Thursday had been uneventful. The store was really quiet so the three of us had to entertain ourselves for most of the shift. Steve gave us a rundown of his double date night; Heather beat him at both rounds of bowling, then beat him off in the parking lot, but she told him she was going on a date with some guy named Tyler this weekend so he probably wouldn't hear from her again. Linda spent an hour complaining about her sister whilst they were watching a movie; she stayed the night of course.
I'd barely been at work an hour on Friday before Max and Lucas stopped by; the disheveled look on Max's face told me she'd had a rough fight with her mom again. "You look exhausted Max." I pulled her close to me for a hug and from the way she squeezed me I knew she needed to talk, alone. I walked Max to Steve's office, "I told you not to come in here unless it was an emergency!" Steve jumped up from the computer as I opened the door. When he saw Max behind me, his tone instantly changed, "oh sorry, don't worry about it, I was finished anyways." Once I had shut the door behind him, Max dropped to the battered loveseat that was shoved in the corner and tears were already flowing. Around other people Max never cried - but with me she was comfortable letting her guard down enough. I pulled her under my arm.
"It was really bad, Rain. I asked why she wasn't at work when I woke up, but she just ignored me. I got some breakfast but I spilled the milk and she just started shouting at me about how she's always got to clean up after me." I wiped her tears away as she spoke. "At first I just let her shout. Then she wouldn't stop and I'd had enough, so I snapped at her that she never has to clean up after me, because I'm the one who always cleans up her messes. I'm the one who has to dump the bottles in the trash and pick up the empty pill boxes," Max's tears were still falling. "Then she exploded; said that maybe if I wasn't such a burden then there wouldn't be so many bottles and pill boxes. My own mother told me that she wishes it was me that ran away instead, and I was the reason everything went to shit. She would rather have that dick and his psychotic son in her home than me."
Despite it coming up to lunch time - what we called our rush hour - I remained in the manager's office with Max. Lucas had found her wandering the street, he'd offered to ditch the guys and stay with her but Max wanted to see me. When she had stopped crying I kept her in my arms until I could hear shallow breaths. I placed her head on the seat as I stood up, and laid Steve's jacked on top of her. Before leaving the room I scrawled 'DO NOT DISTURB' on a piece of paper to stick to the door. "How is she?" Steve had a concerned expression on his face. "Her mom basically said that if Billy and his Dad hadn't ran off then everything would be fine, and it was all max's fault." I muttered. "So she was drunk already then? Those assholes running off had nothing to do with Max. They ran to avoid the cops after what Billy did to you." Steve responded.
Whilst Steve was right about that - I knew what Max's mom actually meant. After Billy put me in the hospital, I was unconscious for two days, the cops were asking for any information about what had happened to me, but of course nobody had a clue. Except for Max. More than once, Max had seen bruises on my skin from Billy, although I'd always passed them off as clumsiness I knew deep down that Max knew the truth. She told the cops that she had followed us that day and saw the whole thing, and about the bruises. When I came round and asked Max why she'd done that - putting herself at risk of Billy's wrath too - she'd said "you're my sister, and you almost died. I need you to be okay, I need my sister." Nobody had seen Billy since, and his Dad had disappeared right after too.