Chapter One: Introducing Yet Another Person With Their Own Life Problems
•••
May 25th, 2019
Radford High School
Honolulu, Hawaii, U.S.A.
Earth
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"You want me to do what?" Hawaii's Resident Bitch— or so her boxing instructor liked to call her— asked incredulously to the red-head on her left as she threw the door to her locker open, shoving her backpack and other unnecessary things she carried inside.
"Oh, come on, Max, it's only one little party," the red-head chided as she nudged Max's shoulder. Max drew an aggravated face as she continued to shuffle through her belongings in her nearly empty locker. She had already cleaned it out a week ago, ripped off old pictures and returned old books that had been sitting in there since her freshman year. A part of her felt kind of sad and sullen looking into her barren locker, but the other part– the part that was absolutely ecstatic at the idea of getting to leave high school once and for all– was happy she finally got to abandon the crusty old locker she'd had for going on four years now.
"Max, please!" Her friend continued to pester her, breaking the blonde out of her nostalgic thoughts about her locker, of all things.
Max rolled her eyes at her friend's antics as she grabbed her wallet, earphones, and phone charger from the front pocket of her backpack and shoved them each into their own pocket in her collarless green leather jacket, running her hands briefly along the Gerber pocket knife inside one of them. After she had gotten what she needed, the blonde shut her locker door and started down the hall, her red-headed friend still following after her with a pleaded look.
"Come on, it'll be so much fun!" She continued to pester her.
"What'll be so much fun?" A new voice chimed in, and Max nearly choked on the sigh of relief she let out at her new friend's arrival.
"Oh, you have impeccable timing, Kim," Max told the brunette on her right as they walked through the crowded hallways. "Leigha here has been trying to convince me to go to... some cabin party for about five minutes now. Tell her to stop," the blonde deadpanned.
Leigha gaped while Kim merely chuckled at Max's jokes. "Adrian's cabin party? Leigha's right– I think it'll be good for you to go," she states with honesty as they turn the corner, entering the cafeteria.
Max turns to face the brunette, her face scrunched up in an exaggerated look of shock, her eyes wide and her mouth agape. "You? Thinking it's okay to go to a party? In the woods?" She asks incredulously. "Who are you...?"
Kim laughs out loud at Max's over dramatic antics. "It's just a party. And the last one of the year, if I may add."
"Which means it's basically your last chance to hook up with that Wallace guy you've had a crush in since, like, second grade," Leigha adds with a shit-eating grin on her face. Max is quick to shove Leigha away, reminding her that she's lucky she didn't just straight up punch her. Of course, Leigha only laughs like a good sport.
"Shut up," Max hisses through her teeth, glancing around the crowded cafeteria to make sure no one overheard Leigha's teasing. "And I have not been crushing on him since second grade! God, I'm a fighter, not a god damned fairy tale princess waiting for true love's kiss."
"Just true love's spicy hook-up at Adrian's cabin party." Leigha winks at Max as they take a seat at one of the outside seats, the sun's beams beating down in them through the few spots covered by the palm trees above. Max blushes furiously as she throws her face into her hands.
Kim giggles beside her friends. "Oh, ease up, Lee," she nudges the ginger's arm. "At least Max didn't totally nail her girlfriend at Munch's Winter Formal last year." Max's head shot up as she guffawed at the ginger girl who looked like she might implode on the spot.
"Lee looks like she wants to die– what'd I miss?" A new voice disrupted the girls' little laughter fest. Max, Kim, and Leigha all looked up to see their friend Adrian take a seat beside them at the table. Adrian was kind of new to the school. He'd moved there at the beginning of sophomore year with his Mom after she ran away with her new fiancée she cheated n her husband with. Adrian had little to no complaints considering the new daddy got him a brand new car and basically let him do whatever he wanted. Like, throwing a party at his step-grandparents' cabin in the woods.
Kim grinned mischievously at Leigha as she explained, "Oh, we were just talking about that one time Lee had the time of her life-"
"-in the restroom at Munch's party last year?" Adrian finished as he set his lunch tray down at the table and began to sort through his food items– Max not bothering to ask as she snatched his fruit roll-up off his plate.
Max munched on her snack as she watched Leigha's face contort into one of embarrassment and shock. "How does everyone know about that?!"
