A/N: Hey guys, I know it's been over a week since my last update (maybe more), but I was being my usual gullible self and accidentally released a raging virus upon my computer all by clicking some stupid button. It put our computer on lockdown and we weren't able to get into anything, internet included. Which, unfortunately, meant no fanfictioning for me. :( We had to take it into some shop that took two or three days to fix it. It sucked balls, but it's all good now, so hopefully I will be able to do some lightning-speed typing and get this chapter done and posted, bitches!
OOOOOH! Guess what I did a few days ago! I went and saw My Chemical Romance live in concert. It was fucking awesome! I will never be the same!
Chapter 6: This Just In: Tension Building on the Homefront - Updates Soon To Come
Max's POV
"What's going on in here?" I managed to pry my watering, red, swollen eyes open just to see what was going on. Ella was standing, looking terrified, pressed up against her dresser. Mrs. Martinez was in the doorway, looking back and forth between me and Ella. "Well..." she said a bit awkwardly. "I see you two have met eachother."
The room was filled with a stunned silence. My eyes were now streaming hot, congealing tears and my fingers were stained with blue ink from the pepper spray. The blue coloring they put into it makes it easier to identify attackers. Unfortunately for people that are mistakenly sprayed, it's VERY hard to get off. Ella released herself from the dresser slightly and looked down at me in incredulousness, an expression of dawning realization coming onto her face. "Oh my God...please don't tell me...Are YOU Max?" She looked positively horrified. I rolled my burning eyes and climbed up off the carpeted ground.
"Yeah, nice to meet you, too." I grumbled. Mrs. Martinez was gaping at me.
"Oh my! What happened to you?" she asked, running forward and grabbing a box of tissues off of the dresser. She made a motion like she was going to reach out and start wiping the stains off my face, but I backed away quickly and grabbed the box for myself. I crammed handfuls of tissues against my cheeks, and they all came away stained blue. Oh great. Was I going to have to walk around for a week with my face the color of a Smurf? I cringed at the thought. I was already getting enough stares from people because of the remains of my bruises and cuts and such. This was the very last thing I needed.
I finally managed to respond to her question when my eyes stopped gushing forth their tears of pain. "Your daughter attacked me with pepper spray all over my face." I turned to glare at Ella. A look that could only be read as 'What the hell? You think this is my fault?' was flashed in my direction. "Why do you even have pepper spray! Who carries pepper spray any more!" I was close to furious. I'm shipped here by my idiot father, I get bashed by my half-sister before she even knows who the fuck I am, and then she burns my eyes out with pepper spray! This was officially the worst day of my life. And I could see many more worst-days-of-my-life looming in the near future.
"Um...this is Arizona. Do you know how many creepy rapist-perverts live out here? EVERYONE carries pepper spray." Ella defended herself promptly, making seriously annoying hand gestures as she talked.
"Okay...and you sprayed me why?" I knew she'd probably had a good reason to freak out, but I was in no mood to be rational.
"You crawled out from under my bed and started charging at me! Don't even try to tell me you wouldn't have beaten the crap out of anyone who'd done that to you!" Our voices had risen several decibles in the last minute or two, and we were now practically shouting at eachother. We hadn't been in a room together for ten minutes, and already we were fighting like one of us had stolen the other's boyfriend. I don't know about you, but I feel like Arizona just makes everyone angry all the time.
"Okay, girls...girls." Mrs. Martinez stepped in between us, for we had started to get in eachother's faces in rage. "This is all obviously a big misunderstanding." She turned to me. "Max, what on earth were you doing under Ella's bed?" Oh, so this was my fault now, was it? I hated being accused of random things. It was like living with my father all over again.
"I dropped my deoderant while I was unpacking and it skidded under the bed. I was just trying to get and she happened to walk in while I was under there." I bent down and picked up the deoderant as though to present evidence before the jury.
"Yeah, and then you climbed out from under there while I was on the phone, and started running towards me like you were some freaky serial killer!" Ella said, rather hysterically. Mrs. Martinez held up a silencing hand that seem to be directing both of us to calm down.
"Ella...take it easy. Now Max..." she turned to me, "I'm sure you didn't actually charge at her, but I'm sure it looked a bit intimidating. She had no idea you were here. I was on the phone when she got home and I didn't hear her come in." Ella immediately jumped in as soon as her mother's sentence was finished.
