Chapter Twenty-Eight

Sorry about the last chapter. It wasn't very good. I had this idea of having lots of little stand-alone scenes put together, but I rushed it and didn't do as many as I had thought I would do. I just wanted a light chapter before I had to go on and write this one. I've been working up to this story line.

Thanks to those of you who reviewed for the last chapter and told your thoughts, I'll take those suggestions and hopefully you'll see a better quality of work in this chapter.

Do you remember how I talked about the year I started University as being extremely hard year for me? Do you remember I said it had all started with Lana Ride? And how she lied to me- well, concealed the truth? It may have started with Lana, but I healed quickly from that hurt. I knew, even as angry as I was with her for keeping something so big from me, that I would have done the same thing if I were the one with life changing information. I thought myself a good person for being able to forgive Lana. I thought myself a big person. I even thought that everything was fine now. That I was strong enough to heal any hurt. As I said it started with Lana... but it finished with Fang.

It was a Monday, and I had early classes to get to. I woke up feeling strange. It was not that I was feeling sick, just... yuck. I had a strange feeling in the pit of my stomach. A feeling I could not explain. Did it have something to do with what was to come? I do not know. It sounds too crazy to believe, doesn't it? Why don't you make up your mind for yourself? You tell me. Did I somehow know- without really knowing that the person I loved had betrayed me?

He had known all alone, Fang that is. He had known all that Lana knew. How did he know? He had been to the hospital to see my mum when she was first sick. He had known every time I had stayed at Nudges or his house why I was really there. He knew Lana and Jeb dated, and how they found out about her cancer.

All that time. He knew. And all the time after when he should have told me, he did not. And do you know what the worst thing is? My mother had asked him to be my friend. It all made sense after that. Unbelievable, I thought it implausible that Fang could have kept something like that from me.

When we were seven I had rang Fang up and invited him to come to science works in the city with dad and me. My Grandmother had given me three tickets, and I wanted Fang to come. He had said he couldn't, that he was going to a boy in our class' party at Luna Park, but five minutes later he rang back saying he had changed his mind. Now I see what really happened was his mum made him come.

Another time was when he was having Iggy and Gazzy sleep over and I had begged him to let me come and he had said 'no, it's a boys night' but later had rang up and said I could come after all. That was after my dad and Lana had spoken on the phone. Now I know mum had gone into hospital that night.

Do you want to know how I found out about Fang? My dad told me. Dad was trying to make me feel better when I was feeling down one day. He said my mum is always looking out for me, even if she isn't with us; she is making sure I am being looked after. It's then he told me about Fang and how mum and Lana had forced the two of us together. Well those aren't the words he had used, but that's what I had taken from it back then.

"Max please. I am so sorry. You know I love you and would never do anything to hurt you." Fang said with such a heart broken earnest voice that I almost broke down right now in front of him. He took my hands in his, running his thumbs cross the backs of my hands.

After I talked to dad I rang Nudge who told me to just go talk to Fang. So I drove to his school and texted him to meet me in the car park. I waited leaning against his car, until he ran out of the building, alarm written all over his face.

He looked so shocked when I confronted him. I was seeing red. I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs, but at the same time call up into a little ball so no one can see me and cry. It didn't help that the first thing Fang said was 'how did you find out?' I mean really? Come on.

We sat in his car as we talked. He said he didn't need my mum and Lana telling us to be friends to want and be my friend. I wasn't so sure.

He said- like Lana- that my mum hadn't wanted Ella and I to know she was sick, and that's why he didn't tell me. And he had been hiding it from me for so long; it was too late to tell me after she died. I had cried when he said that, face turned away from him, shoulders shaking hard, even when I tried to still them by leaning back in the chair. He didn't touch me, just turned his own head away in shame blinking back tears of his own.

"You know I'm sorry, don't you?" He asks. I nod, turning to face him. I can tell it is killing him; you don't have to know him to see that.

He takes my hands in his again and asks. "Do you still love me?" I look him straight in the eyes. And see all I need to.

"Still love you? Yes of course. I'll always love you." I say. I pull my hands away from Fang. He doesn't seem to notice. He looks so happy. It breaks my heart.

"Fang-" I begin to say but he interrupts me.

"Oh Max. I thought you were breaking up with me for good-"

"Fang, you didn't let me finish." I say. His face falls.

