Slowly the tears dried up. They'd left salty trails on Max's cheeks, which now started to itch. If it was possible to cry out all of the body fluids, then that's what Max had done. Her eyes were swollen and the sobs winding out of her throat were only a dry kecking by now.
Dana and Kate had been knocking on the locked door and had been sliding notes through the lower door crack. Max hadn't read them. She was lying on her bed, still wearing her shoes, her face pressed against the cushion she had sewed with her mother years ago. Her cell phone rang and beeped without cease; Warren wrote: Hey Max, whaddup, everyone's talking sick shit about u on the campus! They're talking trash, right? U really suspended?!; Dana and Kate tried to call Max when they didn't succeed at the door; some unfamiliar phone numbers sent messages like Drug hoe! and You got junk for me or did they find everything?
Max couldn't tell how many hours had passed. It got dark, the cell phone finally remained silent, Dana and Kate gave up for now. Max felt weak and not able to get up. Her head hurt and her bladder was too full.
Slowly, extremely slowly the girl turned from her belly to the side, then she leant onto her arm and slowly got into a sitting position. Immediately, her head was spinning. Black and white dots were dancing in front of Max's eyes like in a kaleidoscope. A twinge shot through her temples. She pressed her hands against her head and took a deep breath before being able to get up. She had been sweating, her jeans and her bra were pinching uncomfortably against her skin, but Max didn't even have the strength to take off her clothes.
Sluggishly, the student scuffed to the door of her room, briefly put her ear against it, and when she didn't hear anything, she hesitantly turned the key around. Through a narrow gap she peeked at the corridor. When she didn't see anyone, Max fully opened the door and quickly went into the bathroom. Thankfully no one was there, either. Max went to the toilet, then she washed her hands and looked at herself in the mirror.
A zombie looked back at her, a zombie with ruffled hair, snotty nose and pale skin.
"Oh my gosh", Max wanted to mutter, but her throat was too dry to make a sound. Max turned the cold water on, her hands forming a bowl, and washed her face. Hundreds of little needles seemed to prickle and tingle on her skin. Her eyes still closed, she let the water drop from her face back into the sink. She felt the wet pearls flowing from her forehead over her nose and temples onto cheeks and chin; some drops were entangled in her slender eyebrows, others flowed over her eyelids, glided into her lashes and then devoted themselves to gravity.
And suddenly, Max knew what was up.
She opened her eyes, hastily wiped her face with her sleeve and flounced out of the bathroom.
It was Courtney. She must have tipped Victoria off that Max had met Mr. Jefferson. When they had been sitting at Golden John's, talking about Max's photos, the door had opened and new guests had entered the café. Neither Max nor her teacher had paid attention to it at that moment, but now, recalling the situation, Max realized that she pretty surely had heard Courtney's voice from one of the booths next to the door. And Courtney had once complained about how she had to spend a few hours there with her grandmother and a friend of hers from the retirement home every two weeks, hadn't she?
Courtney must have spotted Max and Mark Jefferson, immediately passed the information on to Victoria and the latter had been bitching about it in front of Nathan.
He wanted to warn me, Max realized. For some reason he wanted to prevent what now had happened - Victoria's revenge hitting Max like a hammer. And during the two days since her meeting with Mr. Jefferson, her school mate surely had had more than one opportunity to steal Max's locker key and bring it back again.
All of these realizations flashed through Max's mind like thunderbolts. She hastened out of the girls' dormitory and considered feverishly where a Nathan Prescott could be on a Wednesday evening past nine p.m. Probably not in his room.
She didn't have to search very long. The dark haired boy sat alone at one of the tables on the campus, a pencil in his hand, and stared at a piece of paper which he probably couldn't even really see in the darkness.
Like an avenging angel, Max rushed towards him and planted herself next to him. In this moment, she wasn't afraid of him or his meltdowns or his restless eyes, and in her flaming rage she felt much taller than 1,65 metres.
"It was Courtney, right?", Max snapped at Nathan.
He obviously hadn't noticed her and now jumped with shock. He stared at Max who stood, with her legs apart and arms akimbo, next to him.
"She'd seen me in a situation that would misplease Victoria, and that's why Vic planted the coke on me, right?"
Nathan stared at Max open mouthed and - began to laugh. Bursting with laughter, he slapped his thighs. Max lowered her arms and suddenly didn't feel strong at all anymore.
"What - what's the point?"
Nathan abruptly stopped laughing. "What's the point? What's the POINT?" He jumped to his feet, gruffly grabbed Max's shoulder and yanked her towards him until she was standing really close to him.
"I tell you what the point is, hippie. This 'situation' you're talking about did not just 'misplease' Victoria." He bared his teeth. Then, suddenly, his face relaxed. The anger in his voice now changed into a nearly businesslike tone, but the fingernails clenching into Max's shoulder told another story. "I told you not to piss her off. That she'll destroy you." He shrugged his shoulders as to express his sympathy.
He is completely insane, it flashed through Max's mind.
"Please", she said with clenched teeth, "please talk to her. Whatever Courtney believes to have seen, it is not like that!"
Nathan tilted his head to the side and looked Max into the eyes. Hers were light blue, his dark blue.
Dangerous eyes. Haunted eyes.
"Nathan, please. That's ridiculous!" And although she tried to fight it, Max's eyes welled up with tears again. "Please talk to her", she gasped out brokenly. "She can't destroy my life like that, just because her friend imagines to have seen something. The scholarship means everything to me! I didn't do anything! I-" Her voice failed.
Nathan looked Max in the eyes for another half a second, then his look became insecure and turned away.
"Plea-", Max tried once again, shakily, but Nathan emitted a furious cry, pushed her away and stomped off into the darkness.