"Um...she most certainly charged at me. She came right up and grabbed me by the collar of my shirt. I don't even remember what she was going on about, but she was growling SOMETHING in my face." This was making me furious. Not only was she twisting everything that had happened so that it looked like I was the sole one to blame, she'd also failed to mention that she'd been slamming me on the phone for five minutes before I got angry enough to confront her about it. She was doing it discreetly so, but I could see her eyes flash in my direction whenever she changed something in the story. This was obviously her Give-Away. Years with my gang of so-called friends had taught me how to identify countless different Give-Aways.
They're things you do when you lie. Like some people twist their hair, others blink alot, and some fiddle with their hands. It depended on the person. We'd had to practice not having any Give-Aways so that we could lie easily when we needed to, and also so we could tell when someone was lying. Ella's just so happened to be glancing away when she was talking to you. "Okay, okay...That's enough." Mrs. Martinez said. "I think we all just need to calm down. I'm sure neither one of you meant to hurt the other. We all just overreacted, that's all." She patted her enraged daughter on the shoulder. I moved a couple steps back to make sure that I was safe from having her do the same thing to me. "Now..." She looked pleased with herself at having gotten the situation under control. Me and Ella were both still steaming, though, just silent for now.
"Now..." Mrs. Martinez continued, "Ella, why don't we let Max finish unpacking and you can come downstairs and grab a little something to eat, okay honey?" Ella turned sour eyes to her mother. She walked forwards to whisper in her ear, but I had always had keen hearing and could make out every word she was saying.
"Why is she even in here? I mean...shouldn't she be unpacking in the GUEST ROOM?" she was hissing. Mrs. Martinez glanced at me wearily, as though warning me of some oncoming danger. I took the hint and decided to vacate the premises.
"Umm...I'm gonna go downstairs and...look at...my...shoes." I made up a quick BRILLIANT excuse (Nice one, Max) and slipped out of the room, shutting the door. I stood there for a minute. There was a brief pause, and then the explosion.
"SHE'S WHAT? MOM, YOU'VE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!" I smirked a little. She needed to get shaken up a little. It could be highly beneficial for her. Obviously, she forgot to take her Midol or something this morning. She'll probably just yell at her mom for a few minutes, and the cry dramatically into a pillow with a bowl of double hot fudge chunk ice cream while lamenting her poor, miserable life. It's been documented in every teenage girl movie known to man. Though the voices behind Ella's door were a little bit quiter now, I could still hear her trying to resist the "torture" of having to room with "a total, creepy stranger" that "hides under her bed and eavesdrops on her telephone calls". Pshaw...what a cry baby. It was almost laughable. It actually would have been if I hadn't been faced with the fact that I'd have to live in the same room as her for the next however many days it took for the carpeting and plumbing to get fixed.
I scampered down the stairs, only to be greeted by an excited Total. "Hey, boy..." I said, bending over to scratch his ears. "How do you put up with such a psycho bitch for an owner?" I asked him in amazement. He just stared at me with his beady little eyes and stuck his bubblegum-pink tongue out. "Of course...it probably helps that you don't understand English." I stood up and walked into the living room, just looking around. That's when I stumbled across an array of pictures perched on the mantle of the fireplace. One was a picture of Mrs. Martinez, a younger (and much nicer looking) Ella, and a tall man with dark hair and green eyes. I could only assume that this was Ella's biological father. I wondered curiously what had happened to him, or where he was. The next pictures were various snapshots of Ella. There was one of her in a ballet uniform, posing with her soccer team, playing on the beach, and a couple of school ones. All the signs of an only child.
At the very end, however, was a small, decorative wooden box. I picked it up, flipped the top off and was greeted with my face scattered all over it. These were every school picture I had ever had taken since kindergarten. I shuffled through all my years of bad haircuts, missing teeth, and even the one year where you could still see those stitches on my forehead from a fall off of a bike. I had been a very active, rambunctious child. I felt a tiny smile creeping up on me, but quickly repressed it. This was no time to get nostalgic for my childhood. Those days were LONG gone by now, and I had far bigger things to be concerned with at the moment. Suddenly, there came the very loud noise of a door slamming upstairs, and a lightning fast pair of feet flew down the stairs. Then the front door was thrown violently open, and it, too, recieved an angry slam. Ella had obviously left the building.
