Summary: What if Max and the Flock had never gotten "the talk"? What is the outcome of an adolescence without an adult and knowledge of societal norms?
Chapter Nineteen: Tragedy Never Makes Anyone a Perfect Person.
Its been about three weeks since that night Fang had come back late. Three weeks since he'd pushed my forehead against his lips before he'd left out into the pouring rain.
I'd fixed the hole in the attic that Iggy and Gazzy had blown through during their last prototype testing, finished the laundry, cleaned up the crayon scribbles on Nudge's wall that Gazzy had done when they'd argued, made sure Angel had learned how to do a side-swerve, scavenged around to find and throw out some blueprints of Iggy's...
It was three weeks of quiet, tense, subtlety. Three weeks of gray matter, three weeks of sleep with my eyes wide awake.
Thats what it sort of felt like—sleep. I wasn't quite sure why, but I couldn't quite place it.
Fang hadn't come to me about any problems anymore. I couldn't catch him dealing with any either. I'm guessing he got whatever it was, fixed. That, he figured everything out.
I was relieved, dear god, I was pretty goddamned relieved. But why the fuck wasn't he telling me anything?
And I don't mean just anything, I mean absolutely nothing.
Fang wasn't an easy person to speak to, but even then, we spoke to one another. But for the past three weeks, its felt like our relationship.. has been asleep. Its like everything before.. had never even happened. Like he forgot he was ever even sick for that short while. Completely ignored it.
He comes and goes, and I've probably lost track of when he does it anymore. Sometimes he's here and sometimes he's not.. just down below, in town. What does he do there? I've got no idea, but he always comes back with his face looking really dark. If anything, looking so frickin emotionally tired.
I had no idea why he was going so often.. and I didn't feel like I had the nerve to tell him that I didn't like it. I was about to, oneday, lecture him about how he shouldn't risk it so much, but before I could get a word out, he had thrown me a threatening glance.
It was deep, it was intense. It felt like he was begging me with everything he had to just shut up and not say a word. It felt like he knew exactly how I felt.. but almost like.. he was admonishing me.. like telling me that he knew better than I did, of his limits, as if he was preaching... That I couldn't restrict him from doing what he needed, wanted to?
I hated that. I hated that he had to tell me that he knew better. I was supposed to know better. I was Maximum Ride, and I was his flock's leader. These days, why did I always feel so.. small under gaze though?
Its always felt like he was just humoring me, or flattering me by obeying whatever I said. Like he truly couldn't care less. But now, he wasn't even doing that. Instead, he was instructing me, and advising me on what to say to him. How the heck do you get there, being leader?
My gaping mouth had quietly closed in the intensity of the glare, and I hadn't spoken a word. One glance had released his entire soul, and for the first time in a week, I had actually felt he was there. He showed me all of his feelings in just a second, and it had hit me with its fullest throttle. It was probably just the tactic of surprise, but it worked, and it didn't last. He went back to sleep for the following two.
Its like he knew how to work me better than I did, like he had better control of my feelings and emotions than I did. Like I was a puppet on a string, and he had to jerk a finger the slightest bit to get me to show him an entire segment. Like.. like I was just a plaything to beckon at his every whim and tear. I was so sick of it, cause it worked, it worked so well.
These days, he just seemed so fricking drained. He'd come back with his face dark and all tense. I knew he needed to talk to me about it.. but he wouldn't. Where was he getting at with this? I was so confused, but yet not confused at all. Fang confused me, he really did, and often at that. But nowadays, it felt like he was barely there at all, so there was nothing to wonder about. There wasn't anyone to wish to screw their neck over, except perhaps Iggy.
Oh yeah. Gaz's skin is purple now. He looks sort of like, pigeon-colored. He isn't quite purple anymore, but more of a greyish, now that its beginning to fade out. For the first day, all he did was cry on me, cause he thought he was turning into a slimy scaly thing, like how Iggy had told him birds do after they turn purple.
That dumbass, I sighed, turning around to place a wet and clean dish on the drying rack on the counter behind me; I was doing the breakfast dishes. Nudge had apparently found a cherry bush somewhere on the hill to our left, so she took Angel and Gazzy and they went for a day of cherry-picking. Iggy had said he'd make pie.
Pie. Man, I was hungry, I realized. Pulling those ridiculous pink rubber gloves off my arms, I placed them in the small amount of empty counter space next to sink and turned to open the fridge and bent down to make an assessment of its inhabitants.
I turned back around with some chicken nuggets in my hand and some mustard, kicking the fridge door closed with the back of my foot.
