Max wasn't sure how many hours had passed, but by the soft light peering through her window into her room, she guessed it must be nearing 7am.
Closing her eyes, she sighed loudly to herself, and internally cursed herself for still not being able to shut her mind off of… everything.
Looking over at her alarm clock, Max saw that it read 6:53am. Joy. I've been awake all freaking night thinking of this shit.
Rolling over onto her side, she grabbed her phone from under her pillow and quickly sent Earl a text.
hey Earl.
Can't make it to work this morning.
Not feeling well. Tell Han I died or something.
Caroline will be in, she can hold down the fort today.
Later.
Hitting send, she rolled again onto her back and continued staring up at the ceiling. Max wanted so badly to sleep, to just shut her mind off for a few hours, but no matter how hard she tried, sleep was determined to elude her.
She wanted to get out of bed and make a coffee to make her mind less dreary, but she hadn't heard Caroline leave yet, and she certainly had no intention of going out there to see her.
This time, she was determined to elude Caroline. For how long she didn't quite know, but what she did know was that she could not handle laying eyes on Caroline after what she had walked in on the previous night.
It all just hurt too much, and Max wasn't sure when or how these wounds would ever heal.
She knew that she had hurt Caroline plenty of times also, it wasn't like she didn't deserve this. Oh that's great, just telling myself I deserve to be in this stupid pain. Maybe I do.
But this kind of betrayal seemed to Max to be on a completely different level, a level in which she never would've thought to happen; couldn'tve even fathomed such a thing.
Things were going so… okay, maybe not entirely well, but they were definitely getting better. She was finally ready to discuss it all with Caroline, properly this time, get everything out in the open… until she saw what she saw.
The flashes of imagery haunted her every thought, staining her mind whenever she blinked.
Seeing Caroline and… ugh, Andy, in bed together… the look of horror on Caroline's face when Max had seen them… the way everything around her vision blurred together until she was finally able to move and run to the safety of her room…
Suddenly the sound of the kettle boiling shook Max out of her train of thought. Finally she wakes up. Now hurry up and get out.
The small voice in the back of Max's mind was telling her that she should probably at least try and talk to Caroline about it, but she couldn't bring herself to even get out of bed. Just the thought of seeing Caroline's face… she shuddered, feeling suddenly like throwing up.
Max kept listening to the shuffle of noises from the kitchen, and felt her heart drop at hearing another, heavier, set of footsteps which obviously belonged to Andy, until the door slammed shut. He left? Well, that's good.
The rummaging around in the kitchen didn't cease however, so Caroline must still be getting ready. Taking her sweet ass time.
Nearly half an hour later, Max finally heard the door slam shut again and Caroline leave, which at this time would make her extremely late for work. Must've been waiting to see if I was going to come out and talk. Hah. No way Blondie, you had your chance.
Finally free to leave her room, Max exited and began rummaging around herself preparing coffee. Seeing as she wasn't going to work today, and wasn't sure when she would be able to even leave the apartment again, she also began rolling a joint of course.
She was in no mood to think and feel all the horribly painful things her body and mind were screaming at her to feel.
The hours passed with Max in a blissful daze, unconcerned about the previous nights antics and how much her soul ached.
At least she had a non lethal substance to cure most of the pain. Max wasn't so sure how well she would deal without the miracle of her beloved greenery.
Laying on the couch peacefully, Max pulled her phone out from under the pillow and checked the time. 2pm. Blondie has her break soon…
Usually Caroline would come home for her break, as it was for about an hour or so when she started work so early. Even though Max had called in "sick", and Caroline should technically stick around the diner during her break to help out, that was only a 1 in a million chance of ever happening.
Their break was their break, no questions asked. Although Max did wonder if Caroline would come home this time, after last night.
Surely she would know better, but then again this was Caroline, and she didn't exactly have the smartest of minds when it came to Max. She does push a whole lot. Is that a good thing? She usually does make everything better. Ugh, whatever. Just stay at work. Do not want to see you.
Max was speaking to Caroline in her mind, only afterwards noticing she had a slight smile on her face. She supposed she did miss Caroline, and a small part of her did hope she would return home for her break, but the bigger part of her knew it wouldn't be wise.