I put the box back in it's little dust-free sphere on the mantle, and then walked out into the main hallway. Mrs. Martinez was coming down the stairs, a drained look on her face. She smiled at me apologetically. "I'm sorry about that," she said, "She's usually so much more mild mannered. Really quiet around the house, actually. She must've just had a rough day at school or something. You seem to have given her quite the scare." She chuckled briefly, trying to make light of the awkward situation. "She'll be back for dinner." Though Mrs. Martinez looked less sure of this statement than she'd like to be. I stretched agilely, kind of in the mood to get out of the house as well.
"I er...know I just got here and stuff, but I'd probably like to take a walk around the neighborhood. You know...just to check it out and stuff." I waited for the suspicion. For the questions and the peculiar eyes. But all I got in response was a nod of the head and a reminder that they usually ate dinner around six o' clock-ish. I stared at her retreating form in disbelief. When I had said I was going out of the house for a little while back home, my prying father would ask question after question to try to squeeze out of me what I was planning to do, even if I was honestly just walking down to the gas station to grab an ice cream sandwich. It was always 'Where are you going?', 'Why are you going there?', 'Who are you going with?". And then once I had answered all those inquiries, he would eye me with distrust and say, 'Okay, Max...where are you REALLY going?'.
Sure, there had been a few times where I had been less than honest with him about where I was headed off to, but I hardly deserved such an interrogation every time I set foot outside of my door. But here, it was just...'Okay, no problem. Just be back before dinner.' I felt like laughing. Jeb was sending me here so that I would stay OUT of trouble. I'd bet you a hundred bucks he had no idea how much easier it was here, even then back home. I sighed, delighted at finding a way I had cheated my father. What a noob.
I had just turned to walk out the door when Mrs. Martinez called back to me. "Umm, Max? Before you go? You MIGHT wanna wash that blue stuff of of your face." I threw my hand up to my face. Shit! It's a good thing she caught that. Otherwise, I'd be walking down the street and people would start running in the opposite direction. Fucking pepper spray. Fucking annoying half-sister.
As it turned out, though, Sierra Vista, Arizona really didn't seem like there was any trouble to GET INTO. There was a couple blocks of residential housing, most of them with little kids fooling around in the front yard, and then there was the main parts of town. I'd managed to scope out a map that was posted on the front door of the 'Welcome Center' and was now looking it over. It looked like a rather barren land filled with a wide array of gas stations, a post office, police and fire departments, a tiny-ass library, and a singular strip mall. I also noticed the high school I would be going to. It was labeled on the map: Buena High School. I groaned. Why, oh why, couldn't this have been one of those weird, creepy little towns where the children don't go to school, but they make ritual animal sacrifices in the night. Anything to get me out of having to go to school.
School was one of my least favorite things on this planet Earth, right up there with the TLC station on TV, and gossip magazines. (Oh, and right now, Sierra Vista, Arizona.) But yeah...school was bad. Probably because I'd never really made any real friends, my grades were less than admirable, and every teacher I had hated my guts. I leaned my head against the cool glass of the door. I had a throbbing headache, and try as I might, it had been impossible to get every trace of the blue ink off of my face. The skin around my nose and eyes had a faint tinge to it, but I could see perfectly fine, thank Ghandi. I let my weight sink into the door, and was just getting into a comfortable position when some ass hole thought it would be A-Okay to go ahead and open the door.
They pushed it open so forcefully, I felt myself tip backwards, and before I could do anything, I was scraping my elbows on the sidewalk, dazed and confused. Ugh...my sheer exauhstion had prevented my ninja-like reflexes from kicking in. I was so tired that I just continued to lie on the sidewalk, staring up a the blue sky, my eyes squinted against the fading sunlight. The person who had opened the door would understandably be a little confused. I heard there footsteps come up next to me. "Sorry, I didn't see you there." was what a male voice mumbled from above me and to my left. I turned my head, and was greeted with a sight that seemed rather like something out of a movie. He was tall, dark and handsome, and he was outlined in the dying sunlight. Yes...that kind of movie. He was at least 6'2" with olive skin, and black hair. Even in this light, I could see that his eyes were dark and full of personality. The rest of his face gave away no emotion, but his eyes conveyed confusion. "Umm...are you okay?" he asked in a quiet, but strong voice.
I sighed. "Yeah, I'm just having a REALLY shitty day." He cocked an eyebrow. Obviously, this sort of thing did not happen often.
