Chapter 16 - Fang P.O.V.
"You want to go with me to formal?" Lisa slid into her seat next to me in English, pushing her chest against my arm. I lay my head down on the table and sighed.
"Not really. I'm thinking of not going." She gasped sharply and gripped my shoulder hard with her acrylic fingernails.
"You have too! Maya and Omega, Dylan is probably going with some cheerleader, Brigid and Sam have been hooking up..." She whispered under her breath, "Ella hasn't shared who she's going with even though I wish she would go with Theo...And now you should go with me! Its like math!" I sat back in my chair and gave her a sideways look.
"No." Maya dropped her bag onto the floor and the other side of Lisa, who turned in her chair to face Maya.
"Nick says he won't go to formal." She whined, and Maya gave me an aggravated sideways glance. I looked away and rolled my eyes. Crossing paths with Maya would be a death wish right now. After her fight a month ago with Max, people were starting to warm up to her sister, and reject Maya.
"Just go Nick." I huffed and leaned on my elbows.
"No." I replied almost instantly, and Mayas head whipped to the side, a sharp glare on her face. I puffed out my cheeks and didn't argue as the rest of the class filled in. I knew that I would end up going with Lisa, and it would probably just do me better to not argue. Maya continued to stare at the side of my face out of the corner with a weird look, not disdain and not quite admirance.
Mr. Davis quieted down the class and started talking about the reading from last night, even though I wasn't really listening I stared blankly at the front of the room. All I could think about was Max. Since her fight with Maya, she had been a hot topic for the past few days, everything from her newly exposed hair to whatever she was wearing that day was news. Max had literally gone from a ghost to one of the most admired girls in school, all because of how she took down Maya. And how she totally rejects me.
I sighed soundlessly and dropped my head into my arms, the inside of my grey drop dead sweatshirt still fuzzy on the inside. Max was totally impossible, and so cute...ugh, she just wouldn't leave my head. I nestled deeper into the sleeves of my sweatshirt, a small paper bouncing off the back of my head. I lifted my neck and searched around for whoever threw the paper at me, Mayas eyes flickering towards me for a split second. I searched for the tightly folded paper that had landed towards the spine of sci-fiction textbook, and unfolded it to read Mayas bubbly pink writing.
"Plz take Lissa?" She had written in cursive, a heart dotting the I on Lissa's name. I borrowed Jacks black pen from next to me and scribbled back a response.
"Why?" I tossed the note back to her when Mr. Davis was writing on the board and she snatched it out of the air, her face placid. Her eyebrows scrunched momentarily as she scanned my answer, before hastily scribbling down another answer and tossed the crumpled note back to me.
"Please Nick? Its not death by fire or anything." Wrong, death by fire was much more fun than having to go with Lissa. Mayas phone buzzed quietly on the corner of her textbook, and I watched out of the corner of my eye as her jaw tightened and she tore out another corner of a sheet of paper and scribbled something down on it and slid it across her table to Lissa, who snatched it up and unfolded it, her eyes narrowing as she scanned the creased paper. Lissa jotted something down and passed it back to Maya, who unfolded it and scanned it, tucking it into her pencil case and leaning back in her chair with a smug look on her face. Something was definitely about to go down.
"Max!" I called, watching her backpack mix with the sea of people going to lunch. She turned, her blonde hair floating around her shoulders where it wasn't under her grey hat. She spotted me above the crowd, and waited, the crowd moving around her instead of pushing her around. I caught up with her, and she shot me a small smile. She probably still didn't like me, but tolerated me while I stuck around. After football season had ended, the opinions of the other members of my team became less and less important to me.
Ahead, Maya put her bag into her locker, and kept her eyes on me as I waited for Max to put away her backpack, and slammed it harder than necessary and walking down the hallway with her arm linked with Ellas. I let out a silent huff of air and looked down at Max who had already started making her way towards the lunchroom, probably to look for Iggy. She didn't react to my presence, and just walked, facing straight forward. It was too cold now for her and her friends to eat outside in the grass, and they had taken up a table at the back of the lunchroom.
Iggy spotted up and waved me over, and I took a chair next to him, Max going to get her lunch.
"Fangles! My magical friend, Ella told me about this morning." I frowned and dropped my peanut butter sandwich on the table next to my apple, and Nudge leaned forward with a sly smile on her face.
"I didn't do anything." I said, and Nudge just grinned at me from where she was sitting between Angel and Gazzy.
