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Max wakes up earlier than she wants to on a Saturday but she feels well rested. Billy’s coughing has kept her up at night for most of the week. She knows it’s not his fault for being sick but that doesn’t make it any less annoying.
It’s also been difficult to stay asleep with Neil so on edge. Neil’s footsteps where always something to be wary of but he’s been in a bad mood lately and that makes everything worse. When Hopper dropped her off on Thursday, Neil was just as livid as he was the last time Billy got brought home in a cop car, veins bulging in his neck and eyes so fiery Max expected smoke to come out of his ears. Maybe he really would’ve hit her, if Mom didn’t hit her first and send her to her room…
Max sits up in bed and touches her cheek, traces her fingers over the thready scratch her mother’s wedding ring left. The bruise is tiny and doesn’t even hurt unless she presses on it. Even then, it’s only a twinge. She still doesn’t know how she’s supposed to feel.
She remembers how pissed Neil was. How scary he’d looked, fuming and looming as his jaw went tight. She was practically petrified, couldn’t even choke out an apology past the fear in her throat. Then Mom grabbed her arm in a startlingly tight grip. So hard her nails dug into Max’s skin as she pulled her into the mouth of the hallway, yelling loudly at her like she hadn’t in a very, very long time. Mom backhanded her so fast Max never saw it coming, didn’t even realize it happened until she felt the sting. Couldn’t even process it as Mom demanded that Max march to her room, even shoving her in its direction.
She’d apologized later in the night, after Neil had went to sleep. Told Max she only hit her so Neil wouldn’t. Max believes this. Her mother is a gentle soul, heart as soft as lamb fleece.
Max believes her but she doesn’t forgive her, exactly. Maybe she should. Maybe it’s not fair to hold it against her because she was protecting her, really, if Neil was actually going to hit her. Neil would’ve hit harder than Mom. He would’ve been nastier than Mom, too. Her stepfather has a real cruel streak and maybe he would’ve done more than hit, took the belt to Max like he does Billy.
She knows her mother genuinely meant to protect her…but did she have to protect her that way? Did her protection have to come in the form of striking her across the face and sending her to bed hungry?
Max presses on the bruise until it twinges and mulls in the pale light of early morning trickling through her window.
Is this how it’s going to be from now on? Is Mom going to hit her every time it looks like Neil might?
Something dark opens inside Max that she cannot name as she contemplates a future of tiptoeing around even more carefully than she already does. She’s angry at both of them. Mom and Neil, for entirely different reasons.
No. Max doesn’t forgive Mom at all.
Her stomach gnaws and she gets out of bed, carries her anger with her as she leaves her room and pads into the hallway, intent on getting a granola bar or something to tide her over until her mother makes breakfast. They have cereal in the cupboard but Billy does this thing where he backwashes into the milk carton, which is gross even when he isn’t sick, but there’s no hecking way she’ll risk a bowl of cereal now that he is.
Max can hear him coughing again. She’s surprised to realize it’s coming from the living room and not his bedroom.
“Do you want to change? Get into some pajamas and get more comfortable?” her mother’s voice carries, soft and wary.
“I sleep naked.”
“Oh, um, that’s, uh…I didn’t need to know that, Billy…”
Her stepbrother snorts and then he’s coughing again, thick and wet, hand curled around his mouth when Max steps into the living room. She blinks at the scene before her, Billy coughing on the couch with the one hand over his mouth and the other clenching the fabric of his shirt in a fist over his chest. It’s the same shirt he’s had for like two or three days now, and Max wrinkles her nose. Billy’s gross but not normally like, this gross.
Mom hovers near him, pacing back and forth in a short, nervous stride. To Max’s surprise she hasn’t changed either, she’s still wearing the dress and tights she’d wore yesterday. She pauses when she sees Max, forcing a strained smile.
“Good morning, sweetie.”
Max rolls her eyes and turns to Billy. “Seriously, are you dying? You sound like shit.”
Hand still over his mouth to contain the coughs, Billy stretches out his middle finger, flipping her the bird and glowering through glazed eyes.
Max bristles, plants a hand on her hip. “Well, you are a rat, so I guess you were always bound to get the plague sooner or later.”
