Chapter Text
"Are you sure she even wants to see you, man?" Patrick asked, glancing at Lucas from the driver's seat as he slowed the car down to park it by the curb.
"I mean, we saw her walking out on you earlier, looked pretty final to me."
Lucas, sitting on the passenger’s seat, shook his head. Patrick didn't get it.
"There's something up with her, I need to make sure she's okay," he explained to him, looking out the window and at the street ahead. He’d asked Patrick to park a couple houses down, he hadn’t wanted Max to see he’d come along.
"Have you considered that sometimes you just gotta accept your losses and move on to focus on other things. You know, like the championship game we have in"—Patrick checked his watch—"literally an hour."
Lucas sighed.
"Just give me five minutes, okay? I just need to go check up on her and then we'll head back," Lucas explained, opening the car door, starting to get out.
"Does she even know you're coming?" Patrick called out after him, but Lucas had already climbed out and shut the door behind him. No, Max didn't know he was coming. She must've ditched school after leaving the pep rally, since he couldn't find her anywhere, and when he'd called her house on the school phone, there had been no answer. It wasn't the best idea to show up on her doorstep without warning on the best of days, and especially not right now, after she'd broken up with him. But he couldn't shake the feeling that there was something going on with her. And he couldn't really focus on the championship game or anything else before he could make sure she was okay. He now understood Jason's stupid speech had been what had made her run out of the gym. And he couldn't blame her at all, the speech had been out of line, a gross simplification of everything that had happened in order to tie it into a simple basketball game. It made sense for her to be upset by it. So if he could tell her that, get her to talk to him, maybe she'd take back what she'd said about the breakup. She'd been so quick to say it, surely it was just been her anger talking. They could talk this through. Preferably in five minutes.
Lucas walked up the front steps to Max's house, seeing the lights were on inside. He was glad to see she was home, but it also made his nerves spike. He was really going to do this.
He stopped at the door, took one last deep breath in preparation and then rang the doorbell. The door didn't open, so he rang again, taking a step back, stuffing his hands into the pockets of his varsity jacket. He craned his neck, trying to see in through the windows, but the blinds were drawn. Maybe Max wasn't home after all, maybe it was her mom. Maybe he should just leave a note or something, or come back later after the game? Maybe—
His train of thought was interrupted when he saw from the corner of his eye as the blinds in the living room window moved, and he caught a glimpse of Max's face as she backed away from where she'd looked out through them.
"Max? Are you there? Can you come to the door?" he called out through the door, hopefully loud enough that she could hear him. No reply.
"Please, I need to talk to you! I won't take long, I just—" he continued, his voice even louder now. And then the door suddenly opened and he jumped back, surprised she'd actually opened it.
"I thought I made it pretty clear that I didn't wanna see you," Max pointed out, her tone sharp and cold as she stood in the crack of the door, her gaze venomous as she looked at him.
"I mean, you did open the door?" Lucas supplied, trying for some levity.
"Yeah so all your screaming and yelling wouldn't get us kicked out by the neighbors. So I could tell you to quit it and get the hell out," Max explained.
"And now I've done that, so bye!" she added, going to close the door but Lucas managed to catch it, keeping it open.
“Wait, wait! Just give me two minutes, okay!” he quickly said, his eyes pleading Max to hear him out. She pursed her lips together, her brows knitting, skeptical. But she kept the door cracked open, though she was probably more than ready to slam it back shut at the first sign of bullshit. He needed to be careful about this. He could do that. It was what he’d been doing for the last year anyways, when talking with her. Did it take extra effort? Yes. But would it be worth it if he got her to actually talk to him? Also yes.
“Okay, so first of all, I'm sorry for just showing up, I won’t bother you for long," he started, trying to set his words as carefully as possible.
"I just wanted to say that I totally get why you left the pep rally this morning. That speech was super insensitive and Jason's a bonehead who doesn't know what he's talking about.”
"So I understand why you had to leave, why you are angry," he said, hoping she got the message that he really did get it.
"So?” Max voiced after a moment of silence, her brows lifting, her look skeptical.
“Is that all? Is that what you needed to come all the way here to say? That you approve of my decision to ditch the rally?” she asked and Lucas didn’t know how to react. Wasn’t that what she would want to hear?
"Why, thank you so much! Much obliged!" she added with a tilt of her head, her voice weighed by cold sarcasm.
"Max, I'm here to ask you if we could talk about it, if you could talk to me about what happened at the pep rally. And, you know, after," he fumbled a bit, getting closer to the questions he needed her answer to the most. And it seemed like she knew what he was getting at as she rolled her eyes in annoyance.
"I thought I was being pretty clear about it earlier, but guess I'll say it again: I'm breaking up with you!" she told him, carefully enunciating those stinging words.
"But why? It just— it doesn't make any sense!” Lucas asked, letting his frustration show.
"What? You want an itemized list of my reasons or something?" Max countered, crossing her arms over her chest.
"No, but just some explanation would be nice!” Lucas said. He paused to take a breath, and then took another attempt at getting through to her:
"I mean, we haven't talked in two weeks, and then the first time we do, you come out of the blue and tell me we're breaking up?"
"So you aren't seeing a connection there?” Max answered his question with one of her own.
“You being too busy to even talk to me for weeks?”
"That's not true!" Lucas pointed out. Max breathed out a laugh.
"Oh please, as if you've had so much time to miss me while you've spent every waking second in that smelly gym."
