Max keels over on the sidewalk, emptying – rather violently – the contents of her stomach that only consists of wheat and milk.
The other New York pedestrians pass by; looking momentarily more curious and intrigued than worried, then going about the rest of their lives without giving her so much as a second thought.
"I told you not to eat that bagel, Max." Caroline says from behind her as one hand holds back the brunette's curly hair and the other rubs soothing patterns in her back.
Despite wearing a reasonable amount of layers to protect herself and her baby, of course with Caroline's never-ending insistence ("there's a baby in there now Max! It's not just you anymore!") Max feels her best friend's touch as if the palm were on her bare skin.
And frankly, she doesn't find it as comforting as the blonde seems to believe it is. Instead of making her feel reassured, she feels a plethora of things, amongst them she feels warm in her belly like maybe she's about to hack up the little she had for dinner too.
It's a new feeling, at least not one she can remember feeling at all in her life, Max is sure of that. Kind of like the one she gets when she talks to someone she likes but amplified by her pregnancy and she knows there's just a fetus but she can already tell it's not too keen on that feeling.
And then comes last night's dinner, topping the brownish white puddle she's just made on the ground.
xxx
The diner is unsurprisingly empty when Caroline and Max enter it.
As they remove their coats, Earl eyes them both suspiciously due to Caroline avoiding his greeting gaze and looking agonizingly guilty about something – she wants to tell their colleagues about their predicament, their child as she calls it, but Max is adamant on keeping it a secret for as long as she can hide the bump.
Han comes from the back where Oleg is visibly and discourteously scratching himself in a ghastly area from behind the small order window that only makes Caroline never actually want to eat their food.
She'd said it before but seeing that? She gags. She means it now.
"You're late," Han accuses as he limps towards both women.
Caroline takes Max's coat and Max looks annoyed by it. "Sorry," she says to Han with the least repentant attitude. "Caroline got sick on the subway. Cleared the entire cart. I finally got to sit in one of the seats and my ass is not grateful." She forces a chuckle to make the story more authentic.
Han looks to the blonde for confirmation and she takes too long to respond as she stares at him like a deer in the headlights. They hadn't practiced a story to excuse their tardiness, not that they'd had the time with Caroline asking Max if she's well enough to work for the day the rest of the trip. So she feels like she's been put on the spot and she's not good with lying under pressure.
Max should have known this; she's experienced it firsthand like the time she told Max her ass didn't look great in those jeans. She thought Max looked good but just…not particularly her ass in those jeans.
Han returns his accusatory but really not all that terrifying glare away from the preposterously flustered Caroline and back to the extremely calm Max by the cash register, behind the counter, and the look on his face suggests he knows she's lying but wants her to admit it. "What is-,"
He's cut off by Caroline finally weighing in, at an uncooperative and wrong time. "I got sick. Guess who thought getting sushi from Seven Eleven was a good idea?" she pumps her hands in the air awkwardly. "This bitch."
"I got sushi at a Seven Eleven once…" Oleg chimes in, leaning through the serving window to be feel included in the conversation. "And by sushi I mean-,"
The thought of sushi makes Max's stomach coil in the wrongest of ways.
She clenches a fist over her mouth and looks down at the counter, trying to focus on the ugly floral patterns that seem to be flexing, with a pleading tone she says, "Please do not finish that sentence."
Earl's suspicions are only confirmed when Max dashes to the restroom as she had been before earlier in the week.
"Certainly I have said cruder things…" Oleg monologues aloud, not really speaking to anyone but to himself.
"She's just…feeling sick." Caroline lies.
The cook doesn't care enough to see through it and returns back to cooking food that will be served in five hours, if they can rally up enough customers.
Han simply shrugs, already bored and having forgotten about their tardiness. "As long as she does not get my customers sick." He warns in what he thinks is a threatening tone.
"If she doesn't, the food surely will." Earl rejoinders from his post by the door. The blonde waitress barely suppresses a giggle, only turning away from Han's line of view – not that he can see her laughing anyway he's too short and busy mumbling about hiring employees that will respect him as he limps back to his office.
While her gaze follows him, her eyes land on the restroom door. She wonders if Max needs her.
Part of her, all of her actually, hopes that she does.
