Chapter Three: New people, Old habits

Maxs Pov

(Saturday Night)

"Ok I'm done, You can look now," Nudge steps back.

I stand and make my way over to the mirror hanging on my closet door. In my reflection, I see a girl who is not me. This girl is put together. Smokey black eye-shadow frames her eyes and makes the flecks of gold in her brown eyes pop. Foundation and mascara has been added to make her skin look flawless and poreless and her eyelashes unusually long; bold, red lipstick brings out her naturally full lips. Her hair is slick straight but volume has been added to it to make it look messy and sexy.

It's different -not something I'd ever do on my own but I will admit it looks good.

"It's not as bad as I thought it would be," I shrug.

"I'll take that as a compliment!" Nudge cheers, knowing it's the closest to a thank you that she's going to get from me.

I turn and glance around at my friends. Angel has her naturally curly hair down and framing her round face. Her outfit surprises me; sparkly black shorts -slightly too short for my comfort- with a simple white T-shirt, a pink cardigan, and matching pumps. Ella has her short wavy hair down. As far as clothes, she's wearing a red, sparkly tank top, that greatly accentuates her figure, demin jeans and black flip flops. Nudge's hair is curled, cascading down to her waist and draping over her silky white tank top and florally skirt.

I wait on the bed whike they do some finishing touches before we head out. I hop into the back seat Nudge's five-seater pink convertible and we head off.

When we arrive at the party, it's fifteen minutes past but according to Nudge its mandatory to be "Fashionably late". Whatever that means.

After parking the car in a spot we found down the street, we make our way up to a large brick house with a gate around it.

I knock and just my luck, Riley answers the door.

Riley's Pov

A knock sounds from the door. "I got it," I say to no one in particular.

I manage to slide my way through the crowded room and to the door. I open it slightly to see Max Martinez standing there, with her friends Nudge and Angel -and Ella, I think it is? I don't know. But what I do know is that Max looks smoking hot. I can't help but look her up and down. Actually they all look hot, but especially Max.

"Come on in," I welcome, stepping aside so that they can get in. They come inside and I close the door behind them, sliding the lock in place. It has to be locked, just incase teachers come.

When I turn back around, all the guys nearest to me are checking out our new, very attractive guests and I don't blame them. They can have the other three, but I already called dibs on Martinez.

Maxs Pov

"You look really nice," Riley gawks.

"Looking halfway presentable is not worth the pain these heels are causing," I roll my eyes, earning a small laugh from him.

"We'll catch up with you two later." Nudge whispers in my ear and walks off with Ella and Angel in tow.

Cadens Pov

Ella: here, where r u?

Caden: Wait by steps. I'll find you

I break away from my friends and fight my way to the steps but Ella is nowhere to be found. I turn on my phone to text her, but someone interrupts by tapping me on my shoulder. I turn around to see a beautiful girl I've ever seen.

Most guys fall for the short, skinny girls with big boobs, long blonde hair and bright blue eyes but I'd be lying if I said that I didn't find myself head-over-heals attracted to this tall, curvaceous brunette with dark green eyes and and short brown hair.

"You look a little confused."

"Um, ya. I'm looking for someone but I can't find her."

She rolls her eyes. "Very funny Caden."

"Ella?" I ask, only slightly kidding. She looks so different than she usually does.

"No shit sure-lock."

"Wow you look..."

"Girly? fruity? Unnatural?" She offers.

"I was going to say beautiful, but those work too." I smile and watch as an adorable red color takes over her cheeks.

Maxs Pov

I see Riley's mouth moving but I can't hear a word he's saying over the loud music.

"What?" I yell.

"Do you want something to drink?" He hollars back.

I shrug. "Sure."

He takes my arm and leads me to the kitchen. There are only two other people in here, one drunk and one in the process of getting drunk. Geez, the party just started twenty minutes ago.

I grab a drink from the table but Riley takes it from my hands and replaces it with a drink from the fridge.

"The punch is spiked," He says into my ear.

"Who is the chick, Riley?" Someone say from behind me. I turn to identify the drunk guy on the counter as Jacob Brown.

He squints' his eyes. "Wow, is that Martinez? Damn you look hot," He looks me up and down.