Sitting down on a stool and shrugging my shoulder up, I absentmindedly got to work on the chicken nuggets that I'd heated up. (Yes, I knew how to work a microwave, tyvm). My thoughts wandered as I absentmindedly wondered where Iggy was. That reminded me of Fang.
Who cares about Fang? I thought angrily. The chicken nugget in my hand got squished in between my forefingers and thumb. Dammit. He was probably in town again. What the heck did he do down there so often? My face childishly contorted in anger as I began to imagine possible ways to castrate him.
Or mummify him. That'd make sure he wouldn't be able to get away.. Oh, the possibilities..
"Whats with the look, beautiful?" I heard a rumbling voice sound above me.
Snapping out of my wandering thoughts, I looked up to see Fang pull a high chair back and sit down across the counter from me. He didn't look so tired, but his hair was flipped back, and haphazardly lain ontop his head, completely windswept. He'd just come from a flight... from town, I wouldn't hesitate to bet. What did he have to do there this early?! And what had he done there in.. I looked up to the clock to check the time.. just 30 minutes, since I'd begun to clear up breakfast and he dispersed after eating.
"Whats with the face, assface?" I retorted nastily.
I didn't know why I was acting this way. The first time in three weeks Fang and I had spoken together, alone, casually, for no particular reason, and it was pissing me off.
His face did look different now though. He shaved off the stray hairs that had begun to grow along his jawline. He looked so much more.. neater now.. a lot more handsome. It was so much more apparent now.
"Oh-ho. Well, you just told me, so I'm not sure how I'm supposed to respond," he said playfully and quietly, his eyes sort of twinkling in the light streaming in from the small kitchen window above the sink facing my back.
I blinked in surprise. He was.. we were actually engaging in.. well, one couldn't really call this a conversation, but still. I mumbled a vague response in embarrassment.. my last diss hadn't exactly been.. uh, notable. And who the freak has eyes that twinkle?!
"What was that?" he asked, smiling. I swore my heart skipped a beat.
He maneuvered himself over the counter, picking his jaws off of his palms as his elbows supported him as he leaned close to me.
The close proximity startled me, frightened me, sort of. He turned his head and thrust the side of his face and left ear in my direction, and I could see the slight smile reach his eyes even against his side profile.
He was so close I could smell his thick, wavy black hair like heat through my nostrils. He had gotten a haircut recently, in town, and it was shorter now. It was perfectly trimmed now.. and it looked pretty darn good. I wondered whether or not he'd bought a new shampoo from downtown, cause it didn't smell like what the rest of the flock used.
Absentmindedly, I thought about scolding him on how he shouldn't waste the money that we don't know where we're getting from, but those thoughts quickly escaped me as he turned his head. His face was now probably two centimeters away from my own, still smiling handsomely, eyes still.. twinkling. My shoulders tensed subconsciously at the close proximity, startled. He searched my eyes for something, but I don't think he could see anything in there except surprise and perhaps, an inkling of doubt.
He pulled back, sitting back down in his chair and replacing his jaw in his palms again, still looking like he was assessing my face and my reactions.
I found my self-conciousness simply transcending into irritation. What the heck was he staring at, bejeezus h. christ.
My eyebrows furrowed, giving away hints of the irritation gracing my mind, eliciting a smirk from him.
Something I hadn't seen in, what felt like ages. It felt like I hadn't seen him at all in ages. I wondered what was up with him now, and why he seemed so happy, after weeks of coming back from his outings with his mind looking so drained, and his face looking so dark and illustrious. Why he was acting so.. strange.. so.. suddenly upbeat, and bright? It was upbeat beyond himself, and it was pissing me off.
He never called anyone beautiful. That comment in itself had.. pissed me off, which is probably why my response had transcended into such a pathetic diss.
Seriously. Whats wrong with your face, assface? What was I thinking? Mentally, I groaned at the thought, remembering what I had just said. Pushing those thoughts outside of my head, I matched Fang's playful stare with a hard glare-down of my own.
"Fang, whats wrong with you?" I asked him seriously. And perhaps not-so-nicely.
What I really wanted to know was why he decided to talk to me now after three weeks of silent subtleties, and three weeks of barely being much less anywhere. And then he had decided to just not be... typical?
His face darkened as the question and words escaped my mouth. I could see the twinkling in his eyes disappear quickly and dramatically. His face was devoid of all and any emotion, however. It was hard.
He was asking me what my problem, did I have to go and ruin all this stuff?
