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It's been a pretty shitty night for Abby Littman. No, it's been a pretty shitty week for Abby Littman.
She'd been thinking about what happened at school that night for a couple of hours straight. Everything replayed in her head over and over like a broken record. She still didn't understand it. How did Ginny manage to break up a group of friends in the span of a few short months? How did she manage to come crashing into everyone's lives and screw it all up so fast?
Abby heard her mother yelling on the phone downstairs in the kitchen.
Must be Dad calling again...
The girl pulled her phone out of her pant's pocket and called the only person she wanted to talk to right now.
"Hey, it's me. I know you don't want to talk, but I really need you right now..."
...
"What did you call me for, Abby?" Max demanded, standing in the middle of her bedroom.
"I just- I just needed..." the words got caught in her throat like they were fighting to stay down.
The other girl waved her arms in front of her in frustration.
"Needed what?!"
Abby sighed. She honestly didn't know what the hell she needed. Did she need Max? Did she need her dad back?
What do you need, Abby? Need to admit that you're a chubby loser? Need to tell your best friend about your pathetic feelings for her? For the love of God, what the fuck do you need, Abby Littman?
She sucked in a shaky breath. She should've known that this wasn't going to be easy to do.
"I wanted to make sure you were doing alright, Max. I know that it must be hard to know that Ginny was hiding the secret from you for so long." Abby didn't mention what the secret was, feeling it would be inappropriate to bring it up after what happened earlier.
Max crossed her arms over her chest and averted her eyes away from the girl standing across from her.
"Yeah, yeah it really is. I-I just can't believe that she would keep such a big thing from me ! Her best friend, of all people!" Max started pacing in circles while ranting about her feelings.
"And it's not even the fact that she's with Marcus that makes me so mad... It's the fact that she didn't have enough decency to tell me about it. That's what sucks the most."
Abby watched as Max flopped down onto her bed. She sat down next to her and watched as she groaned.
"Well, I don't know, or care, what goes on in Ginny's mind, but I'm sure she was keeping it from you for the same reason that I was. She didn't want to hurt anyone."
Max peered up at her from her place on the bed in curiosity.
"We all knew how miserable you were about Sophie, so it felt best to just...wait until you were in a better place-"
"Don't even with that bull, Abby! I could've handled it, I'm not a goddamn baby!" Max shouted back at her in response. Abby almost jumped back in reaction to her outburst.
"This is what made me madder than anything else! The fact that you thought I couldn't handle myself and that I needed to be babied until I was over Sophie. That hurt more than anything Ginny or Marcus did."
The girl stayed silent in shock. Max wasn't far off when she said that what Abby did was pretty bad. Maybe even worse than what Ginny did.
Well, look at that, little Abby. Even when you try to do good, it ends up hurting everyone around you. You've been a horrible friend to Maxine. How could she ever love you?
"I am truly sorry that I caused you any pain, Max. That is the absolute last thing I wanted to happen. I was just trying to-"
"Well, I guess you failed, Abby."
Abby didn't have the strength to say whatever else she'd been planning on saying. She was just tired. Tired of everyone and everything around her. It was just too much for her to deal with right now.
Just give up, Abby. Max said it herself, you failed . You always do, don't you?
And so, knowing fully that the conversation was over now, Abby walked out of the other girl's house and started her way back home to where she could cry into her pillow and feel sad in peace. Although, even her own house didn't feel like home at the moment.
...
When she went back to school, she noticed that both her friends' attitudes were completely different. Max was irate and hostile, Norah was tense and quiet, and Ginny was nowhere to be seen.
On the next day, everything was the same. None of her friends talked to her and Ginny was still a no-show. This repeated for a couple of days before it had been a whole week since Ginny left. She started seeing missing posters around town for her and her brother. The atmosphere was thick with all kinds of emotions, and her parents' constant arguing wasn't helping.
At a certain point, Abby stopped checking for new texts in the group chat. Nobody had dared utter a word in school or over iMessage.
Finally, the girl had enough and sent a text in the group message.
Abby: Everyone, come to Blue Farm ASAP.
...
Eventually, Max and Norah showed up at Blue Farm. As expected, Ginny didn't show up.
"Why are we here, Abby? MANG is officially over," Norah questioned, arms crossed over her chest.
Abby leaned forward in her chair and took a deep breath in before speaking.
"Listen, guys, I know that things have been, like, super awkward since opening night of the musical, but I feel like maybe we should try and talk about what happened-"
"I'm out. I didn't want to talk the other night and I still don't want to talk now," Max interrupted sternly.
Dammit, I hate it when she does that.
"Me too, there's no fixing this. I'm sorry, Abby," Norah sighed as she grabbed her coat and started walking away with Max behind her.
All Abby could do was sit at the table alone, mouth agape in surprise as her friends- ex -friends left her.
It's really over. MANG is dead. MAN is dead. Max and I...
The girl cried harder than she usually would that night. The only thing she could think about was her friends and if they were feeling the same way. She hoped they were, but who was she kidding? They'd probably moved on from her already. Who wouldn't? Abby Littman was a selfish, fat piece of shit. She was a fool to think that anything would change that.
...
The first night she tried calling Ginny, she was only trying it to see if it would work. It didn't of course. The line went straight to voicemail and she didn't try it again for the rest of the night. The other times were more persistent.
Abby left plenty of texts, voicemails, even emails. She thought that maybe if Ginny came back, everyone would talk their issues out and MANG might be back together again. It was foolish, she knew, but she figured it was worth a try anyway.