Even from five feet away I can smell the stench of liquor on his breath. He grabs my arm and pulls me closer to him until our chest's touch; wrapping his hand around my waist.

"You know some guy could easily take advantage of you, I think you need a big strong guy like myself to protect you."

"I'm not a chick, I'm a woman," I whisper into his ear, before kneeing him in the stomach and walking away. I shove past Riley, back to where the entrance is but of course he follows close on my heels.

"I'm sorry about him, he doesn't know how to act around pretty girls."

"Shut up." I demand.

It's been less than ten minutes and I'm already annoyed and ready to go home. It's too loud and hot and there are far more people here than I'm comfortable with.

"Do you want to go upstairs... where it's quieter?" Riley offers.

"I guess."

I stumble a lot going up the stairs. Let's just say me and these heels Nudge made we wear are not friends. I have to grab onto the railing to keep from falling and once up the steps, I take them off and carry them down the hall to an empty room. I sit on the edge of the bed as Riley closes the door behind us.

The click of the door closing makes me feel on edge for some reason.

"Better?" Riley asks, sitting down next to me on the mattress.

"Not really."

I look down at my bare feet and wiggle them a bit, finding anything but Riley to focus on. It's hard though to pretend he's not here with his constant side looks at me and the fact that he's practically breathing down my neck.

"Hey, Can I ask you something?"

I look up at him. "Go for it."

"Would you maybe wanna go out with me sometime? Not like this but like a real date."

Is he being serious? Guys like him and girls like me do not go on dates with each other. Besides, it's pointless anyways. It's never gonna turn into a relationship. Ive gone on a lot of dates with a lot of guys but Ive never once met a guy who accept me entirely and is okay with what I will and won't do and that's because he doesn't exists. They never want anything more to do with me once they find out I'm not gonna sleep with them.

And I know for a fact that he's not going to be any different.

"No," I reply, more harshly that I meant to. "I mean, I'm just not into the whole dating thing."

His charming smile slowly converts into a frowns. "Oh… Um, yeah. No. I know what you mean. I get it. It's fine."

"You sure?"

"Yeah."

"Good."

We stay in the room and talk about a whole lot of nothing for a while. I will admit it is strange being all alone in a room with this boy. I mean, I've been alone in a room with a boy before -my very first best friend was a boy named sam who I've known for twelve years and dated for two, so of course I've been alone with him before- but this is Riley; a very confident, very manipulating man whore, not the gentlemen that Sam is.

It doesn't take me long to notice that every few minutes he's gradually scooting closer to me and when I feel like he's come too close, I suggest the idea of going back down stairs. He agrees, but I hear him faintly sigh as he follows me out of the room and down the steps.

I find two empty spot on the sofa by the door and take a seat; throwing the uncomfortable heels down on the ground next to me.

Riley hasn't been the worst company, I guess but part of me wishes he would just go off with his own friends so I can leave this place.

"Martinez?" I hear and look around for the source of the voice.

In front of me, wearing nothing more than a pair of black jeans, stands the one and only Fang Ride. Riley stands and they quickly greet each other with a one handed bro-hug or whatever that thing is guys always do when they see each other.

I forgot that they were friends.

"What do you want?"

"Well you look different." Fang points out.

Is my appearance really that unusual for me? It's just a grey maxi dress from Nudges closet. I will admit it is a bit clingy and the heart shaped collar exposes more cleavage than I'm comfortable with but still. I know I don't put a lot of time or effort into getting ready in the morning but do I really look so bad every other day that a simple dress and some makeup is a game changer?

"I need to talk to you," he looks over at Riley. "Alone."

"No." I reply instantly.

"It's important."

"And why should I care?"

"It's about Angle."

I immediately stand. "What about her?"

"Nothing happened to her, Just c'mon."

I take my chances and follow him, only because he said it's about Angel. As to why I believed him, I have no idea but I'm not letting my pettiness stand in the way if something really is wrong with her.

Id never forgive myself.

Fang leads me to the back yard, where I also find Nudge, Ella, and some guys named Iggy and Gazzy.

"What is this?"

"Max?" Iggy questions.

