Max is nine-years-old when he's removed by social services for a second time.
His PE teacher starts poking her nose where it doesn't belong when she follows him into the locker room bathroom thinking he's up to mischief, and instead finds an injured little boy putting his shirt on.
He is at the precinct by the end of the day, passed from adult to adult as they process him. Max treats them all with the same contempt, angry and wanting to be left alone.
A policewoman leads him to a heated back room to take pictures of his arms, back and buttocks. She smiles gently throughout, trying to make conversation with Max, which only aggravates him further. She tries to offer him a donut and water once they're done, but he's learnt his lesson about accepting food from strangers and tells her to fuck off.
He is questioned by another policewoman, and he tells her where she can go too, but by this point he's exhausted by his anxiety and she manages to get out of him that Randy was responsible for his state.
He stays quiet about the strange man.
Max meets Vanessa who claims she's his social worker and he's put into emergency foster care. He doesn't learn the couple's names, doesn't care, and is quickly moved along to a group home in another town where he is told by Vanessa he's going to stay until they can find a more permanent foster carer.
Suddenly, he's no longer isolated, he's surrounded. Surrounded by people like him, children who are no longer children. Max sees plenty of eyes that are just like his own; eyes that are much too old for the bodies they reside in.
He's placed in dozens of homes, but none of them can manage a horrid child such as himself for further than a week.
There was an exception, Ms. Weiss, who had been okay and had even agreed to let Max stay with her a little longer after a week only to die in her sleep the following night from a stroke.
He wished Vanessa would stop finding him placements. Max couldn't stand anyone and they couldn't stand him either. He wanted to be isolated, he wanted to be left alone, he wanted to be family-less.
That was when he placed with David.
"Hi, Max, it's nice to finally meet you, Vanessa has told me so much about you," Max's newest foster parent introduced. "I'm David. I hope we're gonna have a whole lot of fun this week together!"
They were at the front door of a mediocre looking house, with a mediocre looking drive and a mediocre looking man smiling much too wide to be considered as anything but untrustworthy. Max immediately hated him.
"Go to hell," Max replied, smiling right back at David through bared teeth.
David's smile dropped slightly, looking taken aback, which pleased Max. He instantly felt more in control of the situation.
"Max!" scolded Vanessa, whom he side-eyed before he pushed past David into his house, backpack slung over his shoulder. He wanted to get this over with.
"And that's Max on a good day," Max heard Vanessa joke behind him, the social worker smiling sympathetically at David, staying on the doorstep. She had warned David previously that Max was a handful.
David made a pathetic noise Max guessed was supposed to be a laugh. The two chattered a little while, too quietly for him to catch anything else.
Vanessa called over David's shoulder when she was finished, "Ring me if you need anything, Max. Okay, honey?"
Max didn't respond, still looking over the pictures of David's assumed friends and family on the walls. They all looked as uninteresting and unimpressive as David.
Vanessa sighed, and she and David said their goodbyes. "Good luck," Max heard Vanessa telling David as he shut the door, which ticked him off further.
He began to walk around the different rooms and found the interior was just as mediocre as the outside was.
There was a living room that took up the majority of the downstairs, the flat screen television the first piece of furniture to catch Max's eye. There was a low set coffee table which held a few coasters and a bowl of nuts and dried fruit, a standard sofa in front of it. He found a basket of balls of yarn and knitting needles beside the sofa which Max scoffed at. What was David? Eighty?
Max checked out the kitchen next, the surfaces clean, cork board and calendar on the side of the fridge, a worn kitchen table, some cook books. Campfire Cooking, one read. Max approached some glass patio doors that led outside, peering through. It was the most untamed garden he'd ever seen, with wild grass and flowers, a big tree at the end that looked suitably climbable if Max ever gathered the energy.
A quick glance into the bathroom confirmed that was as clean and well-kept as everywhere else, a glass hedgehog on the windowsill. He shut the door and walked back down the hall. His bags were gone.
"Do you like it?" David asked, Max looking up to see the man descending the stairs.
