Chapter 13- Broken Change

Fang

"Well, this final was an... interesting one," Mrs. Jones, the geometry teacher implied. Oh, great, I failed. "Most of you did well, in fact the class average was a 89 percent." And I'm the only bad grade. Mrs. Jones started passing back the finals. Max turned to me from her seat diagonally from me. She gave me a look of good luck, even though she knew that I most probably failed. I rolled my eyes at her. She was too optimistic sometimes. Things had been weird between Max and I since our last few tutoring sessions. We weren't fighting anymore. Or at least, not like we used to. Now, out quarrels had become mere banter. I'd learned more than Max in the last few weeks than ever before. But, I was actually glad for the change. With the change, we didn't have to have a bounty over each other's heads.

Mrs. Jones started walking through the desks, passing back the finals for the first semester. These test results would make or break our grades. She stopped at Bridget's desk, then to Sam's, then to Kayla's, to Lissa's, to J.J.'s. I didn't want to know how low I scored. I just hoped that it was above a 60%. She stopped at Max's desk: probably to congratulate her for her top of the class grade. "Good job, Max." She remarked. Then she just walked away, with a smile on her face, her comment hanging in the air.

"What did you get?" I whispered. She showed her paper: a 97 percent. I nodded in approval.

"And to the biggest turn around in the class, from the bottom of the heap, to top dog. Well, close to the top anyways," She announced. I rolled my eyes at her obvious favoritism. "Congratulations to... drum roll, please!" She called out to the class. This was a running joke she had with the class. Most of the class banged their hands on the tops of the desks. "Nick Walker!"

My head popped up from the cloud of failure I was stuck in. Me? I was the one who had turned around. All of the class's eyes turned to me. Keeping me, 'Don't-Give-A-Crap' look on my face, I grabbed the final from her outreached hands. I read the comments on it. On top of the paper the grade shown brightly in red.

91%

"He did not." Kayla argued.

"It's true, I got an ninety-one on my Geometry final." I bragged to her. We were sitting with our regular table like every other day. Max was smiling, knowing she was the reason I got such a great grade.

"Not only that, but Mrs. Jones said that he has a chance at extra credit, to bring up his grade to an average of an 'A-'." Max added, "You're coming over today, Tooth, right?" She asked me.

I have to say, that was a good nickname, "Yes, Maxie-Dearest, I wouldn't miss it for the world."

"Awwwww" Kayla remarked sarcastically.

"I think we have our new Alpha-couple over here." Iggy announced to the world. Max's face turned red with either embarrassment, or anger. Probably both.

I looked at both of them contently, "Look who's talking." My smirk was back on as Iggy's and Kayla's faces turned bright red. Max looked at me, smiling, as if saying, "Thank you."

"Hey, you guys, there's Lauren." I turned to see Lauren walking alone, looking for a table to sit at. "Am I the only one who feels bad for her?" Kayla asked. We all sorta nodded. "Maybe we should invite her over here."

"But, Ethan cheated on you with her." Iggy retorted.

"Yes, but in her defense, she didn't know." Max replied.

"So she says." He snaps.

"Yes, but she hasn't ever lied to us before, shouldn't we believe her this time?" She barks back.

"How do we know that she hasn't lied to us before?"

"Because I am a human-lie-detector, and I know those kinds of things."

Before long, Kayla and I were tired of their constant bickering. "Lauren," I yelled throughout the cafeteria. She turned her head toward us. I waved her over here. A look of confusion crossed her face, before slowly making her way over to us.

"Ha" Max whispered to Iggy.

"Um, hi you guys." Lauren muttered silently. She probably thought we were here to tell her off again.

Kayla smiled at her, the first sign of her getting over the whole thing, "Hey, how's it going? Come on and sit down with us." Lauren hesitantly sat down. "Okay, we were just talking about how Fang got a 91% on his Geometry final."

Lauren's face went into shock, not only because of my final scores. "Oh my God! Congratulations, Fang!" Lauren exclaimed in fake excitement. Her head must've been at a different place.

"I know, right! And so, to celebrate both his test scores and me getting over that d-bag of a boyfriend, I am inviting everybody here-" Lauren's eyes popped up, "including Lauren, to my house tomorrow." Kayla finished saying. Lauren's face popped up with cheerfulness, while Max and I both looked at each other. We were both thinking the same things. "And yes, Max, you can bring Nudge."

"Um, can she, maybe, bring a friend?" I asked Kayla.

She looked confused. "Um, depends on who the friend is." She looked suspicious.

"It's Fang's sister."

The whole table looked at me, except for Max. "I didn't know you had a sister." Kayla answered. The group confirmed with what Kayla had said, saying things like, "Me either," or "Yeah, me too."

Max and I looked at Kayla, anxiously waiting for her reply. "Um, sure I guess."

"Why'd you do that for me?" I asked Max. She looked up from her textbook. We were sitting in her room, studying again. This meeting place had become common for the both of us, and more times than not, we'd talk more than study. I was in the desk chair, and she was sitting on her bed, which was close to the desk.

"What do you mean?" She questioned, playing innocent. She didn't want to admit that she actually did something helpful toward me. I looked at her, obviously serious. "I figured that friends help friends out. Am I right?" Max asked, as if she was asking if we were actually friends.

I rolled my eyes at her, "You're finally admitting to yourself that you don't hate me anymore?" I hated to say it, but this tutoring had been better than I thought.

"Maybe."

"Good, because your constant nagging has gotten annoying lately." I remarked jokingly.

Her face turned to fake shock, "You know what, I take that back, I still hate you!" She joked back. I playfully pushed her back. She automatically grimaced at my hand. "You okay, Max?" She nodded, clutching her arm. "You sure?" She nodded again.

"Let's just get back to studying." She said pushing away the present situation. I was about to fight back, and confront her about what had happened, when a loud, grumbling voice erupted from outside the door.

"Max! Get over here!"

Her face turned pale with fear. "You need to get out of here right now. Um, go out the back way. You just walk out my porch door and take a right until you reach the gate, and it should be unlocked. You can take my car, I get a ride with Iggy to school tomorrow morning."

I shook my head, "No, I'm gonna help you out with this, okay?" She began to protest, but I stopped her, "Let's hurry up before he get even more mad." We made our way toward the door. She opened it with a shaky hand, making it take twice the time to turn it. Slowly, she opened the door, and walked out of her room, with a hesitant gait. My hand reached around her back, to signal that I would protect her if I need to. Though she tried to hide it, a small smile formed on her face.

We walked our into the living room, where there sat the harsh-looking man who Max seemed to fear, and two others. One was a middle-aged man with graying black hair. Along side of him was a young man, of about 18, with dark-blonde hair and blue eyes.

"Max, as you can see, we have company." Her face lit up when she saw the 18-year-old.

"Dylan!" She cried, jumping into his arm for a hug. He easily hugged her back, and I couldn't help but begin to despise the man called 'Dylan.'

If anyone was confused about what happened with this chapter, somehow, chapter 11 was repeated for chapter 13. I'm so sorry about what happened. Thanks so much for HeresToTheRide for telling me about it.

~Maximum Reading