And to be honest, I didn't quite know. Here I was picking a fight with a Fang who was in an unprecedented, however delightfully upbeat mood.
I almost felt a touch of blame grace his eyes.. He was telling me that the answer to the question, was me—that it was my fault. All my own freaking fault. It made me feel guilty for a second, and it made me want to peruse a self-reflection, but no, he wasn't worth it. How the heck could it be my fault? HE was the one with the need of an attitude adjustment. All he did was send mixed signals, play hot and cold. Thats all hes been doing for a while now. And he had the audacity to say that it was because of me?
I just wanted to know why. I wanted to know what was wrong with him.
I guess that had come out wrong from my mouth though. I corrected myself, in hopes of salvaging anything at all for what it was worth.
"Why, why.... are you okay?" my throat croaked weakly. I gave him a look that asked him all the questions I couldn't bring myself to dictate.
He read it all. He understood everything that I was asking and everything I didn't know. He saw the conflicts battle it out in my head, yet he still sent me a hard glare back, unrelenting. But I had no idea what it meant or what he was trying to say to me. I felt like a failure.
Getting up, he turned around.
"Bye," his words whistled in the air in the space behind him and me as he walked away, leaving me sitting at the table thinking about how much I'd screwed up the nothing that was there.
He had known and understood everything I was asking.
He heard it all and ignored it.
What am I supposed to do?
His hot and cold attitude was killing me, slowly, gradually, but surely. And here I thought he was something dependable. It felt like everything was falling down, collapsing on me. I didn't know Fang being so standoffish could make my life so miserable. I didn't know the flock could be so miserable. What was happening?
Ever since.. then, that night when he'd gotten sick, it hadn't been right.
Sure, we bickered. We disagreed on things, all the time. But its like those big issues, like going into town and like keeping things from me, its like, they'd all escalated dramatically into bigger issues that I didn't know how to handle, especially with the way he was dealing with them.
And Fang wasn't there anymore. He wasn't there for me, and he didn't seem.. stable. He was here and there, sometimes and not, his actions towards me.. thats all they were.. hot and cold.
I was getting sick of this. I wanted to beat him up. I wanted to castrate him. Teach him a lesson, and keep him hostage and make sure that he stopped being so freaking irritating. Say one thing, and be done with it, why don't you? I was so freaking sick of it. Couldn't he just be absolute for a moment? Like how it used to be?
That bird boy was eating my brains out. I was Maximum Ride. I was his leader, and I was supposed to know everything. He obviously needed a reminder.
Damn, well he'll sure be getting one, I admonished.
My hurt, usually dries up into anger and resentment.
Anger and resentment are easier emotions, more straightforward if you know what I mean.
But thats usually how I fuck up.
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I stormed off, away from Max.
She still didn't get it.
I knew I've been being a jerk the past few weeks, I know that I've been acting like a downright jackass. I was fully aware of it.
Yeah, that makes me sound ten times more awful, now, doesn't it?
I got back from town this morning and decided to repent. I wasn't in a.. bad mood, and I guess that was what had surprised her.
I'd gone into town to see Brigid. It was a Saturday, so she didn't have school.
Everytime I came back from there, I could see fear written in the faces of my flock members. My agitation was written on my face as clear as day whenever I came back. It hit me so hard that and as much as I tried to deny it, my appearance would still betray me. They could see it written on my face, and they were scared. They didn't know what was happening, or what my issue was.
I knew I was in a bad mood whenever I came back from there, and to be completely honest, I'd rather not interact with them at all if that is what they had to deal with.
It was just better off overall to not interact with them at all, if they had to deal with me in all my sucktastic glory if they had to.
Stepping out into the porch, slamming the door shut behind me I walked to middle of an area of grass and sat down, running my hands through my hair agitatedly. It was a lot shorter now. The feeling was different.
Rubbing my scalp, I wondered how I could fix this.. how I could fix myself. I didn't know what I was doing.
No, I did know. I didn't know why. I needed to sort out priorities, I needed to measure myself out. I needed.. to take a good look at myself, cause I was beginning to wonder what I was doing.
I didn't like it, trust me, I didn't like it. Everytime I screwed Brigid, I'd come back pissed off, angry, tired, emotionally drained. I didn't know what to do. It was like a vicious cycle of destruction. I hated it.
I hated her and I hated it. I hated her so much. There was nothing there, there was absolutely nothing there.
It felt like the entire world had coming crashing down on me after that night, after the first or second time we'd done it. Cause suddenly, it felt like nothing mattered anymore. Cause thats all there was to life. Fuck, pleasure, then you're done with.
