Chapter 12-Max P.O.V.

I bolted upright, surveying the room around me with my head pounding. Drawn shades casting the room into a dim light and I was curled up under a grey blanket with...deer on it? I pulled my hair back away from my face and back into a messy ponytail.

Where was my hat? I must have lost it when Maya kicked me. I traced my split bottom lip and dangled my legs over the side of Nick, no, Fangs bed. His bed was low to the ground with no headboard and navy blue sheets. A couch in a raised alcove in the far right of the room, a t.v. across from it and a black steel mini fridge next to it. I stood, my legs feeling weak under me, and I was relieved that I still had all my clothes on.

This was a bad, bad, bad idea. I had practically clung onto him, and he probably had the wrong idea about me now. that I had forgiven him or something ridiculous. But I couldn't deny that it wasn't exactly horrible, being carried around by him. And he hadn't been mean to me in around a month, but he hadn't exactly been nice either, excluding today. And I had enjoyed it, being carried around and babied, playing with his dog and sleeping on his abnormally good-smelling bed.

I stood up, able to wiggle my toes without them feeling all fuzzy now. But what was I going to do about Maya, and about my mom. She was probably going to kill me, but she could never know why. Jesus, she didn't really know anything about me, nothing about how horrible I really was.

I walked around the end of the bed, and carefully opened a door, finding Fangs bathroom. I flicked on the lights, everything dark blue and dark wood. I went to the bathroom and washed my hands, wiping around my eyes to get rid of any remnants of sleep and tears from earlier today, my split lip still in tact. I wiped my face on a black towel hanging from a ring mounted on the wall next to the sink, trying not to cringe at my reflection in the mirror. I half wanted to sing "Who is that girl I see" from Mulan, but I didn't.

I crept back into Fangs room, taking a sweep around the room to make sure that he hadn't come in. I took the time to look around the dim room, the shades drawn. Everything was either grey or navy blue, and in the far right corner was a raised alcove with a television and a couch, a black guitar sat on a stand and a black case lay on the ground next to it. I didn't touch anything, and just walked around the perimeter of the room.

Clothes littered the floor, along with books and paper. Fang had books everywhere, but no bookcase, and his glass desk was almost overrun with the different colors and sizes of books, his laptop balances haphazardly on top of a pile. Subconsciously, my eyebrows furrowed, I couldn't pin Fang as the book type, especially as I flipped through his piles of books, complicated subjects like anatomy, physiology, and anatomy. But scattered among them were mythology books, murder mysteries, and a few chapter books.

His leather jacket was thrown into a chair, and the door was left ajar. I gently pushed the door open, and it silently swung forward. I looked down the long end of the hall, it looked almost grey and uninhabited. Sort of like you would expect a house to look like in a zombie movie, so quiet and still like no one else lived here but Fang. Where were his parents? Surely he had them, his house was huge and he had fresh food and still went to school.

I shuddered and turned away from the hall, the pressing feeling that a zombie was going to amble lazily out of one of the half open doors. I tiptoed down the metal stairs, which were ridiculously modern and cold under my sock feet. The muted sounds of the television downstairs wafted up the stairs, and I froze in place. Fang was watching Top Gear, a show I had heard my sister whine to her friends about. I had watched it a few times, but didn't usually watch much because I didn't like to go out of my room when my mom or sister were home.

I peeked around the wall that separated the front hall from the living room, seeing Fang stretched out on the couch, facing away from me with only the back of his head showing. I tried to sneak out of Fangs house, and got to the front hall where my shoes were tipped over. I tugged my hoodie sleeves lower on my hands and leaned down the pull on my left shoe, but slammed my head into the wall.

"Max?" Fang is watching me over the back of the couch. My face heating up, I rubbed at my hairline where I whacked into the wall.

"Are you leaving?" he asked, his face slowly setting in stone, just like it used to when he got angry. I looked down at my feet, too afraid to move fast, in fear that if I moved too fast I would upset him. I looked back down at my feet, one shoe on, the other lying on its side. My eyes flicked back up for a second, to see fang grip his mouth together, his jaw so tight the muscles in his jaw and neck rippled as he gripped them tightly together.

"I'm not really helping my cause by being here." I told him, as calmly as I could, with his dark eyes digging into mine. He didn't say anything, and just continued to watch me. The T.V. people in the background began to yell, and I just kept talking nervously when he didn't reply to me.

"I mean, you know why Maya hates me so much, don't you? Its because of something I did, or something that I can't change. Whatever I did to keep out from under her feet didn't help me one bit." Fang just flinched, and I fiddled with the strings on my hood.

"Its because you don't care about her." Then the realization dawned on me, why he was the one who pulled me off Maya, why he hadn't pushed or verbally threw me around in so long. I had to make him stop, because if he kept up with what he was doing, we would both be totally screwed.

"She hates me because you care about me more than her." His eyes dropped, his black fringe hanging down to hide his eyes, and my stomach dropped. he had just confirmed everything I had said without uttering a single word.

"Why me?" I practically whispered, suddenly unable to find air. I was the plain Martinez sister, completely average in every way. Plain face, shapeless body, my hair was always tangly and wasn't long or cut in a cute style. I probably looked dingy in Fangs all white and glass house.

He turned off the television and stood up, from the waist up he seemed to slump forward, his hair still hiding his face. He folded his arms tightly to his chest as he turned to face me, the feeling of dread bubbling up in my stomach again. Instead of a harsh glare, he looked vulnerable, his eyes slightly wider and face blank, and I blinked, a little shocked.

"Because you never fought back."