"You have shit taste," replied Max, blunt. He took a few steps back. "Where are my bags?"
David came to the bottom couple of steps. "Oh, I just popped them upstairs for-"
"Don't touch my stuff. It pisses me off."
David blinked. "Oh. Er, well…" he laughed, almost as if he was nervous. Max didn't understand what he had to be nervous about, Max was the one trapped in a house with some dude he didn't know the motive of.
"Would you like to come upstairs and see your bedroom?" asked David after a couple of beats of silence.
"No." Max glowered.
"Alrighty, then."
There was another awkward pause. David hovered, trying to catch Max's eyes with another deceptive smile. Max maintained the cautious distance between them, taking no chances. He got a good look at David. He didn't like what he saw. Not one bit.
"Do you want to take off your shoes? There's a shoe rack in the hall."
"Why?" spat Max defensively, taking another half step back. "To stop me getting dirt all over your precious floors?"
David blinked before he shook his head. His voice stayed at the same, calm frequency he asked all his pointless questions in. "I just thought it might make you feel more at home, is all."
Max didn't know how to respond. He gritted his teeth, squeezing his hands into mini fists inside his hoodie pockets. He eventually opted for plain defiance. "No."
David held up his hands in surrender, yet another stupid smile coming to his stupid face. "That's alright, Max, you can do whatever makes you feel comfortable."
Max walked away, going back into David's living room. His shoulders were rigid as he swiped up the remote, wanting to see what TV channels David had. He tensed as he waited for some kind of altercation, for David to come storming in after him and demand for him to take off his shoes.
He brought the television to life, glanced to the empty door frame and… nothing happened.
He'd been left alone.
Max flicked the television on mute, able to hear David moving around in the kitchen when he paid closer attention.
Confused but ultimately deciding not to question it, Max unmuted the screen and moved to sit down on David's sofa. He rarely got free reign of the television at the home, the other kids usually keeping Cartoon Network or Nickelodeon on all day. He clicked to a random movie channel halfway through a cheap action flick.
It was dull, but Max watched anyway. It wasn't like there was much else to do whilst he waited out his time trapped there.
David made them sausages, real mashed potatoes and SpaghettiOs for dinner.
It was comforting to get to eat a proper cooked meal again, not like the cheap shit the home made en masse or the takeaway leftovers he used to fish out of the Marsh's trash can when Randy was too drunk to go out to do the weekly grocery shop.
It reminded Max of the meals Ms. Weiss would make.
"Are you enjoying it?" asked David halfway through his plate, breaking into Max's thoughts.
Max scowled. "Fine."
David just smiled and refilled Max's glass with juice.
After dinner David went back upstairs, ran Max a bath and showed him to his spare bedroom when he was done.
It was a plain room, with beige walls and a neutral carpet. There were striped covers on the bed and the curtains were an ugly mauve colour, both of which he disliked, although he guessed the blue stripes of the sheets weren't that bad. Max's bags were sat waiting for him in the middle of the room.
Max had his towel wrapped tight over his shoulders, covering up his entire body from the neck down. David still hadn't left the room and this made him nervous.
"I know it's a little boring," said David. "I actually had quite a few ideas about how to decorate it, but then I thought, what's the fun of having your own bedroom if you're not the one who's decorating it?" He gave Max a bright smile.
Max gripped his towel tighter. "You think I care, David? You think I want to be here longer than I have to be?"
David's words had made him uncomfortable, and the only way Max knew how to deal with discomfort was lashing out.
David looked disappointed, and Max almost felt bad for a split second before he remembered he didn't care how David felt. "If that's what you want, Max," he accepted.
Max was left alone again, like he told himself he wanted. He got changed into the pyjamas in his bag and hopped into bed, not returning David's goodnight as he peeped his head around his door twenty minutes later.
The next several days continue to be the strangest experience of Max's life. He'd try his best repeatedly to cause David to snap, yell, do something, but it never worked. He talked back at every opportunity he could, disobeyed suggestions, even going so far as to spill hot chocolate (un)intentionally all over the sofa.
David's cheery brand of patience was impenetrable. And infectious.
