It Had to be You

Chapter Three: The Next Morning

TW: Alcoholism, child abuse

Max dreamt of home. He was hunched over, knees curled up at his face, sitting under a table. From another room in the house he could hear banging and shouting. His dad was drunk again, stumbling around the rooms screaming for Max. Whimpering, he pulled his knees in closer, rocking back and forth. Back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. He waited like that for hours. Until, with a thump, he saw a face appear in front of him. Scowling and angry.

"Get out here you little shit!" his father screamed, pulling Max out from underneath the table by his hair. Max screeched, begging for the pain to stop. Twisting out from his fathers grip, he ran toward the stairs. But before he could make it to the safety of his room, he felt a grip on his ankle. Max came tumbling back down, banging his head on the bottom step. Before darkness swallowed him whole, he heard his father yell. "You're never getting away, Max. You're stuck with me forever. Forever! You hear me?!" And then he slid into the void.

Max woke up, sweating and panting. He looked around. His tent was empty, other than him. It wasn't quite light out yet, but when Max stuck his head outside, the sky was tinged red, so the sun was coming soon. No one else appeared to be awake yet, and the camp was quiet. It was too late to go back to bed, so Max sighed and pulled his hoodie over his head. It was time to face the day.

Shoving his shoes on his feet, not bothering to tie the laces, he walked outside. It was still early summer, and the morning was cool. Pulling his hoodie in closer, he walked out into camp.

The camp was quiet, except for the chirping of birds and the rustling of leaves in the trees above his head. There was just enough light from the still red sky to see, so Max managed to make his way to the steps of the dining hall. He pushed on the door tentatively, and it swung open, so he walked in.

The room was warm and inviting, but it was also weird to see it so quiet. No one screaming, no one tied to fans. No plots, or platypi.

Max walked over to one of the tables and sat down at the bench. The room was still. Max twisted his fingers into different shapes, just to have something to do with them. "Here is the church, here is the steeple, open the doors, and see all the people." He mumbled to himself. Max wasn't sure we're he had learned that, maybe at school, Wherever he did, it quickly became boring. Finally, he stood up again and walked over to the kitchen. Max wondered for a minute if it was okay to just grab food, but then shook his head. Why would he even care? Max didn't care if David was mad.

Max swung open the fridge door and looked at his options. To be honest, there wasn't much. Some bread, a few vegetables, and for some reason a few things of yogurt. He figured the rest was in the freezer, on the other side of the kitchen. He grabbed one of the yogurt packs and a spoon, walked back to his table, and started stirring up the yogurt. It was sweet, fruity, and much better than the dry cereal he had been eating at his house. When he got food at all, anyway. Within a couple of minutes, Max had finished the whole thing. Still hungry, he ran back into the kitchen, grabbed another yogurt and finished that one quickly as well.

Max looked up at the clock in the hall. It was almost seven, only an hour until the rest of the campers arrived. That gave him some time to think about how he could hide the fact that David had adopted him. Which, although he hated to admit that Gwen might be right, was going to a hard task. While Nikki might never suspect a thing, Neil wasn't an idiot and Nurf was practically a psychologist at this point. It wasn't going to be easy to hide anything from them.

Before Max could ponder his dilemma, he heard the door to the dining hall open again. "Max? Are you in he-Oh there you are Max. Did you wake up early? Do you need breakfast? Aren't you so excited that everyone is arriving today? I know I am!" David bounded into the room and bounced over to Max. Before David could get another word out, Max jumped out of his seat.

"I already ate," Max said. "Could you fucking chill?"

"Language Max!" David crowed. "Are you sure you don't want something else to eat?"

"No, fuck off" Max tried to walk off, but David stopped him.

"No can do Max! We need to talk about when the kids arrive. Yesterday, you said you didn't want the other campers to know I adopted you. Does that still hold true? Because I want you to feel comfortable at camp, and if telling them makes you uncomfortable, I don't want to do that."

"No. I don't want them to know. I DON'T! They would make me talk! I don't want to talk about it!" Max yelled. David looked shocked and flinched back.

"That's okay, Max." David said, after a second. "That's okay. You don't have to talk about it yet. I won't tell anyone. I promise." David smiled again, a little pained, and left the dining hall.

Max sat there for awhile. The camp was quiet again. Finally tired, Max pulled his hood under his head, just to lie there for a second. But his eyes couldn't stay open and he fell back asleep.

Max woke to yelling and someone pulling his hair. "Fuck!" Max yelled, snapping his head up. Rubbing his eyes, he looked for his attacker. And there she was. Nikki. Her blue ponytails bobbing behind her, she turned around and shouted at the rest of the room.

"He's awake!" She yelled. Max heard foot steps running toward him, and then everyone swarmed into his field of vision. Everyone was back from last year. Well, he didn't see Dolf, but that wasn't really a loss. They all looked the same. Nerris even had on her elf ears for fucks sake. Self consciously, he tugged at his hoodie, knowing how he must look, skinny, bruised, and scarred. But he pulled himself together, knowing he couldn't act any different if he wanted to pull this off.

"Get the fuck out of my face!" Max said, waving his arms in front of him, as if to sweep away the other kids. They backed up, but in a friendly way that Max recognized. He was already felt so much better knowing everyone was here. They understood him, in the superficial way you can understand people at camp. You can't ever really know them, but you can understand how they act, if not the why. And it was calm. And it was comfortable. And it was just like last year. But if the truth got out, about Max, they would know him for real. And it would be full of pity and fear. And Max couldn't let that happen. The game was afoot.

An: Thanks for reading this far! Sorry this took so long to get out, the school year was wrapping up and I had finals. But now that's over so I should be able to post again soon. No promises though! I can't believe almost fifty people want to read my ridiculous story. That's crazy! So, thanks!