A life less ordinary ||~~Elax/Elmax~~||

Shaken

Max was right, since the incident with Amber no-one bothered El, not in a negative way anyway. As she was no longer ostracized by Amber, and by default every other popular student or wannabe, people began to actually get to know her. She was always quiet with someone new, relying, possibly too much, on Max to support her, but slowly and surely she made new friends who accepted her. One of those new friends actually was Amber, who still felt guilty about the way she had treated El and was, in reality, blown away by El's willingness to help her when she needed it.

*~~~~~~~~~~~~*

"It's annoying though" Max stated.

"What is?" asked El.

Max sighed, "look, I'm really happy that everyone is actually treating you like a human being now, but there was no fucking excuse for not doing that in the first place" she said, trying to suppress the anger in her voice.

El looked down thoughtfully, "I know, but it doesn't matter now, there is no point living in the past Max" she said sincerely, looking her in the eye.

Max closed her eyes tight, "ugh, you always know what to say" she reluctantly agreed, herself still amazed by El's attitude on occasion.

"Good" stated El, "so you'll be fine coming to the Mall with me..." Max looked at her suspiciously, "...with Amber and her friends, they invited me yesterday but I said I wouldn't go without you" El said with a hopeful look on her face.

"The mall," El nodded, "shopping," El nodded again. Max rolled her eyes and fell back against the lockers dramatically, "ugh!"

"...iiiiiiiss that a yes?" El probed, eyebrows raised.

"Fine, yes" replied Max with a grimace, knowing El really wanted to go as she enjoyed shopping immensely, far too much in Max's opinion.

"Yesssssss" said El triumphantly with a small excited jump, Max rolled her eyes at her reaction but was smiling on the inside. "Tomorrow, come 'round at 10, ok?" Max just nodded, resigned to her fate.

*~~~~~~~~~~~~*

El could barely get to sleep that night, she was excited for her first trip to the mall with a group of girl-friends, and Max of course. She planned on buying something for Max to say thank you, she knew Max didn't particularly enjoy shopping. Max is a good friend, I'm lucky to have her in my life she thought, before she started to finally drift off to sleep.

*~~~~~~~~~~~~*

If I roll my eyes any more it's gonna cause an injury Max thought to herself as she winced at another squeal from one of the interchangeable girls in Amber's posse. Looking at El, Max smiled, seeing an amusing looked of puzzlement on her face, not understanding the need to make such a noise upon spotting a dress which looked exactly the same as the other twenty they'd seen in the past two hours.

"El, this one, it's perfect" the girl said, 'Claire' Max thought her name might be.

El looked at the dress and did actually think it looked nice, "pretty" she said, running the material through her hand, Max having a flashback to the first time she heard El speak.

"Well, try it on then, if you like it and it looks good you can wear it to the dance next month" Amber told her.

El looked up from the dress, "dance?"

"Yeah, they hold one every year around the same time, surprised Mike or Max or one of your other friends didn't tell you about the previous ones" she stated.

"Snowball?" she asked quietly.

"Yeah, well no, that's middle school, the high school one is earlier" Amber explained, "rumor has it that it's to stop people getting to know each other so well in the first term, sooo less...you know..." she said, winking at the group. They all laughed except El, who just went slightly red when Max leaned in and whispered into her ear, explaining what Amber meant. "Not that it works, am I right?" she smirked, elbowing El and wiggling her eyebrows, completely missing the fact that El had no clue what she meant.