New Boys

3

The 15 minutes I spent talking to Harvey raced by, and by the time the reception opened I felt like I'd known him for years. We stood leaning against the rails on the steps, laughing and getting to know each other, it felt like I was talking to my best friend. But max on the other hand, he sat on the steps facing away from us, I tried asking him to come and talk to us, but he responded by putting his head in his hands. Something was up, and I had to figure out what it was.
While I was talking to Harvey, we arranged to walk home together, because him and Max didn't live too far away from me. Max didn't seem overwhelmed with the idea, but Harvey answered for him, giving him no choice.
The day went by slowly, as I expected. Every minute felt like an hour and throughout every lesson I made up scenarios in my head of Max finally talking to me, which I knew was really unlikely. As I waited at the gate I was looking for any two dots in the distance that looked anything like Max and Harvey. As each dot came closer and passed me I saw the familiar red straps from Harvey's backpack and his distinctive highlighted hair. But I only saw Harvey, no Max, and my heart sunk. What was Max's problem with me?
"Where's Max? Is he not coming?" I tried not to sound too curious, even though it was the only thing on my mind. "No, he wanted to walk by himself. This move has been hard for him, what with everything that happened back home and- I don't really wanna talk about it." The word no spun around my head, I wanted to see Max, but he didn't feel the same.
"I understand, moving house can be hard, especially leaving your friends back home, but you seem to be coping pretty well."
"Yeah, I guess I couldn't wait to move, although we had to leave our best friends Dobby and Dylan, some people were messing with my head and I couldn't wait to get away from them. Also, I had to keep strong for max, he struggles to cope with tough situations and I had to keep him from doing a lot of things he would regret. I guess being the older twin makes you more mature." I looked up at him and we both giggled, we went on talking about how our day was and by the time we knew it we were in front of his house. I looked through the window and saw a tall figure waiting by the window, watching us. It was definitely Max.
"I'm so glad I met you today Leah, I hope we could be really good friends. Maybe you could come over sometime this week?" Still looking at the window, I quickly diverted my eyes back to Harvey, who was scratching the back of his neck with anxiety. "Yeah, definitely. That would be cool."
I left Harvey and crossed the road with a smile on my face. Today was the best day in a while, but I still wanted to know more about Max. I turned around to look back at the Mills house, but what I saw through the window wasn't what I expected. I saw two tall figures, shouting at each other. One of them had the same distinctive highlights that Harvey had, and he was becoming frustrated with the other figure. Was the relationship of Max and Harvey different at home to what we all saw through social media?