"Oh, honey, everyone sitting outside the bathroom heard it," Max chuckled as she tore another piece of the fruit roll up and popped it into her mouth with a shit-eating grin while Kim and Adrian howled in amusement at Leigha's utter devastation.
"So," Kim decidedly chimed in to change the subject promptly before their friend's face turned as red as her hair. "What's with your party tonight?" She turned to Adrian with a quirks eyebrow.
"Seriously," Max interjected, tearing another piece of fruit roll-up off from where she had spun it around her index finger to chew on like a turkey leg. "What, did you chloroform and tie up your grandparents in the cabin basement to get them to agree to this? Last I checked, they hated you."
"They don't hate me," Adrian clarified. "They're just afraid their precious Henry doesn't blow all his cash on the step-child they blow all their cash on already." He gave his friends a smug smile.
"Still doesn't explain how you managed to get their cabin," Kim stated.
"So, what'd you do?" Max prompted. "Steal their Viagra? Blackmail them with tax evasion? Poison their Gritz? What?" By the time she had finished listing everything off, Kim, Leigha, and Adrian were all in tears, laughing at her blunt and deadpan antics.
After Adrian had finally sobered up enough to say a sentence through his snorting, he explained, "No! They're on a vacation in Bermuda and they gave me the keys to the cabin to dog sit their labradoodle while they're away."
"Aw," Leigha cooed. "I remember you sending me pictures on Snap. She was so cute. What was her name again?"
"It's a he. His name is Marty," Adrian explained.
Max stared at him for a moment with an unreadable blank expression until she finally deadpanned, "I still maintain that you poisoned their Gritz and left them for dead in the basement." And so began the howling laughter once again.
But, their laughing fit was brought to a halt when the sound of a tray being slammed on the ground caught everyone on the courtyard's attention, including Max and her friends'. They all turned in their seats to see a tall, burly guy standing over another guy. He wasn't as pudgy as the boy that had knocked him and his lunch tray down, but Max wouldn't exactly say he was small.
"Holy shit," she Leigha hiss beside her as they watched the scene play out. "That's Wallace!" Max turned to her friend in shock before glancing back at the kid on the ground. Sure enough, when he turned his head t glance up at the bully who'd knocked him down, it was Wallace Price. Max couldn't believe she hadn't immediately recognized those amazing shoulders, the sharp jawline, or the model hair before when he had his head down. Usually she could've picked him out in a crowd... and not in a creepy way.
Max wasn't usually one for crushes. In fact, she found teenage guys in high school to be completely and utterly useless. She didn't see the point in relationships, especially in high school. Because sooner or later, they were going to end when someone left for college or started a job away from them. At least that's what Max felt. Her whole life revolved around getting out of this high school and off this island to go pursue her future. But one look from Wallace Price made Max completely rethink her life. Which was totally stupid in her opinion because he hardly even knew she existed. She blamed her teenage hormones.
"Get up, Price!" The burly guy standing above Wallace, who Kim explained was the captain of the basketball team, David Kalahe, shouted. Max watched painfully as Kalahe shoved Wallace as he tried to stand up, pushing him right back down into the ground. "Get up!" Max's teeth gritted and her hands clenched into fists. She couldn't stand bullies, especially not when they were bullying the guy she was so damn obsessed with.
When Kalahe shouted and shoved Wallace some more, Max made a move to get up and do something, but Kim was quick to latch a hand onto her wrist and pull her back down. She fixed the blonde with a knowing look when she turned to face her. "One more week until graduation, Max. Don't ruin it," she told her.
Max frowned, glancing back at the scene on the courtyard a few yards away. Kim was right. She couldn't just go up there and get into yet another fight. It was a problem Max had with finishing other people's fights. When people would mess with Adrian, Max stepped in. When a rumor got spread about Leigha, Max would make it go away. When one of Kim's exes got a bit too touchy, Max would fix it real quick. And when someone was getting ganged up on unfairly, Max was quick to defend them. This situation with Wallace and David was no different. But, Kim was right. There was only a week left in school and the last thing Max needed was to get in trouble for yet another fight. But if she just let this play out– "get up, Price!"– who was going to get David Kalahe in trouble and show him not to screw with people half his size? Definitely not Wallace Price, and definitely not those bitch ass administrators who had their thumbs up their asses.