"Hey there, Ginny. I wish I knew what I was going to say right now, but I don't. I honestly don't even know what I'm doing leaving this voicemail, because you've obviously disappeared off the face of the Earth or some other shit like that... We're all really worried about you, y'know. Marcus hasn't been to school in, like, a month. Max, Norah, and I are on really bad terms right now. I-I just think maybe you could come back. Just for a little bit. Everything's really falling apart here without you around. Jesus, I never thought that I would've ever said that about you. Well, uh, bye then."
...
It had been a month and a half since Ginny left and everything went to shit. All the remaining members of MANG were now sitting at separate tables, eating with different people. Abby sat alone. Nobody wanted to talk to her now that she wasn't apart of some elite friend group. It sucked.
One night, she decided she'd had enough. She needed to get everything off her chest. One by one. She didn't give a damn about whether MANG was dead or if Ginny was gone or if anyone still had a problem with her. She needed to talk to someone. Starting with her parents.
She sat down with her mom and dad in the living room and talked about how she'd been feeling about their divorce and everything that they've been dealing with. It was as honest she'd been in a really long time and it felt fucking great .
After the three had a long talk about what Abby had been experiencing while their whole...thing was going on, the girl ended up feeling lighter. Like a humongous weight had been lifted from her shoulders.
Abby then thought that she should talk to Norah about where they stood with each other right now as friends. That also ended up being a good talk. The two sorted out any ill will and ended the conversation on decent terms. Hell, Norah even hugged Abby on her way out. Everything was going great so far. Except, there was one more person she needed to talk with.
...
Abby showed at Max's house late at night, throwing rocks at her window to signal her to let her in. Max did, albeit reluctant as all hell, and motioned the girl inside.
As the two went upstairs to Max's bedroom, Abby could feel her heart pounding inside of her chest wildly. She'd been able to sort everything out with everyone else, but this was on a whole new level of challenging. This was something that had been brewing for years, yearning to be unleashed from its emotional chamber.
They went inside the room, and both took a seat. Max sat on the bed and Abby on the chair hammock.
"Listen, I'm sorry I ignored you-"
"Just-Just listen, please. I need to tell you something."
Abby's mind fought her body as she prepared herself to say what she wanted to say.
This is it, Abby. There's no going back. It's now or never.
"I have been keeping this in for a really long time...and I don't know if there's going to be another chance for me to get this off my chest because of how we've all been acting..."
Maybe this was a bad idea-
"I'm in love with you."
Max's eyes opened wide as she processed what Abby had said. It took Abby a moment to process what she said, too.
"Y-you..." Max stuttered, not being able to say her full sentence properly with the shock of her statement still bubbling inside of her.
"Yeah. And, I, uh, have been for a really, really long time," Abby admitted. It was so scary to see Max's reaction, but also felt so relieving to get these feelings out into the open.
"Abby, you know that... I still... Sophie," the other girl gasped out.
Just hearing that name triggered something deep inside of Abby that she couldn't identify. Of course, Sophie motherfucking Sanchez was still on Max's mind after a full month of them not being together.
Why are you so upset, Abigail? You knew she was still in love with her. This was inevitable.
It was right. This was inevitable. She should've known that, no matter how much she wanted, Maxine Baker would never love her.
...
Another full month passed by. Marcus had come back to school and Georgia Miller moved out of town. Everything felt so empty . Like her life had no meaning anymore.
Max had tried to connect with her since she confessed, but Abby didn't have the guts to respond. It would've been too embarrassing. She hung out with Norah sometimes, who had rekindled their friendship and helped her with the whole Max situation.
She didn't understand. She'd wanted Ginny to be gone from the moment she intruded into her friend group. But, somehow, it felt like it wasn't the same without her there.
It was the weirdest thing she'd ever felt in her life.
...
Abby was lying on her bed, on her phone when she heard a quiet tap on her window. Another tap followed soon after. And another. And another.
When she opened her window to see what was knocking on her window, she saw Max, holding a bunch of pebbles in her arms in front of her house.
"Can you let me in?"
"Uh, sure," she replied, startled.
She let her in and led her to the bedroom. It was good that her mother had left her alone for the night so that she wouldn't hear all of this noise.
"What do you want, Max?"
The other girl stared at her feet and didn't say a word in response.
"Max, if you can't just throw rocks at my window, make me let you into my house and then say nothing."
Still no response.
"C'mon, dude, this isn't-"
She was cut off by Max hugging her with bear-like force.
"I'm so sorry, Abby," she whimpered into her shoulder.
"I was such a douche these past two months. I was still mad about Ginny and Marcus and I wasn't expecting you to say that you-"
"It's-It's fine, Max, really," she said, trying to console the sniffling girl in her arms.
"I love you."
In that second, her heart almost burst out of her chest, her eyes widened in utter shock and disbelief. Her mind was racing at a thousand miles per minute trying to process what was just said.
Well, what are you waiting for? Do something!
"I love you, too."
Max pulled her head from Abby's shoulder and waited a few moments before kissing her softly.
She closed her eyes, and the whole world seemed bright and fun again. Fireworks were bursting inside of her mind. Nothing mattered to Abby but them in that single moment.
Even though no one knew where Ginny or her brother were, or where Georgia Miller had decided to run off to, things felt right- well, almost right again. It was a hell of a good feeling.