Chapter Twenty-Two Max
Chapter Twenty-Two
Max
Max understood how Keely had felt standing on his front porch the other day. His legs twitched with the urge to run, to keep campus Keely and hometown Keely in two distinct boxes in his mind.
But her mom had made his family a casserole, and his mom sent him back with the dish the next evening. Who the hell uses glass bakeware? Everyone knows you’re supposed to—
The door swung in, and Keely blinked in surprise.
“Use disposable next time,” he barked, thrusting the dish at her. “So I don’t have to bring it back.”
She didn’t take it. Instead, her lips pressed into a line so flat, the color disappeared. “Disposable is bad for the environment.”
A dry, humorless laugh slipped out. “Yeah, well, ease of use is generally preferred over environmental impacts when someone’s dying, so. . .”
Her gaze shuttered. “Max, I—”
“No.” He shook his head fiercely. Told himself that was the reason he saw stars when he looked back at her.
“No, don’t apologize. That was on me.” He blew out a heavy breath.
He still wasn’t used to being this vulnerable with anyone, let alone Keely.
“I thought my dad might get to come home for a bit between treatments. It was supposed to happen while I was off, but his doctor thinks it’s too risky.
I’ll miss having him home by a few days.
And that’s. . .” He swallowed, ground his heels into the doormat inscribed with a calligraphed S.
He was splicing himself open all over it.
He hoped the Sinclairs had stain remover. “I’m just upset, I guess.”
“Of course you are.” There wasn’t a lick of sarcasm or contempt in her tone. Her eyes.
“I still shouldn’t have snapped like that.”
“You shouldn’t have,” she agreed, and the back of his neck turned hot. “But I understand why you did.” Her brows pinched for a second before smoothing back into two perfect lines. “Do you want to come in?”
Max stepped through the front door and was transported back ten years. Everything was largely the same: professional portraits of Keely and, Max guessed, Vincent on the wall; orderly, impeccably clean shelves and furniture arrangement.
There was one large difference, though.
He toed one of the boxes. “You’re moving.”
One tight dip of her chin as she called to someone somewhere else in the house that “Max is here.” How many times had she screamed those same words? To him, she said, “Byproduct of the divorce. They’re splitting the profit.”
He followed her to the kitchen, where more labeled boxes stacked neatly in the corner. She took the casserole dish from him, then braced her hands on the counter.
“Do you want a beer or something?” She pulled open the fridge. “I thought we could talk in my room.”
He raised an eyebrow, but based on the rigid set of her shoulders, she didn’t mean anything by it.
Not that he wanted her to mean anything by it. “I’m not drinking right now,” he said instead.
Keely paused with her hand extended into the cavern of the refrigerator. “But, at the party—”
“I told you.” He shrugged, fingers clenched into fists in pockets. “It was Sprite.”
She blinked at him several times, and when she bent back over, a pink flush climbed her neck. She pulled two ginger ales from inside and shut it with her hip. Her shirt was oversized, advertising something called WIS, and hung all the way to her thighs.
He tried very hard not to imagine it without leggings underneath as he followed her upstairs.
There was enough mess in this one room to make his entire house look tame. Clothes spewed from the open closet and dresser drawers; papers and books piled so high on the desk, he didn’t walk too close in fear of toppling them. The bed was also covered; this would have to be a standing conversation.
To his surprise, Keely went to the window, setting her soda on the sill, to pull it open and slide the screen to the side. The movements were practiced, without noise.
Max feigned a gasp. “Are we sneaking out?”
She threw a foot onto the ledge, the corner of her mouth lifting. “Sitting on the roof hardly constitutes sneaking out.”
Her room faced the backyard, and Max appreciated the view. There was a large oak tree, though there was a new bench and flower beds around the base, baby blooms sprouting up in polka dots of color. The fence had recently been painted, the yard mowed for likely the first time this year.
She pulled something from her pocket and held it out for him. “Look what I found.”
“Whoa.” He remembered this picture very well.
This was the day his parents told him they were moving. Away from his life, away from Keely. His dad had found a storefront for his grooming business that was too good to pass up. Three weeks later, he was gone, and Keely wasn’t his friend anymore.
“I went to throw it out, but. . .” She shrugged.