"Come on, Price!"
Screw it.
Max abruptly ripped her wrist out of Kim's grasp and jumped out of her seat, her boot heels clicking on the ground as she walked over to David, tossing what was left of her finger-fruit-roll-up into the trash bin on her way over to kick his ass. "Hey, Kalahe!" She shouted.
"Wha- oh!" He shouted when he spun around only to be met with Max's fist across his face. She watched him make a whole 180 degree spin after she knocked him down to his knees. And once she had him where she wanted him, she grabbed his shoulders and shoved his face down onto the knee she jerked upwards. 'Ooh's and 'ah's filled the tense air of the courtyard as they watched Max shove David Kalahe's unconscious body onto the ground.
She stepped over his body and held a hand out to Wallace, who had been watching her with curious eyes the entire exchange. Wallace looked between her and her hand before finally grabbing on and letting her help him up. Max felt her breath catch in her throat as Wallace stared at her with those perfect hazel eyes. Damn... This must've been a dream because when she heard him say, "Thanks," she could've sworn her heart skipped a beat. Geez, when did she turn into such a fucking girl?
"Proctor! Price!" So much for this being a dream... It couldn't have been because if this were a dream, she knew damn well that the hag that was walking towards her and Wallace wearing a grey pantsuit, weird owl earrings, and pantihose that were two shades too dark for her skin tone, definitely made this a nightmare.
Max sucked up all the sarcastic and bitter energy she felt in every fiber of her body and turned to face the school's bitchy vice principal with a bright and beaming smile. "Hi, Mrs. Vialobos."
The Hag scrunched her face in distaste. "Don't start with me, Proctor. My office– now." Max rolled her eyes to the back of her head before brushing past the Hag and David Kalahe's unconscious body, Wallace by her side. Max looked out to find Adrian, Kim, and Leigha all with different expressions on their faces. Adrian looked shocked, Kim looked both disappointed and pissed, and Leigha gave her a big smile and two thumbs up– which earned her a kick in the shin from Kim. Max could only chuckle and shake her head as her and Wallace began their walk of shame to the principal's office. This was not how Max had saw her last week of high school starting.
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It was safe to say spending the rest of the day in the bitchy VP's office hearing her nag and whine about Max 'trying to be cute' and 'using violence as a coping mechanism' or– Max's personal favorite– how she 'can't get away with everything just because your Daddy's a top-shot on base'– was shit. God, Max hated that old Hag. Which was why as soon as she was released from Hell, otherwise known as the confines of her office, Max was quick to pick up some 'supplies' from her Guy behind the drug store a few blocks away on her way home.
"Here comes the sun, doo-do-doo-doo. Here comes the sun, and I say, it's alright..."
Max laid her head back against the back of the warm cushioned seat of her Jeep Wrangler as she drove along the cliff side towards her home. The relaxing sounds of the Beatles' 1969 classic making her wish she had a Tesla to drive down this beautiful and scenic road for her while she just sat and enjoyed the scenery, maybe even dosed off a bit after smoking a small joint she'd made herself while at a stoplight. It wasn't enough to get her completely shitfaced, but enough to take the edge off of her after the cruel torture she'd had to endure while putting up with Mrs. Vialobos.
"Little darling, it's been a long cold, lonely winter ..."
It was a rare occasion when Max would smoke. She didn't enjoy it for recreational purposes, like most of her friends and classmates did in their free time beneath the football field bleachers or in the locker rooms and bathrooms. She smoked it more for the feeling it gave her that all the stress and problems she had were lifted off her shoulders momentarily. That the pain and the craziness all inside her head was just gone if not for just a sliver of time.
"Little darling, it feels like years since its been here..."
Of course, if her Dad ever found out about her 'high-times' she would probably be strung up and burned at the stake. But, lucky for her, it wasn't like he cared much of what she was doing while he was away on a covert mission in Kuwait. Mrs. Vialobos was right about one thing in her entire petty little rant: she couldn't get away with everything because of her dad, but she could get away with a whole lot when he was gone. Like, for example, attend a stupid party in the middle of nowhere while pretending to like the taste of beer, the stench of sweaty bodies in a crowded space, and the feeling of someone casually touching every part of your body while using the excuse they were just passing by.
