Nudge POV

Iggy didn't take me to my house like I thought he would in the first place. Instead, he kept driving.

"Hey, Iggy?" I asked from the passenger's seat.

"Yeah?" He responded

"Where are we going exactly?"

"You don't want to take that at your house, do you?" He pointed out a very good point.

"Definitely not," I agreed.

"Then we're going to my house," he informed.

I was speechless as he pressed on the gas even more.

If there was one place worse for taking a pregnancy test than my foster house, it was at my best friends brother's house.

Nudge POV

Two water bottles, a coke, a bottle of iced tea and a Sprite in the last hour still couldn't make me go to the bathroom. God, I have never felt so much pressure in my life. Never had I ever thought that my biggest pressure in my life would be to pee on a stick.

"Do you need help?" Iggy called from the other side of the bathroom door.

"Eww, Iggy," I screamed. "You're nasty!"

"I was going to give you another bottle of water," he defended himself. "I don't know what you were thinking of."

"Oh," I stuttered, embarrassed that I had said it out loud when he was just trying to be a decent guy. "No, I think if I drink any more, my bladder might explode."

I heard a slight laugh on the other side of the door. "Okay, well I don't want to have to go to my neighbors to go to the bathroom. So are you going to finish within the next twelve hours?"

I looked at my watch. 1:15. I had been in this bathroom for over an hour. There would be no point to going to school after I was done. Skipping school wasn't something that I did, but I was about to die without knowing for sure.

"I don't know," I admitted, then I felt something. "Oh my gosh!"

"What?" He exclaimed on the other size. "is it coiming out?"

I groaned. "No, false alarm."

Something hit the door. I wasn't exactly sure if it was his fist or his head.

Are you okay?" He asked me after the loud thump. "You sure you still don't want that bottle of water?"

Then it finally came. I peed on the stick. Then I screamed in excitement and…fear at the same time.

"Finally?" Iggy asked hopefully.

"Yes, finally," I called back gleefully.

Yeah, I had just completed the first step of a pregnancy test, that was just great! Right? I shook my head at myself. What the heck was I thinking? Why was I happy about completing a pregnancy test?

I got done and zipped up my pants, holding the stick in my two hands like it was a sacred item.

"Can I come in now?" Iggy knocked on the door again for the fifth time in the last hour.

"Um…why?" I asked, not meaning to sound harsh, but truly curious why he would want to be in the bathroom during the most humiliating and awkward moment of my life.

"Because you should have Max with you during this, but since you refuse to, I'm the closest thing you're going to get," was his reasoning.

He was going to know one way or another, so why not?

"Come on in," I surprised.

For some reason, I hadn't locked the bathroom door. Iggy could have walked in any time he wanted to and wouldn't have been stopped. Yet he didn't. At least he had that much decency.

He distracted me with the word game where you say one word and the other person says the first word that comes to their mind. Something that Iggy, Max and I would do in the car ride to school in eighth grade.

"What does two bars mean?" He asked, picking up the stick and scrutinizing it.

I didn't need to answer him verbally, because everything was on my face.

"Nudge…" he started to assure me, but he couldn't think of the right words.

"What am I going to do?" I wondered out loud.

"You mean, what are we going to do?" He corrected me.

I looked up at him with tears in my eyes, his eyes filled with the familiar concern and sympathy. Without another word, he wrapped my into his embrace and pressed my face against his chest.

"We're going to figure this out," he promised.

Max POV

When was the next time I woke up for good?

The next morning…on Fang's couch…on a school night.

My dad was going to kill me.

"Took you long enough," someone muttered from another open room.

"What the hell, Fang?" I yelled. "Why didn't you wake me up, you idiot?"

"I tried," he defended. "But you were dead to the world."

"Oh," I said.

"Why, are your parents that bad?" He asked.

"You could say that," I agreed. "Let's just go to school."

"We're at lunch right now," he informed me, pointing at the clock above the T.V.

