Speak Soft // p.w.

>Harm<> Chapter 13 <

Max's POV

The next morning

I wake up the next morning and when I look over to my side, I see that Patty is still asleep. I decide against waking him up and instead just sit on my phone and wait for him to awake on his own time. I do, though, decide to go into the bathroom to brush my hair and my teeth so that my hair isn't a nest and I don't have bad morning breath.

To my surprise, when I renter the bedroom Patty is awake and sitting up on the bed. "Oh, hey, I didn't know you were awake. I had just stepped into the bathroom for a second." I smile as I go to sit down next to him again.

"Don't worry you're fine. I've only been awake for a matter of seconds." He laughs before kissing my cheek after I'm on the bed next to him again. "We only have two days left here, might as well make the most of them. Let's go out most of today and tomorrow so on the plane we can sleep, does that sound like a plan?" He suggests as more of a question.

"Yeah." I agree with him. Going on some more adventures seems like a good idea, especially since we don't have unlimited time here. As selfish as this probably sounds, I want to get some more clothes. I always kept a decently basic wardrobe but now that we're in New York I might as well expand it because there will be everything and anything I could possibly want here.

"It's half 10:00am so when would you want to head out?" Patty asks me.

"Ummm, why don't we hang out here and eat lunch here then go out after that so maybe like 12:30?" I offer. He agrees and we just hang out until about 11:00 which is when I start getting ready before grabbing something to eat before we head out.

"You ready babe?" Patty asks me as he runs down the stairs. I say 'yeah' and then stand up from the couch where I had been sitting and grab my purse as we walk out to the car in the garage.

I had already asked my mom if we could take her car and she said that she doesn't mind so now we're using her car.

"Where do you want to go first?" I ask Patty as I drive us out of the neighborhood.

"Wherever you want to go, I don't have any preferences." He shrugs back.

"We can get you some tacky clothes, like a leather shirt so you can be Dan Howell." I joke as I drive us towards the area we've been going to since we've been here. There are candy stores, clothing stores, toy and souvenir shops.

When we arrive, I park the car and we begin walking the streets, passing by some shops and occasionally entering a few. It was really fun because me and Patty got to talk a lot as we sauntered around the streets, I even found out some things that I didn't know about him previously.

One hour later

"Hey, I'm gonna walk into a shop a few doors down. I'll be back in like five minutes." I say to Patty. We are in a candy shop but there is a shoe store just down the road and I wanted to look at some boots.

"Okay, I'll be in here." He smiles at me before I walk out of the store. The area where we are right now isn't that crowded, in fact, there are very few people here. Mainly because we have wandered away from the busy part of the city and probably also because it's a Thursday afternoon and not many people would be out shopping right now.

I look around the shoe store for a while and find a really cute pair of burgundy combat boots. Too bad they're Doc Martins and cost about $100.

I walk out of the store and hear the little bell chime as I walk out. I turn to head back to the shop me and Patty had been in since I've already been gone for almost 10 minutes when I said I would be gone for five. In surprised Patty hasn't texted or called me yet to see where I am.

When I'm almost half way back, I feel a hand grasp over my mouth and my body being pulled into one of the alleys between two stores. I try to scream but my mouth is covered and I'm suddenly kneed in the stomach, causing me to cough and sink down against the brick wall behind me.

"Shut up." A deep voice says as I'm yanked forward and the person who just took me into this alley pulls me against their chest. I'm facing away from them so I can't see what they look like at all.

I try to kick their knees and violently shake out of their grasp but everything fails. There was almost no one on the street when I was just walking by so nobody would walk past the alley and see what was happening. Even if they did, it would be useless now because now I'm behind the building, not between the two.

I try to twist to see what is behind me and I see a truck with the passenger door opened. I try to scream even more as they pull me closer to the vehicle but all of the sounds were muffled by their hand.

When I was not but five feet away from the truck I jerked to the side and for a single second the person lightly loosened their grip accidentally. I ducked my head down under their arm that had been across my torso and ran as fast as I could back onto the main road, not even bothering to look behind me to see their face or the license plate on the truck.

I speed walk last another store or two until I get to the candy shop that I left Patty in.

"Hey, where have you been? What happened?" He asks, his smile quickly fading into a concerned frown the moment he saw my nervous expression.

"We need to go." Is all I can say before I turn around and walk out of the store.

"Max, what's going on?" Patty asks as his feet scuff across the pavement to try to catch up to me as I walk even faster back to the car. I don't respond but rather walk even faster.

"Hey, hey, can you tell me what's wrong?" He questions once again as he rests a hand on my shoulder. I quickly jerk my arm forward to get his hand off of me.

I stop moving and turn around suddenly to face him. "We need to go." I state once again but this time my voice gives out and cracks.

Once we reach the car I get out the keys and shakily unlock the doors and hastily get in the car and relook the doors as soon as Patty gets in too. He's in the drivers seat this time and I'm in passenger.

Before he can ask me what happened again and before I can repeat that we need to go again, I break down in tears and slump back in the seat.

"Max, you're fine, you're safe. What's happened?" Patty says in an attempt to comfort me but nothing is going to help now. I shake my head but still don't mutter a word.

I finally pluck up the courage to say something. "I don't even know who it was." I cry into my hands.

"What did they do to you?" He asks in shock as he places his hands onto my arms. "Max, what happened? Are you hurt?" After a few more minutes of tears, I finally pull myself together to speak.

"I-I was wa-lking back to the sh-shop." I stutter as I try to steady my breathing. "Someone came out from a-an alley and th- they pulled me b-ack. I t-tried to scream b-but they-" is all I can get out before I crumble into tears again. I open my eye to look up at Patty and he seems enraged, making me cry even more. "I'm s-sorry." I cry as I look up at him.

"Max, why on Earth are you apologizing? Do you think I would be mad at you?" He asks, astonished by my remark.

"I do-don't even kn-know who i-it was, I barely g-got out." I mutter once again.

"Shh shh, I'm right here Max. Look, were going to go home and I'll help you out as much as I can, okay? Then we can try to forget that this ever happened and it'll be okay again soon enough." Patty soothes me.

"But it won't be, it'll never be completely okay."

I still don't know how to properly end chapters. Also sorry this is an insanely short chapter, I had to delete some stuff. (You'll find out later)

WORD COUNT: 1,531

Bye loves,
Macy <3