"Here comes the sun!"
God damn Wallace Price for those beautiful hazel eyes and that perfect mouth of his as he spoke in the waiting room outside the Hag's office. "I'll see you at your friend– Adrian's party, right?"
And she was stupidly in love enough to reply, "Yeah. Definitely," without skipping a beat. Dammit!
"Here comes the sun, and I say, it's alright..."
Max let out a both frustrated and content sigh as she reached her hand over to turn up the radio, her small half-smoked joint still in between her middle and ring finger as George Harrison's soothing vocals continued to blast through her car. Max mouthed along to the song, bobbing her head and tapping her free left foot on the car floor as she stepped on the gas with her right. She enjoyed the feeling of the wind through her hair in her windowless Jeep with the spare tire on the back and the mileage that could give a trucker a run for their money.
Max tried not to close her eyes as the scenery passed her by. On the left side of the road was jungle climbing up a large hill, filled with tropical birds, exotic colorful plants, beautiful shrubbery and greenery. The luscious color and vibrant pop of it all bringing her joy and excitement. And to her right, past the cliff edge, was a vibrant sea of blue waves as far as the eye could see, making her feel grounded and mellow.
God, I love Hawaii, she thought to herself before taking another hit of her joint, blowing out the smoke and letting it catch in the breeze as she turned onto a dirt pathway off the side of the road, almost hidden in the jungle brush. Max jerked the steering wheel slightly so not to hit the mailbox with the name 'PROCTOR' written in big, bold, blue letters on the side that told her she was home.
After driving a few minutes along the dirt path through a few twists, turns, and over a small river surrounded by even more jungle, the brush of wildlife eventually opened up into a vast open space of field that held room for a driveway, a house, a barn, a large hangar all the way out back, and a pier beside the enormouse lake that connected to the ocean.
Max turned down the radio and pulled to a stop alongside a silver Escapade SUV just outside the large three story house– four, if someone were to count the basement below. The blonde turned off her car and climbed out, quick to put out what was left of her joint on the ground and kick it beneath the Jeep to ensure no one else could find the evidence unless they were determined to.
She reached into the Jeep, grabbed the denim satchel seated in the passenger's seat to fling it over her shoulder, pocketed her keys beside her knife, and walked her way up the steps onto her porch and then into her house.
The Proctor's had money. Everyone on the island was aware of that. Her father made good income with being– as the Hag would put it– a top shot at the local military installation a few miles away, and her mom made her living as a top-secret scientist. She didn't make much. Lucky for them, her family was overly compensated after she was killed in an experiment gone wrong about ten years ago. Max tried not to think about it too much. Though, how could she not when almost every surface of the house had at least one memory with her in it.
The blonde teen made her way through the foyer, past the living room, and into the kitchen where she found someone was already starting on dinner. It smelled good, Max noted,but she wasn't entirely sure what it was exactly. The blonde then decided it wasn't worth her time trying to figure it out since she wouldn't be home when dinner would be served.
"INTRUDER ALERT! INTRUDER ALERT! INTRUDER ALERT!"
Max was momentarily startled at her loud ring tone blasting out of her phone. She pulled it out of her back pocket and glanced at the caller ID. It wasn't in her contacts and the first thing she noticed about the number was that the first three digits formed the area code for New York... Max rolled her eyes as one name, three letters came to mind: NYU.
Despite every irritated bone in her body telling Max to hang up and block the number, the other rational and decisive part of her knew the her dad would find a way to get them to call her back again, and again, and again, until she was finally shoved into submission and admission to go to a college– any college– just as long as it wasn't the military. So, Max swiped her finger across the phone screen and put the phone to her ear.
"Hello?" She asked in a higher-than-normal-pitch.
"Hello. This is the Board of Admissions at NYU calling for an over-the-phone-interview with Miss Amelia Proctor," a deep, monotones voice replied.
Max took a deep breath before putting on her best game face to answer, "This is Salina Proctor– Amelia's step-mom. I'm sorry she can't come to the phone right now, she's currently at a study group until nine tonight. Would you like me to have her call you back whenever she returns?" Damn, she was too good at this lying thing.
