Do It For the Memories

Excerpt from Max's Journal (9/4 & 9/5)

9/4

After I got to my house after dinner I went straight up to my room. I curled up on my bed and went through all the music on my laptop until I found something to drown out everything I was feeling. I laid back on the bed and my dad knocked on the door, asking for the papers for  my classes. I just pointed towards where I'd left my backpack and he nodded a little and dug through it before ruffling my hair and going back downstairs. 

I sighed as the door shut behind him and slowly stared around my room, at all the photos I had hanging on the wall, some of my dad and uncles onstage that I'd found looking through some of their old stuff in the store room at the shop and some posters I'd either taken from magazines or found the same way that I had the photos. Finally, I just looked up at my ceiling and closed my eyes, listening to the music.

A while later, my dad came back in the room and put all the papers back into my binder and zipped my backpack up before sitting down on the edge of my bed and pausing the song I had playing. I sat up and raised my eyebrows at him and he just laughed softly and shook his head and said, "I know that these songs, playing that loud, coupled with you staring at the ceiling, usually means that something is wrong, so what's up?"

I slowly looked down at my lap and whispered, "What Holly said at dinner after you'd talked to her. About her being tired of you guys all acting like we're going to date. And she kind of half-mentioned it before dinner when we were all just laying around in the living room when I pulled her to lay with her head in my lap. But I really like her and want to go out with her, but with how she's acting right now, I don't think I'll ever be able to do that."

He slowly nodded and wrapped an arm around me and slowly rubbed my back and said, "I'm really [awful] with relationship advice. [Heck] when your mom and I started dating it had been so long since I'd actually dated anyone, so I went to Alex and Rian a lot whenever I needed help planning a date or resolving an argument as well as when I was finally ready to propose to her. So, as much as I wish I could give you some help, I'm just going to have to say either go to your mom or ask them and plead with them to not say anything and not to try and force any situations to come up where you'd have to say anything to her about this until you're actually ready to do it."

I sighed and nodded and just leaned on his arm a bit and we both sat there and talked for a while until he eventually got up and told me to go ahead and get ready for bed and walked out. I grabbed my pajamas and got changed and then started getting ready and got into bed and put on headphones and just played music, trying to fall asleep.

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9/5

I didn't sleep well at all last night and breakfast just made me feel worse. Luckily, I had the car to myself after and I managed to talk my dad into letting me not go to school. He did have one stipulation to keep him out of trouble with mom, which was that I clean. So I spent most of the day doing that, which kept my mind off of things.

Then, once I had done that, my dad and I went to the shop and I just reorganized the shelves, trying to keep my mind focused on that task and just sang along to some of the songs that were playing in the background. A few college-age kids came in and teased me about not being at school when they saw me, until they had to ask about something and my dad and Zack had both disappeared from the register and I was able to point them in the right direction. I rang them up and right as they walked out the door Uncle Zack appeared and joked, "We're going to have to start paying you soon, aren't we?" and ruffled my hair and sat back down and put his feet up in my dad's chair and leaned back.

I just laughed a little and shrugged and walked off and grabbed a guitar off of the wall and went back into one of the practice rooms and just sat in a corner playing until my dad came in and asked about lunch. Then, after we ate, I went back and grabbed another guitar and did the same thing until we went home, where I just went up to my room and crashed for the next few hours.