Hey guys. Not gonna lie, there's a whole lot of Fax in this. But there is also a whole lot of cussing. The word "fuck" is spoken about 17, along with other cuss words, so please be warned. The chapter is worth it though. My use of cuss words is to show tone and emphasis.

Without further ado

Broken: Chapter 28

Broken Milkshakes

Max

I said the harshest thing that came to mind, "I need to go, Nick. Can you please leave me alone for once?" Right away, I regretted saying it. But, I couldn't do anything about Fang. Fang was Fang. He would forget about me in a glimpse of time. He wouldn't even notice that I had stopped tutoring him, or talking to him, or looking at him, or even breathing the same air as him.

It wasn't fair, really. I had been at this school for three years and Fang had been here for hardly six months, and yet, I had to hide all around it, just so that Fang would not see me. It was an annoying price I had to pay, though.

I didn't want to avoid him. I never did.

But what else could I do? I couldn't ignore Jeb's wishes. It was not only to save my skin, but Fang's as well. He would not understand, because I would give him the chance to. I could not tell him the truth. Imagine how that would turn out.

Fang, I can't talk to you anymore because if I do that Jeb will seriously hurt you. I would say.

Then Fang would flick his annoyingly messy hair out of his obsidian eyes and stare at me without emotion spreading into his face. Only anger. He was always angry, and he would definitely be if he found out the reason why I couldn't speak to him anymore. Max, why are you letting Jeb rule your life? He would say. Fang didn't understand because Fang didn't care about Anne.

In a twisted part of my heart, I cared about Jeb. I hated him all the same; he was a sadistic bastard who took pleasure in children's pain, but he was still my father. For the first twelve years of my life, Jeb was a good father. Yes, he was a workaholic and would often put science before me, but he took care of me. I was daddy's little girl., and my daddy was a good one. He would take me fishing everyone once and a while, and I would always ask him why we had to kill the fish. He would take me to Disneyland, and we would go on all of the big rides. We would have an amazing time. Once mom died, Jeb's fun died with it, along with his stability.

And so, I was stuck in the middle of my father and Fang once again. Who to listen to? I sighed, sadly.

There was only one person that I thought could handle this. "IGGY." I screamed throughout the hall. I saw him on the opposite side of it, desperately trying to get Kayla's attention. I knew that a few of the bystanders glanced over at me, but I didn't care. I had stopped worrying about what other people thought a while ago.

Iggy turned, and stared at me. Smiling, he walked over here, "What's up, midget?"

I glared. Even though I was 5'9, taller than the average girl, Iggy was an astounding 6'4, leaving him towering over me. "I have a problem."

"What a surprise." Iggy mumbled in an annoyed state. I glared again, "Let me guess. Fang."

Iggy was obviously irritated, but I continued anyways, "Yes. Okay, so you know how Fang found out about the whole-" I looked around skeptically, then whispered, "Jeb thing?" He nodded apathetically. "Well, this morning, I was trying to sneak out of the house, and Jeb stopped me before I could get out. He told me that unless I stopped talking to Fang, than he'd hurt him in some way."

He sighed, bored, "So?"

I was appalled. This was big shit. How could he be so annoyingly passive, "Okay, what the hell is wrong with you, Iggy?"

Iggy rolled his eyes indifferently. I could tell he wanted no take in this conversation, but I urged on anyway, now peeved. "You act like this is some hard decision, when it's really not," I glared, stopping him for a moment, "In my eyes, you have two choices. One, you decide that your, quote unquote friendship, with Fang is too important so you keep talking to him anyways, whether Jeb ends up murdering him or not. Two, you decide that you care too much about Fang to actually get him hurt so you let him go. It's not that hard. You're just too obsessed with Fang to understand that."

I was completely shocked, and utterly betrayed. Iggy had been pissed at me before. I could not count the amount of times Iggy had wanted to rip my heart out and feed it to sharks. However, even when he wanted to kill me out of sheer fury, he had never been this angry at me before. "Iggy," I said in a warning voice, "What's really wrong with you? You're never this pissed. What's wrong?"

He laughed somewhat manically. Now, the entire hall was staring at us, and for a moment, I wanted to hide under a shell, "What's wrong with me?" He said, "What's wrong with me? I'll tell you what the hell is wrong with me. My two best friends keep fucking fighting for absolutely no fucking reason and then coming to me because they think that I have the fucking answers to the fucking world. And then, when one of you assholes actually decide to finish bitching about the other for one fucking second, the other comes up to me and starts talking my fucking ear off. I'm so fucking done with being in the middle of all the 'Max and Fang drama.' I have a fucking life. I have my own shit I have to deal with. And I'm so fucking done with being the middle man." His tone lowered, as he turned to the rest of the hallway, "Why are you eavesdropping on this conversation? Carry on." He barked.

