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Max’s window is closed, but it’s not latched. It doesn’t take much of a push to slide it up, and despite how old and peeling the wooden frame is, it barely sticks or squeaks at all. Lucas has to wonder how often Max sneaks out this way.
Luckily, it’s also perfect for sneaking in.
Less luckily, Max bounced up off her bed like she was on springs the instant Lucas knocked on the window frame, and not in a happy, excited way. She’s over to the window before Lucas has it up high enough to even fit just his shoulders through. The last time Lucas was on the receiving end of a glare this angry, El threw him into a piece of scrap metal with her mind and knocked him out. “Holy shit, stalker, are you trying to live up to your nickname? What are you doing?”
“You weren’t answering your phone,” Lucas says. This had seemed so obvious when he’d been sitting in his room, stewing it over. Under Max’s ferocious stare, that certainty is melting like a pail of ice cream in a hot car. “And you turned off your walkie. And you’ve been avoiding the arcade -”
Max opens her eyes as wide as they’ll go, in obvious sarcasm. “Yeah. Because I don’t want to talk to you. Because I broke up with you.”
“I know. I know you did. Just – can we please talk about this?” Lucas doesn’t think he’s imagining that Max is starting to waver. He hopes he’s not imagining it. “I don’t even know what I did wrong.”
Max’s eyes flick away from his face, off to her right and down.
“You should probably get in here,” she says, after a second or two of agonising silence, stepping away from the window. She still doesn’t look at Lucas. “Before somebody sees your butt hanging out of my window.”
Unfortunately, getting into Max’s room is easier said than done. Lucas has grown almost a foot since October, and he’s still having a little trouble figuring out where his limbs actually are in relation to the rest of him, sometimes. Trying to fold himself through a four-foot square of space? Definitely one of those times.
In the end, Max has to help him, which she does with a huff and a huge, overexaggerated roll of her eyes. Lucas isn’t sure why. This was her idea.
“Okay,” he says, once his feet are back on solid ground, tugging his shirt back into place. It’d gotten caught on the sill somehow and nearly strangled him. He’s still not sure exactly how. “Max, whatever it is, I’m really sorry. I promise to never do it again.” He considers that for a second before adding, “So long as you tell me what it was.”
He isn’t sure he’s really seeing what he thinks he’s seeing. There’s no reason he can think of for it. But Lucas thinks Max almost seems ready to start crying. “Whoa. Max? What’s going on? Are you okay?”
Max takes a sharp step backwards when Lucas reaches out to her, shooting him a warning glare. But her voice sounds as soft and as fragile as her stare isn’t. “God, you’re too good.”
“What? Max, you’re freaking me out.”
“I can’t date you, okay?” Max blurts, like it’s a grenade she’s been winding up to throw. “You didn’t do anything. This time. I just – I can’t date you.”
And, well. It’s nice not to be in the doghouse for once. But somehow this stings worse.
Maybe, Lucas thinks, because it feels like Max is saying there’s nothing he can do about it.
“No way,” he says, and Max blinks. “That’s bull. Is this about – your family? Your stepdad? Because if it is, we can work around them, I can be sneaky -”
“That’s not -” Max takes a deep breath, puffs it out, and starts again, intently studying Lucas’ left ear. “Believe me, if that was it, I’d sneak around with you in a heartbeat. But it’s not.”
“Okay? If that’s really how you feel, then whatever the problem is, we can definitely figure it out together. Why all the mystery?”
“Look,” Max says, walking over and sitting down hard on her bed. “Not that that isn’t the sweetest thing you’ve ever said to me, but – there’s no fixing this. I can’t date you, okay? I just can’t.”
She flops gently sideways, until she’s lying on her side with her knees up and her head on the pillow, and then rolls over so the curve of her back is facing Lucas. “And I think you should go.”
So, obviously there’s no way Lucas can do that.
