Author's Note: So, I realized a few days ago that the birthdays I made up for them would make them both Scorpios which IYKYK is… scarily true to their dynamic lol.
TW: domestic violence
Max hated being at home.
Neil had always been an asshole, but ever since he'd injured his back at the factory last year and gone on disability benefits, he'd become completely insufferable. Plus she was pretty sure he was dangerously addicted to the painkillers the doctor had prescribed after the accident.
The reduced income hadn't been enough to keep the house, even with her mother picking up a job at the all-night truckstop diner, so they'd moved into a trailer at Forest Hills. It was a doublewide but it was still too cramped for the four of them to live comfortably.
The relationship between Billy and his father had steadily deteriorated until it reached irreparable levels of contention after Billy got caught shoplifting a cassette player from Radioshack last spring.
Max would never forget that day they came back from the police station. Neil had been apoplectic with rage, shouting and getting in Billy's face and shoving him until Billy had ended up punching him to get him to stop, dislocating his jaw in the process.
Apparently, Neil hadn't realized his son's obsessive weightlifting meant he could overpower him now. After that, his abuse was strictly verbal but just as relentless.
As a result, Billy spent as little time at home as possible, opting to crash with whichever girl he was fucking at the moment. Max didn't blame him. He didn't even have his own room, just the pullout couch in the living area shielded by a folding privacy screen.
It was a pretty shitty situation, and she almost felt bad for him—not that she missed hearing the laughably fake orgasmic screams coming from the girls he'd have in his bedroom, or cowering in her room in fear of getting in his way and pissing him off.
She was pretty sure that as soon as that high school diploma was in his hand he'd be jumping in his car and gunning it back to California without so much as a glance in the rearview mirror.
When Billy was gone, Neil redirected his ire towards her and her mom. Nothing they did was right—not the food they cooked, or the tone of voice they used, or the volume with which they closed the doors. It took everything in Max not to snap back at him, but she didn't dare risk provoking him and having him take it out on her mom.
She hadn't seen him put his hands on her, but he would yell and throw things and even punch the wall. With how unhinged he was becoming, Max felt it was only a matter of time. And there was still a full week of winter break left.
Sighing, she picked up her toothbrush and ran it under the tap. She could really use a good screw right now to take her mind off of everything.
But she wasn't about to call up Mike and ask him to hang out like a fucking date or something. That wasn't what they did. They didn't kiss outside of sex, they didn't cuddle afterwards—they just straightened themselves out and went their separate ways.
She frowned at her reflection and scrubbed hard at her molars. God, she was pathetic. Thirsting after stupid Mike Wheeler and his ridiculous bangs. And his veiny fucking hands.
He was such a know-it-all pain-in-the-ass and she couldn't stand him half the time and yet she still wanted to bang his brains out. There must be something clinically wrong with her.
Max wasn't even sure why she'd made a move on him in the first place.
Sure, she had been briefly attracted to him when they first met but his personality was so off-putting that any potential interest was dead on arrival. He was always such a moody little asshole back then.
But then, at the end of their freshman year, he'd started to look at her differently. He started to look at her the way Lucas looked at her, and she thought maybe his years-long obsession with the dead girl was finally fizzling out.
And that first time in Lance's wine cellar… it had been the end of the summer, and champagne had been fizzing through her bloodstream and it seemed weirdly like fate that they were both trapped in there, so she'd boldly decided to test that hypothesis. And honestly, what business did a boy have possessing a pair of pouty, enticingly kissable lips like that?
The kiss had been… electric. Breathtaking. It both terrified and thrilled her in equal amounts.
She'd half hoped it would be horrible so she could place him firmly into the "smug, insufferable dweeb" box instead of the "smug, insufferable dweeb who you kinda want to french" box. But no, she'd inexplicably enjoyed his clumsy hands and tentative tongue.
After her hasty escape from the basement, she'd felt like she was in a trance, her mind absolutely reeling from the fact that Mike "King of the Nerds" Wheeler had just kissed her. And grabbed her tit! And she'd liked it.
