LONELY TOGETHER - max mayfield

2. "Half a sandwich?"

MONDAY MORNINGS were always the worst. School wasn't too bad, it was just the waking up early that got to Jax. At a little after 7:30am his father came raging into his room, muttering swear words under his breath. The boy barely had enough time to jump awake and rub his eyes, acting as if he had been up for longer than 30 seconds.

"Im up! Im up." Jax groaned as his bedroom door swung open.

"Yeah, you better be. 15 minutes and you're in that car or I'm leaving. I got places to be, you hear me?" James looked expectantly at his son.

"Yeah, I hear you." Jaxon replied.

"What?"

"Yes, sir." He corrected.

James exited the room, not caring to close to door behind him. Jax groaned, pulling himself out of bed. He pulled on his oversized jeans and a white shirt. He opened his window and noticed it was a little chilly, so he put on a red long sleeve button up, doing only the bottom two buttons.

After brushing his teeth and fixing his hair, Jax slipped on his blue low new varsity vans and looked at his watch. It read 7:49am. He quickly grabbed an apple from his kitchen counter and raced out the door, running over to the passenger side and jumping in. "I'm not late! I'm not late." Jax panted.

"Damn near close to it. I told you not to go out last night. Don't expect a ride home." James spoke sternly.

They rode to school in silence, no exchanging a goodbye when Jax got out. He wore a frown until a blue camaro with a california plate pulled into the parking lot. Once they parked, an older boy with a blonde mullet and jean on jean came out of the driver side, smoking a a cigarette. From the passenger side, a young girl with ginger hair and an almost matching outfit to Jax's. She set down her skateboard and road right past him, also with no goodbye to who Jaxon assumed was her older brother. The boys eyes followed Max as she rode, respectfully of course, until he looked back over at the blonde, who gave him a glare. Jax gulped uncomfortably, turning to walk into the school.

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Will Byers opened his locker, unexpectedly to find a picture of him in the newspaper, with his eyes X'd out and "ZOMBIE BOY" written on it. He looked around, to see anyone who couldve possibly put it in there. As he was looking, Jax came over to the shorter boy and wrapped his arm around him.

"Hey, Spengler! You excited for tommorow?" Jaxon beamed, before noticing Will's upset face. "Will, whats wrong?"

Will scrunched up the paper, but Jax snatched it before he could dispose of it. "Who the hell did this?"

"I- I don't know.. it's okay, though. It's just a joke, Jax." Will tried to take it from his hands, as the taller boy looked around, trying to spot a certain someone. "Troy! Hey!" Jax spoke up, waking angrily to him.

"What do you want, freak?" Troy scoffed.

"Why would you do this?" Jax held up the newspaper in Troy's face, who simply laughed. "Its not funny, you prick!" Jax shoved Troy by his shoulders,

"Don't fucking touch me!" Troy shoved him back. As they continued to get each others face, Troy managed to get a good hit in on Jax"s eye, which only made him angrier. He fixed his hand into a hammer fist and swung into Troy's stomach, making him double over. They were both pull apart by teachers and told to go to their first period. Jax picked up his bag and slung it over his shoulder, walking over to Will. "C'mon, lets go."

As they walked together, Will kept glancing up at Jax's eye, worried for his friend. "Y'know that was stupid. Your dad's gonna be mad."

"Yeah, well- he doesn't give me much different, so." He shrugged, letting Will walk into Mr. Clarke's room first. He sat two seats infront of Jax, who sat one seat to the right of the back window.

"Meet the human brain. I know, I know it doesn't look like much. A little gross even, but consider this: there are a hundred billion cells inside of this miracle of evolution. A hundred. billion." Mr Clarke, Dustin, Lucas and Mike seemed to be the only one interested in the lesson, as everyone else was either dozing off or purely ignoring him.

As Mr Clarke was about to continue, the principal walked in with the same girl that Jaxon had seen this morning. "Ah, this must be our new student."

"Yep, she's all yours."

The redhead tried to speed-walk to the empty seat.

"Ah- hold up. You dont get away that easy. C'mon don't be shy." Mr Clarke stopped her, bringing her up to the front. "Dustin, drum roll." The curly headed boy closed his book and began the roll.

"Class, please welcome all the way from sunny California. The latest passenger to join us on our curiosity voyage, Maxine!"

She looked up at him, then to the floor. "Its- Max."

"I'm sorry."

"Nobody calls me Maxine. Its Max."

Lucas and Dustin looked over to each other. "MadMax." They whispered in unison.

"Well, all aboard Max! You can sit in the back there, next to Jaxon. Or- Jax." Max happily left the front of the class, taking a seat. They party, minus Jax all watched and stared at her. Sure, he snuck a few glances, but he wasn't weird about it.

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Lucas, Dustin, Mike and Will were all behind the chain-link fence, watching Max skate. They had to admit - she was pretty good. Mike though, seemed to be a hater. Jaxon was too busy sitting on the steps eating his lunch. It was actually from Johnathan, as Joyce likes to make sure he's properly fed. She went to highschool with James, so she knows what its like at the Grazer household. Max decided to sit on the steps to take a break.

"Y'know, you're pretty good." Jax spoke up.

Max looked up at him for a second. "Thanks."

"I heard theres a top score at the arcade with your name on it. Is it true?" He grabbed his bag with a sandwich in it, his granola bar, and his bottle of water and scooted down a few steps to sit next to her.

"That depends, whats in it for me?"

"Half a sandwich? Its PB&J."

"Deal."

Jax handed over one of the cut triangles of his sandwich. He also set the bottle in between them, implying she was free to drink from it.

"Yeah, it's me. Those- other kids have been looking at me. You're friends with one of them, right?" Max asked, refering to Will.

"What? Oh- them? Yeah, those are my friends." Jax looked over to the four boys awkwardly staring at them. "They aren't usually this weird. Not a lot of girls talk to them, so they're just curious about you. How'd you know I was friends with Will?"

"Well when you started a fight club in the middle of the hall, I couldn't get around so I decided to watch." Max explained. "It was nice what you did, by the way. Stupid- but nice."

"Sorry for getting in your way. I just- i hate how they pick on the little guy, y'know? And Walsh- Troy Walsh, the kid that was there, he's such an idiot. He thinks he's top shit for no reason. If he ever bothers you, you can always come to me. He knows I don't like him."

"Presumptuous of you to think I need your help." Max tilted her head.

"Well, if you do, y'know- yeah."

"Actually I do, right now. Do you have a piece of paper?" She asked.

"Well, it was supposed to be for my history notes, but yeah." Jax took out the folded piece of lined paper and handed it to her. She took out a marker and wrote on it. She then got up, said a quick thanks for the sandwich and left to throw the piece of paper in the garbage. Once she re-entered the school, Jaxon turned to see the party sprinting over to the garbage bin. The 3 stood looking around awkwardly while Dustin dug through the bin.

"I got it! I got it." He uncrumpled it, showing to the rest of them.

"Stop spying on me creeps." They all read out.

"Well shit." Said Dustin.

"Seriously, you guys?" Jax asked.

"William Byers? Your mother is here."