011 ~ A Mileven Fanfic

Chapter the Thirteenth

Third person

"You two shitheads need to stop fucking arguing and tell me what the hell is fucking going on. You are the reason Max is in this goddamn hospital room so get your head out of your asses and fucking pay attention. You douchebags have made Max fucking dying about your fucking selves and now she might not even make the night so get the hell over here and shut the fuck up about yourselves."

El and Mike stood shocked at Lucas's rant as he stood in front of Max's hospital room, fury burning in his eyes.

"We just broke up." El meekly says and Lucas's eyes burn brighter.

"Oh wow that's cool- I don't give a shit." He spits.

Will steps forward to stop him. "Lucas, c'mon-"

"No, Will. If anything, you should be the angriest. You're closest to Max than anyone. And you figured this out and apparently Mike and El knew but used her problems as a way to fucking talk about themselves like they always fucking do."

"Luke, I'm sor-" Mike tries to say but Lucas cuts him off.

"Save your apology for Max's fucking funeral."

Dustin steps forward and leads a seething Lucas away, quietly calming him down. And then Max's mom walks through the doors, tears staining her sunken-in cheeks, as she greets the kids.

"So as you all have figured out, Max is anorexic. She has been for a while but it recently started getting bad. Anyway she's been to the hospital a few times but this time they say, they say this is it. Her heart is too weak, it can't sustain her much longer and it's, it's t-t-too late to do a-a-anything." Max's mother breaks down and Mike rushes to comfort her. Her cries become wails as the mourns the loss of her first child and now her second.

Dustin comes back, tears glistening in his eyes. "I-I guess w-w-we should see her t-then," he hiccups. The group all silently agrees and Dustin looks around before volunteering to go first. As he wordlessly enters the room, the rest of the kids sit, not yet processing that their friend could very well die tonight.

Dustin's POV

I walk into the room and immediately gasp. I don't know how I hadn't noticed before but Max looks like a ghost already. A skeleton with a thin layer of skin stretched gauntly across her body. She smiles, a weak smile, a ghost of the spirit that once made up the gregarious girl.

"Hey Dustin," she said, motioning for me to come sit at the chair by her bed.

"Max, I'm not going to ask questions because we don't have time for that. I just want to say that you are the strongest person I've ever met in my entire life. I don't know how this happened to you but before this, before everything went downhill, there was this fire in your eyes. And I would always watch it, just perplexed by how passionate you were for everything, for life. You were my idol."

"You were the best boyfriend I ever had and the best friend as well."

"Am I a better kisser than Lucas?"

"Oh loads," she whispers and we laugh, the last laugh we'll ever have.

We sit in silence because we never felt the need to fill gaps with conversation. We were always comfortable in the fortified blanket of quiet. But all too soon Lucas comes in and I have to leave her, forced away from the girl whom I would never forget.