She craved to hold her again, but when thinking about Caroline's soft touch all that would spark in her mind was her and Andy, in bed together, blankets covering them and… she shuddered. It was still too much to think about.
Why did it have to happen? Why couldn't things of just kept going the way they were? It was getting so much better…
Feeling her light headedness slowly creep up on her, Max decided to get up and make another coffee.
As Max was reaching for a mug, she suddenly heard footsteps and… No. No freaking way, the apartment door open, and before she knew it she was standing face to face with Caroline, with her having all but ran over to Max.
Max saw Caroline open her mouth to speak, but she didn't want to hear it, she didn't want to hear any of it - she couldn't. So, holding up her hand to make Caroline pause, she quickly spoke out "No, Caroline. No. We are not talking about this, or about any of it, just leave. Me. Alone. I don't want to see you, how is that not clear?"
Max lowered her hand as Caroline looked deep into her eyes, and saw that they were beginning to well up.
Max felt the now familiar pain in her chest at the sight, and had to turn away and begin walking to her room. She couldn't stand seeing that look on Caroline, it wasn't fair to either of them.
Caroline hurried after Max, touching her shoulder ever so lightly but enough for Max to be the one to pause now and turn around. Keeping her eyes on the floor, unable to look up again, she spoke to the ground "What. What could you possibly want now?"
Max felt Caroline lower her hand, and could practically hear her screaming in her mind to look up and make eye contact, but no matter how hard she tried to will herself to, she just couldn't.
She already knew the pain she would see in Caroline's eyes.
"Max, I… I know you don't want to talk anymore. I get it." Her voice was only slightly more than a whisper, and Max could hear her forcing out her words carefully, indicating she was doing her best to hold back a complete breakdown of tears.
"I'm not going to make you. You don't have to say a word. But can you at least listen? No… no response needed, as soon as I've said what I need to say I'll leave, I won't bother you again. I promise. Please?"
Max wanted to turn away and run back to her room, slam the door and never have to look at or listen to Caroline again. But the back of her mind told her to just hear her out, this one time… god knows she's earned it, after all the running out Max had already done to her. "Fine." she heard herself speak.
Now she couldn't control acquiescing to Caroline. "Fine. As soon as you're done though, you leave. Got it?" Max finally looked up, as Caroline was nodding, but Max was sure to avoid eye contact still, knowing she would then have to hold back tears herself.
Caroline walked over to the couch and sat down, with Max following behind. After Max had seated herself as far away form Caroline as possible, she clasped her hands in her lap and absentmindedly picked at her nails as she kept her head down, eyes glued to the floor.
She could feel Caroline's eyes on her, silently pleading her to look up, but she still stubbornly refused. Once Caroline had accepted this, her quiet voice began to speak, as Max silently willed her heart to stop racing so damn loud.
"Okay, so… that night the other week, a bit after we fell asleep, I got a text… from Andy."
Obviously.
"He basically said he was going to be back in town soon for a little while, and asked if I wanted to see him. He said he… he said he wanted me back, wanted to try being us again, wanted me to feel wanted, wanted-"
Before Caroline could continue her sentence, Max held her hand up, kept her head down and uttered "Okay, that's enough. I don't need to know all the lovey dovey details here. Get to the point."
Max felt her heart drop yet again as she said this, but she couldn't stand having to hear every tiny detail that led up to what happened. Lowering her hand again, she heard Caroline sigh.
"Okay. Sorry. So yeah, he texted me, but I didn't reply. Then the next morning that's why I was so… on edge I guess, or whatever. I felt… I don't know, I believed him, I wanted to feel wanted, I miss having someone Max, I do… and then he texted me again when you said you wanted to talk that morning and it all just got too confusing whatever my mind was trying to tell me and I had to leave. So that's… that's why I ran out. And that's why I didn't bring it up. I was confused Max, I was so confused."
Max let this sink in as Caroline stopped talking. She didn't particularly want to respond, but felt the silence begin to weigh her down even further and all she wanted now was for this conversation to be over.
But she still needed to understand. Confusing. Yeah. I get it.
"Okay…." Max began, still keeping her eyes on the floor. "So what exactly confused you? You wanted a boyfriend again?" The question came out sounding crueller than intended, but at this point it was too much of an effort for Max to even care.
