𝘿𝙍𝙄𝙁𝙏𝙄𝙉𝙂 - Max Mayfield

-defensive-

"Why are you always getting so defensive?!"

"What're you talking about?! I'm just explaining myself!"

"No you're not, you're deflecting!"

"How?!"

This was the argument that'd been going on for a while now. Aiden and Max had been screaming at each other without thinking. It started as a normal conversation at first, then Aiden had said something wrong. He'd apologized immediately and though Max forgave him, she used the opportunity to sit him down and have a serious talk about how he acted sometimes. That caused Aiden to basically give roundabout reasons for why he acted the way he did but Max wasn't buying it. She then mentioned that this was how it usually went,leading to where they were right now. In the kitchen of the Wheeler house exchanging words they didn't mean.

"Don't gimme that bullshit, Wheeler" Max pointed at him. "You haven't even apologized!"

"I haven't apologized..." Aiden shook his head in disbelief. "Really?? I apologized the second I realized what I said and then you brought things up that I thought we forgot!"

"This is the problem with you!" Max grabbed at her hair. "All I wanted was to make you understand that you made some mistakes like this before that we need to work on, but you just went off making it all about you and how you're the victim! You always do this!"

Aiden shook his head, completely disagreeing with her and frustrated at the situation. "You don't get it!"

"No, you don't!" Max countered. "You can't let yourself be wrong lately for sone reason. I don't know who this is but this is not the Aiden I kissed at the snowball!"

The African American let out a groan, his locs shaking with each movement before storming upstairs. "I can't... I can't right now"

"If you think locking yourself up and hiding as usual is gonna solve this, then you have another thing coming!" Max yelled after him as he walked up to his room.

Aiden shut the door and flopped down on his bed, hearing the main door close downstairs, signalling Max's exit. He let out a groan as he let himself think.

What was going on lately? It was like something always came up to ruin their conversations lately. Why would she even bring that up?

Then Aiden remembered something Karen had told him.

Listen to both sides and understand what the other's feeling.

Come to think about it, he hadn't actually sat with Max to talk about how she felt in a while. Aiden made a lot of mistakes lately.. most of which he'd promised her he'd work on. She did note that he'd stopped a lot of them and she was proud of him for it.. but he made more of them and they scared him. He'd heard from Nancy that a girl can break up with you mentally months before ending things and that they could only take so many fights before leaving a relationship.

And they'd had a good number of fights, that was for sure.

And he had to admit to himself that he did immediately feel scared when Max brought up the things he did before. He needed to dig deep and ask himself why..

It wasn't rocket science, the reason was that he was scared admitting to all of that would confirm everything Max said, hence giving her plenty of reason to break up with him.

Essentially he was running from his mistakes without trying to address them.

Aiden sat up on his bed after two hours of self examination..

She was right.

He immediately got up and threw on his vans along with his Jansport, sprinting downstairs and out of the house, locking the door as he went out.