“But what?” He nudged her with his elbow, hoping to knock loose whatever she was holding back.
It seemed to work. She shuffled around to face him, her breath coming the slightest bit faster. That same pink flush was back near her temples. On the tip of her nose.
He hated that he noticed.
She cracked her soda open, took a dainty sip that still managed to dribble onto her chin, and rested it on her knee. “Where did we go wrong, Max? What happened to those kids?”
“You mean, why did we stop being friends?” When she nodded, his chin dipped. “I moved schools, and we stopped talking.”
Her mouth quirked. “That’s not exactly how I remember it.”
What else was there to remember? He had been showing promise with track, and his parents wanted him in a school with a larger sports program.
Combine that with the storefront opportunity and the need for more space, for Max and his brothers and their sports and attitudes, and it was an easy decision.
Her voice pulled him from his thoughts. “I heard what you said.”
“I didn’t say anything,” he said through curled lips.
“Not—not today. Back in middle school. When you were talking with Jackson Crawford. He called me a nerd. And you. . . you agreed with him. You laughed at me with him because I liked science. That’s why our friendship ended.”
He almost dropped his soda. “What? Keely, are you for real?”
“Yes.” Her gaze narrowed. “Just because it’s not important to you doesn’t mean—”
“No,” he interrupted again. “The reason our friendship ended was because I moved schools.”
“No,” she persisted. “You abandoned me.” The words sliced hot through his gut.
“We were in all new classes that year, and I didn’t have any other friends.
Then you got—” she cut herself off and looked down at her hands, clutching her drink “—athletic, and made new friends, but I didn’t.
Which would have been fine, if the one friend I had hadn’t made fun of me behind my back. ”
Her voice was raw, and her eyes looked wet, two things Max didn’t care for at all. He lurched closer, the roof’s pitch making everything more unstable than it already was.
“I’m not—I’m not dismissing this. I just need to know exactly what you think you heard that day.” It was coming back to him in pieces, but something told him he had one chance to get this right.
“It was after third period, the day of the pep rally. We were meeting up so we could walk to the gym together, but by the time I got there, you were already on the way with the cross-country guys. I called out to you. You didn’t hear me.
I was about to tap you on the shoulder when Jackson said, Keely’s such a nerd.
I heard it clear as day. And you agreed with him. ”
The memories came faster now, still hazy. He gritted his teeth and tugged them free. “Did you hear me agree with him?”
She nodded, but her mouth held a hint of doubt, listing to the side. “You laughed. Said yeah.” She pitched her voice lower, trying to mimic him.
If he wasn’t still so confused, he would have thought it was endearing. Maybe even cute.
“Keely, I wasn’t. . . I was laughing at Jackson, not at you.
” He ran a hand through his hair, using the condensation from his can to slick back the strand that always fell onto his forehead.
“I was embarrassed for him because he wouldn’t ever be as smart as you.
Because he thought calling someone a nerd was some great big insult. ”
“It was.” She wiped hastily at her face, and Max’s stomach dipped like he’d fallen off the roof after all. “To me, it was.” She sounded so, so quiet. “Especially if my best friend agreed.”
“I. . .” He didn’t know how to finish that sentence. But if he stared at Keely for one second longer, on the verge of tears with the tip of her nose turning pink, he was going to say something else he’d end up regretting.
So he touched her knee.
A tear clung to her lower lashes, and he pulled his hand back so he wouldn’t wipe it away.
“I’m sorry.” He pressed a hand to his chest. The cold from his drink seeped through and sent a shiver crawling over his skin.
Good. Let him focus, let him be acutely aware of his next words.
“I didn’t think about how my actions would come across.
I didn’t really think about my actions at all.
And I’m sorry if they negatively affected you.
If, at any point since then, what I said or laughed at or agreed to made you think you’re anything less than fucking brilliant, Keely Sinclair. ”
He was touching her knee again—when had that happened? He peeled his fingers away and wrapped them around his ginger ale so tightly the aluminum dented.
She cleared her throat, delicately, and Max blew out a long, slow breath.
“Thank you,” she murmured. “I accept.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I know.” She took a sip, so Max did too, and the bubbles, oddly enough, soothed the burn in his throat. “My turn.”
“Your. . . turn?”