My Best Human Friend

Chapter 2

We walked through the front door of Max's house and it looked really cozy. He turned to me and smiled while I pouted because I was a lot shorter than he was.

"So, welcome to my house. Take your shoes off so you don't get the floors dirty with sand and crap," he says as he lazily slipped off his sneakers. I rolled my eyes and took off my shoes though it didn't really matter. Once I pulled my foot away from the shoe, it materialized, becoming a solid object. Max stared at the shoes that I placed next to his, eyes wide.

"That's the weirdest thing I've ever seen," he says, completely shocked. I just laughed and shrugged.

"I dunno. I think seeing a ghost is probably the weirdest thing you've seen. You see shoes all the time," I said, though I knew he meant the materializing shoe. I had no idea why this happened but any objects that I touched turned invisible with me. Once I stop touching the object, it materializes again.

Max rolled his eyes and walked away from the front door. He walked a few feet, then went through a doorway to the right. I just followed exactly where he went, humming softly. We'd gone into a living room and I just stood in the doorway. Max looked over at me, raising an eyebrow.

"Dude, come here. Why are you standing there?" he asks. I had a huge grin on my face, already laughing at the stupid joke I'd come up with.

"I think one requires life to be in a living room," I said, starting to laugh even harder. Max groaned and rolled his eyes, shaking his head.

"Get in here, dumbass."

I walked in and sat next to Max, watching him as he took out notes and books and other items for his homework. He opened up a math textbook and I immediately grew interested. I watched as he did his algebra homework and I kept correcting him on the answers since I could figure them out really easily. He grew annoyed that I was correcting him so much though.

"How the hell do you know all this?! You don't value life and you died when you were 2! How do you know algebra?!" He yells, glaring at me.

"I'm really good at math. I sat in a classroom once and learned," I say simply, blinking. "I have a lot of time on my hands so I wanted to know what a classroom setting was like. I hate it and don't understand why humans waste their lives, listening to an old person ramble about 'the amazing world that is our home.'"

Max's expression softened and he smiled faintly at me. He looked down at his homework, nodding.

"I understand where you're coming from. School is annoying and I'd much rather explore the world however I don't have that luxury like you do. School is an important part of our life since we learn most of our knowledge there. In order to survive in this world, we need to find out about the world and how things work. That's what teachers do. They teach what they know to students who don't know anything about the topic so the next generation of students can learn from us," he explains.

"You lost me when you started talking, Maxine," I said. Max rolled his eyes.

"The important thing right now is that you help me do my math homework so I can relax like you and Arthur have been telling me to."

"You forgot to subtract the 3 in question 7."

"Hush."

I helped Max do his homework and it was kinda fun. I didn't really feel lonely around Max like I normally do around other people or ghosts. Something about him was different. Maybe it was because he could actually see me and interact with me but I wasn't sure. It just made me happy to know that Max could respond to me when I teased him.

We finished the homework in an hour and then he brought me to his room. It wasn't exactly his room since he had to share it with his little brother but he seemed fine with it. It was a decent sized room with two twin beds on either side of the room. On Max's side of the room was a desk with a little desk light and some papers. All the papers had little sketches on them and they were pretty good sketches of people. I was absolutely amazed. As I looked around the room, I noticed that there were a bunch of drawn pictures, consisting of realistic and cartoon drawings.

"Who's the artist?" I asked, looking at Max.

"That would be me," he says, smiling. He looked around the room, his eyes shimmering with nostalgia as he probably thought about the times he created each piece of art. "I've been drawing since I was young. My mom says I'm an artist like my father."

His eyes grew sad at the mention of his father and he looked down. I felt a tinge of sympathy and I hated it. I looked away from Max, sighing.

"Yeah well, it's probably for the best that he's gone anyway. I mean, parents... don't really care about you... It doesn't matter how close you are with someone. Once you're dead, relationships don't matter..." I say, pouting.

"I miss my dad a lot... He left for the army and... he never came back. I want to believe that he's still out there, trying to find a way back home to our family but I know that's impossible," he says. I heard a sniffle and glanced over, seeing Max was starting to cry.

"Dude, grow up. If he's never coming back, then don't worry about it. He'll never come back and that's just one less parent you have to worry about."

"Don't you miss your parents, Isaac? I mean, you barely knew them..."

"No. And they don't miss me at all. I know. They never visited my grave... I'll never forgive them."

Max got up and walked over to me, wrapping his arms around me. I just sort of froze, unsure of what to do. No one had ever done this to me and I had no idea what it was. Sure, I'd seen other humans do this but it was weird to me. I never thought I'd be in this situation so I thought it was useless information to know any way.

"Uh... Max, what are you, uh, doing?" I ask, trying to squirm my way out. For some reason, I just couldn't go through his arms and it really bothered me. I was fearful that he would hurt me. I was fearful for the first time in my afterlife.

"I'm hugging you. You need it. I'm so sorry, Isaac. I'm sure your parents really did love you though," he says, sniffling more. He just held me in his arms and wouldn't let go. I couldn't understand why he was doing this when he barely knew my story and he barely knew me. Why should he? I'm dead so family doesn't mean anything to me anymore nor has it ever.

"Just let me go... It's not like I care anyway," I say, annoyed with Max's embrace. He reluctantly let me go and I just sighed. I looked at him, admiring his shimmering green eyes that held shiny tears. He wiped them away, looking directly at me. It was an awkward moment and I had no idea what to do. I looked away and felt his hand on my head. My eyes widened as I glanced back up at him.

"You don't have to be alone anymore."

Those words hit me hard, something deep inside me reacting to the touching words. I felt happy with someone worrying over me, something I'd never felt in my afterlife. My expression softened and I just nodded my head, unsure about what to do. I looked around the room a little more before sitting on the bed. Max calmed down after a while, sighing and sitting next to me. We sat in the awkward silence, neither one of us saying a thing. We would glance at each other, sometimes making eye contact and my eyes would widen every time. After a few minutes of the dreadful silence, I lay back.

"Max, why do you care so much about me? You barely know me at all. Why cry for me when there's really no point?" I ask softly, putting my hands behind my head.

"I just feel bad for you sometimes. You seem really angry at the whole world and you've never had anyone there to help you out. I just want you to be happy, I guess. Even if I don't really know you and I might actually be hallucinating, I want to make your life a lot better. Or afterlife? I don't know," he says, looking at me. He smiled and poked my nose. "Just smile more and I won't cry for you, 'kay?"

I rolled my eyes and stare at the ceiling. We entered another silence but it wasn't awkward anymore. Instead, I was kinda relieved and relaxed. My eyes closed for one second and someone opened the front door.

"Max-Max! I'm home!" a young voice called, giggling after. Small footsteps echoed through the house, getting louder and more clear as they came closer. I looked at Max and saw he was rolling his eyes and getting up.

In the doorway, a little boy of 10 ran in and jumped at Max, smiling. The boy had short light brown hair that was spiked up a little. He had a slightly round face, his complexion being a little lighter than Max's. He had freckles across his face but it only added to the cute look he held. His eyes were green, like Max's, but they held a playful shimmer to them instead of Max's regular happy attitude. They looked similar and I had no idea why until Max spoke.

"Hey, little bro. How was school?"