There's a Playground

I sighed as I wrapped the towel around me, inhaling deep as I tried to think of what I was going to say to Max. If he even showed up tonight, which I had a feeling that he would. Just something in the back of my mind told me that Maxwell would be showing up like I’d asked him to. I just had to figure out what it was that we had to talk about. And what it was that I wanted to say to him once I figured out what we needed to talk about…

I wrung my hair out quietly before I tossed my clothes into the hamper and exited the bathroom. I heard my mother’s snores coming from the living room and I smirked as I walked into my bedroom. I almost died when I saw Max lounging on my bed, looking bored as he stared up at the ceiling.

“Maxwell Green!” I hissed, hugging my towel closer to my body as he looked up. I could feel myself go bright red and he looked away rather awkwardly, coughing and smirking to himself. “What the hell are you doing in here!?” I growled, shutting my door in hopes that I wouldn’t wake my mother up.

“Um…you uh…told me to…uh…”

“Shut up, Max. I know what I told you. I didn’t think you’d come over when I was showering!”

“I didn’t know you were in the shower!” he defended, looking up at me with his gorgeous eyes. I felt myself blush deeper and I noticed that he was blushing slightly too. I sighed, and tugged at the dripping ends of my hair.

“Can you just…go outside for a few minutes? I…ugh.” I sighed, wanting to just disappear all together off the face of the planet. That seemed like a really good idea right now. I sighed, frowning to myself and watching as he nodded, stood, and climbed back out my window. God…I really just wanted to crawl under a rock and die right now. That was so embarrassing…

I sighed, closing the curtains and blinds behind him before I walked over to my dresser and began to pull out clothes to wear. I grabbed a set of underwear and then my pajamas. It’s not like I would be going anywhere anytime soon. At least not until tomorrow…

I checked the window one last time just to make sure Max was peeking or anything before I dropped my towel to my feet and began dressing. My loose, purple plaid pants were pulled on over my legs after a pair of black socks were attached to my feet. Call me weird or whatever, but I hated having bare feet…. Next came a black tank top to finish off everything. I sighed, bending over as I picked up my towel from the floor and wrapped my hair up in it, standing and letting the towel sit on my head as it dried my hair.

With a final, calming breath, I went over to my window to let Max in. He was sitting on the ground beneath my window, looking across to his house quietly. I smirked as I opened up the window and he popped up, grinning at me.

“You can come in now, Max.”

“Will your mom get mad?” Ooo…good point. I sighed, nodding quietly before I looked around.

“Help me out the window…?” I asked, smirking as he nodded and held out his arms.

“Just jump, I’ll catch you.”

“I’m good, Max. I can climb out just fine, thanks…”

A few minutes later, Max and I were sitting in my back yard across from one another. I had unraveled my hair from it’s towel and was working on brushing through it while Max watched me in silence. We still hadn’t really said anything since he helped me climb down from my window.

He was being incredibly patient with this whole thing. It surprised me.

“Um…Wendy?” he asked as I dropped my brush on the towel beside me. I looked up at him and smiled softly. Okay, so maybe he wasn’t as patient as I thought he was being…

“Yeah, Max?” I asked, dropping my hands in my lap. He reached over and took them in his, leaning towards me quietly.

“You wanted to talk?”

“Oh…right…” I sighed, biting down on my lower lip and staring at our locked hands. “Um…well, I do like you, Max.”

“But…?” How the fuck did he know that there was a ‘but’ to that statement? Kid was good…

“But I…I don’t know. I don’t even know what I wanted to talk about…” Alright, so there totally wasn’t a ‘but’ in my statement. Just that I liked him… I just prayed that he wasn’t going to be a man whore like Ronnie claimed him to be. If he started being a man whore, I’d probably die… I really did like Max… “I just…don’t leave me for a whore or anything like that, alright? Don’t…cheat on me.”

Okay, so maybe there was a ‘but’ statement.

He smirked and shook his head, leaning forward and pulling me into his arms and, thereby, into his lap. He kissed my forehead and squeezed me gently. “I could never do that, Wendy…” I sighed, nodding quietly and staring at my hands. There was something else that I wasn’t going to be able to handle if we were…together.

And that was his drug use. Alcohol I didn’t mind so much. I could get over that. If he wasn’t drunk all the time when I was around. But if he was on drugs or on them when I wasn’t around…well, I probably wouldn’t be able to handle that very well.

“You have to stop with the drugs, Max…” I said, staring down at my hands with a sigh. I felt his arms slacken around my waist and I felt his eyes on my face. I looked up to meet his gaze slowly, praying that he wasn’t about to eat me alive or something like that. He nodded solemnly after a few more moments of silence, tightening his grip around me.

“Alright. I can…I can stop. For you, I’ll do it…” he told me. I rested my head on his shoulder, sighing slightly.

“I don’t want to make you do it, Max. But I can’t be with someone who’s strung out all the damn time…”

“No, it’s fine. I understand. I can stop.” It sounded more like he was trying to reassure himself more than me. I prayed that he was telling me the truth. I smiled and looked up at him.

“I have faith in you, Maxie,” I told him, reaching a hand up to brush hair away from his face. He smiled down at me and leaned down to press his lips against mine.

This time, I actually remembered to kiss him back…

When he pulled away, I smiled and nuzzled into his neck, taking in his scent of Axe and cigarettes. I was going to have to get used to him smoking the cigarettes. Oh well…I’d get over it… His arms squeezed me gently and he toyed with the ends of my damp hair.

“So…” he started, his voice ending the silence that had fallen between us. I looked up at him with a single brow raised.

“So?”

“So…does this mean you’ll be my girlfriend?” he asked. He almost sounded awkward about it. It was cute… Like…way cute. I smiled and looked at him, biting down on my lip as if in thought. He sighed, rolling his eyes and leaning back as he realized what I was doing. That made me giggle as I wrapped my arms around his neck.

“Yeah. As long as you don’t cheat on me and you stop the drugs. Okay?” He smiled and nodded, kissing me again and holding me to his chest quietly.