can i lay by your side|corbyn besson

10

Corbyn's pov

"Have any of you talked to Max lately? She won't answer my texts." I ask the boys. Earlier, we had all met up in the airport and were now on our way back to our house together. Christmas and New Year's with our families was amazing and I think we're all buzzing to talk about all our stories. Our groupchat has been kind of quiet without Max for about a week though.

"Yeah, I've been texting her grade A quality memes and she won't respond. Like, what is up with that?" Jack says, throwing his hands into the air dramatically. Everyone rolls their eyes and responds with a no or shakes their head, answering my question. I furrow my eyebrows and look forward, finally seeing the house come into view. The Uber driver pulls up the driveway and parks at the top. We all pile out of the car and run up to the door.

"C'mon Jonah! I wanna see her!" Zach yells and jumps up and down in excitement.

"Be patient, child." He says and finally walks up to unlock the door.

We step inside with big smiles but they immediately fade once we see the mess.

"Is that- is that blood?" Daniel stutters. We all see it too.

In the main area, there is a pool of red liquid, leading to the kitchen. There's also bits of a vase and the dirt and flower that went inside. Kitchen items are spread around the downstairs and there's a knife on the ground. We look around in shock before I realize something. My eyes widen.

"Max!" I yell out, running to the couch. She usually sits there with her earbuds in but now she's not. "Damnit!" I turn around and run upstairs, the boys trailing behind me. We split up and look in both bedrooms, our recording room and someone checked all around downstairs but no one could find her.

"No, no, no. No!" I yell, pulling on my hair. "We left her! We left her alone and she's probably dead! We left her alone to die! This is all our fault!" I start to panic, falling to the floor. Jonah comes over and rubs my backs as I rock back and forward, burying my face in my knees.

"Has anyone tried to call instead of text?" Jonah asks. Everyone shakes their head.

"I'll call her." Daniel says and takes his phone out of his pocket.

"Oh my God." Jack whispers, standing still. He closes his eyes and leans his head on the counter.

"Hello?" Daniel says. We all look up to him as he speaks into the phone. He looks confused. "Uh, Daniel Seavey. Who is this?" In any other circumstance, I would have laughed at his reply, but I can't even think when Max could be in jeopardy. He pauses and waits for an answer. "You don't need to ask, I'm one her best friends." His eyebrows knit together. "I'm the closest thing you can get to family. Just tell me what happened to her!" He shouts into the phone. All of our eyes widen. Daniel doesn't get mad. No matter what someone does, he smiles through but never yells. I guess all of us really protective of Max... I still might be the most though.

Daniel listens for a bit but now his eyes widen.

"What happened?" Zach asks anxiously but Daniel ignores him.

"Is she alive?" He asks into the phone. We wait nervously but when he sighs as smiles, I'm sure a weight is lifted of all our shoulders. "Okay, thank you." He says and hangs up. We look at him expectantly.

"She's in the hospital. C'mon." Daniel walks toward the door and I get up to follow him along with the others.

We make it to the hospital that the nurse said Max was at and pile out of Jack's car. The five of us waste no time running in the front door.

"We need to see Max Sterling." Jonah says calmly to the receptionist lady. I look at Jonah. How the hell is he so calm?

The woman tells us the room number after we sign in and we head up to her room.

Once we make it, we see a man standing in front of her door. He has longish brown hair and looks around my height.

"Who are you?" Jack asks bluntly. He looks up to us and smiles sadly.

"Oh, I'm Aaron. Sorry we haven't met yet." He looks down. "I'm Max's boyfriend." He tries a smile but he just looks more sad. The boys and I shake his hand and he leads us inside. I look at Max and find that she's asleep.

"Is she in a coma?" Zach asks, watching her sadly.

"No, she's just sleeping." Aaron answers, looking at his girlfriend.

"Ha, that's a first." Daniel jokes and we smile. I don't think any of us are really in the mood to laugh.

"Those nurses are probably forcing her to sleep." Jack says.

"No. When she woke up, she was really tired. She just wanted to sleep." I raise an eyebrow. Knowing Max, she never wants to go to sleep willingly.

"How did you find out she was in the hospital?" I ask. I didn't mean for it to sound so rude but I want to know by none of us were called.

"The hospital called me. I was confused why she didn't call you guys too but when she woke up, she said she didn't want to pull you from your families." He said softly. I couldn't help but notice that his hand held hers tightly. Aaron seemed nice enough, but he made me upset. I couldn't pinpoint why but I know in this situation, anything could make me sad.

"What about your family?" Zach asked. Both Jonah and I elbowed his side. This boy needs to have a filter on what he says sometimes.

"I live with my family. I'm guessing Christmas is a rare time when you get to see your families." He points out. Stop being nice! I want to hate you!

We're supposed to be protective of Max and that's hard to do when we're jet-lagged, sad, and when Aaron's a good guy.

Eh, I still don't want to like him just yet...