"As if, Nicholas." Nudge half shouted, and Angel stuffed a handful of Cheetos into Nudge's mouth to keep her from talking.
"You're going to formal with Lissa. Apparently this is a big deal." Angel deadpanned, fiddling with the straw on her juice box. Iggy laughed at his sister, and a tray was set on the table beside me.
"It is if you're hot, or find enjoyment in getting totally ghost-faced and contracting herpes in one night." Max slid into her chair and tied her hair up into a ponytail. Iggy and Gazzy both howled in laughter, and Nudge just giggled. Angel looked confused.
"Why would anyone enjoy that." She asked, and Max shrugged and took a bite out of her pepperoni pizza.
"Ask Nick." max said, mouth full, and Angel turned her eyes to me.
"Is she serious." I asked Iggy, when he had calmed down.
"Probably. I recommend just shutting up." He said, occupying himself with cutting his apple into slices. Frustrated, I ripped my sandwich in half and squished one of them under my fist.
"Well, I'm going to formal with someone too." Angel said, shaking her bowl of soup and peeling the lid off. Iggy pretended to be blown back like a bomb was detonated.
"Who asked you?" He asked, eyes wide, and she grinned a devious grin.
"I'm going with Gazzy. We're going to wear lobster costumes." She said, and Max dropped her forehead into the table and Gazzy jerked his head up.
"Since when?" He sputtered, and Iggy just smiled at his sister and ate an apple slice.
"That would be totally weird. Considering we already got you a dress. Would you wear the lobster costume over it, or would you be a lobster in a dress? No offense, but either way would be weird. How would you even do your hair for something like that? Have you worn lobster costumes before?" Nudge continued on, but Angel didn't even seem to hear her.
"Nudge. She probably wasn't serious." Gazzy interjected, and she shut up and jabbed an elbow into Angel's side. Max picked up her head and balanced on her chin, bending her plastic straw into sections.
"Hey!"
"Why would you even say that if you weren't serious! I was genuinely trying to think of a way to make a lobster costume cute!" Angel grinned and Nudge huffed.
"You are all crazy people."
"I love you, Nudge." Max grinned at her, her mouth full of pizza again, and Nudge just laid her head down on her arms. Without saying anything, Max got up from her seat and dumped her tray and left, Nudge picking up her head to watch her leave. I crushed the last of my sandwich under my fist, and put it back in the bag, not hungry anymore.
"Way to scare her off Nudge." Iggy said to her, and she stuck her tongue out at him.
"I didn't scare her, she was probably so repulsed by Gazzys smell that she was forced to leave our presence!" She accused, and Gazzy shook his head.
"I do not smell!"
"Oh yeah? When was the last time you showered?" Nudge asked, and Gazzy just gaped.
"I can't believe we're twins." Angel murmured, arranging her animal crackers on her lunchbox. I gathered up my apple core and leftover sandwich and left the table after saying bye to Iggy, and went to see if I could find Max. Despite the halls being almost completely void of students, Max was hard to find when she didn't want to be.
I got my backpack from my locker and wandered past the english classroom to see if she was there, and past the art room, and eventually made my way to the library. No one ever used the library unless they needed a book for a report, but other than that, it was almost abandoned most of the time, to the point where we only had a part time librarian. I walked silently past a few kids with their faces hidden behind books, keeping my eyes peeled for Max's hat and wavy hair. I wandered past the isles of unused books, and heard a faint laugh from the back of the library, and made my way towards it, keeping my footsteps light.
I came around a corner, spotting Max and...
I bolted around a stack of books and leaned my head against the bookshelf. What was she doing with Dylan? I peered through a gap in the books, a small crack just wide enough for me to see them, but not so that they could see me. He was sitting close to her, one arm over the back of her chair, and she was peering over an open book, one hand in her loose hair, and lips moving in silent explanation.
I ground my jaw as he leaned his head closer to hers, fingertips brushing her shoulder and eyes wide as he peered down at the where Max was pointing at the page. I turned away, resisting the urge to jump out behind the bookshelves and carry her away over my shoulder. I hurried out of the library, driving my toe into the leg of a table and startling all two of the kids around me studying.
What was she doing with him? He'd never talked about her before, or expressed any kind of interest in her. I ran a hand through the front of my hair and shoved my shoulder into the door and being swallowed up by the river of students now in the hall.