“I don’t think it’s the plague, I think it’s pneumonia,” her mother pipes in, pursing her lips.
“Pneumonia is just the boogeyman,” Billy gripes, lowering his hand and dismissively jerking his head.
Max arches a dubious brow, glances from Billy to Mom. “Uh…?”
“I don’t know, he’s running a fever,” Mom sighs, fingers tugging at the cranberry collar of her dress as she turns back to Billy. “Billy, please let me take you to the ER.”
“Told you already, I don’t feel like moving.” He lies down, resting his cheek on a throw pillow.
He really does sound bad. It’s starting to worry Max a little, just how bad. Sounds like breathing is an effort for him, all labored and coarse and rattling.
“I think you’re getting worse,” Mom frets, forehead crinkling as she frowns down at him.
“M’fine, you’re exaggerating. ER’s for emergencies.”
“Honey, you—“
“Don’t give me fucking pet names!” Billy barks up at her, eyes narrowing. “Screw off, Susan, I said no! I’m not going!”
Her mother’s shoulders slump with defeat. She shakes her head, running her hand through her hair as she retreats to the kitchen. Max just watches. Takes a little bit of satisfaction in watching Mom skitter off with stung eyes because she’s still angry in almost too many ways for her heart to hold.
Max looks back to Billy, scrunched up under the throw blanket. For all the snarling, he’s visibly ill, sweat shimmering on his forehead as he shivers in the same clothes he evidently felt too sick to change. Personally, she thinks he should get help. But if she tells him that, he’ll snarl at her too.
“You’re not getting better,” she comments eventually, quiet and unsure.
“I’ll make an appointment or whatever later,” Billy mutters. “Just…it’s been a fucking night, Max. I need a minute, okay?”
“…did Neil hit you cause you were late?”
Speaking of Neil, Max is surprised he isn’t up yet. Billy rolls over and doesn’t answer. Max isn’t sure if it’s because he doesn’t care to or if it’s because of the coughing fit that overtakes him. He hacks violently into the back of the couch. Max kind of wants to rub his back. Except he’s also super gross right now and clearly grouchy. He might snap at her if gets too far into his personal space. Plus, his back might still be sore. It’s been a few days since Neil belted him, but he’d belted him so hard, just watching made Max queasy.
Belted Billy the way Mom probably thought he’d belt Max when she. Hit. Her.
Max shuffles off into the kitchen, listens to the hum and gurgle of the coffee maker. Mom’s learning against the counter with a mug in her hands, fingers tapping against the chipped ceramic as she awaits the brew. She looks at Max, guilt flickering in her gaze like tea light flares.
“Billy sounds really bad…”
“He does,” Mom agrees, sighing. “I should’ve just run him to the emergency room last night while we were on the road.”
“On the road?” Max blinks rapidly.
“Yes. Billy helped me run an errand last night.”
“What kind of errand?” Max narrows her eyes because Billy and Mom running nighttime errands has Weird with a capital W written all over it.
Mom’s nose gives the slightest twitch and she turns her back to Max as she grabs the coffee pot, pouring into her mug.
“Billy helped me get rid of some rubbish that we’ve kept for too long. But that’s neither here nor there, he needs a doctor.”
“Maybe Neil will take him?” Max scowls, toeing at the linoleum as if squishing an imaginary bug. She doesn’t really want to think about Neil forcing her stepbrother into anything, especially not with what he did earlier this week. But Billy’s made it clear he won’t go with Mom and he’s too sick to like, not not go.
“Neil’s gone.” Mom turns around, coffee mug steaming in her hands. “He, um, left early.”
“Huh?” Max shuffles to the window and peeks out. “His truck’s in the driveway.”
“The truck needs new spark plugs, he’s carpooling with coworkers today.”
“Oh. Okay, so what are we gonna do about Billy?”
He’s still coughing. It bounces off the walls, an audibly harsh fit he just can’t kick. It sounds like he’s in pain. Mom begins tapping her fingers again, quick and anxious.
“Get him hydrated, I suppose. I’ll heat him up some chicken broth on the stove. Why don’t you take him a Gatorade?”
“He’s about to hack up a lung and your solution is soup and Gatorade?” Max folds her arms.
