Me, Myself, and Her

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Two: Style

The next day, Max and Annie had already decided to hang out as a make up for the other day. Annie came over after Billy was gone for work and the girls pretty much just hung out. They moved outside at some point, Max trying a few moves on her skateboard, Annie watching and laughing every now and then.

A couple times, Max tried to get Annie on the skateboard but she didn't want to sweat through her pink t shirt today (hoping to avoid how gross she felt yesterday).

"You've almost got it!" Annie encouraged as Max geared up to try whatever move it was again. Max went for it and got one foot on the board, but the other landed on the road and made the board shoot off.

"Shit!" Max yelled, and started to run after it. Annie laughed and stood up to make sure she made it.

The girls stopped when they saw a third person, now holding the runaway skateboard. "El?" Annie asked, now standing beside Max.

El walked up to them and handed the board to Max. "Hi."

"Hi?" Max questioned.

El looked hesitant, glancing at the ground and fidgeting with her hands before she settled them on her hips and looked back and forth between the girls. "Can we talk?" she asked.

The other two looked at each other and nodded quickly, then looked back at El. "Yeah, of course, lets go inside," Annie said, and they walked into Max's house and into her room.

"What's going on?" Max asked. El looked around for a second, not sure what to do, then mimicked Annie as she sat on Max's bed.

El thought for a second. "Well, it's Mike. I think something is wrong," she started.

Annie tilted her head and Max started to pace as she thought. "What do you mean? You guys looked great yesterday," Annie asked.

"We were in my room and Hopper came in to talk to us. He said there was something wrong with Mike's grandma. So he left. But then Hopper came back and told me it was actually a false alarm. I thought Mike would be back but when I called he said there was something with his grandma, his nana. And then he said he... he missed me," El explained. "And then he just hung up."

All throughout her words, Annie sat on the bed and contemplated and Max paced the floor and contemplated. "He's a piece of shit," Max concluded.

"What?" El asked, lost.

"Normally I'd give him the benefit of the doubt, but Max is right."

"What do you mean?"

Max threw her hands up and got pissed. "Mike doesn't have jack shit to do today, and his nana obviously isn't sick. I guarantee you, him and Lucas are playing Atari right now," she said.

Annie looked at El's face and saw it start to drop more and more. "But friends don't lie," she said, and it hurt Annie to see her put so much trust into Mike when he clearly was lying to her. But why?

"Yeah, well, boyfriends lie. All the time," Max countered.

El thought for a moment. "So, he's lying? What do I do?"

Max sat down on the other side of El, causing her and Annie to turns towards the redhead. "You're going to stop calling him. You're going to ignore his calls."

"As far as you're concerned," Annie butted in, "he doesn't exist."

"Doesn't exist?" El questioned, leaning in to learn more.

Max popped back in. "He treated you like garbage. You're going to treat him like garbage. Give him a taste of his own medicine," she said.

El nodded. "Give him the medicine."