There was a pause on the other line and Max held her breath, waiting for the answer, which was always the same. Of course, this school was no exception. "No," an agitated voice grumbled in response. "That's okay. Thank you for your time, Mrs. Proctor."
"Of course. Ba-bye," Max chimed smugly before hitting the 'END CALL' button and smiling down at the screen as the line went dead. Bullet successfully dodged, the blonde thought to herself. But then she had to turn around and go face to face with a new problem: her actual step-mom staring at her knowingly with her hands on her hips and her stink-eyebrow up into the high Heavens. Or not...
Max's shocked expression quickly morphed into an awkward grimace. "Hey, Sal-"
"Don't you 'hey, Sal' me, Amelia," the permed, African-American woman cut her off with the snap of her perfectly polished fingers, her lips pursed like squished tulip to show just how disappointed she was in her step-child. Max visibly flinched at the use of her full-first name and a spark of pride went through Salina Proctor's body at the sight. It's not that she enjoyed hurting a girl she had cared for as her own for the past nine years, but because she enjoyed knowing she still had authority over the girl who had caused almost 90% of all her headaches. And she had four more kids she popped out herself!
Sal pursed her lips as she walked slowly around Max as if she were a lioness stalking her prey. Max definitely felt like a gazelle. "You wanna explain to me why you just tried to pretend to be me? Hate to break it to, sweetie, but, uh, you don't got the skin tone to pull ME off." The dark skinned beauty gestured to her coffee pigmented skin, then to Max's slightly tanned arms pointedly. "So, who was it on the phone?" Sal asked as she turned away from the blonde teen to return to her work in the kitchen cooking dinner.
"Um..." Max fiddled with the ring on her right middle finger. It had been a habit ever since her mom had gifted her the ring as a gift on her fifth birthday. It was a match that was melded into a circular ring. Her mother had told her that she could light up the world with a singular match lit inside her heart, and to always remember that when she looked down at her ring. Max had to remember that. She was strong, and there was a reason she was lying in the phone and no need to hide it. "It was the NYU Admissions Board."
There was a loud clang from the stove where Sal had dropped the top of the pot from her hand. Max only saw her back stiffen, but she knew she was probably fuming.
Sure enough, when her step-mom spun back to face her slowly, her face was contorted with so much rage and fury, Max was pretty sure she could see smoke blowing out of her ears like in the cartoons her little sisters watched in the morning everyday. "You... You told them you weren't here and asked if you could call them back? NYU? As in, the University of New York?!"
Max nodded nonchalantly.
"Are you insane, child?!" She exploded. Max merely rolled her eyes and slumped into one of the bar stools at the kitchen island marble counter. "Don't you roll your eyes at me, Amelia Alexis Proctor! That was your future on the line and you just..." Max looked blandly at Sal, waiting for her to realize the one thing that was blatantly obvious. "Wait a second, you... NYU wasn't the only school to call you, were they?"
The blonde took a deep breath, looking pointedly at Sal as she grimaced as if to say 'yeah, no shit'.
"You declined over-the-phone interviews to more than one university?!" Sal asked incredulously. "Amelia Proctor, do you have any idea how much work it took your father to get you those interviews-"
"I didn't ask him to pull any strings, Sal!" Max retorted at the mention of her father.
"Why, Max?" Sal asked, clearly defeated and exhausted. "Why would throw your future out of the window like that?"
Max's jaw set as she let out a heavy sigh. "Because that's not the future I want, Sal," she told her with the most genuine tone the woman had ever heard the teenage girl use when discussing anything like this before.
Sal's pleasant surprise was replaced by a knowing look of warning at the girl. The topic of what Max's heart really desired to do after high school was a tough subject for the Proctor family, especially for Max and her father. Because ever since Max had gone to her first Tae-Kwon-Do class, threw her first punch with her Mom's help, shot her first gun with her Dad behind her, and flew in her first plane on her seventh birthday, Amelia Proctor knew she wanted to join the U.S. Military, just like her Mom and Dad. But, after tragedy struck at the base and her Mom died in an experiment gone terribly wrong, Max's father vowed to her that he would never allow Max to live the same way she did, taken abruptly before her time with not even so much as a goodbye or a body to bury.