Immediately, they turned away from us and continued on with whatever they were doing before. He breathed for a couple of moments, and I pulled him into a hug. His breathing continued on heavily, and for a moment, I thought he may have been crying, but I knew I was wrong. Iggy never cried. "I know I've been a shit friend." I whispered into his ear, "I know that both Fang and I have cause you a great deal of trouble in the last year." Iggy pulled away from me, and locked his eyes on mine. "And I know, that you're having problems too. I know that you don't think that you're good enough to get into college. I know that you think that Kayla's pissed off at you. I know that you're worrying that you are just the side character to the Max and Fang show-"

Iggy interrupted me, "Max, I love you, and I'm gonna let you continue monologuing, but can I just say, you suck at cheering people up." I scoffed in fake annoyance, and shoved him lightly.

I continued, "But you are the best person I have ever known. You're better than Kayla, or Gazzy, or Lauren, or Ethan, or Fang, or even Nudge. You have been with me since the second grade. And I'm not letting you go. You're gonna get into college. You have amazing grades, and let's not forget you're a freaking genius. I mean you could create a nuclear bomb that would cause the beginning of World War III." He smiled, and nodded slightly, indicating how easy it would be to him. "And you may think that Kayla's all pissed at you, but she's just feeling all awkward because she's questioning if she's in love with you. And-"

Iggy interrupted again, "Wait, Kayla might be-"

"Fucking Iggy," I said loudly; the crowd in the halls turned their heads toward me. I quickly shooed them off with a wave of the hand. "You said one interruption, now can I continue fucking monologuing?" He nodded guiltily, "And you are more important to me and Fang than anyone else. This school would have burnt down from all of the flames we have thrown at each other if you didn't keep turning on the hose and cooling it all down. And I know we shouldn't rely on you for that. I'm sorry. And I'm sure once Fang gets his head out his ass he will too. So don't worry about anything. Just worry about the next time that you see Kayla, cuz she won't admit that she's in love with you unless you say it first, but if you don't say it soon then she'll start flipping out."

He smiled; my face hardened, "I'm not kidding. Go. GO! RUN! Before she decides she actually does want to break up with you." Iggy's face paled, before he ran off.

I determined that after I got home, I would walk Nudge out to get ice cream. And let me just say, that was both the best and the worse decision I have ever made. But, I made it nonetheless.

Halfway to the 31 Flavors that was close to my house, I received a text from Kayla.

did u tell iggy to say something to me She wrote. I was always appalled at her use of grammar in her texts. It disgusted me to the very ends of the earth. I replied, No.

Kayla did not say anything more. She had probably inferred that I had just lied for the sake of Iggy. But at least they were happy again. I couldn't imagine losing one friend, let alone losing Fang, Iggy, and Kayla.

I had thought about what Iggy had said to me. Though he was screaming and cussing at the top of his lungs, he did pack in some good advice. The decision was easy: either keep being friends with Fang because our friendship is too important, or stop because I cared too much about him. On that soothing walk to get ice cream, I locked in my decision. There was no going back.

"What can I do for you guys?" Said the man at the counter with a twang. Nudge ordered a chocolate chip double scoop in a cone, while I chose to get a chocolate milkshake. Six dollars and thirty-seven cents later, we were on the way home. Luckily, it was a Wednesday, which meant Jeb had to 'stay late,' or as I like to call it, 'get drunk at a bar and come home so hammered that you don't even remember what happened.'

Nudge laughed, "I just don't get why you always get milkshakes instead of ice cream." We often got into arguments between ice cream and milkshakes, among the millions of other things we would debate about. I swear, Nudge was going to be a lawyer someday. She was a master debater, especially since she talked so much that she wouldn't give the other debater a chance to actually speak. "I mean seriously, milkshakes are either too liquidy, which makes them unappetizing, or too thick and you can't even drink it because it won't suck up the straw. There is no in between." I laughed, mostly because it was true. This milkshake was too liquidy for my taste, but I continued to drink it anyways. Chocolate is chocolate.

She continued on her rant for the majority of the way home, and I didn't dare stop her. I was deep in thought over the impeding doom I was heading into the next day at school. "I know," I said, regarding to milkshakes, "I know that milkshakes are inconsistent."

"Then why do you always get them?"

I replied with the only argument I had, "Hey, I just want my milkshakes to bring all the boys to the yard." Nudge started cracking up.