“For now. He’s refusing to go to the ER and the clinic isn’t open yet.” Mom takes a quick sip of coffee and then sets her mug down, pawing through the pantry.
Max watches her, swallowing softly. She can’t help but feel like something is off today. She can’t quite put her finger on it but the house feels different this morning. Mom seems different too, somehow.
“Why are you wearing the clothes you had on yesterday?” Max asks bluntly. “Did you sleep in them?”
“Honestly, Maxine, I haven’t been to sleep yet,” her mother murmurs, vague and weary. “What do you want for breakfast?”
“Um, can I have french toast? And bacon?”
“I don’t know if I have time to make both, Max, I have to get ready for work.” Mom emerges from the pantry with a can of broth tucked under an arm and the bag of flour in her hands.
“Wait, you’re leaving me here with Billy?”
“Yes. It’s…it’s important that my schedule doesn’t deviate right now.”
Max has no idea what that’s supposed to mean. But she doesn’t want to be left alone with Billy when he’s this sick. Not only is he crabby as heck but also, what if he gets worse? What is she supposed to do?
“What should I do if he starts turning blue or something?”
“Call an ambulance.” Her mother sets the items down on the counter and blinks at her owlishly. “I hope you’d know to call an ambulance under any circumstance in which another person is turning blue.”
“Well, yeah, but like, I mean, what if he gets real bad? Do I call Neil or you?”
“Absolutely me. Do not bother Neil at work.” Mom swallows and yanks the drawer open in an offhanded manner Max doesn’t expect from her.
Mom’s doing a lot of things lately that Max never expected from her.
“That’s what I thought, except Billy doesn’t listen to you…”
“If he gets sick enough, he’ll have to.”
And until then it’s Max’s responsibility to babysit?
Oh, how the tables have turned. She’s not any happier about it than Billy ever was babysitting her. Mom takes the can opener out of the drawer and clamps it on the chicken broth lid. From the living room, they can both hear it when Billy’s struck by another coughing spasm.
“Please take him the Gatorade, Max,” Mom prompts. “And get the eggs out while you’re in the refrigerator, if you want that french toast.”
Max rolls her eyes but complies. Opens the fridge, gets out the styrofoam carton of eggs and a bottle of Lemon Lime Gatorade. When she sets down the eggs, she traces the scratch over her cheek. It’s so small, so thin. Doesn’t hurt her a bit unless she presses.
It might scar anyway, at least for a little awhile, because she has such fair skin. Probably wouldn’t scar at all if Max tanned as easily as Billy. But she’s snowflake pale and she knows it. It takes her flesh all of five minutes to freckle in the summertime sun. Thinking about this kind of makes her want to open the egg carton and chuck a couple at Mom’s head.
But she doesn’t.
She just takes the Gatorade to the living room and unscrews the cap while Billy makes it to the end of the coughs, face pushed into the back of the couch.
“Got a drink for you,” Max informs him. “Mom says you need to stay hydrated.”
Billy rolls over and frees an arm from the throw, fingers flapping for the bottle. Max’s hand brushes his when she passes it to him and she’s startled by how the touch so brief feels practically scalding. Billy apparently is pretty thirsty because he chugs like half the bottle before tightening the cap and tucking it close without a word.
Max idles in the living room until Mom calls her for the french toast. She drizzles the thick slices in syrup while Mom leaves for the living room with a bowl of hot broth in hand. Dumps out the glass of milk her mother poured her just because there’s no way to know whether or not Billy backwashed into the carton.
Max eats heartily, tries to mentally reschedule her day in between the bites. It’s Saturday. She was going to hang out with The Party but now she’s on Billy babysitting duty. Which is weird to think about, considering he’s older than her and it’s always been the opposite. Neil decided Billy was old enough to babysit Max when he turned thirteen. Before that it was always the older neighbor girls babysitting the both of them. The girls in high school or community college.
Max had liked some of them. The ones that would let her stay up late and watch the monster movies Mom hated. Max had disliked some of them. The ones who used to make out with Billy or always stole the last slice of pizza.
When Max finishes her breakfast she migrates back to the living room. Watches Saturday morning cartoons while Billy dozes on the couch, snuggled up with the Gatorade bottle like a little kid with a stuffed animal. The bowl of broth rests on a tv tray, half full. Mom bids goodbye with a wave Max doesn’t return.