"What? Of course I've missed you!" Lucas told her. Yes, he’d been busy in the past two weeks, but not a day had gone by when he didn’t find himself wondering what she was up to, and wanting to talk to her about the randomest thing that crossed his mind. There had been multiple times when he’d reflexively reached for the supercom on his bedside table to call her, only to put it down a second later.
"I've missed talking to you, and hanging out with you. You're one of my best friends, of course I've missed you!”
“But you seemed to need some space so that's what I gave you,” he explained, Max avoiding his gaze as he did.
“And yeah, I've been busy with basketball. But after tonight the season is over, so I'll have all the time in the world, if you want to end this and start hanging out again.”
Lucas kept his eyes on Max, waiting to hear her reply, but she stayed quiet. Her arms were still crossed, her gaze still cast to something in the distance behind him, her lips still pressed together. He felt restless, just standing there, waiting for her reaction, silently begging her to take back what she’d said and just be honest with him.
But it seemed like there was no such luck, when she finally spoke up, scoffing as she turned to look at him, deflating his hopes with her look filled with disdain.
"You know what, this is ridiculous! I've said what I needed to say to you. Which is that we are breaking up, and that's it!” Max exclaimed, her voice rising in pitch, probably for how absurd and annoying she saw the situation. But Lucas wasn’t backing down.
"No we're not!”
"You can't tell me what to do! I don't need your permission to break up with you,” Max pointed out, her eyes narrowed and Lucas nodded in reply.
"You're right! You're right.”
"Just…" he paused, trying to rifle through his brain for a new tactic, something to say next, a new attempt at getting through to her. And he just couldn’t think of anything. Which, he guessed, was an approach in and of itself.
"Can you just tell me what I'm doing wrong?” he settled on, his tone creeping dangerously close to vulnerable, plain desperation.
"What?" Max asked, her brow knit in genuine confusion, her angry front dropping for just a second.
"Because I can't figure out what you want me to do,” Lucas explained.
“I don't get why you'd want to break up, and I can't figure out what to change. And I just feel like I've tried literally everything, and I'm running out of things to do, and I just need you to talk to me and tell me what I'm doing wrong. What more do you want from me?”
Finished talking, Lucas kept his focus on Max, waiting for her reaction. Admitting all that was hurting his pride more than he wanted to admit but he truly didn’t know what else to do anymore. But she didn’t say anything, her eyes cast down. Lucas spoke up again, his voice full-on pleading down:
"Just please tell me, and then by tomorrow I can figure out a way to fix it."
"You can't fix this, Lucas!" Max yelled at him, snapping her head back up, bringing her hands up and into her hair, grabbing it as her hands formed into angry and frustrated fists.
"That's the thing, you're always hovering over me, focusing on me and, and…" she shouted out, and there was a gleam in her eyes Lucas wasn’t sure was from anger and frustration or from tears.
“I just need space!"
"I know! That's what I've been giving you! But you still want to break up! Why?” Lucas asked.
Max didn't reply in a while, instead pressing her lips tight together, restless energy strumming within her as Lucas prepared for whatever was coming. He really didn't know what she was going to say or do. Yell at him, punch him, burst into tears, slam the door in his face. All equally possible.
"God this is such bullshit!" she exclaimed, throwing her hands up in frustration.
"I've told you loud and clear that I don't want us to be together anymore and you just aren't listening to me!" she added, focusing back on him again. Okay, this was getting ridiculous.
"No. What's bullshit is how I can tell there's something going on with you, but instead of telling me what it is, you've convinced yourself that breaking up will fix all your problems so you don't have to talk about them with me,” Lucas pointed out, her anger contagious, causing him to raise his voice too. He paused, trying to calm down, before continuing, making his plead to her again:
“I'm right here, Max. You can talk to me, you can trust me. I'm not going anywhere, I don't know how many times I have to tell you!”
"That's the problem! I don't want you here!” Max yelled at him. Lucas felt a pang of sharp hurt in his chest. Yes, she’d said that before, she’d probably told him to get lost at least five times already today. But this one hurt. And it seemed like she wasn’t even done.
"I don't need your help, I don't need your pity and fake sympathy, telling me you understand, that you know what it's like. Cause you don't! You don't know what it's like, you don't know how I feel!”
"But I could try, if you would just—"
“It’s no use! You can’t help me, so you can stop pretending that you care already. Save both us us hell of a lot of trouble!”
"But please just—"
“You’re useless to me! Useless! I’m done with this, done with us, so get the hell out of here!”
And before Lucas could say anything more, Max slammed the door shut, disappearing inside the house, leaving him out on the doorstep, the loud noise rattling in the air of the quiet trailer park around him, a dog on someone's yard starting to bark in reaction to it. The relative silence felt deafening, his ears ringing with all the mean words she’d just shot at him, hitting him in blow after blow.
“This is such bullshit!” “You’re useless!” “You can’t fix this!” “I don’t want you here!”
There was a loud honk of a car horn, suddenly returning him back to reality. It was Patrick, telling him to hurry up. His five minutes were up and they needed to head back to the school and focus on the championship game. Lucas groaned in frustration, running his hands over his face. Why was this all happening today? But time was ticking down until the jump ball, and he had no other option than to push past this and move on. It wasn’t like that was anything new, him trying to ignore everything negative that had happened in order to try to live his life. It was what he’d done for the past two and a half years already.
So he turned and walked down the porch steps, heading for the car without a look back. He needed to keep on looking forward now. He couldn’t let the team down.