This strained both her and her father's relationship, everyone who knew them could tell, including Sal and the rest of Max's half-siblings. Max had her wishes, and Jason did everything he could to keep her from achieving them. It was safe to say that no matter what he tried to do, Max was one stubborn girl and wouldn't let one man– even if it was her father– stop her.
"Max," Sal began, the disdain in her voice clear as day. "You know what your Dad will say-"
"What he says every time I bring it up!" The blonde snapped. "He doesn't want to discuss it like regular adults, and instead, tries to shove his grief and guilt down my throat. I mean, what kind of father does that to their kid?!"
"Your father has his reasons..."
Max forcefully grabbed a handful of peanuts from the nearby glass bowl on the counter as she stood up from her seat. "Yeah, well, they're stupid reasons," she marked, tossing back the handful of peanuts in her mouth before sauntering upstairs.
"Where are you going?!" Sal shouted after her with no heat behind the genuine inquiry, but the exhaustion and frustration was heavy in her voice.
"A party!" The blonde shouted over her shoulder as she started up the stairs. "If Dad wants me to stay out of the Military because he's afraid I'll make shit decisions and get myself killed, he can wait for the call that I made shit decisions and got myself killed at a high school party instead! Then maybe he'll pull his head out of his ass!"
Sal flinched when the teen's rant was over only to be followed by the loud slamming of a door upstairs. She groaned as she ran a hand through her permed hair. Lord, give me patience because if You gave me strength I may strangle that stubborn child, she prayed up to the ceiling before getting back to cooking.
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Max wasn't ever one for parties, especially not parties in random backwoods cabins, but she was dead set on going to this particular one and maybe stay there until the sun came up. Because if there was one personality trait she had that even she got annoyed with sometimes, it was her hard-headedness.
When Max pulled up in her Wrangler to the party, only slightly stoned, the first thing she noticed wasn't the insane amount of people were jam packed into one singular cabin, it wasn't the fact that there was enough plastic red solo cups in the yard to kill half the sea turtle population in the Atlantic (fuck them, she still used straws– sorry Leo, Ralph, Donnie, and Mikey!), or even the unhealthy amount of couples who were borderline screwing on the porch, on the stairs, on the couches, or in the driveway, but it was the fact that just as he had said, Wallace Price was standing in the back corner of the cabin kitchen with two solo cups in his hands, glancing around as if he was waiting for someone. Max's chest fluttered with anticipation when she remembered that he was waiting for her. Her.
Max bit the inside of her lip to keep from how much she wanted t smile in fear it might scare him away as she slowly approached. Her words got caught in her throat for a second when his face lit up in recognition. "Hey," he greeted her with a smile.
"Hi," she replied lamely.
"Oh, I, uh, got you a drink," Wallace stammered. Max found it comforting he too was a bit nervous. She wondered if it was because of her presence or because a couple that was literally inside each were slowly beginning to push onto Wallace's shoulder. "I wasn't too sure what you liked, so I just sort of got your friend Adrian to make you a vodka tonic."
Max literally pinched herself in the arm before taking the cup from him. She had to be dreaming. The guy she had been in love with since, like, the second grade was actually handing her her favorite drink while at a party. This was the stuff of her dreams... and the good kind, too. "Thanks," Max said as she took a sip. She but her lip and tried not to cringe at the bitter taste. She noticed it tasted more... saltier than usual, but she just passed it off as being in the cup for so long. She wasn't sure just how long ago Wallace had had Adrian make it for her. She usually enjoyed her drinks fresh and still slightly cool, but she was in no room to complain because she would've gladly taken body shots from off of Wallace's beautiful collarbones she so desperately wanted to bite.
Max sighed, taking a long drink from her tonic in an attempt to cool herself down after that heated thought. Down, girl, she told herself as she brushed off yet another bitter hit of the vodka tonic in her cup.
"So, about this morning," Wallace began as he quickly maneuvered himself away from the couple who was now at third base on the counter beside him. "I just wanted to say thanks. I, uh, I felt kind of bad after we got dragged to the office. Mrs. V kind of tore into you."
Max shrugged. "Eh. She already hates me enough as it is. I just let her keep blaming me for her slowly declining marriage." Wallace's smile could've lit up the world. It lit up Max's world as he laughed, her right along with him.