Because there was nothing there. It was just pleasure, it was just lust. It was building up to get to that feeling.. orgasm, I'd read, in a Biology textbook.
I wanted to do it with Max. I wanted our bodies to sweat and our hearts to beat fast.
I wanted to ease the tension, I wanted to say sorry, I wanted to stop being such a fuck up.
She'd be so much better off without me in her life, but then what would she do?
What would the flock do? They needed me, I knew it, but they'd be better off without.
I couldn't leave, but I wish I could.
She depended on me, but I didn't know what I was doing these days. I was being irresponsible, I was being greedy, I felt like I just didn't care anymore.
Thats the fact of the matter. I felt like I just didn't care anymore. Thats why my actions didn't betray me. I was acting like I just didn't care anymore, but all of a sudden I knew that I had to, even though I felt like I didn't because I didn't want to.
But I hated Brigid, I hated her so much, I wished she would just go away.
The truth of the matter is that it was destroying me from the inside.
I was so damn confused. My forehead rested in my hands.
This was way too much for me. It was too much.
I felt like a failure. I hated Jeb, I hated him so much. So what if I could get erections, so what if I could have sex, so what if Max and I were put in charge of three little kids. So what? I was still thirteen.
And god, was I fucked up.
Maybe Max was right. Maybe I should never have gone down into town to begin with. Cause lately, recently, these days, all I've been doing is comparing myself to other people—these were the standards of normality—cause I couldn't help it. Thats what we would have been if we hadn't had these wings grafted unto our backs.
Don't get me wrong, I loved these wings, it was a part of who I was.
But the implications that this wrought on our lives, it was overwhelming. It was goddamned, way overwhelming. Sometimes, maybe, it felt like too much. But it wouldn't feel that way if I didn't know that things could have been easier.
Cause now I was in a mess, now I was a mess, and I didn't know what to do, cause I was making Max's life heck. Indirectly.
Cause thats what I did. Everything was indirect and unstable and tonsure, and wavering.
I was giving her a hot and cold attitude, cause thats what I did: I acted on instinct.
And I didn't want to talk when I was in a bad mood.
Somehow, now that I was in a good mood, I'd still fucked things up.
I guess things just don't work that way. You can't selectively do as you please, when there are other actual people involved. If only Max was easy enough to push around, but no, she was the Maximum Ride, the stubborn girl I was infatuated with.
Was, I was infatuated with. Brigid, she helps me get my mind off of things, off of her. Thats why I kept going at first. But I hated it, I found myself hating it so much, and I hated the feeling of what we did. I hated the word we. I hated.. I hated the sex. It felt so good, yet I wanted to choke her so bad for making me feel that way. I hated her. She kept my mind off of things but I hated her so much, cause it felt so good.
I'd gone this morning again, but as I opened the door, she had looked at me, pouting endearingly and engulfed in her covers with the remote sitting on top. She had said she was on her period, so she couldn't have sex. I had nodded slowly, not having a clue as to what she meant, but then she had asked me for a massage.
Gently, I had placed my hands on her back, and she had urged me to go lower, against her hipbones. I kneaded slowly, articulately, but at some point I started to feel sick to my stomach. I didn't want to do this, and I didn't want to touch her. I needed to get away from her. I said I needed to go quickly and flew back to the house.. and I felt good, I had felt really good inside once I had got there.
I felt bright and happy, relieved for once.. I just felt free, and I spotted Max sitting on the counter eating a large snack of chicken nuggets and mustard, looking like she was daydreaming, deep in thought.
So I decided to go up to her, only to see her face grimace suddenly, her fingers clenching on the chicken nugget she was airily holding about in mid-air, destroying it. I smiled as a fierce grimace enlightened her face, wondering what she was daydreaming about.
She looked back at me, superlatively surprised, and countered me with an awful excuse of a diss.
Thats when I'd realized that, God, I had missed her so much, thats what I'd realized, even against her horrible temper, her pathetic lack of ability in noting subtelty, and against her incredible superiority complex, as I stared at her against the counter, sitting across from her.
Thats when I'd realized, and then I realized how fucked up I am.
Which left me to my current predicament and my current disposition. What the heck was I supposed to do?
Looking up, and letting go of my face, I sighed. I didn't know what the fuck I was supposed to do, I wanted to take my mind off of things.
Maybe I'd just go down to the library and read up on more things. I was learning a lot, this was all just a part of puberty. And it wasn't bird-like in any way, but human, and it interested me a lot.
