Life of Max ✔️

Thirty-six

MAX

It's been a couple of months since my dad died, now. I'm doing a lot better. I haven't touched any of the stuff Jake sold me, I even flushed it down the toilet in front of Haley, just to make sure she wouldn't think I was being stupid again. I couldn't. I'd lose her, and she is everything to me. The only good thing in my life, and I don't ever want to let that go.

She has been pestering me for the last two weeks about packing for our road trip, and I still haven't started. I'm sure she was finished packing the day after they decided to go, the impatient, little devil.

I'm finally thinking about starting to pack my stuff. I don't know what I'll need, since I don't know where we're going or anything.. I finally admit defeat and run my hands over my face, before I pick up my phone to call Haley. She'll probably tease me about it, but fuck it. I don't care. She and Aiden has everything under control, and I'm a chaotic mess in comparison. I need some guidance.

"Hey, idiot," she chirps through my phone.

"Hey, uhm..."

I scrunch my nose as I realize I didn't really think this through. I don't know how the fuck to ask her what I should pack.

I hear her sighing on the other end of the line.

"Have you started packing?" she asks.

"Technically? No," I admit. "But I did call to ask where we're going so I can start."

"We don't have a plan. We'll just go with the flow, wherever traffic takes us," she says, and I can tell she's busy with something.

"Okay," I reply, and listen to the sounds in the background, and the occasional "fuck" or "shit" from my girlfriend's mouth. "Are you okay? What are you doing?"

"I'm fine! I'm just preparing some stuff for the trip. I can't find the tent, so I have basically the whole apartment filled with stuff from storage," she says, sighing heavily.

"I can just buy a..."

"No!" she cuts me off instantly. "You're not buying anything. You're supposed to save your inheritance, not buy stupid shit for me. We have a tent, I just can't find it. Yet."

I roll my eyes, knowing full well that she can't see me. If she could, she would smack me. I've come to learn that she is a really messy person. Their apartment would look like someone bombed it, if it weren't for Aiden, and she doesn't want to admit it. She is a disaster in the kitchen, even though she tries. There's been a few nights where Aiden and I has both looked at each other in horror after tasting something she's cooked for us, and we've developed this silent language where we usually agree to tell small, white lies, to please her.

She's scary when she's angry, so I kind of dread the day she finds out none of us really likes her homemade cookies or the casserole she keeps making. I'm not sure she likes them, so we might have dug ourselves into a hole by saying we liked it..

"Fine, but don't come complaining to me when you don't find it in your mess," I tell her, and lay down on my bed.

"I won't. I'll complain to Aiden," she says, and I hear something rustling on the other end, before she lets out a shriek, and then something crashes. "Mother of all fucks!"

I bite my tongue to keep from laughing, although it should be safe, since she's all the way over at her place, and I'm in my dorm...

"Are you okay?" I manage to ask her after a few more moments filled with her curse words and frustrated sighs.

"No," she mutters, "I just broke the table in the hallway."

"How the fuck did you manage that?" I ask her, and I can't contain my laughter any more.