A/N: Hey there. Sorry for the long break between this chapter and the last. I know it bugs me when people take forever to update their stories, but over the years of writing for this site, I've learned that I was greatly misinformed. We authors have lives outside of fanfiction. We have school, or work, and friends, and family. We get sick, we have sports practices, we get abducted by child molesters. (Okay, I was partially kidding about that last one, but hey...it could happen) Anyways...I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'm sorry I took so long, but I'm also hoping you understand that it's not that I don't want to write. I've just been so busy lately. I kid you not, we had four school projects due last week, I have volleyball practice twice a week. I don't mean to rattle off excuses, but I just wanted to let you know that it's not pure laziness that kept me from writing... It's only partly laziness. :D
Chapter 2: The All-American Nightmare
Max's POV
I stole quietly up my cement driveway, careful to make sure that my sneakers didn't echo too loudly off of the pavement. My house looked like every other house on the block. A two-story square block of rafters and paneling. Painted a dull tan color and covered uniformly in little green-shuttered windows. Our lawn was in mint condition; bright green and shiny, with cute little garden gnomes strategically placed to give the vegetation that "special little touch" you hear about in Home and Garden magazines. A small set of cement stairs, bordered with bleach white railing, led up to our crimson door with a 'Welcome' mat laid down in front of it where everyone wiped the shit off of their shoes. The other houses were all pretty much exact copies, in varying shades of pastel blah. Welcome to suburbia, bitches.
I squeezed the handle of the door tentatively, praying that by some miracle, this would be the one night Jeb forgot to lock it. I felt the little knob give way and let out a sigh of relief. I wouldn't have to climb in my window tonight. I pushed the door open, revealing a gray blackness behind it. I slipped in and shut it behind me, not hardly daring to breathe too loudly. The house was in complete darkness and silence. Tonight must be my lucky night. As I tiptoed down the dark hallway, I could still feel the heavy weight of the taaffeite necklace in my pocket. I slipped my cold fingers into the cavern and felt the smooth gems and the thin, silvery chains.
Why had that old geezer dumped it on me anyways? What use did I have with these hunks of rocks on a chain? I never wore jewelry, I had no one to give it to...I wasn't exactly in a money crisis at the moment. My so called "father" was doing okay in that department on account of his working non-stop at some high-end science lab clear out of town. That's the reason why he's always gone. It's been like this ever since I could remember. After our dear second mummy ran off and ditched us, we moved out here and became carbon-copy americans living in a quaint little house, eating our beef cutlet and mashed potato frozen dinners, and vaccuming our natural synthetic carpet in high heels. Haha...yeah, I wish.
No, our whole family fell apart. Jeb's gone 24/7, Ari, my little brother, hardly speaks to us. I mean...we haven't eaten dinner together in more than a year. Speaking of dinner...all this complaining about my shitty-ass life was making me hungry. I hadn't eaten anything in the last several hours and now my stomach was grumbling for something to satiate it. I snuck to the kitchen, quiet as a mouse, and scampered to the refridgerator. When I threw the door open, a pale, cool light poured out into the darkness, illuminating the food. I licked my lips and reached for a styrofoam box on the top shelf where the contents of last night's chinese takeout awaited. Kung Pao chicken...here I come!
But just as my hands wrapped around the box, the light in the kitchen was flicked on. I whirled around in such a start that I banged into the open refridgerator door behind me and caused several bottles and jars to tumble to the hardwood floor. "Jeb! You scared the sh-You really scared me..." I said, breathing heavily as some pickle juice from one of the jars seeped into my sneakers. My father was standing by the light switch, wrapped securely in a dark blue robe, a stern expression on his face that looked none too happy. I licked my dry lips and quickly bent down to pick up the wreckage. He didn't say anything for a long time while I reassembled the jars sloppily into place. When I turned back around to face him, he was still wearing the same expression. "Well, I'm just gonna heat up some food and then head off to bed." I reached for the styrofoam box again, this time hurriedly.
"Maximum Ride...where have you been?" The words came out stone cold to match his face. I rolled my eyes. He always had to know what I was doing. It was so annoying. He treated me like I was a little kid that might get lost. Or forget to hold someone's hand when I crossed the street. I didn't know how to make him understand that I was fifteen now, not five.
