It's almost like she enjoyed making his blood boil.
It's just that she was so damn close, their noses almost touching, and her hand was pulling on his collar, not loosening its grip. He wasn't sure what she was meaning to accomplish here. She should know by now he has a temper, and a pretty large one, at that. Enough to get him kicked out of school for an entire year, at least. He has been working to alter himself, to block out the anger and hostility, and to channel that caring, passionate side that he has for the people he truly appreciates.
He never does anything, alright, but what they fail to recognize this is his choice. It's not because he's afraid. Quite the opposite, in fact—it gives him a thrill. Like that moment when you're at the highest point of a roller coaster, and you open your eyes, and then keep them open as you fall.
But here she was, this petite, blonde, bold girl firmly gripping his collar, and his heart was beating intensely. Like that part of him that he's been trying to hide is once again finding its way to the surface.
"I'd like you to call me Mad Dog," he practically whispered.
"You don't seem like a Mad Dog to me," she said.
"Then what do I seem like to you?" he questioned. Why was she pulling him so damn close?
"You know that little lamb that Mary had?" And that was where his ego was shot. She'd always managed to take a blow at his masculinity, and it totally frustrated him. When he lived in Texas, everyone feared him. He was the 'big man on campus'—he was the one that people wanted to be, the one that nobody would dare mess with if they wanted all of their body parts intact.
And with one swift motion, she pushed him back onto his feet.
She'd joined Maya's group because he loved the thrill. He loved Riley, he really did, but she had this perfect view of the world—that everything was either black or white, and there were no shades of gray. That each person could be compartmentalized as good or bad, as innocent or guilty, as playing it safe or breaking the rules.
Being equal parts 'Lucas the Good' and the boy who got expelled from Middle School for letting his anger get the best of him, he couldn't follow her line of vision.
He liked Riley. Definitely more than he liked Maya, he decided. But he couldn't deny that he and Maya had more in common than he'd like to admit. He came here to start fresh, to erase that trail of instability and lack of control that had led him here. But often, that heart-pounding, clench-your-fist, grasp-them-by-the-collar feeling came trickling to the surface, and no mock-tipping-of-his-cowboy-hat gentleman act was going to push it back down.
Maya brought out the worst in him. And he…well, he let her.
The difference between him and Maya was that he acted with aggression only when the situation demanded it, only when someone he cared about was being threatened in some way. Granted, he often had gone far beyond what was necessary—but that was in his genes, he supposed. While his mother was that woman with the perfect Southern charm, his father was something else entirely. You know what they say—opposites attract. And that's all fine and dandy, but when a father takes his son to a shooting range when he's only seven years old, hits him when he does poorly on an exam, and purposely fights with his mother until past midnight and causes him to have to listen to his mother cry herself to sleep—that line between opposite and just plain cruel is too fine to even take notice that it's there at all.
It was easier to take out his frustration on others. But he was fighting to hold himself back now because G-d—he didn't want to be his father. He didn't want to be drawn in too deep that he couldn't find his way back to his roots. He was a spitting image of his mother—the lean face, the olive skin, the light hair. If his mother could learn to control herself, hold herself back—then so could he.
Being on Maya's side of this battle was detrimental, he realized. Without Riley, there was no balance. Only chaos. Deep-rooted, pointless chaos.
These were the people he cared about, he realized: Riley, Maya, Zay, and Farkle. He would do anything for them. He knew that he had to channel his passion into something constructive—not by using force to make sure that people he loved were safe, rather by being there for them for every heartbreak, any hardship, any social obstacle.
"You coming, Huckleberry?" he heard the petite blonde ask, and he contemplated it, but only for a moment.
He shook his head—no Southern charm, no trying to hold the upper hand in this back-and-forth he and Maya had going for quite a while now, "Think I'm going to sit this one out, Shortstack."
When he'd expected to see victory in her eyes, he was met with disappointment.
And for a moment, he'd contemplated what it meant. But then, without another word, she turned her head with her blonde mass of curls, her heels clacking against the tiled floors, and walked away into the dimly-lit hallways.