LONELY TOGETHER - max mayfield

18. "Not trynna yuck your yum."

SUMMER HAD ended, things were changing, and Jaxon's support system was gone. Joyce had believed when she left that Jax had enrolled in foster care, but she would be wrong. Instead, he was staying at a teen-oriented homeless shelter. He would go to school during the day, spend his evening how he wanted, and then around 8:30 he would go there to sleep for the night. Sometimes he stayed over at someone else's house, but he argued that they had done too much for him already, and he enjoyed the shelter and the people he met there.

Max had obviously become distant. The loss of Billy had impacted her more than she thought, and since his son was gone Neil, her stepdad had moved away, leaving Max and her mom to move to the trailer park. This made Max even more kept to herself then she was when she moved here. She had seen Jax around school, of course. It was hard to get away from anyone in Hawkins. He tried to talk to her, ask her to hang out, but all he got was a short response or a cold shoulder. Jaxon thought he must've done something wrong, considering James used to the same thing.

It wasn't all bad though, as he had made a new friend at his shelter. Veronica Davis. A sophomore at Hawkins high. She was a little shorter than Jax, with dark brown skin and brown eyes. The first time they met was at the movies. Aliens had come come out, and both teens went alone to see it. Jax had asked Max to go see the 2nd karate kid movie, but she said she was busy so he wanted to wait.

Jaxon was walking around in starcourt, taking his time to get to the theatre. He figured he should've asked someone to see the movie with him, but for some reason if it wasn't the whole party or Max, he didn't wanna go with anyone else. Once he had arrived at the theatre, he bought his ticket, a popcorn and a drink. Jax handed the worker $10, and recieved $2.65 in change. He was about to go find his seat when he saw a girl at the other register scrambling to find some change in her pockets. Jax noticed the annoyed faces of the worker and the people in line, so he decided to walk over.

"C'mon, kid if you don't got the money then beat it." The worker urged, tired of waiting.

"Hey, how much does she owe ya?" Jax asked, setting his snacks down on the counter. He got a confused look from everyone around him.

"$1.75." The teen boy sighed, obviously wanting to be done with his shift. Jax tossed the dollar bill and odd change onto the counter before handing the girl her drink with a smile, not bothering to let the cashier touch it. He then picked up his own food and started to walk away.

"Hey, wait up!" She called out. Jax stopped and turned around.

"That was really nice of you, thank you." She smiled, looking Jax up and down.

"Oh- yeah no problem. I know what its like to be in your shoes, so I just wanted to make sure you were all good." He smiled, subconsciously reciprocating the act of checking her out.

"I'm Veronica, by the way. Veronica Davis." She sent him a smile. She was going to shake his hand, but both of his were full. "You're Jaxon, right?"

"Yeah, how did you know?" He asked skeptically. Yeah, the word got around town about the Chief adopting a criminals kid, but no one really remembers drama once new material comes up.

"One of my old friends, like- totally had a thing for you last year. Stacey? Red, frizzy hair, brown eyes?"

"Oh yeah, yeah I had math with her. She rejected Dustin at the Snowball right?" Jax pointed out, trying to show how much of a bitch she was. Though, he wasn't going to bring up when El blew up her drink, though it was incredibly funny.

"Yeah, that's kind of when I let her go." Veronica shrugged. "Realized I didn't wanna be around mean people."

"You made a good decision." Jax nodded, happy to find someone that cares about being nice more than being popular. "What movie are you gonna see?"