"Nowhere." I said as civily as I could manage. My answer had obviously done no good, for he continued to glower at me like I was a dog that had rolled in mud and just trecked it into the house. I stared right back, but when he didn't say anything, I grabbed the box of Chinese and started to head upstairs, not caring that it was stone cold as long as I avoided another lecture.
"Max, I don't know what to do with you anymore!" Jeb called after me as I ran up the stairs, probably smudging dirt on the carpet. "Something is going to be done about your behavior. I will not tolerate any-" But the rest of what he was saying was cut off as I closed the door on his scolding voice. I breathed a sigh of relief and leaned against my door. Another disaster avoided. At least for now... I kicked off my sneakers and shimmied out of grass-stained, ripped jeans, letting it all fall to the floor in a collective pile. I tossed my shirt ontop of it, trying to ignore the silver glint that poked through some of the layers of fabric. I almost wanted to forget about the necklace. I didn't want the burden. But I picked it up anyways and dusted it off a little to clear it of the lint from my pocket.
"Ugh...it even smells like money..." I said exasperatedly as that distintcly "expensive" scent filled my nostrils. I rolled it over and over in my calloused hands, rope burned from climbing the fence earlier. And I thought. I laid it out on my bed and stared at it for nearly five minutes, just thinking about what to do with it. I could turn it over to the cops and say I found it. But that would only lead to questioning and investigation, and with my record...that would not be a good thing. I could give it to a random stranger anonymously. Leave it on their front porch in a little package that said 'Happy Birthday' on it. Make them feel special for a little bit. But it didn't seem worth the trouble. That's what's so dangerous about all these ridiculously expensive things. You pick it up for just a second, and suddenly feel attached to it. You feel possesive of it, and you don't want anybody else to touch it but you.
I set it on my dresser and watched it while I ate, not even really noticing the flavor of my food. Then I moved it so it sat on my unused desk littered with wrappers from last year's Halloween candy and unfinished school assignments due four months ago. I hung it from my door handle, I put it in a drawer, on top of my hamper, under the bed. But no matter where I put it, it still looked the same. Shiny, expensive, dangerous. It was going to drive me insane. Finally, after staring at it for so long it became a bit of a smudge in my vision, I swept over to pick it up off the floor and shuffled down the hall to the upstairs bathroom. All the lights in my brother's room were turned off, and the soft sound of snores could be heard from the inside.
I flung open the door to the bathroom, flicked on the lights and ran to the toilet. Flipping the lid up, I stared into the chilly water in the basin and dangled the necklace above it. "Move your finger muscles to release, Max..." I thought to myself, but I didn't move. "Any day now, Max." No matter what I did, I could not seem to drop the necklace to flush it down the toilet. Damn these rich people and their fancy jewelry. I slammed the toilet lid shut and stalked back to my room, slightly put out with myself at not being able to get rid of the stupid thing. I took one last look at it and then burried it under a stack of unread magazines in the bottom drawer of my desk. I would worry about it another day.
The next morning when I came downstairs, Jeb was sitting at our kitchen table, talking hurriedly into the phone and scribbling something on a pad of paper. I listened to what he was saying while I poured myself a bowl of cereal. "Yes, yes..." he said, talking in a mild whisper, like he was afraid that someone might hear. "I just don't know what else to do. I think this would be the best plan." There was a long pause where the person on the other line said something unintelligible. It was only a faint humming noise, not distinctly male or female, but I was leaning towards female. I'd always had particularily good hearing. "Alright, thank you. I'll call you later. Yup...bye."
And he hung up the phone and continued to write something onto the pad of paper. My eyesight was unusually good as well, but I couldn't make out his untidy scrawl from this far away, and I didn't risk going any closer. I stuck a spoon into my practically overflowing bowl of Cocoa Pebbles, and started to eat, watching him suspiciously. Finally, he put down the pen and got up with a loud sigh, turning and acting as though he'd only just seen me, though I must have been in the room for a minute or two by now. "Oh, Max...you're up early." was all he said. I glanced at the clock. It was 10:30 already. I rose my eyebrows, but said nothing. While I continued to eat, Jeb cleared his throat nervously several times. I kept waiting for him to say something, but he seemed to be putting it off. Finally, he left the room without saying a word.
