Breathe || Max X Reader - Camp Camp

XIX

Y/N's POV
Word Count: 1,716

     An hour or so into the day, after Max and I's morning out by the lake, he had asked me if we could go on a walk. Obviously, I wasn't going to decline, but I did originally have other ideas in the back of my mind. I remember kindly telling Max that maybe we could do something else and involve the other campers, but he kept pressing that we needed to go on a walk.
     After finally giving in, Max told me to meet him at his tent whenever I felt like it.
     Which brings me to right now, waiting outside his tent. Jeez, we're gonna' miss lunch if he's any later than this. It was only an hour and a half until noon.
     Eventually, I decided to check up on him. I gently ran my hand across the tent flap. The texture in the middle was rough, and almost felt scaly in a way, but the sides were smooth with little bumps, like a tablecloth, almost. I slowly pulled back the flap and peeked into Max's tent. I seen Max walking over to his bed, holding a teddy bear. I screwed up my face as I watched intently. Max has a freaking teddy? I watched him lift up his mattress and stuff the bear under it. This seemed to be a mundane yet routine task for him. He must've had his teddy for a while.
     I slowly pulled the tent flap back into its original position. "Stalker much?", somebody asked. My eyes widened as I whipped myself around. I had to have jumped at least two feet off of the ground. It was Preston. I clasped my hands and shook my head vigorously.
     "N-No!", I defended. Preston revealed a sly grin as he raised an eyebrow. "Really! I totally wasn't stalking him! It was because I was waiting for him. I, uh, wanted to see if he was ready."
     Preston clearly hadn't bought it. Then again, it wasn't really my original intention to stalk Max anyway. Wait, was it? I shook my head. "Whatever you say, Y/N.", he replied in disbelief. Preston landed an arm on my shoulder and leaned in. "You know, if you ever need to do that again," he started, twisting a playful finger through my hair. "Maybe don't make it so obvious.", he whispered.
     I let out a small chuckle. Just as I was about to say something, Max exited his tent. Oh boy. Max, just for half a second, screwed up his face at Preston and I. But, he knew better than to continue like that. Max was peeved, and I think Preston might've known too, because he immediately took himself off of me. Max spit out a huge loogie. He never did that on a regular day, he was clearly trying to scare away Preston.
     "H-Hey there, Max!", Preston tried. Preston shot a corny, sheepish smile at Max.
     Max marched up to Preston until they were nose-to-nose. "What do you want, Asswipe?", Max retorted. Max raised a hand close to Preston's ear, and started cracking his knuckles, one by one.
     I bit my lip. I should stop this. I backed away and sat on the ground. Yeah, but what if Max gets mad because I defended Preston? I had no clue what to do. I sort of just froze. "Um, sorry, I was just hanging out with Y/N.", Preston explained.
     "Yeah, well she was waiting for me, you fag.", Max spat. That was too far. You don't ever call somebody that.
     I was scared, but I had to step in at this point. "Max!", I shouted. "Now, you leave him alone right now!" Max looked to me with a questioning expression. "You heard me. And you say you're sorry, too!"
     My tail end was getting scolded after this, but I sort of had to do it. Max gave a stern nod shoved Preston away from him. "Whatever," Max groaned. "I bet he wasn't worth my time anyway." He walked over to me and put his arm around my shoulder. He forced me forward with all of his might. I just let him lead me. He didn't let me look back.
     We were silent until we made it into the woods surrounding the camp. Once we had made it that far, Max removed his arm.
    We walked side by side. Every once in a while, his hand would brush mine and I would be tempted to take it. Eventually, Max caught on. He knew I was way too shy to ever take his hand on my own, so he assisted by taking mine.
     Still looking to the ground, I slowly intertwined my fingers with his. His thumb rubbed the back of my hand. With every stroke his thumb took, I felt an exhilarating rush of energy. My heart started to beat just a little bit faster.
     I looked up to Max's eyes. He looked at mine. "W-What was that, back at camp?", I asked weakly. My throat was too dry to say much of anything at regular volume, at the moment, anyway.