"I don't have time for anymore comments on my appearance. What are you all doing out here?"

"This was my idea," Nudge explains. "So as you all know, or should know, Angel's birthday is coming up in two weeks. And I was thinking that maybe we should throw her a surprise party."

"I'm all in for the idea, but shouldn't it just be her real friends?" I say, looking over at Fang, Iggy and then Gazzy.

"Angel is one of my best friends," Gazzy points.

"Nudge talked me into it... and come on, Angel's hot," Iggy winks.

"A party is a party." Fang shrugs.

"Can you all stop talking so we can figure this stuff out!" Nudge interrupts. "We need to figure out who to invite, what's the theme, what time, where should it be at, and when should we do all of this."

Ella's the next to speak,"How about we have a meeting monday, after school. At let's say four-"

"I have volleyball from four to five thirty." I inform.

"Ok, well how about two? We can all meet at Ed's diner and figure this stuff out while we have lunch. Everyone's also going to be responsible to help out with something to do with the party. Deal?" Nudge asks, though it was more of an order than a question.

"Deal." Everyone responds in unison.

"Ok break!" Iggy says as if we were in one of those football huddles.

We all go back into the house, but we part ways as soon as we enter the door. I go back into the living room to look for Riley. Luckily it doesn't take me long because I find him still sitting on the couch … but now he's not alone. He's talking to Lisa.

"Hey."

"Hey, sit." Riley pats the couch. I sit next to him, on the opposite side of Lisa, keeping my distance from the two of them.

"So, Max. Riley was telling me about you and him... talking," She smiles mischievously. "I remember when we use to date Ry."

I've already overheard this story once, last year, when Lisa was telling it to her 'friends' or anyone else who wanted to listen. She's just wants to brag about the fact that she dumped him and not the other way around. That's her motto; Dump them, before they can dump you. Cheat on them before they can cheat on you.

Or maybe she just gets bored easily and has really bad commitment issues.

Most likely the seine done.

I start to say that Riley and I aren't together nor will we be but Riley speaks first. "Yea we use to date until you cheated on me with Caden, six days after we started going out." Riley glares.

The Caden Ella's here with tonight?

"It was five days actually."She corrects.

Their conversation quickly comes to a July.

"As much as I'd love to hear this story again, I'd rather swallow glass. Don't you have a date to attend to? Who was it again? Oh yeah, Fang right? How come you're not with him right now?"

I rememberher constant bragging today in Home Ec -that her and Fang are finally going to be together and we're coming together tonight to the party. Anybody with a brain knew it was a lie. She's been chasing after him since freshman year and he still doesn't want her. Yet has slept with all of her friends.

I was just with him outside moments ago, proving that her statement was of course a lie but I want to play along and see what she says.

"He's getting me a drink actually," She lies. "You know, what? I should probably be getting back to him now though."

She quickly stands, rearranged her leather skirt and primps her curly Shri and struts away embarrassed.

"Do you want to dance… you know, as friends?" Riley asks, shyly. "Not even as friends ,just acquaintances. Or even less than that if you want."

I place my hand over his mouth. "Shut up and let's go dance before I change my mind."

We push our way to the middle of the crowd and start dancing just as Heathens by twenty one pilots comes on. Nudge, Angel and Ella -who's with Caden- somehow find us in the huge crowd. We all happily dance together, despite Riley and Caden ignoring each other for the sakes of Ella and I.

The space between Riley and I has closed and becomes too close for my liking so I take a few steps but end up hitting something hard.

I start to fall forward, when someone catches me around the waist. So it was a someone I hit, not a something. I twist around in the stranger's strong grip and see Fang Ride. His arm still firmly around my waist; so close to me that our chests touch. I can feel heat radiating off of him. He doesn't tower over me, but he's still a good head taller than me. I look up at him as he looks down at me. A second later his hand is removed from my waist and he's taken a few steps back.

"Watch it, Ride." He says sternly, but he doesn't look mad. More so amused.

"Me watch it? I'm pretty sure you ran into me." I argue.

"No, I'm pretty sure it was your fault. What was that dance you were doing anyways?" He raises his eyebrows. "It was-"

"Good, impressive, awesome?" I offer.