Her face falls, shoulders stooping. She leaves for work anyway. Max really just. Doesn’t know how to be with Mom right now.
Billy had asked her yesterday if Neil hit her. Max told him that if Neil had hit her, he’d be the first to know. She wasn’t lying. She’d tell Billy if it was Neil, because like, Neil hit Billy all the time. Getting hit by Neil would've been something they'd have in common. Neil is their common enemy as is.
But it was Mom. And Mom only did it because it could’ve been Neil otherwise and Max just…doesn’t know what to do with that.
She wants to tell Billy, sort of. She can’t tell any of her friends because they wouldn’t understand. Maybe Billy would understand because his dad hits him. He knows what it’s like to be hit by a parent. But then, Billy actually probably wouldn’t understand at all because the reason her mother hit her wasn’t anything like the excuses his father spews to beat him.
Max is pretty sure Neil enjoys hurting Billy. At least sometimes. Neil seems to thrive on humiliating him when Max is there to see it because he’s always so ugly about it. Calling Billy cruel names. Hitting him over and over, sometimes hitting him so much he's left sweating himself by the end of it.
Mom hit her precisely because she didn’t want Max to get hurt like that. Mom didn’t insult her with any bad names. Mom only hit once and sent her away right after. Mom used only her hand, didn’t take a belt or a broom, or one of the kitchen chairs like Max had seen Neil do to Billy once. He’d picked it after hanging up the phone when some man called the house complaining about Billy flirting with his wife at the store. He swung it hard at the back of Billy’s legs, knocked him right to the floor.
Luckily it was only one of the chair's legs that broke. That was actually the chair Max sat in while she ate her french toast. Neil had reattached the leg with wood glue but it’s still a tad wobbly when you first sit down or adjust the way you’re sitting in it.
No, Billy wouldn’t understand at all. It’s just too different. And if Max told him, he might get mad at Mom too. Max doesn’t want that. Mom is so meek and scared of Billy as is. She’d probably piss herself if Billy yelled at her or something.
Max strokes over her scratch again with the tip of her finger and continues watching cartoons even when she finds herself zoning out. She listens to Billy’s raspy breaths until he wakes himself up coughing. It’s a really rough fit that leaves him hacking yuck into a tissue. He doesn’t get up to throw the tissue away either, just drops it on the floor, balled up and moist with grossness.
“That’s disgusting.”
“Up yours, Max.”
She crinkles her nose, studies him as she tilts her head. He looks like crap. He’s so sweaty it looks like he just hopped out of the shower even though like, it’s definitely been days since Billy’s showered. He smells like old gym socks and his cheeks are flushed king crab red. He’s shaking with tremors and Max frowns in concern.
“Do you want another blanket?”
Billy closes his eyes like he can’t bear to look at her when he nods his head.
“Okay. I’ll be right back.” Max gets up and shuffles down the hallway.
She grabs him the comforter from his bed which stinks just as bad as he does, wrinkling her nose as she gathers it up. She returns to the living room and unceremoniously tosses it over him. Billy grunts, freeing his arms and sitting up a bit to spread it out better. Without another word Max gets a can of citrus scented disinfectant from the bathroom. Goes back to Billy and sprays it up and down the length of his blanket.
“What the hell?”
“You reek and you’re full of germs”
Billy plucks that balled up tissue from the floor and to Max’s horror, throws it at her. She lets out a shriek, utterly scandalized as the soft bundle of bacteria boinks her bullseye in the forehead.
“Gross! You freaking asshole!”
Billy cackles until he’s coughing and Max sprays some of the disinfectant right into her hand, swiping it across her forehead.
“That’s the thanks I get for taking care of you?”
“Like you’ve ever thanked me for taking care of your ungrateful ass.”
“Because I’m supposed to feel so grateful when you scream at me and scare my friends.” Max rolls her eyes, indignant. Things have gotten better with Billy, they really have. He still hollers at her sometimes. And he’s not exactly nice to her friends. But he doesn’t terrorize them anymore.
“You have no idea,” Billy grumbles, eases back down and hikes the covers up to his chin.
Max drops it just because she doesn’t feel like arguing with him.
