Chapter One; Max

I never asked for any of this.

I guess thats the beauty of life; you don't have a choice. It's not something where you get a practice run - if you make a mistake, you're stuck with it. I've made more than my fair share of them in my seventeen years, and somehow the consequences have led me here. Whether that was a good thing or a bad thing I still have to decide.

"Your stuff is all back in your room." Val said nervously, fingering her gold bracelet. It was a habit that I recognised, and instantly stilled my own hands from playing with the bandages around my own arm. I nodded, hating how awkward this whole thing was. Just over three years ago the woman before me had been the closest thing that I'd ever had to a mother, and now she felt like a stranger.

Wait. Scratch that. I felt like the stranger. Val was the same person she had been back then, I was the one who'd changed. And not for the better.

"Can I... could I please take a shower?" I asked unsurely, hating how pathetic I sounded.

Val blinked. "Right, of course. You can always have a shower here, remember? So, why don't you do that, and get yourself settled in or whatever, and I'll bake some cookies?"

She'd remembered. Something about that startled me; brownies had always been Ella's favorite, but she'd remembered that cookies were mine. It should have made me happy to be here, but it didn't. All I could concentrate on was the fact that I was about to take a nice, hot shower; showers at Dad's house had been as short as possible - he'd given up paying for the hot water ages ago, and despite scraping money in as best I could (Mainly by dominating at local poker games, pool... pretty much any betting game out there) hot water had still been a rareity.

She dissapeared into the kitchen, and I shouldered my backpack and headed up to my room, dumping on the bed and resisting the urge to sigh in relief as I looked around the familiar room and knew for the first time in a long time that I was safe. It was a strangely unfamiliar feeling, but I assumed that only time would tell whether or not I liked it.

Surveying the room once more and content that nothing had changed (other than the addition of the minimal amount of things that I'd brought from LA) I finally headed for my shower.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~#M#~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Max!" Ella chirped as she appeared through the back door, freshly out of school. I smiled at her as she bounced around, clearly strongly fighting the urge to hug me. I appreciated that, but her astounding energy was still making me a little more than nervous. Energy was always a bad thing.

"There's brownies behind you, Ells." Dr M said, clearly trying to diffuse some of her youngest daughters energy - or at least re-direct it at the brownies. Thankfully, it seemed to work. The fifteen-year-old squealed, spinning to grab two off the tray and stuff one into her mouth faster than I'd even thought possible. I offered her a little grin, biting into a cookie and resisting the urge to close my eyes in contement. Closing my eyes would be a weakness; years of paranoia had taught me better.

"I missed you." Ella said, some of her energy dissipating as she slid into the chair opposite me with a fresh handful of brownies. "Are you looking forward to school? You'll get to see everyone again."

I nodded, refusing to admit that I was really dreading it. It was going to be awful, seeing the people who I'd left behind again. I had no doubts that most, if not all of them, would want nothing to do with me, and even if they did, what was I going to do? Pretend like nothing had happened? It wouldn't work, even if I did. Things had changed. I had changed. I was a completely different person to the person that I had been three years ago.

Ella continued to chat idly, whilst I rubbed my bandaged wrists under the table. The bandage, whilst it was serving it purpose, was incredibly itchy and I ached to just take it off. Unfortunately, I couldn't. The bandages had to stay on, and I just had to deal.

"Did Mom tell you that Fang's going to drive us to school in the morning?"

My head shut up, thoughts jarred violently from my bandaged arms at her words.

"What?"

"Uh..." Ella seemed surprised by reaction, and suddenly unsure as she glanced over at her mother. "Fang. He drives me to school. So we just figured, y'know... he said that he's happy to drive you, too..."

I fought to reighn my emotions back in. "Oh, right. Well, that's cool, I guess." It came out as more than a question, and I noted that my hands were shaking under the table. "Can you just excuse me for a moment? I have to go and... check that I turned the shower off properly."

"Are you alright, Max?" Val asked, concerned, as she looked over from the dishes, a kitchen towel slung over her shoulder - the perfect image of domesticity.

I stood slowly, clenching my hands into fists so she didn't notice that they were shaking. "Yeah, I'm fine. I'm just... conserving the water. Saving the environment, all that jazz."

It was a poor excuse and I knew it, but I had to get out of there and pull myself together. Taking the stairs three at a time thanks to my long-legged frame, I was in my room with the door shut and locked tightly behind me in record time.

It was stupid, really. Freaking out over something as trivial as seeing my ex-best friend for the first time in over two years. I guess I was worried about what he was going to say. If he was going to say, "I told you so" and dredge up memories that I'd long since locked away, or whether he was going to hate me and pretend like we'd never been friends. Probably the latter, not that I blamed him.

Sighing, I flopped down on my bed and stared blankly up at the ceiling. I was only seventeen, so what had this all been put on me? Why did my psychopathic father have to come back for me? Better yet, why did he have to be my father?

Apparently, there was only one clear thing in this whole mess that I called my life.

Life sucks, and then you die.