Not The Life I Wanted

Did You Make These?

The stranger-Bradley angrily yanked his hood back from Max's hands. "Great! You caught me! Now get the hell off of me!"

"What?" Max squeaked, before realizing that in the rush to figure out Bradley's identity, he had practically tackled him. He quickly backed off. "What's with the disguise?? Why are you here? I didn't take this as the type of place to be your scene. Wait...." He looked at Bradley's half masked face, down to the ink bottle clutched in his hands, and then back up to his face. "Are-are you trying to like STEAL that or something?? Aren't you rich? I figure you could buy a hundred ink bottles with your pocket change!"

Bradley gave him an exasperated look, before pinching the bridge of his nose. "God! How dumb can you-And here I thought you had me figured out!" He mumbled, with a grimace.

"Well, excuse me for being confused about one of the weirdest interactions I've ever had!" The boy threw his hands up in the air, offended. Max paused, "Wait-you thought I had you figured out?? So did I guess something correctly as some point?"

Bradley looked away, slipping the ink bottle into his jacket pocket. Max took a moment to recount everything that just went down.

"It WAS you! YOU drew that stuff!" He exclaimed. Bradley frantically rushed to cover Max's mouth with his hands.

"Shh shh! Not so loud Goof! If this gets out you're dead. You hear me?" He whisper yelled.

"Mhmm. Mmph mm mhm."

"What??" Max groaned, pushing his hands away. "Okay! I won't tell!"

"Wait...really?" Asked Bradley, giving him an incredulous look.

"On one condition though," added Max, smirking, "you show me what you've been working on."

"Yeahhh, no. Never mind. This is stupid," the upperclassman began walking away.

"Can't wait to let the guys know about this amazing new discovery I made then!"

".....let's just get this over with."

'Yesss!' Max did a little victory fist pump to himself, grinning mischievously before following the Gamma back down the hall.

~~~~~~~Bradley's POV~~~~~~~~~

Bradley flicked on a light-switch in the balcony room, better revealing his art to his unwelcome guest. "Here it is!" He presented sarcastically, "touch anything and you're dead meat."

He looked away, not wanting to witness the first reaction to his art that he would've gotten since the incident with his father. He stared at the wall, waiting for about 30 seconds before he became impatient. The older boy whipped his head back around. "God! What about them could be so difficult to understand that-" "Wow."

Bradley did a double take at that, he couldn't believe his eyes. There he was, Max Goof, the boy he hated with all his being, now staring in amazement at art that Bradley himself had made. The studio lights of the room reflected against his eyes, giving them a shimmering sort of look. It was like it was almost right out of a movie, and it made Bradley sick to his stomach.

"I hate to say it but these are really good. I'd easily be convinced that you were in an art school!" Max admitted.

Bradley sneered, "of course you'd think that Goof boy. I've seen your chicken scratch, but I'll have you know that I'm not half as good as I used to be. This is hardly art school material!" He crossed his arms and turned back to the wall.

"I wish you had been an artist, maybe then you'd be less insufferable," Max suggested.

"Excuse me!" exclaimed the Gamma, offended, "everyone knows that we Uppercrusts are perfect in everything we do!"

"...I stand corrected."

There was a moment of silence between the two, Bradley still processing that his sworn enemy had discovered his biggest secret, and also that said sworn enemy seemed to, in some strange way, be in support of said secret.

"Hey, Brad?"

"Bradley."

"Bradley. Why DIDN'T you go to school for art?" Max curiously asked.

Bradley huffed. "There wasn't any part of this agreement that mentioned an interrogation, Goof."

"Humor me then, your royal Highness."

"For your information, what I do with my life is none of your business," he said, through gritted teeth.

"Okay, okay fine. Chill out. Geez," Max raised his hands in playful surrender, "how about this. Why wouldn't you be as good as you used to be? It's it usually standard practice for people to get better at something if they've been doing it for years?"

"Will you just-can it with the questions??"

"I mean, yeah. But don't blame me if the whole school knows about this by tomorrow," Max nonchalantly responded.

"You-you can't!" Bradley panicked, his levelheaded demeanor slipping, "that would make you a liar!"

"Ya know what goes hand in hand with lying, Bradley? Cheating," the boy shot back.

"Alright! Fine! I stopped drawing in junior year of high school! Nowadays I only do it when I'm stressed so I miss how easy it used to be to create! Happy??"

Max gave him a slightly stunned look, as if he didn't expect him to actually open up. It pissed him off terribly. The underclassman then collected himself. "Very," he responded.

Bradley couldn't stand how pleased he looked.

Max opened his mouth yet again, most likely to ask another grueling question. Bradley couldn't have been more thankful to hear the boy's phone ring.

"Just a sec, Picasso," Max answered the call.

"Maxieee, my main man!" Bobby shouted from the other line, "where you at? Me 'n P.J. already made it back to the room!"

"Sorry, Bob," he responded, "got a little sidetracked is all."

"Well, once you stop being sidetracked, we've got an empty cheese whiz stock emergency. Bring up extra rations!"

"Will do, Bobby," Max let out an endeared chuckle, "talk to ya soon. Bye."

"Byeeee."

After Max put away his phone, he looked back at Bradley.

"You heard your little friends. Duty calls. Why don't you get your ink, get out, and we'll forget this ever happened, yeah?" the Gamma captain suggested, in an attempt to charm Max into being even a little bit on his side.

"Sure, sure. Yeah. Whatever you say man!" Max called out, already starting to walk down the hall, ink in tow. "Have fun!"

Bradley grimaced. Could this week get any worse?

~~~~~~~~Max's POV~~~~~~~~~

Max laid in his bed, staring up at the ceiling, lost in thought.

'Bradley seems so passionate about this whole art thing. Weird. Why wouldn't he want people to know? I mean, sure it's not the most masculine thing in the world but being openly good at sports AND art could give him bragging rights, and he loves those! He also seems genuinely upset that he's not as good at it anymore. It felt like the first real sign of humanity I got from the guy. Why do I have such a strong urge to help him? Curse Dad for giving me blind sympathy, it's getting kinda annoying. Even still, how COULD I help him? There's not really a way to regiment how often Bradley practices....unless?'

All of the sudden, Max Goof knew just what to do. And he was gonna do it to it.