Before he knew it, Max was starting to take off his shoes at the front door, asking David what he was making for dinner, anticipating bath time, feeling safety as he got into the back of David's car at the end of each school day. Feeling safe in general when David was around.
David could sit beside Max now without him tensing up, smile at him without Max shooting back a poisonous glare, offer him food without Max's stomach seizing up and making him feel nauseous and unhungry.
David wasn't going to hurt him. David didn't want anything from him. David made him feel safe.
When Max realised, he couldn't even find it in himself to be angry.
Living with David was weird. Living with David was… nice.
"Hey, Max, how was school?" asked David as Max climbed in the back, smiling at him in the rear-view mirror like he'd been doing after school every-damn-day for the past five days.
Max crossed his arms and glared out the window. "Fine," he said plainly, although the malice had toned down significantly.
"That's good! Learn anything fun?" David was a fountain of enthusiasm, happy enough that Max was speaking to him that afternoon.
"If you think school is fun you need a fucking brain transplant," replied Max, raising a brow.
"Hey, now! School can be lots of fun! Besides, that's not a very nice word, Max," scolded David.
"Bite me, David."
David sighed, dropping the subject before it escalated. "I was thinking we could go out camping this weekend. Would you like that?"
"I can't think of anything worse."
They ended up going camping anyway. Max hated it a little less than he thought he would.
The weekend away went by quickly and before Max knew it, it was Monday again. Time for Vanessa to come collect him and take him back to the home.
Max stayed quiet throughout the ride back home from school Monday afternoon and dragged his feet on the ground following David to his front door. He took off his shoes and set them on David's shoe rack, ate the hot meal that David prepared and put in front of him, put his plate in the dishwasher and disappeared upstairs to David's spare bedroom to pack his bags.
It was a normal state of affairs and Max told himself he wasn't sad about it. Not one bit. Not even when a few tears left his eyes when he sat in David's bathroom, inside the bathtub he wasn't going to get to use that night, waiting for the sound of Vanessa's car to pull up on the driveway.
David called him downstairs and he did what he was told for once, shoving his hands into his pockets, going out into the living room where the adults were sat with hot drinks and paperwork he had little interest in.
"Come sit," encouraged David, patting the space beside him.
Max scowled, but moved to sit on the couch cushion. The meeting began.
"So," Max's social worker took in a breath, took a drink from her coffee, and asked, "How have you two been getting along?"
"Great!" David chirped back. His back was straight, knees together, hands clasped in his lap. He gave a big, enthusiastic grin. "We didn't really get up to much during the week because Max had school, but we did go camping this weekend and I got to show Max where I work! I think he's settling in great considering it's his first week here."
Max couldn't believe what had just come out of David's mouth
Vanessa's eyebrows were also raised, but she beamed sunshine that rivalled David's after her initial shock. "That's absolutely brilliant news." Her tired eyes were alight. "Does this mean you're happy keeping Max for another week or two before another check in?"
At her question, Max held his breath and stared at his socked feet. Here it came: the excuse, the decline, the shake of David's head as he palmed Max back to the group home where he'd stay until the day he turned eighteen.
"Yes," said David without missing a beat, "I'd be very happy to."
A lump caught in Max's throat and there was a pause.
David continued, turning in the child's direction, "…If that's okay with you, Max?"
Max's eyes widened, looking up to find the two adults peering silently, waiting for his answer. He looked to Vanessa, who appeared as surprised as he was. He looked to David, who gave him a warm look he knew for a fact he didn't deserve, a smile that met his eyes.
Max's insides bunched up, digging his nails into his hand inside his hoodie pocket to try and stay calm. He swallowed thickly, eyes casting downwards again. "I guess, whatever," he said, adding lamely, "Doesn't make a difference to me."
When he glanced up, Vanessa was glowing, David smiling at him wider, tears in his eyes Max didn't understand. He rubbed a kind hand over Max's back. David sniffed, trying to remain upbeat. "Well," said David, voice breaking with emotion as he turned back to the social worker, "that's that then."