"Well, okay then...See you around." And just like that, he walked away. Didn't even offer to help me up. I sat bolt upright and watched him walk down the sidewalk. He was clad all in black; I'm sure he must have been dying in the heat from the sun. I looked back at the Welcome Center and wondered what a guy like him had been doing in a place like that. Perhaps he worked here. I looked back to catch another glance, but he had dissappeared around the corner. I shook my head as though to clear it. My stomach was growling, and my elbows were now searing from being scraped. Jeese, I had really been getting knocked around lately. If I wasn't careful, I'd probably end up getting killed from somebody taking out the garbage or something.
I picked myself up, dusted myself off and started to make my way back to Mrs. Martinez's house, trying unsuccessfully to get that guy out of my head. He seemed almost...dangerous. Risky. And as you all know, this is one girl who just can't seem to stay out of trouble.
When I let myself into the house, I was blasted with the smell of Mexican food, and hot drifts of air coming from the kitchen. My eyes watered a bit, probably in response to their memory of the pepper spray, but I powered through it and headed in the direction it was coming from. Mrs. Martinez was dumping piles of some sort of rice dish onto plates. Ella was already seated sullenly at the table. She glared daggers at me when I stepped into the room. Mrs. Martinez looked up and smiled. "Oh, good, you're just in time. I just wanted to use the last bit of rice in my cupboard before I went shopping. I hope you like traditional Mexican food. It's one of the staples down here."
I eyed up the rice she was moving to the table and decided it looked suitable enough to eat. "Yeah, I guess so..." I said blandly, watching as she shuffled around the kitchen grabbing napkins and glasses of milk to lay the table out with. Then she sat down next to Ella and looked up expectantly at me. I continued to stand awkwardly where I was, not exactly sure what to do.
"Well, are you going to sit down, or what?" Mrs. Martinez grinned. I cleared my throat and ambled over to the last remaining seat at the table where I sat stiffly, staring at them. They all began to dig in, and started helping themselves to the bowl of corn that was in the center of the table. I stared down at my own food and picked at it tentatively with my fork. I was starving, so I decided to take a chance and stuffed a forkful in my mouth. It was actually quite good, so I began to chow down. I glanced up from time to time to catch Ella cringing at me in disgust while she ate with a purposeful daintiness as though to show she was more civilized then I was. I scowled and tried to divert my thoughts to other things. By now, the food was starting to get a little bit spicy. I looked around for a water source and saw that the pitcher was perched dauntingly right next to Ella at her end of the table.
Yeah right...Like I would ask HER for anything. I tried to ignore the spice. "So..." Mrs. Martinez piped up, "How was your walk?" I assumed she was talking to me because Ella wasn't answering, so I gave a quick little response, remembering the guy in black momentarily. He had slipped my mind for a little while, but now I was wondering about him again.
"Alright, I guess. The town is...um..." I didn't quite want to say 'ridiculously small and hickish', but I couldn't think of a nicer way to say it.
"You know you don't have to sugar-coat anything." Ella suddenly said, a note of menace in her voice although it was at an appropriate level. "We're not stupid. We all know anybody that comes here thinks this town is some weird farm village with strangely religious hicks that don't bathe. You can just say it already." She looked at me with flashing eyes, almost daring me to agree.
"That's enough, Ella." Mrs. Martinez said with finality.
"Well, you know it's true!"
"All I was going to say was compact." I lied quickly, feeling that my temper was flaring up a little bit. Ella rolled her eyes, and I clenched my fist around my fork. Mrs. Martinez caught sight of this and moved in quickly to cool off the situation.
"I made chocolate chip cookies earlier today, Ella. Max already had some. The batch turned out pretty good, if you want some." However, her daughter did not respond, she just sat back in her chair and folded her arms, her food for the most part untouched. I took another forcefull bite of my food and coughed slightly. I had just gotten a particularily spiced section. "Do you want some water?" Mrs. Martinez offered. I nodded, my eyes watery. "Ella, can you pass me the water jug?" She did so grudgingly and with a woe-is-me look. For Christ's sake! All she had to do was lift the fucking pitcher like three inches off the table and move her arm in the direction of Mrs. Martinez. She was acting like we were asking her to piggyback me up the stairs of the Eiffle Tower.
