Tuesday & Max

33

AND WE'RE NOT BRUISED THEY'RE JUST

PARTY TATTOOS

AND THAT COLOURFUL MESS

IS JUST COLOURFUL REGRET

Breaking up with someone doesn't feel the way Julia makes it look. Tuesday has no appetite for ice cream. She has no appetite for anything. After Jack leaves, she rejects all of Julia's offers of blankets and musicals in favour of her duvet, her bed, and the covers drawn in her room. She feels empty.

No Jack. No Max. Nobody.

In a moment of madness, she taps out a text to Max.

I'm sorry.

She's not sure what for, but she doesn't know what else to say. Telling him about her breakup with Jack feels cheap, like Jack hasn't been out of the door for five minutes and there she is, telling Max about it. That, and she's terrified he'll think she's telling him as if she's saying he's second choice, too. That, now her boyfriend has dumped her, she can turn to him.

All she wants is to talk to him, to breathe in his calmness.

But, then again, maybe Max isn't calm anymore either.

The look on his face the morning after he'd drunkenly crashed in her bed, when he confronted her about her avoidance, pops into her mind. She throws her phone across the room.

Richard comes over at some point in the evening. He knocks on Tuesday's door. Without moving, she makes a vaguely agreeing sort of noise. He opens the door a foot or two and places something inside, murmuring gently, "Don't feel sad for too long."

Tuesday doesn't answer. She doesn't get up to look.

Someone else knocks her door sometime later and she doesn't respond at all, rolling over in her bed to face the other way. This knocking is much more insistent, though, and after a couple of minutes her bedroom floods with light from the hallway as whoever it is decides just to come in anyway.

When Tuesday sits up, blinking crustily at the door, she sees one tall Harry-shaped silhouette and a shorter Candice-looking one.

"Sorry to just barge in—"

"No moping allowed."

They're such a contrast together that Tuesday laughs weakly.

"Where's the fucking light?" Harry is feeling the walls with both hands. He steps into the room and trips over whatever it was that Richard left. "Oh, bloody hell."

Candice sits on the end of the bed. Tuesday clicks on her bedside table lamp and is immediately engulfed in the warmth of a hug. Harry hops around for a second, then picks up the item he tripped over and brings it to the bed, sitting on the other side of Tuesday.

"Who leaves chocolate milk lying around in doorways?" He opens the bottle and takes a suspicious sniff. "How long has that been there?"

Tuesday laughs again. The sound feels alien in her throat. How long has it been, now, since Jack came and went? Seven hours? Time feels like it's moving weirdly.

"Richard put it here not that long ago."

"Oh, alright." He takes a sip, then hands it to her.