"Terrible," he finishes.

I'm a great dancer. "Fuck you, Fang."

"Anytime, anyday, anyplace," he smirks and takes a step towards me.

Oh, god. Does he really think I'm like all of those other girls and am gonna fall for that?

I take a step towards him aswell and stand on my tippy-toes. "I'd blow my brains out before I ever sleep with you," I whisper seeerly into his ear.

"Woah, woah. I was just joking. No need for suicidal comments," Fang chuckles. "Just be careful.. you're going to kill someone with those dance moves.

I choose to ignore his banter and turn back to my friends... well, and Riley and Caden. They're still all dancing together, except for Riley. He begins walking towards me and pulls me into him; wrapping his hand around me. We sway back and forth for awhile, to a slower beat song. His touch makes every fiber in my being feel on fire -in a bad way- but I just go with it for his sake.

It's 2 a.m. and the party's still going strong.

Riley and I sit on the kitchen counter talking about basic subjects -what we wanna do with our lives, where we plan on going to college, what kind of families we want. Riley seems to have no problem sharing his life story and his solid planned out ideas for his future.

I on the other hand, don't really like sharing personal information though, so when he asks me these exact questions, instead of saying I'm an only child, though thought I had three siblings until I was twelve due to schizophrenia, my parents are divorced, I dream of staying in California, going to Stanford for college and afterwards moving to a small town and having two children, I just shrug and pretend not to have a plan.

Fang enters the kitchen in the middle of our talk. His hair undoubtedly messy and his shirt still nowhere to be seen. He grabs a cup of the spiked punch and chugs it in less than three seconds.

"There's a game of beer pong going on in the basement." he belches.

"We're not interested." Riley replies

"I think Max can answer for himself, Ri." Fang's eyes are bloodshot and his balance awful but his words come out clearly. Like he's so used to being drunk that his mouth has adapted to mimicking sobriety. He takes another cup and empties it in a matter of seconds. "Besides, I thought you'd want her drunk? I mean, that's the only way you're going to score."

Just then, Iggy walks in.

"Shut up, Fang. You're drunk."

Fang laughs flatly, his head swaying involuntarily. "The best way to be."

"Riley, will you help me take him home? He'll keep drinking himself into a kidney failure if I don't."

He turns to me first. "Max I'm really sorry to even ask this but will you be okay if I help Igg take Fang home?"

"It's fine, Riley, I get it. Go ahead, I'll be okay here." I give him a small smile.

"Already Iggy I'm in," he agrees.

"Thank you." Iggy looks relieved. "There's plenty of room in my car if you wanna come with us, Max."

"Us?" Fang questions. "I'm not going anywhere. Party's just beginning!"

He lets out a little 'whoo' and picks up another cup but Iggy knocks it out of his hand before it reaches his mouth.

"Fang please don't do this tonight." He begs.

"I don't need you to take care of me!"

Iggy leans in and whispers something into Fang's ear, causing him to throw his head back and groan but finally listen to his pleas.

"Fineee. We'll leave," he says reluctantly. "Martinez come with us! We can make it a four way!"

I can't help but laugh at his comment; his completely drunken, stupid comment.

Riley shoots me a look of embarrassment. "I don't think he quite said that right but you really should come with us. We can continue our little talk in the car?"

I hesitate for a minute. I don't really like going places with people I hardly know but considering I don't know where my friends are and I desperately wanna leave this cramped, vomit smelling house, I agree.

"Sure, let's go."

I hop of the counter and follow Riley and Iggy, who hold Fang up by his underarms and maneuver him from the kitchen, out the front door and to his car parked down the street. They somehow manage to get Fang into the back of the SUV. Riley Hops into the drivers seat and gets the car started while Iggy gets Fang buckled in. After he does, he heads to the passengers seat leaving me to sit in the back with Fang.

I hesitantly climb in, trying my best to sit as far away from Fang as possible but as soon as the car starts moving, Fang leans over and sprawls out across my lap.

Fuck.

"You're really comfortable, Martinez," He mumbles into my thighs.

"Yeah, yeah," I grumble, trying to find some where to rest my arms.

