𝐶𝑢𝑟𝑠𝑒𝑑 𝑙𝑜𝑣𝑒 || 𝑀𝑎𝑥 𝑀𝑎𝑦𝑓𝑖𝑒𝑙𝑑

4. 𝘾𝙖𝙛𝙚𝙩𝙚𝙧𝙞𝙖 𝙘𝙤𝙣𝙫𝙚𝙧𝙨𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙨.

Chapter 4~ Cafeteria conversations.

The morning had pretty much dragged out like it usually did- Ziggy turning up late- Ziggy finding a spot to smoke weed in between lessons- then Ziggy falling asleep in class- she didn't want any time to be able to think about anything, not what happened with Robin, not her dad permanently leaving and definitely not Max- well that wasn't completely true, there was one thing on her mind and with the Lunch bell ringing, she headed straight to the cafeteria.

"Hey guys." Ziggy greeted as she walked up to the cheer table, they all looked at her with wide smiles on their faces, "Ziggy! We saved you your old seat." One of the girls motioned to it, "thank you." She slowly sat down but they were all still staring as if they were waiting for her to say something, "have you thought anymore about it...?" Chrissy asked with a hopeful look in her eyes, "I want to join the squad again." Ziggy announced to their relief. The girls all stood up and huddled in for a hug, "we're so glad!"
"This is going to be amazing!"

"We missed you so much!" They all took turns to say, "I'm happy to be back." Ziggy replied...but was she or was it just a distraction?

"What are you guys celebrating?" Jason walked up to the table with a smile on his face, all the cheerleaders quickly moved out of the way to reveal Ziggy, "you agreed to join the squad again?" He smiled even wider, "yeah." She smiled back, "that's great, I actually have some news for the basketball team." He announced to everyone, "Sinclair!" He turned around and called him over making Ziggy's face instantly drop, Lucas came over with a smile on his face but like Ziggy's, his face dropped too, which didn't go unnoticed by Chrissy and Jason.

"You two know each other?" Jason asked, pointing between the two, "we did a long time ago." Ziggy pursed her lips, hoping no one would press on further, "what happened?" Chrissy asked to Ziggy's annoyance, "nothing." Lucas replied, "yeah sure." Ziggy mumbled under her breath, "what was that?" Jason turned to her, "I said people change." She lied, "but uh- I actually have to go, I'll see you guys later." Ziggy abruptly left, leaving them all confused.

She was pissed. I mean, why the hell did Lucas have to join the team, she was trying to use the squad as a distraction- now she would have to see him at every game.

"Hey Ziggy." Mike saw her walking in the empty hallway and rushed over to her, "what do you want Mike?" She stopped in her tracks and glared at him, "don't think that just because Lucas is now on the basketball team that you can take it as an opportunity to be friends with all of us again."

"You can't be serious." She laughed and folded her arms, "why would I want to be friends with you all again?"

"Well I've seen you talking to Max aswell." He scoffed, "I really don't understand what your problem is, we were ten Mike and you're all fine with my sister plus, I don't even like Max." She rolled her eyes, "I don't care how old we were okay? It still happened. Friends don't just leave each other like that." He raised his voice then looked back down at the bracelets on her wrist, like he did yesterday. "Friends also don't just let someone go that easily!"

"You never even told us why you left!" He raised his voice, taking Ziggy aback, tears were now threatening to spill from her eyes, "you never asked..." she let out in a whisper and quickly rushed off before tears were rolling down her face.

And that was the truth...they never did ask. She left a few weeks before Will went missing and when she tried to return to the party to help support one another, they pushed her away and nothing went back to normal- even well Will did return- despite a few conversations with him here and there. Wills disappearance affected her way more than she let on, her, Mike and Will were best friends before Dustin and Lucas joined, so for a while, it was just them. They would tell each other everything, then one day, something changed in Ziggy, she felt suffocated and hurt, the childhood pain caught up with her.

Max usually didn't bother sitting with anyone at lunch anymore. She preferred sitting alone just outside the school listening to the latest Kate Bush tracks on her walkman. As she sat on the sidewalk with her worn out skateboard under her feet, swaying it side to side, she looked up from it and noticed none other than Ziggy running past. "Hey." She blurted out without thinking, she could lie and say she's just nosy and wants to know why she's running away from school but she maybe felt a tiny, minuscule ounce of care, "Ziggy-" she called out again but the girl didn't stop, which prompted Max to stand up and run to catch up with her, which fortunately worked as she came to a sudden stop.

Max's eyes travelled over her face, she looked drained, "hey- are you crying?" She placed her arm in front of Ziggy but she tried to push her away, "now's not the time Max." She abruptly wiped away her tears, "but-" In all fairness, they hadn't been the friendliest to each other so obviously it was a little weird. "Why don't you ask your friend Mike what happened?!" She yelled before storming off.

~

Three days had passed and Ziggy refused to go to school after the whole Lucas joining the basketball team- Mike being an asshole like usual- her dad leaving- thing. She obviously agreed to join the cheer squad again but hadn't actually seen any of them since, I mean, some girls from the team had asked after her but she gave strict instructions to tell them she was ill and that is was EXTREMELY contagious.

This time off had given room for her thoughts to wander freely and, annoyingly, they all led back to Max. Like, did she actually care about her crying and why were they suddenly seeing so much of each other?

~

Ziggy decided to try and shut off her brain by taking her skateboard outside and trying out some new tricks, that usually took her mind off things and kept her occupied for hours- plus- everyone from school would be at the pep rally, so the chance of her bumping into any students was very low, "Ziggy." Okay- so apparently not that low.

She turned around and saw a certain red head skating towards her, "what are you doing here?" She stared at her, "I live here..." Max laughed making Ziggy roll her eyes, "I mean, what are you doing here when you should be at school?" She asked as if she wasn't literally skipping too. 

"I could ask you the same thing." Max smirked, "I'm ill." She folded her arms, "yeah..." Max looked her up and down, Ziggy had her usual light makeup on and her hair seemed well put together, she also managed to put a somewhat nice outfit together, considering she thought she wouldn't be seeing anyone today, "you look it." She grinned, "and I'm off because it's a sunny day, I'm not hanging around in a sweaty gymnasium with a bunch of people I don't like." Max stated, "why haven't you been in school all week?" She pressed on, "because I'm ill." Ziggy stuck to her lie- how did Max even notice she hadn't been in, they had no classes together-

"Is it because of what Mike said?" She carried on making Ziggy feel awkward as she played around with her fingers, "he told you?"

"Yeah, you told me to ask him so I did...he's an asshole and I didn't know he was treating you like that." She said, "yep." Ziggy looked down at her skateboard and rolled it back and forth.

"Can we talk?" Ziggy suddenly asked, pursing her lips, "we already are." Max replied with a slight grin, "funny." Ziggy gave her a sarcastic smile, "okay." Max sat down on some grass outside the house and Ziggy joined her, "what about?" She asked, "do you ever feel like you're going insane?" She picked at her lips, "I haven't really given it much thought." She narrowed her eyes, "I feel like I'm being lied to all the time..." she sighed, "that, or I'm just going crazy."

"Is this about that night again?" Max questioned, "well you were with my sister and everyone else. Robin still gets nightmares from it." She explained as Max bit down on her nails, "it's not exactly something you can just forget Ziggy...look you lost someone too so you know how hard it is-"

"Atleast you know the truth." She cut Max off, "okay." She abruptly stood up and got on her skateboard, "just as I started to feel different about you." She scoffed.