When I heard his feet thunking safely up the stairs, I hurried to the phone he had left on the table and checked the history of the calls. I knew immediately that I had found the one I was looking for, because the area code wasn't local. I'm not even sure it was in our state. It was a 520 number. No...defintely not anything I had ever seen. I stared at the tiny number on the phone screen, and then hit the redial button, trying to swallow a particularily large bite of my cereal. The tones beeped in my ear while the call connected. A click sounded on the other line and a woman picked up. "Hello?" I pressed the 'End Call' button quickly, wondering why my father would be calling a strange woman in possibly another state entirely.
But...something about her voice didn't sound so unfamiliar. It was quick and sharp, with just a slightly hispanic ring to it. But it was soft at the same time. I was trying to place a picture to the voice when Ari came down into the kitchen. I dropped the phone back onto the table and backed away from it the way you would act if you had been caught snooping in somebody else's medicine cabinet. Ari just stared at me. He'd been doing alot of that lately. Just staring at us, but not bothering to really respond when we talked to him. He was growing more distant by the day. I didn't see any point in saying good morning only to get a grunt in return, so I dumped my bowl of cereal in the sink and headed up the stairs.
Jeb was on and off of the phone for the remainder of the day. Pacing back and forth in the kitchen, or wandering up to his bedroom and locking the door. Each phone call was brief, lasting no more than five to ten minutes, but they were frequent. Every now and then, he'd put the phone down and run off somewhere, and I would peak at the history of calls. Some of the numbers were different; local, or at least some that I recognized the area code on. But that 520 number kept showing up, taunting me with its unsolved mystery. I started to debate about asking Jeb about it, but I preferred to keep the talking between us at a minimal amount, if possible.
So I puzzled over his strange behavior for most of the morning, and then went on a long walk after lunch. All this suspicious activity had nearly driven all thoughts of the necklace from my mind, but not completely. It still lurked in the background of my thoughts. It's like no matter where I was, I was conscious that it was still hidden in the bottom drawer of my unused desk. Occasionally, unnecessary worries would crop up in my mind. Like...what if this was the one day Jeb decided to clean out my desk? Or...what if the house blew up, and it was lost in the blaze? Or the cops randomly decided to search our house? I knew they were all irrational fears, but it was gnawing at my thoughts. I ended up running home just to check and see if it was still safely hidden away. Of course, it was exactly where I had shoved it the night before.
I studied it in my hands for a little bit, when there came a sudden knock on my door. I jumped, startled, and shoved it back into the drawer and threw myself backwards onto my bed in a desperate attempt to look casual. I ended up missing and smashing my back into a corner of the frame. A sharp pain shot up my spine and I was suddenly on the floor, covered by blankets which I had tried to grab to break my fall. "Come in..." I moaned quietly from under the pile. I heard the door slide open, but didn't bother to move. What was the point?
"Max?" So Jeb had come to see me now, huh? Maybe he was about to tell me why the hell he was calling across the country just to talk to some random lady. I threw the blankets off of myself and sat up, ignoring my backache. Though I tried not to show it, I was extremely interested in what he was about to say. I could feel my fists clenching, wondering what it could be, but knowing it had to be something big or extravagant. "Umm...I'm going to run to the store and pick up some lasagna for dinner. You'll be home alone with Ari. I just wanted to let you know." I stared at him with a blank expression. Seriously?
"That's it?" I asked in a dull voice, feeling extremely dissappointed. He spends all day on the phone secretively, and then he pretends like nothing happened and runs to pick up a friggen lasagna? What the hell is this? He looked slightly perplexed.
"Umm...yeah. Why?" he said slowly. I had to restrain myself from facepalming. I was a very curious person by nature, but I knew Jeb well enough to know that if I asked him directly about it, he'd shut up like a clam and never talk about it. I had to wait for him to let something slip, and then I would attack. So I just sighed and flopped back down onto the ground, covering my face with the blankets again.
"Nevermind...I'll just be under here if you need me." I said, rather irritated with the whole ordeal. I waited for the sound of my door to open and close, but it didn't come. I peeked out from under the covers and saw that Jeb was still standing right in front of me, staring down at the lump of purple blanket that was my body. "What?" It came out sounding more bitter than I meant it to, but it would sound stupid if I changed my tone all the sudden.