“Whatever. Do you wanna rank horror movies with me?”
“What?”
“I was thinking of doing a horror movie ranking. I guess to like, organize what I’m going to rent come Halloween. I’ve got this sheet of skull stickers so I was gonna write a list and give each movie a number of stickers in different categories based on stuff like how good the special effects were, or how creepy the killer was. I could use somebody to bounce ideas off of. You in?”
“Sounds dumb.”
“Well do you have any big plans today? Is there anything on your agenda other than drowning in your own phlegm?”
“Alright, fine,” Billy sighs out, doesn’t even seem to notice that his cheek is pressed to the bottle of Gatorade. “Get the skull stickers.”
Max scurries off to her room and comes back with her notebook and sticker sheet. Billy is a surprisingly good sport despite criticizing the idea and just being extra cranky with not feeling good and all. He brings up some good points about the creativity of Fatal Games and now that they live in Indiana, surrounded by seas of maize, he has plenty of opinions about Children of the Corn.
They have a heated debate about The Savage Bees. Max thought it was genuinely disturbing. She can admit the sequel was goofy, yeah, but in a fun way, not in a lame way. Except Billy thinks both are lame and between coughs, only offers a couple bonus skulls because of Neil’s bee allergy. They reverse roles when it comes to Strait-Jacket, which Max thinks is ridiculous and trashy but Billy is bizarrely defensive of.
They’ve finished a page and a half of movies when Billy’s responses start getting shorter. Starts asking Max to repeat herself a couple of times. Takes longer breaks between the coughing bouts. Max thinks he’s starting to drift. She figures he’d probably be asleep already if weren’t for the coughs keeping him up.
“I vote four out of five skulls for the killer creep factor in Friday the 13th. Nothing new about the setting, but the killer was really unexpected.”
“Unexpected my ass,” Billy mutters. “Jason is just backwoods, undead Michael Myers.”
“Jason isn’t the killer in Friday the 13th, you numbskull. His mother is.”
“Pfft, that’s right. Of course she is.” Billy puffs a sound that isn’t quite a laugh and then he’s coughing some more.
He pushes himself up, swaying into a sit. Max notices that the rim of the Gatorade cap left an indent in his cheek. The longer the fit carries on, Max finds herself wincing in sympathy. This is a bad one.
Ooh, a really bad one.
Billy clutches his ribs as he just coughs and coughs and coughs into his elbow, snapped so far forward he’s near bent in half. Max is still too chary to rub his back but very carefully she rests a hand between his shoulder blades. Holds it there gently as she chews on a frown.
“Hey, Billy…do you want me to call my mom? Or maybe your dad?”
Mom said not to call Neil, but. Maybe Neil is who Billy wants. Neil is awful but he’s still Billy’s dad. Not that she personally wants Neil to come home early. If it were up to Max, Neil would never come home at all. But he could actually make Billy go to the hospital if he tries to refuse and that’s something Mom’s way too timid to do.
The coughs rattle their way out and Billy lowers his elbow. Max draws her hand away as he lies back, raking in shallow, wheezy breaths. She watches a droplet of sweat at his temple roll down, getting absorbed in his damp hair.
“You can’t call my dad, Max.”
“I mean, I know your dad sucks but you need help, Billy. And you won’t cooperate with my mom, so…”
“You can’t call my dad,” he repeats, low and hoarse as his eyelids droop. “We smashed his face with lions and put him in the gay garbage.”
“Uhm.” Max feels her eyes widen as her spine snaps ramrod with alarm. “Just how high is your fever?”
“King of the jungle,” Billy mumbles absently, knuckles kneading at his chest.
Yeah, okay. That’s a reassuring answer that makes complete and total sense.
“You have no idea how much I cooperate with your mom,” he says, peering at Max with a sudden intensity, eyes as bright as they are glassy.
“Geez, now I know you’re delirious.” Billy can’t stand her mother and Max is positive the feeling’s mutual.
“…maybe a little,” Billy murmurs after a moment, blinking away from Max and up to the ceiling as he draws more shallow breaths. “It feels far away now.”
“What does, Billy?”
But then he’s coughing again and Max isn’t sure if he’d have a coherent answer for her anyway. He seems more than a little out of it. She plants a hand on his forehead because that’s what people do on tv and it doesn’t really tell her anything specific but she’s pretty sure she could fry an egg there if she wanted to.
