Secrets // Steve Harrington

Chapter Thirty-Two - Max

Word Count: 2,368 words. 

Warnings: None. 

"So..." I began, glancing over at the young girl in the seat beside me. She stared silently out of the window. "...what do you like to do?"

I was trying to be friendly. Max Mayfield seemed like a nice girl, although a little odd in her attitude, something that I was all too familiar with. She didn't seem to want the conversation, sending a rather dismissive look my way.

I nodded slowly, flexing my hands on the steering wheel as I watched the road ahead. There had to be some way to get her to talk. I hated many things in my life, many people as well, but of those things, silence was surely one of them.

"Do you like Billy?" Max asked suddenly, giving me the opportunity I had been trying to find to strike up a conversation. It wasn't the topic I had particularly wanted, but at least the girl was talking to me.

"He's... something," I replied.

Max scoffed. "He's an asshole."

"At times, yes," I agreed. I would have been an idiot not to notice the issues he had with his temper and an even bigger idiot to ignore his large, blinding ego.

"You're different," she added, now looking at me. "You do know you're not the only girl he brings home, right?"

I scoffed. "I sure hope I'm not. Attachments are not my forte."

Turning the corner, I locked my lips, noticing the intrigued expression the red-headed girl was sending me.

"You're actually using him," she realised. "You weren't just giving me that crap so that I didn't bug you about it."

I cast her a glance. "Does that bother you?" I posed.

"No," she dismissed. "It's just usually the girls he brings around are all obsessed with him and completely certain that he's in love with them, not that he does anything to tell them that he isn't."

"That's just most girls in Hawkins," I explained. "It's a small-minded town. Find a man even slightly worth your time, drag him into you and then marry him after graduation."

"Is that your plan?" Max asked.

"Fuck no," I cursed. "If a man ever wants to marry me, they must be running from something worse."

Max smirked. "Why do you say that?"

I took a breath. "They call me Mad Munson around here, a shitty nickname if you ask me. I've got a dead mom, a dad that abandoned me and I live in a trailer with my brother because we're pretty goddamn poor. Not to mention my crippling mental issues." I muttered the last part, a bare whisper that I knew she heard anyway. 

Mayfield nodded slowly. "You should just marry rich. You're pretty enough for it."

"Thanks Max," I responded, gesturing to my face, "but this is all just make-up. No beauty under here."

A small silence settled over the two of us as she turned to look out the window again. "My dad used to call me Mad Max," she muttered .

Forehead creased, I let out a short laugh. "You're the girl that beat the boys record," I realised.

"The boys?" she returned, gazing facing me again.

"The ones your stepbrother just tried to run over," I explained, careful to address Billy in the right way that it didn't offend her. "They're my boys."