Max left the party without saying goodbye to anyone and skateboarded home, lips still tingling, thinking about the way his hands nearly spanned her entire waist. Just the memory of it had made a shiver physically run through her, as if she could feel the outline of his palms seared into her skin. That was when she knew she was in trouble.
Initially, she'd just done it to prove a point, but it became clear that she could easily become addicted. Which was why, when school started, she hadn't said a thing about it.
For the entire first week, she kept expecting him to pull her aside and discuss their feelings, or whatever it was overly emotional dorks like Mike Wheeler did, but it never happened. And she had assumed that had been the end of it.
Until his birthday.
Max hadn't been planning that one either. She told herself it was just because she was bored and horny and hadn't gotten any action since the summer, but… maybe there was some selfish, twisted part of her that just wanted to own a little piece of him; that wanted confirmation that despite all the eye-rolling and hostilities there was something real there and it wasn't all in her head.
Because she couldn't stop thinking about that goddamn kiss.
Well, that night in his basement had certainly verified it—there was something there. And although she hadn't finished that time, there had been definite potential. Potential that had been fulfilled in their subsequent hookups. Abundantly. He was… not small; certainly bigger than Shawn had been.
Shawn.
Max remembered the first time she saw him, getting out of his father's rusted old pickup truck. Floppy, dirty blond hair falling over his forehead, beat-up army surplus backpack slung over his shoulder, clad in a leather jacket even though it was eighty-two degrees out.
She'd just been coming home after a day at the pool with the boys. He'd lowered his sunglasses to give her a thorough once over that set her skin on fire and shot her a suave, devastating wink that nearly made her knees give out.
Later that night, when her mom was at work and Neil had washed his painkillers down with three beers and passed out on the sofa, Max had looked out the window and spotted the orange glow of a cigarette. She didn't know what came over her, but she went out and asked if she could bum one.
He was even more good looking up close, in that way that teetered on the edge of repulsive.
They'd ended up talking for hours… and then making out for several minutes until the headlights of her mom's car turned down the access road.
It became a near-nightly routine after that. She always tried to steer their encounters away from conversation and towards making out, because it turned out he was kind of pretentious—constantly ranting about "brainwashed pop culture sheep" and government mind control through music and television.
But he was so hot, Max didn't really care.
And then, one night a week later, when her mom and Neil had gone out to dinner and Billy was sleeping at Heather's again, she'd taken Shawn by the hand and pulled him into her trailer.
The first time had been fine, and it got better with each successive encounter. It was a comprehensive education, and she learned a lot about her own body and what she liked as well as what to do with boys.
When the end of July eventually came and it was time for him to go back to Milwaukee, she wasn't really torn up about it. It had been fun, but if she had to listen to his theory that Madonna was an agent of the Catholic church planted to encourage the youth towards religion one more time, Max was going to tear her hair out.
Mike was a different story.
There was a spark there that she hadn't even known had been missing with Shawn. It was like they just clicked on some primal, physical level. They shouldn't have worked, it shouldn't have been so natural, but it was. The push and pull was familiar, an organic evolution of their verbal sparring.
God, it was pure fucking combustion; like throwing a lit match on an oil spill.
He took instruction well, and he was kind of obsessive about making her come, and when she was with him she could let her mind go blank and forget all her insecurities.
With Shawn, her brain had been constantly running, worrying about whether her kissing was good enough or what she should be doing with her hands, sometimes even wandering back to whatever shit show was going on with her family when things got a little dull…
But with Mike, it was easy—so easy—to let herself go to that wild, frantic place in her head, where everything ran on instinct, where her nerves ignited and her muscles ached and she just did whatever felt good. And it felt so damn good.
Sex with Shawn had made her feel pretty and desirable and all that stuff. Sex with Mike made her feel powerful.
Their casual boning had quickly become a necessary part of her life. It really was excellent stress relief. Last week, when she'd been nervous before a presentation, she pulled him into the empty auditorium and shoved him to his knees in the prop closet. She had ended up getting her first-ever A in English Lit that day.