"So," Earl takes Caroline's attention, and her elbow, away from her best friend that still hasn't returned as she gets ready to go to Max. "What's really wrong with our girl?" taking her to the back, he looks through the cupboards for something.
"What makes you think something's wrong?"
Pulling out a coffee cup with Max's name written on it in her surprisingly neat script, Earl looks over his shoulder as he presses a couple of buttons on the hot water dispenser "I've seen that girl stumble in here late after a night of too many drinks, sex with questionable strangers, and even with a broken leg but I've never heard her blame her lateness on someone else."
"Nothing?" Caroline tries pathetically, her shoulders hitched up in a shrug.
Earl gives her a deadpan "don't bullshit me" look and Caroline's reserve, along with her slim shoulders, drop significantly.
She visibly slumps and her forehead falls into the palm of her hand.
She's never been good with lies, especially important ones. "Honestly? It's not my place to tell." She says apologetically.
The old man nods sympathetically and it's clear he already knows. But he resumes the task he came in the kitchen for.
Max enters through the colorful doors then; looking almost betrayed as she glares at the shameful looking Caroline. Her black eyes ask the question she doesn't voice aloud. "Did you tell him?"
Caroline shakes her head in the negative with big innocent blue eyes that usually made melted Max into a puddle but today she is just so damn mad. At her circumstances, at Caroline's persistence to be her caretaker, at her morning sickness, and every goddamn thing she could see, feel, hear, and taste.
"Here." Earl's elderly hands shake as he pushes a cup of tea in her hands. "My first baby mama, the only one I ever stayed around for…" and there's a delicate hint of shame in his words that both women pick up on easily. Max more than her friend. Not because she's known him longer but because she feels parallel to what he feels now. Maybe if she'd done things differently…
"Anyways she had morning sickness just like you. Doc told us this could do the trick, depending on how far along you are."
He's only just put the teabag in the water so the liquid inside the cup is clear but Max can see a red haze steadily spreading throughout the rest of the cup. "You're not alone. We're all here for you."
She swallows hard. There goes that warm feeling in her stomach again.
What the hell is that feeling?
"Thank you…" She frowns, unsure of how to respond to people being nice to her.
She thinks she's had enough practice with Caroline but even now after three years it's still difficult to accept courteous favors without expecting to owe them something in kind.
Earl puts a hand on her shoulder and she looks him in the eyes for only a moment but her gaze casts downward, almost ashamed.
Max isn't one to be weak, or well show her weakness but right now her emotions are deeply contorted to a degree that even she can't analyze and it could be easy to blame it on the ill-timed pregnancy.
And in a way that is the case, the pregnancy itself has become an inconvenience – not that she can ever think of a time being pregnant by someone you barely know isn't an inconvenience. Maybe if he were rich…
But since learning about her pregnancy, it's forced Max to take a good long look at her life and evaluate all that she has and hasn't accomplished and when she looks at Caroline she thinks of what's held them both back.
If Caroline's father hadn't been corrupt, even if they'd still gone broke, Caroline still could have done something with her business degree. She could have made something of herself.
She was a smart and determined woman.
But she was a Channing and the Channing's were not to be trusted.
Even Max found it difficult to trust Caroline specifically, but for an entirely different reason. One she still hadn't figured out…
All that stood in Max's way was she never believed in herself to apply herself hard enough. A lot of that blame falls back on her mother, which is the only reason she's even considering being a mother. She wants to do something right. She wants to be better than her own mother's example in some sort of way. Even if it means having a child by a man she doesn't know or love much like her mother had.
But, Max thinks, at least she knows her child's father.
She knows his name and where he lives and what he does for a living…even if it wouldn't be enough to support her and a child. She knows enough about him. More than she will ever know about her own father.
But still, could she really blame her failures on her mother? There are a lot of things she can thank her mother for; her stubbornness, her unwillingness to trust, her addiction to weed, vodka, and Cheetos. But following in her footsteps and becoming a deadbeat nobody is no one's fault but her own.
A/N: I don't know if I've expressed this but my interest in updating stories relies solely on the amount of feedback I get. I know I know - not healthy or even fair but it's true and something I'm working on. Now I know the Maxoline fandom isn't all that big so I trust that I've attracted a good amount of people still but if you could share this story with your friends in the fandom that'd be great. And be ever so gracious by "paying" me with reviews.
