Fluctuat nec Mergitur

Chapter 17

*Max's POV*

I called Costello and he took me to his apartment. I stayed silent the whole way there, but once we'd made it up the stairs I cracked and told him everything, every single little detail. He listened without a word as I said everything I wouldn't even say to Lauren and everything I'd refused to tell Juliet.

For some reason or another, I've always been terrible at expressing emotion. I learned how to fight and made allies with the raccoon in the park instead. I never had friends, I never had family, and I still have a hard time dealing with it.

The way I act and speak and interact with people always goes wrong sometime because I forget that people aren't as desensitized to things as I am. I have to let people in or they'll leave.

At one point, I just broke down and started crying for the second time that day. Costello told me to forget about it for awhile, and I told him I couldn't.

He frowned. "Give me your phone." I didn't even ask why. "I don't want you to talk to her. It sounds like you're already under a lot of stress and I'm not going to let you make it worse."

Cos stood and, powering it off, put it in a drawer of his cabinet. He sat next to me on his hardwood floor and asked how I felt about her.

I love it when I come to my senses too late. I knew that I cared about her, but I never thought about it until now. Looking back on it, I guess it had developed into something a little less than platonic, but not as much as I'd wanted. Fuck hindsight. I told him all of it, and he gave me a hug.

"Are you mad about it?"

"If we'd been anywhere else, I probably would've just told her." I rested my head on his shoulder. "She just kept pushing and pushing and of course I was angry. She keeps asking personal questions and when I tell her I'm uncomfortable answering them, she doesn't get it. I said things I didn't mean, and I apologized, and she walked away."

"Oh, love." He wrapped an arm around me. "I'm not quite sure what to tell you, but what I can do is help you be petty."

I would've laughed if I didn't feel like I was in several pieces at the moment.

"Really, I mean it." He grinned. "And I have a plan."

Any plan Costello makes is probably not a good one. "You do?"

"Listen, I know you're sad right now, but give it a day or two and you'll just be angry about it, right?" I agreed somewhat. "I've some ideas for when that happens."

"Do you want to tell them to me?" I suggested, raising my eyebrows.

"No, but she follows you on social media, does she not?"

"Along with several thousand other people who would see the same thing, if you're telling me to post something." This already sounds dumb.

"Not right now, I'm not. The plan is more complex than that. She follows me too, right?" He pulled out his phone, searching through something. "She liked one of my posts, I think. Hold on."

I watched while he scrolled, not really wanting to see any of her pages. It took him a minute or two to find it. "Is this her?"

I closed my eyes. "I don't want to look at it." That's just painful.

"Come on, how else am I supposed to know?" Cos pleaded.

"Does it say Juliet Martin?" I asked, my voice slightly wavery.

"Sure does. She's blonde and owns a Yamaha guitar?"

"You've got her page." I peered at him, and he didn't make an attempt to show it to me. "Not a very good guitar."