"I-I think we should eat dinner tonight. You know...as a family." He said this like he had just announced that he thought the family should move halfway across the country or something. Like he was afraid of what my reaction might be. I rose my eyebrows, but didn't move. Was this the big bombshell? Maybe he'd been trying to get family therapy or something. Maybe the lady was giving him advice over the phone. Like one of those Pregnant-and-Scared hotlines. Except...in this case, it would be Single-Father-and-Scared hotline. And here I go, thinking random shit again. I shook my head.
"Ummm...okay..." I was a little slow on the uptake. Dinner was usually a pre-programmed, automatic affair. Just something that occurred when one of us got hungry. Ari would grab a bunch of random stuff from the cupboard and take it all up to his room to eat it. I would graze about the kitchen and snack on whatever I could find, heating up any leftovers we had, or ordering takeout if I could scrounge up the money. And Jeb would get home late and make himself something simple like a sandwich which he would eat while in his downstairs office, typing away on his little computer, and talking to men on the phone with names like Mr. Smith and Mike Jones. The boring, stereotypical office-type names. And now all the sudden he wanted to go all Brady-Bunch on us and cook us lasagna? Yeah...okay...the apocalypse is coming.
Jeb stared at me for a few more seconds and then abruptly exited the room to go purchase his pasta dishes and such. My head hurt, so I flopped back into place and burried myself once again.
I didn't remember falling asleep. But all the sudden, there was loud knocking on my door. I woke up half-asleep and ran frantically to it, imagining the SWAT team on the other side, ready to bust in and take the necklace. "No, I don't have it! I swear, I don't know what you're looking for!" I cried, flinging the door open. A confused Ari stood on the other side, holding out the phone to me. I cleared my throat, and grabbed it from him. He disappeared like a good little boy without a word. "Hullo?" I said gruffly into the reciever.
"You left your stuff at The Meeting House last night. Your extra clothes and things." said the person on the other end. It took me a minute to comprehend what they were saying. And then it clicked into place as I managed to shake the last of my sleepiness off.
"Caden?"
"No...it's Oprah!" he said sarcastically. I coughed from my dry throat and sat down on the bed. "So, what...you faking sick now?" I was extremely confused.
"What are you-Oh shit! We were supposed to have a meeting tonight, weren't we?" I slapped my palm to my forehead in dismay. This was just NOT my week. Sean would for sure kill me. I glanced at my clock. It was nearing 6:00 p.m. I'd been out for almost four hours.
"Somebody give the lady a prize." Caden joked. "But seriously, Sean said he wanted to talk to you about something. If you don't get over here soon, he's gonna piss his pants or something." I felt my heart jump a little bit. And not in that mushy way they talk about in romance movies. The kind where you feel like you're about to barf with nervousness. I felt my palms clam up a little bit. He knew, didn't he? He must've found out. Why else would he want to talk to me. My eyes darted to the drawer where the necklace was. My heart was hammering. I didn't know why I was freaking out about it. I mean...I didn't have any use for it. But all I knew was that I wanted to keep it away from them. Something somewhere in the back of my mind kept thinking about what the old man said about putting it to better use. And I don't think selling it on the Black Market was what he had in mind.
"Why does he wanna talk?" I asked suspiciously.
"Why does it matter? He's mad, and he wants you over here. I don't see what more I need to say." He chuckled a bit at the end. I knew I couldn't go to the meeting. I needed a good excuse, and what better than that I was just going to be a stubborn bitch.
"Well Sean can just go ahead and lift my nuts for all I care, 'cause I don't really give a shit what he wants me to do. In fact, I'm not even going to come now if all he's gonna do is bitch me out." There was a moment of silence on the phone.
"Ummm...sorry I didn't tell you before, but I have you on speaker phone on my cell. And Sean's in the room." I sighed. Well that just figures.
"I'm just going to hang up now." And I pressed the 'End Call' button and threw the phone onto the floor. Why did my life have to be so complicated? And then my name was being called from downstairs.