     For a minute more, we kept walking silently, until we approached a small clearing. In the middle sat a log. Beside it sat a small bag of chips that was forced shut because the opening was under the log. He released my hand and walked over to the log, taking a seat. He motioned for me to sit next to him. I went ahead and sat.
     "This is where I go, sometimes.", Max explained. "It's nothing special, but it's quiet." He offered his hand to me again. Slowly, I took it. "What happened back at the camp was nothing. You can just forget about it."
     I leaned my head on his shoulder. Max unlatched our hands and wrapped his newly free arm around me. He scratched my back and leaned his head onto mine. "I-I don't think I can just ignore it.", I sighed. My throat tightened. "You're always being mean to people." Everything I wanted to say started getting choked by the lump in my throat. "I-I know you've been through a lot, but it hurts me, and it scares me, when you do stuff like that." My eyes were watering. "M-Max?"
     I sniffed and wiped my eyes. "Yeah?", he asked.
     "Why'd you have to hurt Neil? What did he d-do?", I pressed. I started breathing faster. I sniffed a few more times and wiped my eyes before any of my tears fell.
     Max turned himself towards me and fully embraced me with both hands. I started bawling. I shamefully buried myself in his hoodie. Once I started outwardly crying, it helped get rid of the lump in my throat. My body kept convulsing as everything started to just weaken. Eventually, I was fully leaned into Max, who held me up. He pulled my head away from his body. There was a huge tear puddle where my eyes were. Max stroked under my eyes with his thumbs. His hands were a lot stronger than I originally thought. I knew Max had probably been in a lot of fights, and while he wasn't totally ripped or anything like that, he certainly could hold his own.
     "I'm sorry." He rarely used those words. I wrapped my arms around him and cried some more. I felt so helpless, but I felt so protected when he wrapped his arms around me. "I did it because he was talking about you. He was teasing me. I got mad. I'm sorry, Y/N. That was fucking retarded, I should've just told him the goddamn truth."
     Max's hoodie smelled like a mix of fresh linen and boy sweat. It was weird, but it was his own scent. It was odd, how people could have their own signature scent. I kind of liked Max's. "I-It's okay.", I replied. It sounded frail. It was frail. I was frail.
     The boy rubbed my back some more and did his best to make me feel safe. "It's not okay.", Max insisted. "I've been shitty, and I hurt you. Look, if you want to go run to Preston, you have my blessing. I probably would, if I were you."
     I shook my head. "Max, I don't think that I really even like him that much!", I expressed through sharp cries. My eyes were irritated and sore to the touch from the crying I had been doing. I continued to lean into Max's figure. His body felt solid, strong. His presence was of pride. He felt like a wall, there to keep all of the bad things out. I sobbed even more as I waited for Max to say something.
     "Well, if I'm not good enough for you, then I get it. I'm an ass to everyone, so I get why you'd consider Preston over me.", Max pondered.
     I screamed in agony as I latched onto Max's hoodie with my fists. "You're not l-listening!", I pleaded. "Max!" I sobbed harder. My entire body started to shake again. "I-I love you!"
     Max stopped rubbing my back. He slowly moved his hands to my hairline, and pulled my head up. My eyes and nose were puffy and red. Everything about me looked rough and helpless. Max rested his forehead on mine. I closed my eyes, and he closed his. "I love you, too.", he breathed.
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A/N - This entire chapter was so perfect and sweet and I had way too much fun writing it. Like look at these two! This is too much fun! Anyway, I wanted to give you all a quick thanks for 800 reads! We really are trucking our way to the big 1k. Thank you all so much for the love! ☁️

Comment Question of the Chapter:

Would you be okay with a possible cover redesign? What I was contemplating doing (because my currently cover was designed to be temporary anyway) was I was going to make a bunch of new covers and put them all in a separate chapter dedicated to just that and I was going to let my readers vote on what cover they liked best. (You'd be able to vote for the original cover too!)