know. But you're both my best friends and I think you guys are more alike than you think. If you just gave each other another chance, you'd get along."