Love The Way You Lie {RedZan/MithVacktor}

Chapter 9: Not as Sick as I Thought

Chapter Nine: Not As Sick As I Thought

     Max honestly no clue on where he was driving to, his eyes were locked onto the cracked pavement ahead as the radio was cranked up, drowning his thoughts. His mind was pressed into a blank state, as passive as a plant. What snapped him out of his trance-like state was the deer running off to the side.

   Abruptly slamming his foot on the breaks, the car stopped, and his body jolted forward. The deer cautiously walked to the other side of road.

  

   As Max had kept driving, it was getting darker and darker out. Every once and awhile, another car would pass, and make him squint his eyes from their headlights.

   The radio was tuned out in Max's brain, he didn't feel like listening to the corny, breakup songs. Or the lyrics expressing sexual desires, either.

   After awhile, a motels little sign up front came into view. As it neared later than Max had thought, he pulled into the cracked pavement of the parking lot. Plants and weeds uprooted the probably once great pavement. The outside of the motel was a run down ugly green color. The shingles were a darker olive to match.

  As Max climbed out from his car, locking it, just after he made sure he had his wallet in his back pocket.

  Hesitantly, he walked into the lobby, with a horrid smell to twin with the ugly interior. Nothing matched. The carpet, an ugly purple, was somehow run down from all the walking. A broom was tossed carelessly in a corner.

   "May I help you?" A man in his late forties called out from behind the small kiosk. His grunts could've been from the cigarette placed between his lips but Max would never know.

  
   As Max pursed his lips, thinking what to say, the older man with a pot belly grunted at him again. "You want a room or not, kid?" The man's dark eyes narrowed into slits.

   "Um, yeah. Just one night." Max's hand went to his back pocket to fetch his wallet. "Ah, so, the mute talks."

   Max refrained from saying anything back, he was only quiet for a minute or so, how does that make him a mute? "How much for one night?" The ginger switched the subject, not really wanting to argue with him.

  "Er, twenty-five."

   Max pulled out a twenty and a five and tossed it carelessly onto the counter top that had obvious dust caking the surface. Grimacing, the man gave him a key carelessly and went back to reading a yellowed, very outdated newspaper.

   Max left the lobby, inspecting the key number that was very sloppily engraved. He passed a few lit windows, confused on why anyone would stay here. But he supposed that made him a hypocrite.

   Finding his room, he grimaced and plugged his nose as he turned the key and heard a loud clunk. Opening the door, he was met with an even worse room than the lobby.

   The bed was obviously squeaky, and it somehow creaked as Max went by, still plugging his nose. "This is disgusting." The ginger had walked to the small, cramped closet that held other clean sheets for whatever reason.

   Pulling around three out, he laid them to cover the bed, not wanting to touch the obviously greasy bedspread. The substitute worked wonderfully, they, for some reason, were as white as snow. They smelled fresh, and they looked certainly clean. And that's when Max thought they never changed the sheets that much.

   As he laid down, the bed creaked beneath his frame. Grimacing again, he had tried to concentrate on falling asleep. His eyes focused onto the wall, as he pulled out his phone.

   A few messages from Michael clouded his phone screen. He read through them, not really sure on what to put.

[ Red ] good night

[ Red ] i'm bringing soup to you in the morning

   As Max read the last one, inner panic and anxiety bubbled up into his chest. "No, no, no!" He whisper-shouted to himself. As he forced himself to type a reply, stating he didn't have to and everything was under control.

   [ Red ] of course not, don't be silly

[ Red ] i'm bringing you soup and that's final

   Max half considered saying he had strep, or something a little worse, but that'd probably make him want to come more.

   [ Max ] bring mac and cheese too then

   Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck! He's going to knock and knock and I won't be home! Max's thoughts were racing too fast for him, he didn't know what to do.

   I'll leave early tomorrow, then I'll be home, right, that's what I have to do.

   And with his thoughts racing, Max somehow fell asleep in wide panic.

++

ya girl is sorry for being on such a wide hiatus

- T.M.H. xx