Occasionally—usually after they'd just parted ways, leaving each other with flushed faces and tousled hair, and the endorphins started wearing off—Max wondered what the end game of this thing they were doing would be.
She supposed eventually one of them would find someone they actually wanted to date and then it would just… be over. But she didn't like the weird, hollow feeling that idea created inside her, so she didn't let herself think about it.
There was no point in worrying about all that now, not when she was having this much fun.
Max rinsed out her mouth before leaning closer to the mirror to examine a fading red bruise that was dangerously high up on her neck, barely an inch below her jaw. She pressed her thumb against it until it hurt.
Mike's lips and teeth had felt amazing there in the moment but it was too easily spotted; she'd been forced to wear scarves and constricting turtlenecks all week. Next time she would have to remind him to keep all hickeys below the neck.
He was strangely fascinated with leaving marks on her. Probably some territorial caveman thing, she thought, smiling to herself and thinking of the ones dotting her inner thighs. Those ones were safe. Those ones wouldn't get them caught.
Last Monday had been a close call, the only other one they'd had since Dustin voiced his suspicions to Mike a couple weeks earlier—which he had irritatingly told her about by informing her she had to stop giving him "do me" eyes all the time.
"Mike gave you a ride home on Saturday, right?" Lucas had asked as they walked to her locker.
The three of them had been working on their final group project for History all afternoon. When it had been time to go she and Mike made a big show of grabbing the car keys and waving goodbye to Lucas as he walked off down the street before they snuck back around to the basement door.
"Um, yeah," Max replied as she spun her combination into the lock. It wasn't technically a lie. He had driven her home eventually.
"Because I called you around eight and your mom said you were still out…"
Her fingers slipped on the dial and she turned it past the last number, forcing her to start over. Shit.
The truth sat right on the tip of her tongue and for one wild second Max had the urge to just say, "Oh, that's because at eight o'clock I was busy getting railed on the floor of your best friend's disgusting basement, and I still have the rug burn on my elbows and knees to prove it."
Instead, she had swallowed it down and crafted some flimsy excuse about how she knew Neil would be watching the game at home so she'd gone to the library so she could focus. And sweet, trusting Lucas believed every word she'd said.
Now it was the day after Christmas, not that they even acknowledged the holidays in her cheerless household. Billy hadn't been home in days, her mom had picked up an extra shift at the diner, and Neil had sat on the couch, pounding beers and shouting at the football games on TV.
The sound of the front door opening and closing let her know her mother had just returned from work. Max opened the cabinet above the sink and reached for her hairbrush, but the recognizable cadence of angry raised voices on the other side of the door drew her attention away.
Frowning, she padded over and slowly opened it, peeking through the crack.
What she saw made her stomach plummet to the floor.
Neil had her mom backed against the wall, spit flying as he shouted in her face. "You're gonna look me in the eye and explain to me why the fuck your ex-husband has been writing to you!"
"He hasn't!" her mother insisted, her eyes round and pleading. "He's been writing to Maxine!"
"Then why were these hidden under our bed, huh?" Sheets of paper flew around the room and fluttered to the floor as Neil threw them. "Explain that!"
He slammed his palm against the wall next to Susan's head and she flinched, gasping in distress as he turned and stalked into their bedroom.
Horrified, Max was about to run to her when Neil came back out with his gun in his hand—a revolver that she knew he kept in a shoebox at the back of their closet.
He shoved it roughly under Susan's chin and she let out an anguished cry. "Are you fucking lying to me, you whore?"
"No, I– I promise, Neil, I'm not," she sobbed, shaking her head rapidly. "I never wrote him back, I just hid the letters from Max because I didn't want her to read them!"
Max didn't dare make a sound as she stood paralyzed in the doorway, one hand pressed to her mouth and the other gripping the doorknob so hard her fingers shook. What letters were they talking about? She didn't know there were letters…
Her heart was nearly galloping out of her chest. She knew she should do something—scream, run at him, anything—but it felt as if her feet were nailed to the floor.
Neil was breathing heavily, his eyes wide and manic with their pinpoint pupils, forehead vein bulging as he pressed the muzzle harder into his wife's chin. She squeezed her eyes shut and turned her head to the side in a futile effort to get further away.