"Well..." Caroline continued on "I don't know. Maybe. I just wanted to be with someone – really be with them, be able to call them my boyfriend, or girlfriend or whatever, go on dates, kiss them in public, tell the world that they were mine and I was theirs! It's stupid, so, so... stupid, I know, but… yeah..." Silence again.
I ain't saying nothing this time, Blondie. Keep going.
"So… that's why I didn't mention it for like a week. It was playing on my mind, over and over. I didn't know what I wanted anymore. I still felt… I still feel… I still care about you so much Max, more than I've ever cared about anyone before. But you always seemed so… I don't know, afraid of it all. And I understand that, I do. But even when you wanted to talk, I didn't know if I should believe you. That whole week I was… so confused, so scared, so... I sometimes cried myself to sleep..."
I know. I heard.
"So I just tried to ignore it all. I didn't reply to Andy, I was still trying to make sense of everything… Then he just showed up here last night when you were at work. I wasn't thinking. I just wanted to feel something, to feel anything to make me forget everything else, or to make sense of everything else..."
Yeah, I get that too. Only too well.
"And so we… yeah. And then you… yeah. And I felt so horrible. So, so, so freaking horrible. I never wanted to do that to you, I never wanted to do anything hurtful to you, I just… I was so out of it, and the way you froze and I just, I fucked it up Max, I know. I fucked it all up. This morning I told him to leave, and to never contact me again. I don't want to hear from him ever again, I don't want to see him ever again, I don't care about him, Max. I don't care about him, or about anyone the way I care about you, and I have for so long and it just keeps getting more and more everyday and I don't know what to do, I don't know what you want, I don't... I don't know…"
Max heard Caroline gasp and begin to sob, finally releasing her pent up tears, and this time she couldn't stop herself from looking up.
Caroline had tears spilling from her eyes, gasping for breath. On instinct, all Max could do was move closer, put her arm around her and let Caroline's head fall softly onto her shoulders.
She held her, sobbing into her neck in silence, for who knows how long. With Caroline sobbing, all Max could do was think. She couldn't speak, she was frozen.
She was still so mad, so freaking mad at it all, and it hurt so much, so damn much but… she understood. She had been so horrible to Caroline, of course she wasn't surprised when Caroline said she couldn't believe her when she finally wanted to talk. I probably would've ran out anyway. Who knows.
She didn't want to understand – all Max wanted to do was to hate Caroline, to be able to hold on to the anger and use it to remind herself why she never used to trust anyone else but herself.
But how could she ever hate Caroline?
How could she hate this girl, when she had just poured herself out to her, the heart break and agony plastered on her face, for reasons that were clearly understandable… albeit, the worst pain Max had ever felt in her life.
Pushing away from Caroline gently, Max looked down and lifted Caroline's face up, finally looking into her eyes. It felt like home.
She didn't say a word, only wiped away Caroline's tears, not breaking eye contact. "Caroline…" Max whispered, unable to hold on to this pain and hurt any longer.
"It's… it's okay. I get it. Somehow, I do. I hate it, it fucking sucks, it hurts more than anything but… but I get it. You didn't fuck it all up. You didn't. I fucked up plenty of times before, it was bound to be your turn soon." At this, a small chuckle escaped from Caroline's mouth, as Max didn't bother holding back her slight smile.
Max knew now. She knew she wanted Caroline. All of her, every day of every week, to be hers and only hers, and for her to be Caroline's and no on else's.
Max held their gaze for a few more moments, letting her realisation seep through her entire body, before leaning down and capturing Caroline's to lips to her own. She hummed in the back of her throat at the contact. Mmm, strawberry.
Their lips touched tenderly, and in that moment everything seemed okay again. Caroline suddenly pushed away softly, looking back up into Max's eyes. "Max, are we… are we okay? What… what are we, Max?"
Max could only smile at this, smile at such innocence and even confusion at such a question. "We're okay, Caroline. For now, we're just… we're okay."
Max put her arm back around Caroline as she cuddled up to her neck again, both falling back on to the couch with Caroline's arm draped over Max, laying together in silence.
It wasn't a complete answer, Max knew that, but it was something. It was something good, and it was going to get so much better.
Feeling Caroline nuzzle in closer, Max knew she was thinking the same thing.