Fluctuat nec Mergitur

Chapter 2

*Lynne Cimorelli's POV*

Max sat on the couch, legs crossed. Her hand rested on the arm of the sofa casually and she looked around, gaze landing on me.

"Hi." I waved, attempting to use more hand gestures than actual words. I've tried to talk to her before, on the rest of our trip, and I haven't been successful. I can't tell if she's closed off or just can't understand a word of what I said.

She nodded as some type of response, facial expression unchanging.

"I don't know how this is going to work out." I frowned. "How am I ever supposed to actually be able to talk to her?"

"She'll get it, mom. You'll see. She's already picked up a little English, I swear. She'll have a heavy accent is all and I don't know if it will go away this late." Lauren promised desperately, almost falling forward because she was just so weary.
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"Late as in what?" I guess Lauren is the language expert? My kids always surprise me.

"Late as in age. The best time to learn a second language is ages 4 to 7 or something, but that doesn't matter because we're well past that. If you learn a language before around age 11, any accent you had most likely won't carry through but once again we're a number of years past that as well."

"How old is she?" I tilted my head.

"16, I think." She took a deep breath, her tiredness evident.

"When's her birthday?"

"Sometime in November." Lauren shrugged.

"I hope this will work out and that you girls didn't bring poor Max out here for no reason." I don't know who to feel bad for.

Lauren is clearly exhausted, and I always find myself sympathetic for my daughters, who go through so much every day and come home just to do it again the next morning. Max was just put a whole legal ordeal about getting a green card to stay in the United States, not to mention a huge shift in not only location but culture and language and family life. Every single part of everything she knew is gone, again. Put that way, I want to feel worse for Max, but there is still inescapable bias.

"This isn't for nothing, mom. I know it's going to work." Lauren leaned her head on her hands like she was thinking about something. Either that, or she couldn't hold her head up anymore. "I know it."

"Alright, well, this was your decision so I hope you thought it through." I'm trying to sound like I know exactly what I'm talking about. I mean, she was the one that suggested it. "This isn't her country or culture and you're quite literally the only person she can talk to." I can't believe I'm being so lax.

"Don't worry, mom. It'll work out." Lauren rubbed her eyes tiredly. My poor baby.

*

Max always looks so worn out. I feel like I should be concerned. Lauren tells me that she doesn't sleep well and hasn't for years. She stays up late in some attempt to fix whatever's going on and by the time she falls asleep, it's not for long. Lauren mentioned something about recurring nightmares but she doesn't know what they're about.

Lauren and Dani's friends were visiting today, for the whole day. Max was making a point to avoid them, which is odd because they're nice girls. Maybe she's just being wary. That seems to be her default emotion. She doesn't really know what's going on.

I haven't been able to get anything out of her this morning. It's not like I've been able to start conversations with her, but I can be nice. Max seems like a nice kid. She just appears to act odd sometimes. I'm not sure what causes that but hopefully I can help.

*Max's POV*

Lynne sat across the counter from me, saying something or other that I couldn't understand. I don't have to. I can just listen, I suppose. I watched the door carefully and thought about how it leads out into the hall. The hall leads out to the street. I can't stop thinking about this. I need to be able to get out. I've been like this for months and I don't know what's wrong with me.

I get angry more easily than ever now and of course, I've never been particularly willing to make friends. I cut myself off from other people. I've always been introverted and shy but this is different. It doesn't quite feel right but I can't stop myself. I've always had issues at school because I get angry and other people make fun of me for assorted other things. In order to contain myself and ignore the other kids, I stop paying attention, which causes me to get laughed at as well as fail classes. I usually found myself asleep in class as well, since I can never sleep well. It's just an endless cycle of hell and I just couldn't do it. When there was no one to force me to go to school, I didn't. I saved enough money, roughly €30, to get a one-way train ticket to Paris from Amiens, my home town, and spent my time there.

It's about a 145 kilometer difference. The US is fifteen times larger than France anyway. 145 kilometers like getting from one state to another. I hate how large everything is here, from the size of the country itself to food to cars and pretty much everything else. I don't know who can eat such a huge portion, especially with how bad the food is. It could be worse, but there's so many chemicals and preservatives and everything is shipped in from countries hundreds of kilometers away. It's disgusting.

Lynne was still talking when I started paying attention again. Talking and talking and talking. I caught a couple words. Nothing more. English will take awhile. She was soon distracted by one of her kids' antics elsewhere and left me alone in the kitchen. There was noise everywhere, as usual when there's so many people around. Mike and Alex live elsewhere​​​, but other than that, there's still nine kids.