“You want me to get you a cool washcloth? My mom does that when I’m sick sometimes.” Max isn’t sure if it ever actually helped her get better, but it always felt pretty nice.
She doesn’t realize how much she’s expecting Billy to refuse until he doesn’t, slowly nodding under her hand.
“Mine did too,” he says, quiet and croaky.
“Your mom?” Max makes an effort not to gape. Billy never talks about his mother.
Neil does sometimes, when he’s cursing Billy out or beating him down. Accuses Billy of being like her. Max wasn’t sure exactly what that was supposed to mean, only that it always riled Billy up. Got his eyes blazing and shoulders squaring defiantly, dangerous signs of simmering rebellions that Max knew would never end in his favor.
Billy rolls out from under her touch, cramming more coughs into the throw pillow. Max scuttles off to the bathroom and rinses a clean washcloth in cold water. She wrings it out so it won’t drip and goes back to Billy. He’s still lying on his side so she waits until he rolls back over and drops it on his forehead. It lands with a wet plop and his eyes flutter open.
“There you go.”
“…thanks.”
“Now I know you’re dying,” Max teases.
Billy doesn’t take the bait. He blinks at her slowly and then glances around the room. It’s almost like he’s searching.
“Uh, do you need anything else?”
“We should get rid of the lions.”
Shit, there he goes again. Max frowns, uncertainly adjusting her ponytail holder. The less sense Billy makes, the more her concern grows. She’s really tempted to call Mom. Or Neil. She’d rather call her mother but if Mom can’t actually get Billy to the car then like, it has to be Neil. As much as that option unnerves her.
“If I call my mom, can you cooperate with her? Just this once?”
“Once?” Billy echoes, brows disappearing under the damp cloth.
“Please, Billy. You’re starting to freak me out but I don’t want to call Neil…”
“You can’t call Neil,” Billy wheezes out, tired and burdened.
“I mean, I really, really don’t want to but calling my mom will be a waste of time if you’re just gonna be pigheaded.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“No, you don’t know what you’re talking about!” Max retorts, throwing her hands skyward with impatience. “You’re the one babbling nonsense about lions!”
“Not nonsense,” Billy argues, brow furrowing. “Evidence.”
“Oh my god, your brain is melting! You need a doctor!”
Billy’s eyes slide away from her, hand coming up as he begins coughing again. Before long her stepbrother is breathless and spitting out more slimy gunk. Max catches a tinge of red in the green and that— that does it. She hurries off to the kitchen and looks up Neil’s work number on the side of the fridge. She’d prefer Mom even as mad at her as she is, but Billy really needs help and he wouldn't dare dig his heels in with Neil like he would with Mom.
She punches in the number in the phone and waits. Some older sounding man she doesn’t know picks up. Max asks for Neil politely but urgently, specifies a family emergency so he knows not to put her on hold. Only to her shock, she’s told Neil isn’t there. He never came to work. No call, no show.
Max splutters, perplexed. She hangs up the phone as her mind spins. She can't begin to figure that one out and now is not the time. She calls Mom. Doesn’t mention Neil because that can wait when Billy’s still coughing and coughing, and can’t catch his breath. Mom promises she’s coming home and hangs up.
Max paces on pins and needles, casting concerned looks Billy’s way. When she announces she called her mother, he acknowledges with a nod. Doesn’t really look at her though, absently kneading at his chest as a discomforted grimace twitches at the corner of his lips.
“I tried your dad first. He wasn’t there. He never even showed.”
“Must’ve really happened then.”
“Huh?”
“The dumpster.”
“Err…okay, Billy...”
Yep, his brain is totally melting. Max halfway expects to see it leaking out of his ears.
When Mom gets home, Billy doesn’t fight her like Max thought he would. She supposes it’s like Mom said earlier. He’s just too sick to keep being stubborn. He even lets her help him up from the couch. When she asks him to change his clothes at first he pulls a frown. Then Mom leans close and murmurs something in his ear that Max doesn’t catch and to her shock and awe, Billy stumbles off down the hall and returns in clean jeans.