Time seemed to come to a standstill, blood roaring in Max's ears and dread building in the pit of her stomach until finally, finally, he lowered the gun and took a step back.
But her relief was only temporary, because he held it up to his own temple, chuckling darkly as a slow, ugly grin spread over his face.
"Maybe I should pull the trigger, huh, sweetheart?" Neil taunted. "See how long you last without me and my disability cheques. How long it takes before you and the kid are out on the street."
Susan just whimpered and shook her head, hands reflexively reaching out to him but pausing in midair.
The seconds felt like minutes as they stood frozen in a standoff, their heavy breathing deafening in the otherwise silent home. Then he shoved the gun down the back of his jeans and stepped menacingly towards her again, jabbing his finger hard into her cheek.
"Don't fucking hide things from me again, Susie," he hissed before turning and storming out the door, slamming it behind him so hard it rattled the whole trailer.
A few seconds later they heard his truck roar to life before peeling off down the road. Susan let out a gasping sob as she slid down the wall, shaking and crying. Max sprang into action, striding into the living room and grabbing the phone from its hook.
"What are you doing?" her mother asked between ragged breaths.
"I'm calling the police," Max said as she started to dial.
"No, Maxine."
She looked up from the phone, bewildered. "But Mom–"
"Don't you dare. We don't need any more problems." Susan got to her feet and dusted herself off, an eerie mask of practiced indifference falling over her face. "It's fine, he was just upset. His back was hurting today. And it's my own damn fault anyway for keeping those letters from your no-good father, I should have just burned them as soon as they arrived."
She snatched the phone from Max's hand and hung it back up. "Now, I think I'm going to go lie down for a bit," she said, disappearing into her bedroom and shutting the door softly behind her.
Max stared disbelievingly at the door for a minute, contemplating whether she should disregard her mother and call the cops anyway. Then her gaze fell to the pages crumpled on the floor. She could make out her name at the top of each of them, scrawled in her dad's messy handwriting. There had to be at least a dozen of them, some dating back to last year.
With trembling hands, she knelt down and gathered them up, not sure if she even wanted to know what they said. She took them to her room and shoved them into the back of one of her dresser drawers before slamming it shut.
Still crouched on the carpeted floor, Max raked her nails over her scalp. Her breathing refused to calm down. It felt like she couldn't get enough air—like the wood-panelled walls were closing in on her. She stood and stalked out of the room. She needed to get out of there.
Without thinking, she grabbed her mom's car keys from the hook by the door and left. She didn't have her full license yet but she'd had some practice, enough to know the basics.
Fiddling blindly with the radio dial, she stopped when she landed on a station playing some guitar-heavy rock music and cranked the volume until it reverberated through her chest.
Her emotions were all over the place, swirling inside her like a category 5 hurricane as she accelerated recklessly down Kerley Drive. She rolled down the window, the cold air whipping her hair back and stinging her lungs with each shallow breath.
There was a part of her that was upset with her mother for keeping her dad's letters from her, and another part that was frustrated that she was just going to stand there and take Neil's abuse—angry and disappointed that she wasn't strong enough to leave such an awful human being. She had never been strong enough.
In a few hours, he'd come crawling back with a shitty bouquet of gas station flowers and empty apologies of I'm sorry, sweetheart and false promises of never again, and she would welcome him back with open arms.
But mostly Max was furious with Neil. He was a violent piece of shit and he deserved to be behind bars. She wished he had pulled the trigger on himself. She and her mom would have figured it out on their own like they always had.
Max slammed her palms hard against the steering wheel with a frustrated cry. Nothing about this was right. Nothing about this was fair.
She didn't even realize where she was driving to until she was flooring the brakes right in front of Mike's house. Killing the engine, she sat and looked across the cul-de-sac at the peaceful, festively decorated home which she was certain never saw violence or hurled abuse or firearms being waved around.
Why had she even come here? It was nearly midnight, everyone was probably asleep.
But then she saw that the light was on in one of the second-story windows.
The one with the yellow curtains.