"Max!" Jeb hollared from somewhere at the bottom of the steps, "The lasagna's done! We're going to eat dinner." That was the first time I'd heard him say anything like that in about half a century. I groaned heavily and heaved myself off my bed, dragging my feet out my door, down the stairs, and into the kitchen. Ari was seated at the table, looking off into the distance with a blank expression, and Jeb was walking towards the table with a hot pan of lasagna clutched in two, flowered oven mits. He'd kept them from his first divorce, though why, I wasn't sure. I cocked an eyebrow at the uncharacteristic scene occurring before me. It looked like some sort of desperate soap opera where they'd run out of interesting, realistic things to do, so they have someone choke on a diamond wedding ring that was accidentally baked into the food. Jeb grinned at me, looking a little strained, and set the pasta down on the table. "There you are. I hope you're hungry, 'cause I think I ended up cooking a bit more than we needed." He let out a dry, awkward chuckle.
Indeed, our table was cluttered with probably unnecessary food. Along with the lasagna, there was garlic bread, steamed vegetables, fresh fruit salad, and a plate of storebought mini-cupcakes. This could only mean one thing...Somebody had died. The last time Jeb cooked anything, it was because our grandma (who we saw like...twice a year) had passed away. I wondered who it would be this time. And if they had left us any money. I plopped down in my seat, and watched quietly as Jeb passed out the food. When he was finally finished, he held his hands out and spoke. "Shall we say grace?" Neither me nor Ari said or did anything but stare at his hands. After a moment, he cleared his throat. "Okay then...apparently not." And he picked up his silverware and started to eat. I poked at my lasagna, and checked under the layers for diamond rings, just to be safe. Not detecting anything rare or valuable, I shrugged and put a forkful into my mouth.
It was a little rubbery, but I continued to chew it, pretending like everything was peachy. The room was filled with awkward silence and the sound of forks chinking against the plates. Every now and then, you could hear the sound of someone crunching on a piece of garlic bread or wiping their greasy fingers on a napkin. I mostly kept my eyes cast on my plate to keep from accidentally getting caught staring at someone. And then Jeb finally broke the silence. "So Max...your birthday's coming up soon. Is there anything you want?" Me and Ari exchanged a brief glance and both of us paused with our forks halfway to our mouths. I noticed that Ari had practically eaten nothing. He was probably full on all the junk he'd brought up to his room earlier. I cleared my throat, which was burning slightly from the acidity of the tomato sauce.
"Ummm...yeah, if you'd say that seven months away is 'pretty soon'." I said pointedly. I couldn't believe he'd forgotten his own daughter's birthday. Way to fail at life, Jeb. He looked extremely confused and then turned bright red and looked down at his plate, pushing a limp noodle around with his fork.
"Er...of course, I don't know how I forgot." He chuckled nervously. I raised my eyebrows. He looked back up again. "So, how's school going?" His nonchalance finally pushed me over the edge.
"Okay...can we just drop the facade, here?" I blurted rather angrily, glaring at him. He looked puzzled, but I could tell he knew that I knew something, and it really pissed me off. "You act weird all day, and then you buy us some dinner and act like nothing even happened. And you ask random, pointless questions just to avoid the subject. So if you've got something to tell us, can you just go ahead and do it already. Otherwise, I have plenty of other things I'd rather be doing than this." There was complete silence. Then he calmly set his knife and fork down and ran his hands through his hair.
'Well, Max, I'm not really sure what you're talking about, but I'm kind of hurt. Can't I just ask my daughter how her day was without being verbally attacked?" This last evasion really struck a nerve in me. I threw my fork down onto my plate, scattering some soggy green beans onto the place mat.
"Bullshit!" I yelled, standing up. "You're lying!" Jeb suddenly looked enraged and rose to his feet as well, his fists clenched into balls at his sides, his face glowing red.
"Maximum Ride, you WILL NOT use that sort of vulgar language under my roof!" he boomed. Under his roof? I felt like I was in a dramatic made-for-tv movie.
"What? Bullshit?" I prodded, now in the mood for picking a fight. "Grow up, Jeb, this isn't church. Am I not allowed to express my feelings now? Does that not mix with our perfect little American pie lifestyle?" I knew I could only be getting myself into trouble, but it had been awhile since I'd given it to him like it was. He needed to wake up and realize that I wasn't a nun, I was a teenager. And an angry one to boot. His face swelled with rage and turned a deeper red color than before. There might as well have been steam pouring from his ears. Ari was sitting timidly in his chair, just staring up at both of us with a look of blank exasperation on his face.
"Ari, go up to your-!"
