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George genuinely didn’t know what gave him the bright idea to actually invite Max to his dorm. Max, the man he hadn’t been able to stomach being alone in a room with for two years. The guilt hit him heavy and fast, just like it always did. If he hadn’t been distracted. If he hadn’t been stressed and too tired to give his full attention to the road. If, if, if. George’s mind had played that word over in his head billions of times since freshman year, the hypotheticals acting only to pave his spiralling road time after time.
God. George didn’t know why he was doing this. He should’ve at least waited to do it on a night when Alex wasn’t in his middle-of-the-night class; he should’ve waited until Alex could work as a buffer between him and the man he knowingly broke the heart of. His roommate had remained friendly with Max even after what happened, but had kept him out of the sanctuary that was their dorm out of respect for George, even if he didn’t necessarily agree with what he had done.
And so, George had managed to mostly avoid interacting with Max, until tonight, when he had made the probably horrible mistake of inviting him to their dorm. Texting him was easier, the phone acting as that much-needed buffer, softening the things between them and letting them banter almost like how they used to. But, it made George too brave—too stupid more like— and now Max was on his way here.
One last look at the cloth he had been using to clean the counters had just made him spiral more; the dorm wasn’t clean enough for Max to come. He would think George was a slob, a mess. George should just text him again and say he changed his mind, yeah, that’s what he would do. He reached for his phone just as a knock sounded out through the room. Fuck.
George squeezed his eyes shut and took a deep breath, trying desperately to calm his heart—he didn’t need a POTS episode when he was trying to apologize for being a horrible person—before he walked up to the door and opened it, revealing Max with his fist up, likely about to knock on the door a second time.
Max had a small private smile on his face, one that George had seen hundreds of times before the accident. The guilt came back again, clawing in his chest as he stood there and stared at Max for far longer than he had meant to.
“Are you going to let me in?”
That snapped George out of his own mind, stepping back and away from the door quickly, beckoning Max in. “Yes. Yeah, come in. Um. Alex isn’t here, but I was thinking we could talk in my room?” He blabbered on, trying to herd a surprisingly willing Max towards his bedroom.
Max let himself be ushered through the apartment-style dorm with a small smirk. “Ah, so we are talking now? I thought you would maybe be waiting until we were fifty.”
Oh, right, George thought as he inhaled sharply, Max is an asshole. He said nothing as he opened his room’s door and all but pushed Max inside, trying not to fall back into the arguments they had been having since the accident. It was really the only way they ever communicated now.
Max had no issue scanning the room for seating options before falling into a blue beanbag littered with patches. He made himself comfortable and set his phone on the floor next to him. “Is this the same beanbag from freshman year?”
George stilled for a moment, but nodded. “Yes.” He said as he stiffly sat on his desk chair, hands finding their way to the armrests so his fingers could dig into the fabric-covered foam.
“It has more patches,” Max observed, fingers tracing the stitching of a particularly large one.
“Yes,” George repeated, trying to figure out how to say anything else.
The other man scoffed, letting his hand fall as he leaned back to look at George with annoyed eyes. “Is that all you’re going to say? Yes? Or are we going to finally talk about what happened?”
The rushing of George’s blood in his ears grew louder. He could do this. He sent the text. He initiated this. He was finally going to apologize. He looked down, suddenly finding the seams of his pants incredibly interesting.
“If you’re not going to say anything, I will just leave,” Max said, moving to push himself up.
That got him to squeeze his eyes shut yet again and breathe in deeply, steeling himself to start explaining and apologizing. He had rehearsed the words in the time that it took between him sending the message and Max getting here, but all of a sudden, they were gone. What came out instead was a quiet: “I ruined your life.”
“You obviously did not. I’m still here.” Max bristled, settling back down into his chair.
George didn’t know if the here Max was talking about was at the school or here, with George, like he used to be. He didn’t know if he even deserved to have him here, not after he had pushed him away two years ago. “Max, I made you disabled.”
The man in front of him rolled his eyes. “You did not.” He said. “As far as I’m aware, you are not the tree we crashed into, or the rain.”
“... You couldn’t walk.” George finally said, slowly. “Your leg was…” He couldn’t finish, swallowing dryly as the vivid image of Max’s leg in the gurney as they wheeled him into the ambulance, dripping blood and with a bone pressing out of the skin.
Max breathed deeply, hand fisting into the beanbag’s fabric. “I know what it was George. I also know about the spine fracture, and the year of physical therapy, and what the weather was the day we stopped dati-” He paused, catching himself. “-talking. It was cloudy, but the sun was peaking through, if you cared.”
“It was my fault.” George whispered, too scared of the words to say them any louder than a breath. It felt like church, like Max was a holy figure that George was on his knees confessing to. It felt like the summer break before freshman year, when George had finally told Max about his life before he was adopted by the Wolff family, quiet words murmured half-asleep under the covers. “I ruined your life. You should be angry at me, furious. You should be screaming at me, throwing things.”