Mom gives Billy the option of the ER or Urgent Care. He picks the latter. Max tags along with them because she’s pretty worried at this point. Billy acts like a giant jerk ass a lot of the time but she still wants him to be okay. Definitely doesn’t want him to like, actually drown in his own phlegm or for the fever to boil his brains up.
At the clinic Billy coughs his way through paperwork until Mom takes over. Shortly after she returns the clipboard, a nurse escorts him back and Max is left with just her, one empty seat between them.
“Do you want to move next to me?” Mom asks softly.
“No,” Max says, crossing her arms over her chest as she watches her mother deflate.
Understanding why she hit her doesn’t erase the fact that she hit her. Max called her only because she needed help with Billy. Not because she’s ready to forgive and forget or cuddle up to her side.
“By the way, Neil didn’t go carpooling. He never went to work at all.”
Mom’s eyes widen, her lips parting just a fraction.
“I called him first because I wasn’t sure Billy would listen to you. His boss or coworker, or whoever, told me he was a no call, no show today.”
“Oh dear.”
“That’s weird, right?” Max blinks, watching some little kids play with the Hot Wheels track in the corner of the room.
It’s not like she cares about Neil. Okay, so like…well, maybe. Maybe somewhere inside she does, a teeny tiny bit, sometimes, but Max always distrusts even those scraps of feelings. Because there were times where Neil was like, something of a father, yeah. Here and there. Few and far between. But Max always reminds herself not to let those times mean anything. Because it was Neil and if he ever does anything for her, it’s really for himself at the end of the day. He’s that kind of person. Nothing is free with Neil, nothing resembling love comes without strings attached and terms and conditions in the silent fine print.
So Max doesn’t truly care. The tiny tugs of not-hate she feels for Neil are lies he wants her to buy into and she’s old enough to know that now. Old enough to know better than to trust him or those itty bitty morsels of not-hate that could never accurately be referred to as affection. It’s not sincerely Neil himself Max cares about, no more than Neil's care for her is ever sincere. But if he’s not at work, if he just skipped out on his shift without telling anyone, then that’s out of the norm. And that might mean something bad. If Neil is going off script, that makes him particularly unpredictable and potentially volatile.
“I suppose he’s finally left me,” her mother hums tonelessly.
“What?” Max jolts in her chair.
Mom purses her lips and quickly points to the empty seat Billy was in. Max glares. She already told her. She doesn’t want to sit next to her. But apparently Mom won't speak whatever she’s thinking louder than a whisper and after a few moments of trying to glare her into submission to no avail, Max begrudgingly rises and switches seats.
“Neil has had a mistress for months,” Mom murmurs to Max so low she’s scarcely audible. “I never told him I knew. I didn’t expect it to become serious.”
“Whoa. You think he left, like, left left? Walked out on us to go be with some other lady?”
“I believe so, yes.” Mom solemnly nods her head. “I can’t think of any other explanation, can you?”
“I mean…I don't know…” Max inhales sharply, bewildered as the new information reels through her mind.
“I suppose I should’ve seen the signs sooner,” Mom says, factual rather than morose as she slides her wedding ring off her finger. She unzips her purse and drops it inside.
Max traces over the scratch it left in her face and swallows. If Neil really left them— just up and left with no expectations —frankly, it's a miracle. A freaking dream come true. But she can't help feeling sorry for his mistress. Neil is no prize and whoever this woman is, she'll taste his wrath one way or the other. It comes in many forms, some scarier than others, but none of them good.
“Did Billy know about the affair? Earlier he was mad convinced that I couldn’t call Neil, but he also said all this other stuff that didn’t make any sense. Bunch of nonsense about lions and garbage.”
“…I’m sure that was just the fever talking, sweetheart. Poor fellow looks like death warmed over.”
"No kidding. He's gonna be okay, right?" Max frowns, flexing her fingers on the armrest.
"Of course. Billy is durable, he's been through worse." Mom reaches out to stroke her hair.
Max evades the touch with a jerk of her neck and gets up. She returns to the next chair over and scrunches back in the seat, pulling her feet up and hugging around her knees. She doesn't care if she looks like a little kid. She doesn't care about the hurt on her mother's face when she retracts her hand and drops it into her lap, either. Not now. Not yet.