The Oddities of Grand Marquis - Book 3: Elegant Armageddon 🪼✔️

Tenth

MARS

Dr. Market took some blood from me and said she would look over it to make sure that I didn't have anything wrong, but we were free to leave afterward. Once we were out of the building, I turned to my parents and glared at them.

"I hope you're happy."

"Mars-"

"I don't want to talk to either of you ever again!" I screamed, trying to walk away as quickly as I could on crutches.

It was true that I was still angry with Max about his stupid accusation about me knowing him, but I got over that. I admit that he really does fuel the apparent "hero complex" that I have, but I like doing it. Not because it made me look good, but because it made me feel good. True, there was a little bit of a symbiotic relationship between Max and I, but our friendship wasn't a normal friendship. I kept the guy from killing himself when we were in middle school... our friendship is on a different level than most.

And my parents just can't get that through their thick, unchanging skulls. I saved Max Taylor from death and true, I do get a little bit of a bloated head whenever I get to help; but still, he's my friend and right now he has no one and the people who would be most willing to bring him in (aka: my family) is making me abandon him too.

I got in the backseat and waited for my parents to take me home. Eventually they got into the car and we road home in silence... at least I had hoped to.

"Mars, you know this is for the best." Dad said.

"You don't know anything. You weren't even here." I growled. "And because of Mom's stupid overreaction -just like this one- Max ended up dead. Do you want that on your shoulders?"

"Marsden, we've been looking for you for months! We thought you ran away and was never going to return to us!" Dad yelled. "Do you know the agony we've been in? The pain and wonder and suffering? Did you ever think that your actions would cause us pain? I mean, from the story I was told, don't you think you should take a lesson from what Max had to go through?"

"Stop making this all about Max!"

"We can't stop making it about him because it's all because of him." Mom said softly. She turned to me from the front of the car. "Mars, everything has been because of Max in some form or another."

"Why do you keep defending him?"

"Because no one else did. If I had left him on his own, he would have just hung himself and died. I'd have never known him nor ever cared... Max is special. He's my best friend on so many levels and knowing that I abandoned him when he has no one just makes me want to take this car and chuck it into the air. You guys are making me have to destroy my friend every time something bad happens instead of just waiting for a bit or something. Seriously, in order for him not to be involved, I have to destroy him from the inside out. I know him best, so that means I know how to best make him understand in the cruelest way possible. It's not fair."

"Neither is you getting dragging into everything that he does just because you need to fulfill a hero complex. There are more ways to tell Max you don't want to be friends than 'destroying' him, as you claim."

"No, there isn't. I can't just tell him that I don't want to be friends and be done with it. In order for him not to be around and have him away from me the way you guys want him to be, is to destroy him. I have to make him believe that there is never going to be another chance of us being friends again so that he doesn't try to say he's sorry or try to make up with me."

"Mars, do you love Max?" Mom asked.

"Not romantically."

"But he's like a brother to you, right?"