“Max,” Lucas says, gently, walking over to the bed. When Max doesn’t answer or move, he takes a chance and sits down on the edge of the bed beside her. “Hey, can you talk to me? What’s really going on?”
Max still doesn’t move. She doesn’t answer. Lucas isn’t sure what to do next. He settles for reaching out and putting a hand on her shoulder.
“If you really want me to leave,” he starts.
Max’s answer is so quiet Lucas almost doesn’t catch it. “I don’t want you to.”
“Okay,” Lucas says. He doesn’t move. “Then why do you think I should?”
This time, Max is so quiet for so long that Lucas thinks maybe he did miss something she said. “Sorry?”
Max sits up and spins around with her eyes blazing fury. “I like somebody else, okay? I like somebody else! Happy now?”
And here Lucas was thinking he couldn’t feel any worse.
“Oh,” he says. He’s not sure what else to say.
Max takes one look at Lucas’ face, and the floodgates seem to burst all at once. “I didn’t want to! I tried not to, I really tried, but – I can’t. I can’t pretend I don’t like her -”
She stops, looking at Lucas like she just skidded to a stop on the very edge of a cliff, her eyes wide. She’s gone so pale Lucas could count her freckles.
“Max?” Lucas asks, and Max shakes her head, her lips pressed close together.
“I didn’t mean – I shouldn’t have said that.”
“I asked,” Lucas says, and Max chokes off a disbelieving half-laugh.
“Seriously? Is that all you’re gonna say?”
“Should I say something else?”
Max won’t meet his eyes, just stares at her knees as she gives a too-deliberately-nonchalant shrug. “I don’t know, maybe something about how that’s gross and weird and disgusting, or how could it possibly even work anyway, or how could I lead you on like this even though I swear I wasn’t trying to, I really, really do like you, or at least I thought I did, but it can’t have been real if I’m – if I’m some kind of -”
“Max. Hey,” Lucas says. “No offense, but I think you’re spiralling.”
Max makes an aborted sound that might’ve been trying to become a laugh. But she doesn’t say anything more.
After a couple seconds of silence, Lucas risks resting his hand next to hers on the bed, pinkies pressed against each other. “Does she…know that you -”
“No!” Max looks sharply up to face Lucas, and there’s nothing but sheer, undiluted panic in her face. “No, and I don’t want her to. You can’t tell anybody, got it?”
“Okay,” Lucas agrees. It’s not like it’s hard to agree with. “So, then…why exactly do we have to break up, again?”
Max stares at him like he’s from another planet.
“I just told you I like girls,” she says, like she’s explaining something very obvious to somebody very stupid.
“A girl,” Lucas counters. “Who you don’t even want to tell about it. And you said yourself that you still like me, so -”
“That’s not how it works, stalker,” Max interrupts, and for a second her usual fond annoyance seems to be overwriting her panic. Only for a second, though, because the next thing she says is, “You can’t like boys and girls.”
“Says who?”
“Uh, says logic?”
“Well, I call bull on your logic,” Lucas says, shifting his hand to put it over Max’s. “I like you, Madmax. And I’m for sure it’s real.” He takes a deep breath. He’s never actually said this to anybody else out loud. There’s never really been a reason to, and plenty of good reasons not to. But he thinks Max needs to hear it. And after what she’s just told him…Lucas kind of wants to tell her. “But you’re definitely not the only one of my friends I’ve ever liked.”
If he’d thought Max was staring at him like he was from another planet before, Lucas thinks, he hadn’t seen anything yet.
“What?” Max says, finally, giving her head a shake that makes her twin braids bounce against her shoulders. “No, seriously – what?”
“What?” Lucas repeats back at her, suddenly feeling defensive. “It’s totally normal to get crushes on your friends sometimes. My dad said.” And, well, okay, maybe he and his dad had mostly been talking about Max at the time, but still. The principle’s the same. Probably.