Riley smiles at me through the rearview mirror and I roll my eyes. Fang wraps his hands around my waist and says something about lyrics before passing out on my lap.

"I think he's fond of you," Iggy jokes.

"How much longer," I ask, though we just pulled away from the house. "I didn't sign up for all of this."

"Just a few minutes."

It feels like forever before we pull up to the boys dorm and I all but cheer as Riley and Iggy pull the intoxicated boy off of me and takes him inside the dorm.

A few minutes later Riley returns but no Iggy. "I'm really sorry about that."

"It's okay," I shrug. "Where's Iggy?"

"He's staying with Fang." He puts the car into drive. "So where to now? Are you hungry? Wanna go get some food? I'm buying."

"Riley, it two thirty three in the morning," I point out.

"So? It's the weekend. And I really wanted to get to know you some more.. I was hoping maybe I'd change your mind about giving me a chance…?"

"Look Riley, I'm not going to fuck you. So if you doing all of this is just to try and sleep with me, you can stop now."

"Um… that's not why I was doing this at all…"

"Oh." Is all I could say.

"...I'm sorry if you thought that…"

I sigh. "No, I'm sorry. I'm just really tired and need to go back to my dorm."

"You sure you can't stay out a bit longer."

"No, Riley."

He looks hurt but nevertheless, turns the car around and starts heading in the direction of my dorm. This drive seems to go by faster than the last and before I know it were pull up to the girls dorm.

I instantly throw open the car door.

"I had fun tonight." He says, stopping me from getting out.

"It wasn't all bad," I admit.

"I hope we can do it again," He smiles. "But as friends, of course."

I try my best to smile back. "I'll think about it."

"Please do."

I get out of the car and watch as he peels off, before heading up into my room. The first thing I do is change into a pair of shorts and a tank-top and wash all traces of make-up from my face, lastly throwing my hair up into a ponytail.

I collapse onto my bed in exhaustion, then mattress somehow feeling way more comfortable now than it has in the last three years of being here.

I check my phone, something I haven't done all day, before I get too tired and I fall asleep. The screen displays six text messages, two missed calls and one voice mail, all from random numbers.

I check the voicemail first;

'Um... Hey. It's Riley. I got your number from Nudge, I hope you don't mind I -uh- had really fun tonight with you. You looked hot, not that you didn't look hot before, it's just that I'm saying it now, it would be kind of weird for me to just randomly tell you that-'

'You're fucking up bro!'

'Shut up fang!'

'He still wears Superman boxers!'

'Fang!'

'Hey Max,it's Iggy!'

'Okay, please forget everything you've just heard.'

He laughs nervously and silence fills the phone for a few seconds, except for the closing of a door. Im guessing he left the room.

'To be honest, I'm not even sure why I called. I just wanted to talk to you, I guess. I don't know. Please think about my offer... I'd really like to hang out again. Okay, bye.'

I smile, when the message ends. Everyone always said he's a complete jerk and player. But he actually seems pretty okay. I still don't trust him -I don't trust trust a lot of people, it's just who I am; I have trust issues- but maybe I could one day.

I go trough my text messages next;

Sam: Call me soon? Miss u

Anonymous#1: Hey, Martinez

Anonymous #2: You looked hot tonight

Anonymous #3: Wanna go out sometime?

Anonymous #4: R u busy tomorrow?

Anonymous #5: Seeing anyone?

I immediately delete all of the messages except the one from Sam and turn my phone to 'Do Not Disturb'.

I know I'm not ugly. I'm aware that I'm fairly attractive, not insanely drop dead gorgeous like my friends but average, every day pretty and that's all people seem to look at. They want me for my looks and hate everything I stand for and my personality. That's part of the reason why I'm not into makeup or cutsy hair styles or revealing clothing, because with all of that I can easily go from standard pretty to sexy and that only makes things worse. People try to use me and manipulate me the way they have done to my friends and other girls at this school so many times before.

So I just stay to myself and try not to stand out. I go with the natural look everyday, my hair usually stays u bun, comfy clothing remains my entire wardrobe and reject everyone that shows interest in me because I'd rather stay single for the rest of my life than ever let anyone use and humiliate me again because I made the mistake of trusting them when I shouldn't have.