Maximum Ride: If I Never Come Home Again

The Heartbroken And The Victorious

Chapter 11

I woke up the next morning alone. I felt a small pang of disappointment. Though it was stupid of me to think he would come sometime during the night.

I took a shower and as I headed downstairs, I peeked into the guest room and found Jax still sleeping. I let him stay there and I headed down to the kitchen to try my hand at making pancakes again.

As I was cracking an egg, the front door opened and I heard the voices of the Flock drift to me. Mom walked in and stared at me in amazement.

“I didn’t think you would want to learn so quickly.” She admitted sheepishly. I just waved it off and she came over to help.

“Hey Dr.M! It smells good in here! Wait a minute… WHY IS MAX IN THE KITCHEN?!” Gazzy backed up in mock horror and the Flock came running. Oh, Ella and Dylan were also here.

“Shut up Gasman. I’m trying to learn how to cook, so scram.” I glared at him, but allowed my lips to lightly curve up so he could see I was kidding.

“I’m not that hungry anyway.” Gazzy said, as though I was asking him to eat live worms. Wait a sec, that doesn’t work. Gazzy actually ate worms before and liked them. Crap. Well I don’t have time to think of a new simile or metaphor or whatever.

I threw a wooden spoon at him, which he easily avoided. He just laughed at me. Jerk.

“So Max, will you go shopping with us?” Gosh dang it… Angel was using her freaking puppy dog eyes on me. Those always work on me.

‘I know.’ She said sweetly in my mind. I shoot her a quick glare.

“Ok, fine.” Nudge and Angel screamed in excitement, and the boys and I flinched. Ella looked equally as excited as the other girls, but she kept her vocal cords in check. Something told me that I would regret this.

After we ate, and Jax had so graciously given us his presence for 5 minutes to grab a stack of pancakes, we all got into mom’s van and headed towards the local mall.

As soon as we pulled into the parking lot, I could feel a headache coming. Since it was still the weekend, the mall was busy and there were lots of people. I kept looking around and making sure no one looked suspicious. The only thing out of the ordinary was people looking at Jax’s abnormally large and muscular physique.

“Max, you don’t have to do that anymore.” Fang reminded me, pulling me along with the group, where Nudge was pointing and talking about every store we passed.

“Old habits die hard I guess.” He shot me a rare smile that actually wasn’t too rare nowadays. I smiled in return and lightly pushed him.

The boys left us for GameStop, and mom went to go into JCPenny’s. I was dragged by the girls into the girlest store I’ve ever seen. There was loud pop music playing and glitter and, oh the horror, there was pink EVERYWHERE! I tried to flee, but the girls held me down and locked me in a changing room. They tossed me clothes and wouldn’t let me out until I tried them on and let them see it.

They did keep my style in mind, giving me leather jackets, dark skinny jeans, and a couple feminine t-shirts. But they also threw over dresses, heels, and skirts. I was even more horrified to admit that I actually liked a couple and bought two dresses. One was black and fit me like a glove. That one was forced upon me, but I only agreed to the black. The other was a teal blue one with a corset like top but puffy skirt from the waist down. It was cute, and had rips and tears in the fabric and really cool black bead designs that made it look badass.

We went to Hollister, and if the clothes didn’t kill me, then the smell definitely would. Oh gosh… The scent will be stuck on me for days probably. And the store was a maze! I didn’t know where the heck I was.