I needed to ignore all this; I'd get back to it when I needed to. I'd stop seeing Brigid, and I knew that I needed to stop now. She was making me was to tear and explode from the inside, and it was such a vicious cycle that I didn't even know what I wanted from her.
I hitched a ride on an air current, rising up on the wind as I felt the breaths of whooshing air smack against my face like flipping solitaire cards on a table.
I was avoiding the issue, yes, I was avoiding the problem, yes—both of them—but at least I was doing something consciously that held any semblance of sense, rather than just going back to Brigid, although I was pretty sure that I couldn't just stop being a jerk to Max so easily.
We were too far gone, and it'd take a while before we could get back, and I knew Angel was hating my guts at this point.
I had to fix that, but I had time.
A/N:
First off, I now understand why people put up ultimatums.(Cause it works).
But I hate it when authors do it. And I'll never do it again. Promise.
Sorry for all that steam, on the last chapter, and I took it all off.
Really, it was just a moment of weakness where I decided to rant and whine to a bunch of people who don't know me. I don't really whine like that in real life. It was.. I was just caught up.
I got some uh. Some advice. And I got some uh.. .....comments. For half, all I can say is: dude, I don't like ultimatums either, but CHILL. =.=
I dont think I'd intended to play the pity card or the sympathy pull. I just really did not intend to continue posting up this story. Which is PRECISELY why I picked such a ludicrous number. ...I didn't actually think I'd reach it.. and I definitely didn't think I'd reach it in less than ONE freaking day. O_O
So.. kudos to you guys. It actually took 6 hours, I posted at 9 pm, and reached it by 2 am. My inbox sort of died with the impact of the throttle...
And uh, what else. Oh yeah. In response to some of that advice I got. I'm not a junior or a senior.
I turned in March so.. yeah, can't put all of that advice to use. And there wouldn't really be a point in moving out. My sister and I live in an apt, and my dad travels a lot so when I say that my mom lives with him, thats what I mean. When they're here, they stay at our house in, but my sis and I live in our apartment, since our commutes to school are easier that way. Despite that, I really do appreciate the efforts that you guys made, to those of you who made nice ones =) And.. I repeat.. I did not intend to pay the pity card.. I really didn't plan on continuing the story, and I thought it'd be a legit excuse to not update.
Obviously, that plan didn't work out.. thanks to you guys -.-
I wrote that A/N with every intention of leaving the story. Between chapters 16 and 17, I had counted 62 individual frigid hater reviews. I just sort of got sick of it, so in my bad mood, I decided that if you guys weren't going to like it, then I just wasn't going to post it up anymore. I was gonna make it up to you by starting another story.
Okay. So I'll be REALLY honest. I don't think I got more than 6 or 7 actual haters out of all these reviews. I misconstrued Frigid haters to people who were actually hating on my story. I'm sorry, but I was pretty sad in the first place, and I just got sadder when I thought that people were hating on the story, and not just the pairing. Sorry, sorry, its my fault. But its easy to mix that up, when people don't clarify that its just Frigid that they dislike, and not my writing. __
No, I'm not italian. My cousins just live there. I'm going to Australia too, and Brazil. I've never been to Brazil before. I wonder what that'll be like. Someone said that it sounds like I've got a lot of chapters written already. Well.. you're wrong. That would've been right on any other chapter but 18. This is the first chapter in this entire story that I've had to write for the sake of updating. You guys made me feel guilty, so I wrote 19 just for the sake of updating. 18 was the last one I had written in my spare time. And then I ran out. That, coupled with the lack of encouragement I was getting from you guys, just made me not want to bother writing again. (Which explains my intentions of abandoning this story). I need to go study for fucking regents now ;[ I was procrastinating. Sorry if this chapter isn't so good.. it was written under pressure.. Following ones WILL be better, promise!!
Oh yeah, and I love all those who reviewed with encouragement. Those who reviewed more than once made me really giggle. =) You can thank yourselves, cause you made me feel real guilty and rethink the posting of the story.
But now I feel really irresponsible, cause I've got nothing left to post. I actually need to type now. Hey, I warned you guys though. You guys have gotten THREE 7,000 word chapters in ONE week. Talk about fast updates? The downside to that is that now I've run out of chapters! And hey, all I can say is, wow. No, really, wow. For everyone who was nice and cared: if people like you are going to grow up and run the nation, then I sincerely won't mind. Strangers who care, or at least make the effort to pretend that they care.. its just really.. wow. You left me so speechless, I sound dumb.
=) Life is good. Let's appreciate. [the fact that we know what dicks are for].
Haha, later.