My eyes widened. "You…you mean to say that I not only stayed the night at your house but I also slept through half of the day?"

He nodded, looking at me as if I was going to have a heart attack or nervous breakdown of some kind.

I groaned, holding my head in my hands. I hada headache since I hadn't taken one of the painkillers dad kept in the cabinets. Yet another mistakes of mine. Every place that he had hit me in the last two weeks was now magnified pain by times a hundred. I squeezed my eyes shut, making sure that Fang couldn't see my face when he walked around the couch. To kneel down by where I was sitting.

"I saw something," he told me, "while you were sleeping."

I sighed. "What? What did you see Fang?"

"Your huge bracelet that's on your wrist every day, well it sort of slipped up your arm while you were sleeping," he let me know.

My heart stopped, and I felt my body drop to the depths that gravity took me to. You know that feeling when your parents find out that you were sneaking out at night. You can feel rocks filling up your stomach and slowing down your circulation.

"What's about it?" I snapped.

His hand snatched out to grasp my cut one. NO matter how much I tried to yank back, he would let me go. He wasn't rough like my dad, just rock solid and still. When I finally stopped fighting back, he turned my hand over to reveal my wrist. Angry red scars and fresh new cuts criss-crossed each other.

"Max," he whispered to me gentle, but firm.

I could feel those eyes staring at me, but I refused to look into those deep dark brown eyes. Those eyes could look into my soul if I let him make eye contact with me.

"Look at me, Max," he almost pleaded with me.

I still refused until his free hand lifted up my chin so that I was looking at him. It was too late to look away from him because he had already hypnotized me. For the longest time, we just sat there, looking into one another's eyes. It was almost as if we could stop it, whatever trance we were in. maybe it was the same for Fang was it was for me, because it sure looked like it.

"Why?" He asked.

He could be asking many things.

Why did I hurt myself?

Why would anyone do this?

Why was I hurting so much that I would do this?

Why was I such a freak?

It could have been one of any of those, but it all came down to the same thing.

"It doesn't concern you," I snapped, attempting one more time to haul my hand back one more time.

He didn't let go. He held on for dear life, squeezing me so much that it almost hurt. It looked like him finding out about this was his lifeline. Well too bad, because no matter what he said, how nice he was to me or how 'charming' he was, there was no way in hell I was telling him the truth. First because I genuinely didn't want anyone to know. Second ; it was Fang. Third; I couldn't afford to lose the only family that I had left.

"It does," he stated. It wasn't a question if he was involved now or not, but a fact. To him, at least.

"That's nice," I retorted. "Now could you please let me go?"

"Not until you tell me why you're doing this to yourself," he bargained.

I fought back tears in my eyes that had been held back for the last year. Not a single tear had left my eyes since the day of my mom's death. Even at her funeral, I was a heartless bitch.

"Why do you care so much, Fang?" I challenged him.

He broke our eye contact and looked up, as if the answer would be on the ceiling of his condo. I set my lips into a firm line.

"I don't know," he finally admitted. "I look at you and I care, okay?"

I shook my head. "That's not going to be a good enough answer."

"What is 'good enough' for you Max?" He challenged me now. "Because I'm starting to think that you just don't care, period."

"I don't," I muttered.

His free hand rolled up into a fist and started coming up. I flinched, thinking the fist was meant for me. But he brought it up to his face and ran his hand through his hair in frustration with me and himself.

"Max," he sighed. "What do I have to do to prove to you that I really do care?"

"You can't," I confessed, leaning closer to him so that we were almost as close as yesterday, face to face. "Nothing that you do is ever going to get me to trust you, okay?"

He shook his head in defiance. "You know what Max? I'm going to prove you wrong."

He stood up and finally let my hand go.

I really wished him good luck in his quest.

Actually, I wanted him to prove me wrong.

It's getting closer guys.

Just a spoiler, it's going to get really sad for Max in the next couple chapters. Be prepared.

Don't worry, Fax is going to happen soon!