The Runaways – Chapter 36

By MyNameIsCAL

-Fang's POV-

School started up again too soon. Max was left to keeping me distracted from the pain now that it was often just the two of us with Iggy. I would be done with rehab soon, but it was hard not to feel held back still, Max watching my every step as if I were a little kid. Walking with crutches felt demeaning almost.

I sat on a bench watching Iggy and Max. They stood in front of the tombstones of his parents. He liked to come once every other week, mostly to lay down new flowers. Sometimes he came with Nudge, and Max and I would sit and watch him, but he said he didn't want to burden her, and so usually we were the ones to take him.

Max was walking back towards me now. She sat, taking my hand.

"What're you thinking about?" she asked me.

"My mother," I said quietly. "I haven't visited her grave."

We sat in silence. There wasn't much to be said. My mother's death hadn't surprised me. In fact, maybe it was a relief I didn't have to worry about her, or my father, anymore.

Max didn't say anything, and I didn't want her to. I didn't want to discuss my mother or the pain I was in. I didn't want her to tell me things were going to be okay because I knew they would be, and the reassurance made me feel weak.

She rested her head on my shoulder instead, and I drew my arm around her. Iggy was laying flowers down now, fresh from the store down the street from Max's house. He stood there for a while, and I knew he was blaming himself. Running through all the scenarios in which he might have been able to save them. I wondered if he regretted any of this. He had everything I had envied. A family, friends, people who accepted him, and he had thrown it away to help Nudge and Gazzy and Angel.

I realized I would never be able to relate, that I had nothing to lose, that I would have thrown it all away even if it meant I ended up alone in the end.

Iggy turned to us now, walking slowly.

"I'm so sorry, Ig." The words left my mouth without much thought.

He took a seat next to me. "I've known you long enough that I've heard many of your apologies, Fang, and in a lot of ways, I'm sorry too, but we can't change what's happened, so maybe, you know, it's better this way, the way things turned out."

We sat there for a while without saying anything after that.

-Max's POV-

I no longer knew what day it was. The hours, the minutes, the seconds, well, they didn't matter much to me anymore. The school year was halfway over now, and a year since we first ran away was approaching. Time was going by too fast almost, and yet, I was glad to see we were keeping afloat.

Nudge was doing great in school, despite all the complaining she did about teachers and other peers. She did a lot of volunteering to raise money for lots of causes, including drug prevention and local charities. Her talking kept Iggy on his toes too, but the way those two could strike up a conversation made me smile. For hours, Nudge could just sit and describe her entire day to Iggy, and he'd listen. Sometimes they'd sit outside, and she'd describe the sunset for him, or whatever he wanted to hear. Iggy always had his jokes though, and they were good for each other like that.

Gazzy, unfortunately, struggled with his grades. Fang and Nudge managed to pull some patience together to help him, although I had a feeling Fang was sitting there and just doing homework for Gazzy. He looked out for Angel though, and the two of them stuck together a lot. As strong as he wanted to be, there were nights I'd hear him crying, days he would come back from school, Angel being the only one to rouse him from letting things get him down. I tried my best to hold things together for all of them, but even now there were days that were still hard.

Angel, on the other hand, excelled at whatever she did. Once she found the motivation and determination, she'd get whatever she wanted to do done. Unlike Gazzy or Fang, and sometimes even Iggy, I didn't worry about her. In fact, a lot of the time I found her worrying about me. She'd always ask if I was okay, or how things were going. Sometimes I just wanted to give her a big hug.

As for Fang, well, he seemed to be having better days now, walking with only one crutch now. In fact, I thought he was pretty content with that. We kept ourselves busy with running errands for Mom during the day, helping Iggy with dinner, our late nights up talking about nothing and everything.

"You know, one day, when everyone can finally take care of themselves, we should get our own place." Fang said out of the blue one night. "Or maybe after we finally find some more direction to where we're going."

"Yeah, somewhere peaceful," I added.

He let out a laugh. "Yeah, definitely."

"You think Nudge and Iggy will stick together once she heads off to college? I mean, I know that's not for another two years now, but…"

"I think Iggy would chase her halfway across the world, even if it meant narrowly missing getting it by a few cars," Fang answered. "It's good to see he's found a new best friend."

I pulled Fang's arm around me, settling against him. "We've come a long way, huh?"

"Oh yeah, totally." He kissed me softly on the cheek. "Goodnight, Max."

I closed my eyes, smiling. "Goodnight, Fang."

We're going to fastforward some more in the next chapter. I can't quite decide how I want to end this, which is why updates are taking a while to come. Originally I didn't really want to post it, seeing as it doesn't have much direction except to show the passing of time, but I figured hey, what the heck, I wrote it and there's no point in not posting it. Not like I'm being graded or anything, so figured I'd give you something to tide you over til the next update.

Anyway, stay tuned and thank you!