Max is staring at him with wide eyes. Lucas thinks maybe it looks a little less like disbelief, though, this time. And a little more like hope. “You’re not talking about El. Or some girl you knew before I showed up. You mean, like – your boy friends. Who are all boys.”
“I thought that was implied?”
Max sucks her lips, hard, against her teeth. Lucas can’t tell if she’s trying not to cry or trying not to laugh. “Who?” Before Lucas has a chance to answer, she’s frowning thoughtfully, pointing at him like she’s Columbo and she’s just caught him lying about some stupid thing that proves he’s the murderer. “Will?”
“Do you actually want me to answer that?” Lucas asks, suddenly wary, but Max just nods. “Yeah. I mean. For a while. That was way before you showed up, though. But, you know, when Mike hit that growth spurt this spring?” He raises both eyebrows, letting out a low whistle under his breath. There’d been an awkward couple of weeks there before he’d gotten used to not having to look down to meet Mike’s eyes anymore. Which…might actually have contributed to one of those times Max broke up with him, now that he’s thinking about it. “And those six months Dustin had teeth? You know, up until he stopped opening his mouth just to show off and started opening his mouth to talk.”
Max makes a choked sound into the hand she claps over her mouth. For a second, Lucas thinks he’s going to have to give her the Heimlich or something, before he realises she’s laughing.
“Seriously?” she asks, her shoulders shaking, and Lucas is relieved to see she’s smiling when she looks up at him. “Mike?”
“Wh- hey, you can’t make fun of me if you’re not going to tell me who you like! You don’t get to judge my taste unless you let me judge yours.”
Max’s smile slips. She doesn’t answer right away, just looks down at her hands.
“Max?” Lucas asks, carefully. “You don’t have to -”
“No,” Max says, with a shake of her head, cutting Lucas off. When she looks up to meet his eyes, there’s a challenge in hers. Lucas isn’t sure if it’s for him, or for herself. “No, it’s -” She takes a deep breath, and grabs Lucas’ hand in a death grip as she blurts out in a rush, still staring hard into his face, “It’s El.”
Lucas doesn’t know what to do other than nod. That’s not exactly a surprise.
Max puffs out a huge breath, and her grip on Lucas’ hand eases off to merely ‘crushing’. “Yeah.”
“Well, that sucks,” Lucas says, after a moment’s thought. It feels like this is a moment to make sure he thinks before he speaks.
Into the sharp look Max gives him, he goes on, “I don’t even have anything to make fun of you for. Your taste is impeccable.”
Max narrows her eyes at him, and gives him a playful shove. But her smile looks relieved. “That’s right. And don’t you forget it.” She bumps her knee against Lucas’, turning that smile up at him. “After all, I did choose you.”
Lucas can’t help the smile that spreads across his face. “Guess I can’t argue with that.” He bumps Max’s knee back, reaching for her hand again. Max lets him take it, twining her fingers between his. “So. Still want to break up?”
Max bites her bottom lip, looking down at their clasped hands, and gives Lucas’ a squeeze. “Depends. The day is young.” She turns a smile up at him, a smile that says thank you loud and clear even if what her mouth says is, “But for right now, I’d rather go get ice cream.”
Lucas squeezes Max’s hand back. “I could go for ice cream. But this time, you’re buying.”
“What? I bought last time.”
“Yeah, but last time, you hadn’t just broken up with me for something that wasn’t my fault. Let’s call it damages. For my pain and suffering.”
“Your pain and suffering?” Max makes a face at Lucas as she pushes herself up off the bed, heading for the window. “I could show you pain and suffering, stalker.”
“Oh, no,” Lucas says, following her across the room. Max holds up the window as he climbs out. Thankfully, it’s a little easier than climbing in. “The only thing I want you to show me is two scoops of mint chocolate chip.”
Max rolls her eyes at Lucas as he steps down off the cellar roof under her window.
But when he reaches up to help her out through the window, she takes his hand.