MONDAY. 25. OCTOBER. 21. (unedited!!!)
COLE was leaning against the wall when Max was leaving his session with Wren. The second that he stepped foot outside her office, closing the door with a firm click behind him, Cole pushed himself up and began sauntering down the hall with him.
"What's up?" Max asked blankly, observing the left wall while Cole walked on his right.
"Thought I'd come meet you so that we could go to lunch together," he shrugged, hands in the pockets of his jacket.
"That's it?" He asked, pushing open the doors into the main school hallway, grateful that other students were busy pouring out of classrooms and heading to meet their friends.
"No," Cole replied, his gaze burning into Max as they walked. "I figured it would be less awkward for everyone if we had this conversation alone."
"We couldn't meet after school?" Max scoffed, scanning the hallway for any sign of a familiar face; anyone who could successfully prevent the conversation that he was about to be roped into.
"No, we couldn't," Cole replied, "because you wouldn't have come."
"That's not true."
"I don't want to argue with you, Max," he huffed, massaging his forehead, halting besides Max when they stopped at his locker.
"We're not arguing," Max told him, opening his locker.
"We're about to," Cole laughed dryly. "Every conversation we have lately is an argument."
"Then maybe we shouldn't have this conversation so we can save the trouble," he retorted, taking a textbook out of his locker and shoving it inside his backpack, intentionally avoiding Cole's stare.
"We're having this conversation," Cole scoffed.
"Fine," Max shrugged, looking at him for the first time in the conversation. "Talk then."
Anything he was about to say appeared to escape him, the words disappearing on his tongue, tangling in his throat. His hesitance was palpable, his silence broken by the slamming of Max's locker.
"Good talk," he muttered, pulling his backpack strap further up his shoulder and sinking into the ocean of students.
"Max," Cole began, hand grasping his arm tightly and pulling him back. There was an awful pause before he spoke. "Are we cool?"
They hadn't talked to each other since Friday night. A handful of times, Cole had messaged him and attempted to call him to apologise and explain himself, but he'd gone ignored and, by Saturday night, had given up trying.
It wasn't that Max was trying to be difficult or wanted to make him feel bad, not even the fieriest sparks flickering from the flame burning inside him wanted that. His ignorance of Cole's attempted apologies wasn't motivated by spite or malice or anything like it.
He was worried, if anything. He was worried that the real confrontation— when it happened— would differ too greatly from the illusionary ones that existed in his head. He was tired of it, too. It wore him out, thinking about confronting his problems, thinking about dealing with them head on.
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Cause for Concern ✓
Teen Fiction[BXB / unedited ] Saying that Max Oran is a disaster would be an understatement: he got himself kicked out of school, his dad has sent him to live with his emotionally distant mother and his friends don't want anything to do with him. When Max start...