After I had refreshed myself, I decided to show Ella just how respectful I could be and told Mrs. Martinez that I had really enjoyed the food. She beamed at me. "Why thankyou, Max. I'm glad you liked it." she said. She didn't hear, but I saw Ella mouth the words 'kiss-up'. Then Mrs. Martinez snapped her fingers. "Oh! That's what I should do tomorrow!" She got up from the table and grabbed a pad of paper off the counter. "I absolutely HAVE to go grocery shopping tomorrow. There is ZERO food in this house." She scribbled something and then looked up at me. "Max, you can come with me tomorrow while Ella's at school, and help me pick out some stuff you like to have around to eat." With no warning, Ella slammed her silverwear down on the table and stood up, stalking away to leave.
"Ella? What's wrong?" Mrs. Martinez said in shock. Ella spun around, her dark brown hair whipping her shoulders as she did so.
"What's wrong? She JUST got here today, and she's practically taking over the house! First she moves into my room, then she insults our town, and now she gets to go pick out OUR food?" I was extremely offended. I, too, rose to my feet, jumping at the chance to put her in her place after what she had said about me earlier.
"Excuse me, WHAT IS YOUR PROBLEM?" I said loudly. It may seem a bit over the top that I was yelling at someone in their own house, but trust me...I have no shame in calling someone out no matter where I am. I could be in the middle of a sacred tribal ceremony somewhere, and I would yell at anyone who had the nerve to talk smack about me.
"What's my problem? Well, right about now, it's you." I advanced towards her skinny form with all intentions of beating the shit out of her, before I thought better of it. I REALLY did not want to be kicked out of the house into the barren streets of a middle-of-nowhere town in Arizona. I managed to stop myself before fists flew.
"Listen..." I said, practically growling, "I don't know why you think you can talk to me like that, but I'm older than you. I'm sorry that your damn toilet broke and spewed sewer water all over the floor of the room I was supposed to stay in! I'm sorry that this town IS smaller and more rural than my old town! And I am SOOOO sorry that I need to eat! But I think you're just gonna have to suck it up for a little bit, because I have nowhere else to go! In case you didn't know, my son-of-a-bitch father kicked me out of my own house and shipped me off to live here. Believe me, I'm not anymore thrilled to be here than you are to have me." I was huffing and puffing now with pent up rage. This was no longer just about a bitchy half-sister. This was about the whole situation in general.
Ella stared at me, wide eyed, for a moment before letting out a shriek of self-pity and walking angrily out the room and (I presumed from the thunking of feet up stairs) to her room. Or should I say...OUR room. I stood where I was for a minute, trying to calm myself. Then I turned around. Mrs. Martinez was leaning against the counter, looking at the floor. I was confused until I saw the tears on her cheeks. Uh oh. What had I said? I tried to think of something before realizing that I had just admitted (in a VERY loud, angry voice) that I had no desire whatsoever to be here. Implying, at least to her, that I didn't want to live WITH HER.
"No...Mrs. Martinez, that's not what I meant. That came out wrong. I-" She cut me off.
"It's okay, Max. I understand." She looked up at me with a halfhearted, watery smile. "I-Um...we can go shopping tomorrow if you're up for it. There's cookies in the fridge if you want something. I'll see what I can do about Ella, but you might wanna stay down here for now." There was a moment of awkward silence between us, but then she left the room. A strange feeling that I knew little of, and didn't have a name for came over me. She had given me everything I had need. Food, shelter, respect, a caring atmosphere. She had cooked for me, she drove many miles to pick me up from the airport, she made arrangements for a sleeping spot for me. She had been nothing but nice to me this whole time, and I had shown her only ungreatfulness. I had taken everything for granted, and shown hardly any true appreciation. I had answered every genuinely-interested question with monosyllabic, depressing phrases.
And yet...even after I had plainly stated that I had no want to live here at all, she was still trying to make my stay as comfortable as possible. I couldn't possibly understand why anyone would do that for anybody. And that's when I was able to put a name to that foreing feeling that had come surging through me. Guilt.
A/N: Tadah! All finished. I hope you enjoyed. I felt like the story was getting a little repetitive and boring, so I tried to spice it up a little bit without making it over-dramatic. It should pick up in the next chapter when she meets everybody and starts going to school and stuff. Please review. I would LOVE to hear what you have to say. :D I know it's rather short, but bear with me. I've been busy lately. I greatly appreciate your patience, as always, and would love dearly to send you all muffin baskets, but I am poor as fuck, so don't get any ideas.