Life of Max ✔️

Twenty-seven

MAX

I clench my fists as I look at the nearly empty plastic from my jacket, dangling between her fingers. If I wasn't so distracted by her wearing my jacket this morning, I would have known that I had some left in there.

This is it. This is the fucking fuckening.

I stare blankly at the plastic in her hand, before I furrow my brows at her, and shrug.

"How the fuck should I know what that is?" I ask her, and I try to act as normal as possible.

Maybe she doesn't know what it is.

"It was in your jacket, Maxwell," she says sternly, narrowing her eyes at me.

"Don't call me that," I mutter, and turn away from her.

I walk back towards my bed, and sit down on the edge of it. I run my hands through my hair, and shrug.

"Fine, but you need to talk to me," she then says, and crosses her arms.

She doesn't move, and honestly, I wouldn't either. I know drugs are bad and stuff, and up until I approached Jake a few weeks ago, I had never done anything else, other than weed. But weed doesn't count.

"About what?" I ask her, pretending that I don't know what she's on about.

"Don't play dumb, Max," she says, and walks over to me.

She stares at me for a second, before she sits down on the edge of Harry's bed, facing me. She puts the almost empty bag on the floor between us, and I stare at it.

Why couldn't I just focus for one damn minute this morning? I knew I had that there, and I let her take my jacket. It's like I wanted to get caught or something. I know I didn't want that, but I can't really blame this on anyone else than myself, no matter how much I want to.

"I'm not," I tell her, and meet her eyes.

I try my hardest to keep a straight face. I don't think I would have been able to if I didn't just snort two lines in the bathroom before she knocked on the door. I also put some of it into my coffee this morning, so I'm comfortably numb right now.

"Why are you doing this to yourself?" she asks me, straight up, no beating around the bush with her. It never is. That's one of the things I like so much about her. Like.

"I'm not doing shit, Haley," I snap back at her, and roll my eyes. It's not technically a lie, I'm not doing anything in particular.

I look away from her, not willing to face her at the moment.

I know she looks both pissed and hurt, and there's really no getting out of this, unless I back away from her. She can't do anything if I'm not someone she should be concerned about, right? I'm not even addicted to the crap. It's just a safety net, so that I don't slip into the darkness inside my mind and get lost in the never-ending negativity and the black hole sucking out all my happiness.

I wasn't really that happy to begin with, but happier than I've been lately, so it's been great for me to have something to distract me.

"Yes, you are, Max," she says, almost in a whisper. "You're ruining yourself if you're doing hard drugs like this."

"I'm not," I say sharply, and meet her eyes again. "That was the last of it, anyway. I'm done now."

I'm lying through my teeth now. I have twice the amount of what I first bought in that to-go cup only a meter away from her face. I put my head in my hands to avoid her staring into my eyes to look for any evidence of my lies.