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Max opened his eyes to a room full of spots of rainbows.
David had hung up a suncatcher on the curtain rod, but because of how much Max had been sleeping in lately, he almost never got to see the light show. Today, though, the sun was poking through the slats of the blinds and Max woke up to little swaying rainbows. And honestly, /it was hard to feel heavy like he usually did when his room was full of colour. Max pulled Mr Honeynuts closer and curled up into a ball, enjoying the warmth.
A police car drove past Max’s window, the siren making his ears ring. The clanking noises of the neighbour’s renovation travelled through the thin walls.
Fucking Christ. The suburbs may be a modern-day hell of boring houses with boring, unsustainable grass lawns and ugly blow-up Christmas decorations that stayed out well past January, but sometimes, Max missed the quiet they brought. Mostly when it was seven in the fucking morning, and he just wanted to rest.
God, he was so tired.
Max climbed out of bed, wincing as his bare feet touched the cold wood floor. His old room had that beige carpet that Max would pick at when he felt scared. Maybe he could ask David to buy slippers for him at some point — when he was less at risk of getting sent away if he misstepped.
David was predictable. He woke up at eight a.m. sharp, every day. So, Max had thirty minutes to entertain himself. He didn’t dare make anything. David had said he could use the kitchen appliances, but it was too soon to act that comfortable. There was a basket of food on the edge of the countertop. David called it the “yes basket”, and said Max was allowed to eat anything from it whenever he wanted.
Allowed. Allowed. Allowed.
Max ate an apple. He looked at the plants on the windowsill, stared at the slow-cooker, and felt really fucking alone.
It would’ve been nice if David walked in at that very second, but he didn’t. Max hated David a little more because of that.
(Except no, he didn’t, but maybe if he said it enough it would become true).
Twenty minutes. The flashing green numbers of the clock on the microwave blinked at him innocently. David had a replica of The Starry Night hanging on the wall over the table. It was done in oil pastels and was a gift from a friend David worked with when he was in college. There was a vase of paper flowers Max had made at camp. Max didn’t understand why David kept them; they were sloppy and rushed and barely resembled flowers. Max resented their place on the table, just a little. It felt like a lie.
Ten minutes. Last week, Max got lost in a Costco and couldn’t find David. He’d searched and searched but for some goddamn reason, the man was nowhere to be found. Motherfucker had bright red hair too. And then the intercom went off, asking for Max to go to the front of the store, and he was fully convinced that his time was up. That David would send him back and say something about how disappointed he was in Max for not following simple rules. But David just smiled at him and said he’d gotten worried for a second.
Two minutes. Rural Oregon to Portland was a big shift. Max felt like a puzzle piece that had been pushed and shoved until he fit into the wrong place.
“Good morning, Max!” David stretched as he walked in.
Max nodded at him.
“Did you sleep well?”
Max shrugged. This was their exchange every morning.
“Want anything to eat?”
“I had an apple.”
“Are you still hungry?”
He kind of was. Max shook his head.
David hummed as he made breakfast for himself.
Maybe it should’ve been an easy transition. David had been his camp counsellor for what, four years? He hadn’t even gone to his parents’ house since camp. It had been a little over two weeks since camp ended and Max began staying at David’s, which was weird. Max assumed David looked forward to getting rid of him every year, because he was, a piece of shit and yeah. This was temporary, a rest stop until he inevitably got tossed into the system from stranger to stranger. It had already lasted a week longer than Max expected.
So then, it was better to be prepared for that future than to get too attached to this. It was too nice, too nice for a kid like him. This whole . . . thing was a ticking time bomb.
David slid into the chair across from Max with avocado toast because, of course, David was that type of hippie freak. “I don’t know if you remember, but Saturday is my laundry day!”
“Okay.” Of course he remembered that David’s shitty apartment didn’t have a washing machine. “Why are you telling me?”
“Because I want you to come with me so you can get used to how we do stuff here!”
“Okay.” Why does it matter if I’m not gonna be here for that much longer?
“Great! How long do you need to get ready?
“I don’t know.”
“Alright, so how about an hour from now?”
Max nodded.
An hour later, David and Max walked to the laundromat three blocks away. It was sort of weird, walking somewhere to wash clothes. The laundromat had a small facade, built into a brick building and squashed between a convenience store and a Starbucks. “Open 24hrs” painted on the door. Someone had graffitied a person walking a dog on the door.
“Well, we’re here!” David grinned at the laundromat as though it were an old friend.
“No shit sherlock,” Max said on impulse, immediately biting his tongue. Because apparently, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t shut the fuck up when his life literally depended on it.
Useless, useless, useless.
But David just smiled and said: “Oh hey! The usual Max is back.” And patted him on the head.
There were washing machines stacked up against one wall and dyers on another, more of them than Max had seen anywhere. Max watched as a tired-looking woman tried to hush a crying baby on the other side of the small room.
“—and then you — Max?”
“I’m listening.”
“Okay! So you have to wipe the inside in case it’s dirty. I learned that the hard way,” David said, shuddering. Max decided he didn’t want to know. “And there might be bleach inside, so you smell it to make sure that it’s a-okay to wash dark clothes in.”
Max wrinkled his nose.
David laughed. “Yeah, it sounds icky, but it’s better than having ruined clothes.”
After the clothes were in the machine, David sat down on one of the wooden benches.
“Now what?” Max asked.
“We wait and then put the clothes in a dryer!”
“We wait? Why?” Max decided he hated the laundromat. It was too noisy and everything felt too sharp and bright.
“Because it’s not very nice to leave laundry unattended in a public place! It goes against laundromat etiquette.”
Max swallowed the sarcastic comment building on his tongue and listened to the rumbling of the two machines they were using. The lady left, and there was no one else there. They could just leave, he still didn’t see what the big deal was.
“Hey, guess what?” David sounded excited.
“What?”
“School’s gonna start next week!” Right, next week. September. David worked at the school, and he had to send Max away before then. It was fine. It made sense. He knew this would happen, it had to happen eventually. He just wished David didn’t sound so happy to have him gone.
“Okay. I can pack today.” It wouldn’t be hard, he barely had anything anyway. Most of his stuff was at . . . home? His parents’ house? He wasn’t sure what to call it anymore. Would he go back there?
“Max — what . . . what do you mean?”
What the fuck did David think he meant? “You know. To leave.” Max’s throat hurt and his eyes burned. No, he would not cry. There was nothing to cry about.
“What? How — oh gosh, Max, I’m not getting rid of you! I need to enroll you in school. You don’t — hey, listen, I’m not leaving you.”
He was lying.
But David never lied.
Max didn’t answer.
“Is that why you’ve been so quiet?”
He nodded.
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?” Max scoffed. “You didn’t do anything.”
David sighed. “I didn’t realise you were worried about leaving. I thought you were just tired because of, well, everything.”
David had checked in on Max. He asked him how he was feeling and all that. Max just didn’t bring anything up.
“Whatever.”
At ten a.m. on a Saturday morning, Max cried silently against David’s shoulder. The sunlight shone through the window of the laundromat, illuminating the steel washing machines, and for the first time since camp, Max didn’t feel so alone.
Maybe this could last.