There was a long, quiet moment where George’s confession sat in the room before Max spoke. “I’m not angry about the crash, George,” He said, with a sort of resigned frustration. “I’m angry because after the crash, you wouldn’t look at me.”
George stared at his knees, fingers digging into the armrests. “I couldn’t-” his voice broke for the first time. “I couldn’t watch you realize you hated me.”
A frustrated huff of air left Max’s lips, a frown on his face. “But I didn’t- I wouldn’t- Why did you decide I would hate you?” He threw his hands up to cover his face as his voice broke as well. “Georgie, I never hate you, I don’t think I can, but you decided how I felt before I was able to decide it myself.”
That made George curl inwards, pulling his knees up to his chin so he could hide behind them. “I’m sorry,” He whimpered, fighting back tears. “But I couldn’t imagine a world where you didn’t hate me for what I did.”
Max scooted closer to George’s chair, as if trying to give him comfort like he used to, but too afraid to commit to it. “It wasn’t your fault. It was raining, and you were halfway to a flare-up. We hydroplaned, you didn’t ram us into that tree, the water on the road and the car’s wheels did.”
This time, George couldn’t stop the tears from flowing, letting out an ugly sound from his chest, a wet sob really. He let himself sink from the chair and onto the floor, inches away from Max. He wanted to be held like Max used to hold him whenever there was a thunderstorm, and the loud claps of thunder reminded him of the before times; he knew Max wasn’t holding him just for him, he could always feel the tremors in the other boy’s hands as they stroked his hair. He wanted that more than anything, but in his heart, he knew that he had ruined it.
Max continued after a moment, realizing George wasn’t going to respond. “The argument was bad, but I don’t think we meant what we said. I know I didn’t. I was just so mad that I was in pain, and you weren’t around. I wanted my boyfriend, George, and it felt like he didn’t want me.”
“No!” George cried, startling himself with the power he put behind it. “I wanted you- I want you. I promise!” He wrapped his arms around himself as he cried, trying not to look at Max because he knew he would cry more if he saw his face.
He wasn’t expecting a hand to pull him into Max’s lap, and he definitely wasn’t expecting his head to come rest gently on George’s shoulder.
“You’re stupid.” Max huffed, wrapping his arms around George’s lanky form. “And too tall. It’s hard to hold you when your head is hitting the ceiling.”
“I’m sorry,” George apologized wetly, letting his face fall onto the top of Max’s head.
“Don’t apologize, dumbass.” And then a pause before he muttered: “I missed you.”
“I missed you too, I’m sorry for being stupid. Can you forgive me?”
Max considered this for a long moment. “I think so, I think I already had, about six months after it happened. Being in pain and being upset at you was too many things for my brain to handle then.”
This startled a laugh out of George, though it was muffled by Max’s hair.
“Why did you invite me over, George?” Max asked. “Why now?”
“I think it was Kimi.”
“What about him?”
“I just…” George struggled to find the words. “I watched you. You helped him; you were the person he could go to because he was newly diagnosed and didn’t know anything. You were helping him and I… I realized that I should’ve been that person for you.”
“George-”
He cut Max off. “I should’ve been the person to drive you to PT, to help you pick out a cane, to give you advice on how to get your professors to be more accessible. I should’ve been there… But I wasn’t. I was too stuck in my guilt to realize that you needed me there.” He sniffs, trying to stop his crying. “I thought you wanted me gone, but you wanted me to be there.”
Max squeezed George as he spoke, letting the words settle into the space as he tried to figure out how to respond. “Yeah, George, I needed you. I needed you, and you weren’t there, and that fucking hurt. I was so angry at you for a while, but I spent enough time thinking about it that I managed to forgive you. I don’t think you forgave yourself, though.”
George laughed without any humor in it. “I don’t think I know how.”
“You don’t have to know. I’ll help.”
He closed his eyes. “I’m sorry.”
“I know George.”
“I don’t think I’ll ever stop being sorry for what I did.”
Arms tightened around George again as Max let his words sit in his chest. “You don’t need to stop being sorry, you just need to stop it from shutting me out again.”
George felt more tears escaping him, and he was sure Max felt them too, as they wet his hair. He didn’t say anything more because he didn’t think he could; he’d run out of words and only had tears left.
Max didn’t seem to mind that George’s tears were making the top of his head wet; he just kept holding George, rocking him, and keeping him in his arms.
They sat like that on the floor for a long while, not speaking, but for once, the silence wasn’t charged; it was just the quiet of two people who had finally let out the words that they had been holding onto for two years. They stayed there for hours, ignoring their bodies’ complaints because they had missed this, being able to just be in each other’s presence.