"I do love you...but I can't be with you. It's not about what you did, or what you didn't do. I need space. I forgive you. But I don't what to be with you. Do you understand what I'm trying to say?"

"No." he says frowning.

"We'll still be friends." I feel silly after saying that. Isn't that the cliché break up line?"

He laughs bitterly. "Friends! Max I don't want to just be friends. That's not good enough for me"

"So that's it? It's either boyfriend and girlfriend or nothing?"

"The ball is in your hands." Fang says before given me once last regretful look before getting out of the car walking away, his head slumped, his hands stuffed in his pockets. I watch him walk away, his tall, lean frame, getting smaller and smaller until he's a blur in the far distance.

The strange thing is I don't feel sad, or mad, which is most like me. I feel numb.

I get out of the car and walk back to the apartment slowly.

When I get back Nudge is sitting on the front steps of the building waiting for me. When she sees me she studies me with her big, kind eyes.

"How did you go?" Nudge asks. She stands up and moves away from the door, as I punch in our code to open the door.

"Okay." I say with a shrug.

"Are you still together? I'm guessing no."

"You guessed right." I try not to look at her face. For some reason its just making me feel worse.

"Why. Did he apologize?"

"Yes."

"Then what the problem?"

"Nudge, he really hurt me." I say looking at her. Out of all people I would expect Nudge to get it, get me.

My phone rings from my jeans pocket. I pull it out and looked at the caller ID. It's Iggy. I pass it to Nudge to answer. I don't feel like talking. Nudge must have rang him earlier and told him.

"Hey Ig...Yeah I know...She's fine...She just got home...No, no Fang...I don't know, back to his own house...Oh, you're there?...Well he's properly upset." Nudge pulled the phone away from her ear. "Do you know where Fang went?"

"School."

"Oh right. She went to see him at his school... Oh you can hear her, okay." She looked up at me. 'Iggy says you'll miss him and you two will be back together with in the week?" Nudge says.

I frown. "No we won't, it's over."

"Hear that Ig...Yeah okay...I know...Bye." She hung up the phone and handed it back to me, following me up the stairs.

"I don't think you can live without him." She says sol fly when he get to our door. .

I don't know why Nudge takes when I and Fang fight so personally. It sometimes feels like she's part of the relationship as well. All though, when we were, o, I don't remember maybe fifteen, she said that she was our cheerleader. What did she call us? FAX.

A week went past and Fang and I didn't talk. It hurt me more than I thought it would but, I knew I couldn't be with him anymore.

I had done something the night Fang and I talked that I had never done before, I cried myself to sleep. In the morning I had woken up with aching eyes, and mascara smudged into my pillow case, feeling utterly pathetic.

Have you made up your mind? Was it simply by chance that I woke up with that strange feeling in my stomach the day I found out about Fang? What about this. The next day I ran into Dylan at the coffee shop on the corner of my street and court up with him. Was that fate?

Nudge and I are sitting in my lounge room our work spread out over the coffee table when my phone rings for the third time in ten minutes.

"Just answer it." Nudge says in an irritated tone. We don't need to look at the caller I.D to know its Fang.

"It's easier this way." I say turning off my phone and tossing it on the couch on the other side of the coffee table. Nudge studies me for a minute. I try to continue with my work.

"Is this really it?" She asks looking genially sad.

"Yeah. I only miss him when he rings me. I can forget about him. I can learn to live without him."I say.

"Do you like Dylan?" She asks trying to smile.

"I mean... yeah, yes I do. He's sweet and really cares for me; he's not pushing me, like Fang does. He asked me out the other day and I told him I had only just broken with Fang that I need a little time. He's patient. Not as persistent. He's so different from Fang."

"And that's a good thing?" Nudge asks genuinely

"Yes." I nod my head, truly believing it.

"Then say yes to Dylan. If he makes you happy. All I want is for you to be happy." Nudge says wiping at her teary eyes.

"Then why are you crying?" I ask softly.

"You and Fang, I'll...just miss you two together, you're different with him." She says. I lean into her and put my head against her shoulder. She puts her hand against my cheek.

"Love you sister." She says with a little laugh.

I smile. "Love you too."

I hope this was better than the last chapter. And I hope this all made sense. And you can understand how Max is feeling, even though I don't think Max understands fully her own feelings herself.