Max stared after him for a moment, then she spun round on her heel and ran towards the school building in panic. Now there was only one person left who could help her.
Please be still here, please be still here, please -
Impatient and with her eyes still wet from the tears, Max waited in front of Ms. Grant's office, hoping she would be let in. The small roller blind was drawn behind the milk glass window and Max couldn't see whether the lights inside were still turned on.
After a few seconds that felt like an eternity for the girl, steps could be heard. The door was opened jauntily - despite her plump build, Ms. Grant was always jaunty - and Ms. Grant's humming voice said: "Yes, what can I do this late-"
When the teacher saw who stood in front of her door, the sentence was cut.
Then: "Oh, Max, it's you."
"M-Miss Grant", was the only thing Max was able to say, then she burst into tears again.
Max hated to cry in public (and except for that one time when she fell off her bike real badly, she had managed to avoid or at least hide it up to now), but today, all of her inner dams had broken.
Ms. Grant tugged at her dark curls with an uncomfortable expression on her face. She seemed to be thinking about just closing the door again, but she was too much of a passionate teacher to do so.
"I just wanted to leave", the woman finally sighed. "Let me get my documents, then we can go out together."
Max could only nod. Never before she had felt so vulnerable and desperate. Her chest was a compact block of disbelief, consternation, fear and shame.
Ms. Grant went into her room, came back out immediately after, carrying her bag and some folders under her arm, and locked the door. With her other hand she steered Max gently in the direction of the back exit where the faculty parking was.
"I guess you didn't just come to me because I'm a guidance counselor, right?", Ms. Grant eventually asked.
"Yes, mainly due to that", Max kecked out between two sobs. Then she took a deep breath and focused on talking. "Due to that and because you know me."
"Max, please, I -"
"Ms. Grant, you know who I'm in contact with, what I'm doing between classes, you know my file. I'm a real bore." Despite the grave situation, Max couldn't help giving a laugh. But it sounded bitter. "And" - a dry sob - "you know the files of other students here."
"Max", Ms. Grant said sternly and paused, "if you start accusing fellow students of certain things again..."
"It's not like that", Max hastened to say.
But Ms. Grant was already walking again. She pushed the backdoor open. The chilly night air blew over Max's untidy hair and made her shiver.
"Please", Max hurried to keep pace with her teacher, "you'll get a hair sample, or an urine sample, or you take a blood sample from me - I do not take drugs!"
Ms. Grant unlocked her car, loaded her stuff in and turned to her student. For a moment, she glanced at the nightly school campus, then her eyes went back to Max.
"I am not dumb, Max", she eventually said. "Money can ensure a lot of things. Contacts can ensure a lot of things. I know that. That's why I'm so fascinated by science: It never betrays you. But people, people do it all the time. I don't believe you're involved in drug stuff. But I don't linger over believing, Max. So many students I have taught, and so many of them had faces and tongues like angels. What lies beneath - well, you can never really know. And those who possess drugs do not necessarily take them."
Max slowly let her teacher's words reach her brain. She believes me, but she doesn't care. Or she wants to believe me but can't because experience taught her better. Blackwell is a snake pit, and she thinks I'm one of the elapid snakes.
"You ... you don't believe me", Max said. It was not a question. It was a statement. Her chin shivered.
Ms. Grant sighed again. She looked genuinely sad and disappointed. It seemed like she wanted to say something, then she got into her car, started the engine and rolled down the window.
"My dear Max, please believe me one thing: I want nothing more than believing you're the good girl you behave like. I wish that everything is a huge misunderstanding and you've been falsely accused. That they apologize to you and your life takes back its usual course. I like you, Max, and you know that. Your file does speak in favour of you, that's right - but in the end, I know as little about you as about the black holes in our galaxy. I only know the surface. I am incredibly sorry, my dear, but I cannot help you."
And with a last, genuinely regretful expression, Ms. Grant drove off.
Trees were rustling in the wind.
The gravel under Max's trembling feet softly scrunched when the girl lurched a few steps after the car, looking like the zombie that had stared back at her from the mirror before.
Everything was dark. The last possible redemption broke away with faintly glowing tail lights.
Time stood still.
I cannot help you.
The compact lump that had seemed to suffocate Max earlier now shattered into thousands of tiny pieces. And along with it, the girl's last spark of hope died.
That was it. Her future had just ended in smoke. Her dream had blown out. Everything she wanted ever since she could remember had vanished in one of Ms. Grant's black holes of the universe.
"No. No." That was the only word Max could say.
"No. No. No-no-no-nonononono."
Max took a deep breath. And then she screamed. "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
The scream got lost in a high-pitched, desperate sobbing and Max crocked on the spot.
What was the purpose of legs again?
Max barely heard the steps behind her.
"Sh, sh", a voice said softly and comforting. "I think you've shed enough tears for today."
Trance-like, Max observed that someone squatted down beside her and brushed the hair from her face.
This touch, this hand, was so warm; the only warm, good thing in this cold, awful world. Max couldn't help but closing her eyes and focusing on nothing but this anchor. Like a child she huddled her cheek against the hand.
The tears were still streaming.
"It's alright", the voice murmured.
Don't stop talking, you beautiful voice!
The hand came off Max's cheek, then an arm wrapped around her waist and pulled her up. Being braced like that, Max managed to make a few steps, then she was shaken by another crying fit.
"It won't work like that, huh?", the voice said, probably more to itself than to the student.
A few seconds passed, than a second arm slid under Max's legs and cut their connection to the ground.
The girl was being lifted up like a feather.
Max faintly noticed the scent of citrus an cypress, then she closed her eyes and her head sank against Mark Jefferson's shoulder.