Just then, the couple behind Wallace started pushing up against him harder and harder– "Oh, harder, baby!" The girl moaned directly into Wallace's ear. He winced while Max cringed. She then turned to the keg directly behind her and aimed the nozzle at the couple about to reach their climax. She hit the trigger and watched as they gasped and stammered while getting soaked in beer. "What- what the Hell?!" The girl screeched, as her and her boy toy quickly separated.
"You're welcome, I just stopped you from becoming a single mother of two at the age twenty-six living out of your parents' basement," the blonde muttered, an unimpressed look on her face as she returned the keg nozzle back to where it was. "Thank me later." She felt a flicker of pleasure go through her at the sight of Wallace's smile. She thought she even saw him glance at her legs back up to her face from the corner of her eye as she watched the soaked couple walk off int the dancing crowd in the living room.
Sure enough, when Max turned back to face Wallace, his eyes held a glint of mischief and something else she couldn't suite name as he glanced at her through his beautiful eyelashes. "Hey, you wanna go somewhere quieter?" He shouted over the bass boosted from the speakers and the shouting drunk teenagers. "Away from all this?"
"Sure!" Max shouted in response, letting him drag her along through the crowds and down the stairs to the cabin basement. While on the way down, she caught sight of Leigha, Kim, and Adrain all standing near the front door. Lee was beaming, throwing her a thumbs up with a cup of beer in her hand as she awkwardly stood beside Adrian and Kim who were sucking the lips off of each other against the wall. Max made a mental note to ask about that development later because right now, her mind was occupied on the fact that she was now in a locked basement with Wallace Price, a vodka tonic in her hand, and his eyes in her as he slowly led her to the leather couch in the middle of the empty basement.
Max felt her breath hitch as Wallace's left hand slowly trailed from where he had held her wrist up her arms, along her collarbone, to finally come to stop at her jaw. His thumb caressed her cheek and the rest of his fingers slowly began to tread their way through her blonde curls just over her ear. Max felt herself subconsciously begin to lean towards him, her eyes beginning to close as she felt the moment she'd been waiting for for so long to finally happen.
"You were amazing this morning in the courtyard," she heard Wallace murmur, his breath tickling her lips as she kept leaning towards him, waiting for his Lis to meet her in anticipation. But when Max went to open her eyes, she felt odd that her eye lids were oddly heavy and her body was tired and didn't want to move. Was she starting to knock out? Why?
Wallace didn't seem to notice as his hand went to trail from her check back down to her neck. "So beautiful," he whispered, his voice sounding like he was a million miles away, yet right beside her as he spoke to her from underwater. "Just like your mother..."
Max's heart stopped.
She began to panic, but her eyes wouldn't open, her body wouldn't move as it slowly slouched against the couch. Both her hands were empty; she must've dropped her vodka tonic in all the mess. Max tried reaching for her Gerber knife or her phone, but her hands were frozen as she kept blinking heavily, attempting to fight against whatever force that was making her go to sleep. She even opened her mouth to try and scream, but the noise got caught in her throat again. "Hn..." she mumbled before her eyelids went down once... twice... a third time, and everything went black.
This is why she hated going to parties and didn't date cute boys.
•••
A/N: Hello! And welcome back to 'Fuck Ally's Fucking Writer's Brain' where today she will be coming out with yet another story because her brain just keeps throwing them at her and she doesn't know what the fuck to do even though she has three other stories, a life, a job, a fiancée, and fifty million other things she still has to do ;).
I swear to god, my writer brain hates me, and i hate it. We have a weird relationship.
Anyway, meet Max, she's my new baby and she is now in trouble because FUCK WALLACE. This is just a glimpse into Max's life and who she kind of is as a person. We'll get to know her more as the story moves along, but I hope you like her so far. Her face claim is Erin Moriarty because I fell in love with this blonde beauty when she came as Annie January in my new favorite show The Boys– which, ironically, got me re-hooked me on Karl Urban, which re-hooked me on Star Trek, which brought me here. So, blame The Boys for this. And also go watch it, that shit is hilarious and I love Eric Kripke so much.
Whatever, I hope you enjoy this first official chapter. Welcome to All The Stars. Buckle in, it's gonna be a wild ride.