"I know, Dad..." Ari interrupted Jeb's command and set his fork down solemnly, his food untouched. He started to trudge sulkily up to his little hidey-hole of a room, and I watched his retreating back. His little shoulders slumped forward in dismay, I swallowed a little lump of guilt that had built up in my throat, and then forgot about it. My father sucked in a shuddery breath to calm himself, and his face faded in color a little bit. His fists loosened up slightly as he sank into a chair, but there was still and angry glint in his eyes. His head in his hands, he started to talk in a distraught voice.
"Max, like it or not, I'm your father. I won't take this kind of disrespect. As long as you live in my house, you will follow my rules, regardless of what those hooligans you hang out with say." I swelled with rage. Sure, I knew my friends were troublemakers sometimes, but what right did he have to call it out? He'd never even met them before.
"Hooligans? Dad...they're teenagers. And you don't even know HALF of the story!" He looked up from the table finally.
"I don't know the half of it, huh? Well, the one half I do know is enough to convince me that you are setting yourself up on the wrong path. Phone calls from the police every other week. You've broken a window, trespassed on someone's property, shoplifted a portable radio from a drug store. What comes next, Max? Robbing banks? Gun fights in mall parking lots? I've seen enough of the youth in this world get involved in gangs to know what happens." I could have spat in his face, I was so angry.
"No, Jeb...what you've seen is five or six episodes of CSI New York, and Boyz N' the Hood on tv last month. This is a small town, not the alleyways of New York City or something." People think that once they watch a couple tv specials about something, suddenly they're experts. They know everything there is to know, they know what it feels like, what it means, why it happens. God, are people STUPID sometimes! "I'm sorry I couldn't be the perfect little girl you wanted, okay!" I continued, unleashing a WHOLE bunch of rage I'd been keeping pent up for the last several weeks. "I'm sorry I don't sit at home in a dress and do the dishes, and my homework, and curl my hair, and whatever the hell else it is your expecting me to do." Jeb shook his head fervently.
"Max, I'm not asking you to be anything you're not. I just want you to behave." He plead with me pathetically. Like I was a dog that would sit on command and roll over if he so much as flicked his hand. I barred my teeth.
"God, you don't give me ANY independence at all! You always have to know where I am, what I'm doing! What do you want me to do? Send you a text every time I take a step?"
"You live in my house, and as long as that is true, you will abide by my rules. Because I AM IN CHARGE!" Jeb bellowed at the top of his lungs. I groaned in rage and shoved a bowl of vegetables onto the ground. It shattered on the hardwood, sending bits of green bean flying across the room and the juice started seeping onto the floor. I ignored Jeb's stunned expression. Usually, no matter how angry I got, I was never violent. At least not to inanimate objects.
"Fine! Then you know what? I might as well just move out! 'Cause I'm fucking sick of this family, of this town, of this...EVERYTHING!" I knew I was throwing quite a temper-tantrum, but frankly...I didn't really care at this point. I expected Jeb to blow up. Firstly, because I'd just dropped the F-bomb, but I also because I'd just confirmed what I suspected he feared most. That our entire family was falling apart at the seams. Just going to shit. I think he'd been trying his hardest to pretend that it was just a rough patch. A phase that everyone would work through in the end. But instead of blowing up, he looked eerily calm. I, on the other, was breathing heavily.
"Yes...you are." Was all he said. I stared at him in utter confusion. His sentence seemed totally out of place with what I had just said, or rather...screamed.
"Wh-What are you talking about?" I huffed, releasing my tense posture slightly. All this exertion channeling into fury was really fraying my nerves. I felt shaky.
"You are moving out of this house, Maximum. Three days from now, to be exact." I was stunned. What did he mean, I was moving out? Was this all some joke? Some distraction tactic he was using to calm me down?
"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" I demanded bitterly, my eyes narrowing.
"It means...I'm sending you to live with your mother in Arizona, Max. I just don't know what to with you any more. I just don't know what to do..."
A/N: Well, I figured that was a pretty good spot to end it. I know it's not very long, but the next chapter should be jam packed. Sorry again for the long wait, but I started writing this story at a bit of a busy time, and I didn't have a chance to get everything laid ou the way I would've liked to. I plan on doing that within the next day or so, 'cause we have off school for Thanksgiving break. Thank you for being so patient. Review and tell me what you though. My schedual should be a little less hectic, so I'll do my very best to start posting regularily. Love you guys!