The Heart and the Broken

Chapter Two

"Okay, Benny. I'm coming," Ally calls as she walks towards the door, fixing her light brown hair, straightening out her dark blue flannel, and attempting to dust off her jeans. Ally hesitates with her hand eesting above the door handle, somewhat nervous to open it.

She opens the door a little so she can see him. "Hey," he smiles giving her a tiny, awkward wave. His normally styled black hair was now a cute mess hanging over his hazel eyes. She opens the door a little more to see he's in black Adidas sweatpants and a black hoodie. "Are you sure everything is alright? You look, I don't know, upset."

Ally didn't want to say anything in that moment. She just wanted someone to hold her. She stays quiet while playing with the sleeves of her shirt, unsure if she should do. Ally looks up when she hears the shower start upstairs. Looking confused, Benjamin grabs her hand to try and get her attention, "Ally. Please. What's going on?"

"Hug me?" Without any hesitancy, Benny pulled her closer by her hand and wrapped his arms around her small frame. She takes a deep breath, trying to control her emotions.

"Talk to me. Please," Ben begs simultaneously drawing circles on the small of her back.

"I don't know what to do. There's someone at school bullying Max. It's only been small things like hurtful words a-and occasional pushing. But, Benny," she looks him in the eyes, tears threatening to spill, "Max just can home with bruises... He won't tell me who it is. I've already tried talking with the school, but they are useless. I've tried giving Max defense classes, but he refuses to fight. He says that he's fine without them. I just... I don't know what to do!" She rambles, trying to keep her voice down so Max doesn't hear her.

"Woah woah woah. Hold on a minute. Have you tried going to the cops for harassment?" Benny worriedly asks.

"Yeah, but they won't do anything because Max refuses to say anything," she explains. "I sound like a crazy, paranoid lady to them," she pauses to take a deep breath. "Oh gosh. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said any of this. Don't tell Max I said any of this."

"Ally," he laughs, "You need to stop apologising for everything. You know you can talk to me about anything." Benny scootes closer to her so he can wrap his arm around her shoulders to comfort her.

"You're such a great person." She turns to give him a hug. "I couldn't ask for a better friend."

They just sat there hugging eachother. Neither of them making any attempt to let to of the other. Ally heard footsteps as she turned her head to see Max slowly hobbling down the stairs in his penguin onsie. Embarrassed, she quickly let go of Ben and moves a solid foot away from him.

"Hey, Batman," Max greets Benny as he gets to the bottom of the stairs.

"What's up, Penguin?"

Max stops and thinks for a moment, "Unemployment rates," he replies.

"That's not what I meant and you know it," Ben laughs, throwing a red Coca-Cola pillow at him. Max ducks so it doesn't hit him, but hits the wall behind him. He picks the pillow up and throws it back ar Ben, who caught it before it could hit the food on the coffee table.

Max's mother sighs in disappointment, "Boys, if you break anything, I will break you."

Max nonchalantly winks at his mother and grabs his food to bring it to his room. "Bye, mom," he leans down to give her a peck on the cheek, obviously trying not to fall over in the process. He stands infront of the stairwell and crosses his arms with the food in his hands, "Don't stay up past bed time, you two."

"Maxwell," Ally chastises him as she also chucks a pillow at him, but purposely misses him.  Max giggles, hobbling up the steps. "Go to bed, you gremlin!"

"Love you," Max voice cracks a little as shouts from the top of the stairs probably loud enough to annoy their neighbors.

"Night, Max," Benny yells towards the steps.

"Remember Max, no porn with company in the house," his mother jokingly says.

Max's laughs could be heard from the top of the stairs. "Fuck you," he attempts to yell in hysterics.

"Language," his mom yells in pretend shock.

"It's English!"

"Just go to bed already," she exclaims, smiling from ear to ear.

"Fine," Max responds. Then there was silence. Ally thought he'd gone to his room and she was about to say something to Benny when Max yelled, "No sex while I'm here please."

"MAXWELL HERZ!" She heard Max hurriedly shuffle into his room and slam the door before she could say anything else. "I'm sorry about that," Ally laughs nervously, putting her hands infront of her face and peaking through her fingers to look at him.

"Has anyone told you you apologize too much?" He chuckles simultaneously grabbing her hands to pull them away from her face.

"Yeah, you. Not even an hour ago," she remarks.

The room went silent again, but it wasn't an awkward silence. It was a comfortable silence. The type of silence you have when you're on the phone with your best friend and you've talked about pretty much everything possible. So you just sit there, smiling like a maniac. Knowing that you can talk at anytime about anything, but you don't have to. It's the best type of silence.

And they stayed like that for quite some time until Benny seemed to realize he was staring while still holding on to her hands. Pink dusted his cheeks as he rather quickly pulled his hands away, much to Ally's disappointment.

"I should go," he says standing up and darting towards the door.

"Benny wait," she calls after him, but he had already slammed the door shut by the time she finished her sentence. She stands there in confusion at what just happened. Coming out of her shock, she speedily opened the door to see if she could maybe catch him, but he was no where to be seen when she got outside.

She thought about walking over to his house to see if he was okay, but she decided against it. Thinking she did something wrong, Ally didn't want to make him more agitated than he already seemed.

Ally walked back inside and went to Max's room to check on him. Even though it was 5:00 in the afternoon, Max was fast asleep in his penguin onesie, cuddling with his giant killer whale stuffed animal that he got from their time at Sea World.  He has a tendency to cuddle with the closest thing to him when he's sleeping.

His headphones were still playing music with it's cord wrapped around his body from him moving around in his sleep

She stands there resting her head against the doorframe just taking in how adorable he looked. She walked over to him to carefully unwrap his headphone cord from his body. On her way out, she turned the switch to three on his fan because it was unbelievably hot in his room. She didn't know why he liked it so hot in his room.

Ally stops at the door and looks back at him once more, noticing faint red marks on his face and neck. What is this person doing to her son? Shaking her head, she quickly left the room not wanting to wake him up.

//Edited\\