Finally, we were nearing the house. In the distance, I could see a small, dark figure. The closer we got to the house, the larger the figure became, and took the form a tall man. "Your milkshake may not bring all the boys, but it did bring one." The tall man's face began to develop as we were nearing the house, but I had no doubt who it could be. Fang.

I walked up the driveway, where he was waiting. His face was stern, unforgiving, angry. "Nudge, why don't you go inside, I'll be there in a minute." I murmured. My mind was now in haywire. This is not going according to plan.

I waited until Nudge was safely inside, where she wouldn't be able to hear anything. "Juliet?" I asked simply. No matter what had happened with Fang, I would always make sure that Juliet was okay from that bitch of a mother. She needed someone besides her brother to look out for her.

"At a friends house," I let out a breath I did not know I was keeping in.

There was an awkward moment of silence before I sighed heavily, "Fang-"

"Oh, so you're calling me Fang now? Not Nick?" He grunted angrily.

I rushed, "Fang, I get that you're pissed at me, and trust me, I understand why, but-"

He growled, "I'm not fucking pissed, Max. I'm furious. Not only am I fucking furious, I'm outraged and perturbed and hostile and frustrated, and basically every other synonym of pissed. What the fuck happened, Max? And don't give me some shit answer."

"Fang, you can't be here," I said, looking around, paranoid. "Fang I'm sorry, I don't want to do this, but we can't talk anymore. You can't just come here, something could happen. Something bad."

He gritted his teeth, "This is about Jeb?" He stepped closer to me, "Don't worry about that piece of trash." He whispered quickly. He was trying to get me to abandon all of my fears of Jeb, to simply fall into his safe arms. Tempting, but I knew what I had to do, "It's alright, Max. Everything's okay." He placed his hands on both of my arms; the second he touched me, shivers ran down my spine. Stay strong.

"No," I exploded, before Fang shushed me down. I felt entrapped. Don't let him in. No matter how much you want to. I continued angrily, in a whisper, "Everything is not okay. I'm trying to fucking protect you from Jeb and the hellhole called my life. Can't you just get that?"

He hurried his hands up and down my arms, making me just want to melt in his arms. Don't cave. His hands tangled up into my hair, "It's Jeb, isn't it? He threatened you. He threatened you about me." The tears were building up behind my eyes, but I was not sad. I was not sad by any means; I was frustrated.

I broke away from his ensnaring hold, "NO," I yelled, "Get away from me. You're just gonna get yourself hurt. I don't want to talk to you anymore." The tears began streaming down my face silently.

Fang stood as still as a statue. The previous emotion left his face. His loving tendencies faded into an emotionless brick wall. "I can't do this anymore." He said. I ignored him and began to turn away from him to get into my house. Into safety, "We are either friends or we're not. Choose Max. Don't put me through this shit." I didn't answer. I was looking for my keys. Maybe I had left them in the car.

"Is this all because you fucking hate me or something?" He yelled throughout the yard.

I suddenly felt enraged. I whipped around and marched toward him. Right up to his face. He looked down at me, while I glared up at him, "Yes, I fucking hate you Fang. I can not stand you." For a moment a glimpse of surprise flashed on his face, before he turned back to his emotionlessness, "I fucking hate that you had to come to this school. This was my school, where I didn't have to hide from you just to get away from you. I fucking hate that Mrs. Jones made me fucking tutor you. I hate that you got all into my business and found out everything you did about Jeb. I hate that I let you find out that I'm being fucking abused. I hate that you ever came into this fucking town. I hate that you drive me completely bat-shit crazy. I hate that I can't think straight whenever you are around me. I hate that-" I stopped myself. I latched my hand around the back of his neck, and pulled down his head until our lips made contact.

Passionately, he stuck his tongue in my mouth, and began to battle me. We kissed harder, as if we were starving, and this was out only source of nourishment. He pulled me closer toward me, his hands scampering around my back. More. I moaned slightly and wrapped my hands into his hair. Breaking for only a second, Fang whispered, "You're so sexy when you moan." I laughed slightly, before we began kissing again.

We backed up to my front door, where he pushed me roughly against the wall. Deeper. Deeper. I wanted more. I couldn't help it. I couldn't let this stop. Without breaking our kiss, I took one of my hands out of his hair and reached behind me to the door. I turned the knob and began backing inside, bringing Fang along with me.

I told you that Fax would be coming up. Where will this go next?

Tell me what you think will come next! Tell me how you think this will end! And don't forget to PM me whenever you have a question, comment, compliment, etc.

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~Maximum Reading