There's a Playground

My heart almost stopped with those words of his. I swallowed the lump that had jumped into my throat as fear and worry washed over me all over again.

“How bad is she hurt?” Craig asked and I shrugged as if he could see me.

“I don’t know. She’s got a cut on her jaw, but I know she’s bruised or something on her back. She hasn’t told me anything at all…she’s just been crying…”

“Yeah, well. She didn’t really want you to know. She didn’t want anyone to know. Fuck, I’m so fucking stupid. Why did I come to fucking Arizona!?”

“Craig, don’t blame yourself. What’s…what’s going on?”

“…She hasn’t told you?”

“No,” I replied. He sighed and there were a few seconds of silence before he started speaking again.

“Her step dad beats her.” I just about fell over and died with that confession. I swallowed that lump in my throat again as I ran a hand through my hair uncomfortably. “And her mom doesn’t give a shit, she’s a drunk bitch. The abuse has been getting worse, so she’s been staying with me and you and Ronnie. But…”

“Wait, Ronnie knows?”

“No, he doesn’t…”

“Oh. Just making sure so I don’t say anything around him…”

“Yeah, it’s not really something that Skye wants everyone knowing. She’s terrified of what’ll happen if her parents get in trouble…”

“Even if they deserve it…how…ugh…” Thanks to this conversation with Craig, I was more pissed off than worried.

“I know. I’ve tried talking to her about getting emancipated, but it’s Skye. She’ll make her own decisions…”

“Fuck…” I muttered, sighing and running my free hand over my face.

“Wendy?” I jumped as Max’s voice sounded in my ear. I nearly dropped my phone, but I was able to salvage it from tumbling to the cement of my porch. Swallowing my fear, I turned and glared at him. His eyes went wide and his hands went up in defense. “Sorry! I didn’t mean to!” he insisted. I sighed again and leaned against one of the pillars on the porch ledge.

“Is that Max?”

“Yeah. He scared the shit out of me…”

“Sorry…” he insisted, giving me a puppy dog look. I shook my head and sighed as Craig continued to speak. Well…he was more or less just rambling and ranting and raving about how much he positively hated Skye’s step father. I couldn’t help but agree with him on that.

Max kept silent, sitting next to me on the ledge as I continued to talk things out to Craig. He had my hand in his and it was a comfort that kept me from screaming my head off. Kind of.

“Shit Wendy, I have to go. Please make sure that Skye doesn’t go home for a few days. I know it’s almost Christmas but…fuck. She can’t go back home right now…”

“Alright, will do, Craig. Thanks for telling me what’s going on…” I told him before we said our goodbyes and hung up the phone. Max stayed quiet for a few moments as I tugged at my hair and tried to calm myself down a bit. “What did Skye tell you guys?”

“That she tripped and fell onto a piece of glass. But that’s not what happened, is it?” he asked and I sighed, wondering if I should tell him. Looking up at him, I shook my head slowly before looking back down at our hands. “You can tell me, Wendy…” At that, I simply shook my head again.

“It’s Skye’s business. She doesn’t want me to know, but I do. I’m sorry, Max. But I just…I can’t…” I said, hoping that he would understand where I was coming from and why I wasn’t able to tell him. He sighed and moved over to wrap his arms around me and pull me into his lap. I laid my head on his shoulder and burrowed my face into his neck while he rubbed my back comfortingly.

We stayed like that on my porch for a few minutes. Until Ronnie appeared in the doorway, looking pissed off for one reason or another. I lifted my head when Max said his name, feeling that numb feeling now that I realized that I couldn’t do a damn thing for my friend. I could try, but there was absolutely no guarantee that it was going to help. At all. And if I did try, it probably wouldn’t help at all.

“C’mon, Maxwell. I need to get a fix. Now,” Ronnie told my boyfriend roughly, running a hand through his unruly hair before he glared at me quietly. I furrowed my brows, looking back at Max as he glared at his friend.

“Neither of you are leaving,” I informed them, turning my gaze back to Ronnie as I pulled away from Max’s grasp. I wasn’t sure if Ronnie saying that he needed to get a fix and taking Max with him a good or bad thing. I was just going to assume a bad thing because of the way that asshole had worded things. Maybe I was just crazy or paranoid, but I doubted that Skye needed to be worried about her boyfriend overdosing on her while she was freaking out herself.

Ronnie looked at me like I was insane and like he was about to shank me with something. I just leveled his glare. “Skye needs you, Ronnie. Don’t be a dumb ass and go fuck yourself up right now. That won’t help anything and if you think it will then you’ve got some intensely serious problems. You can leave later. But right now, no. Get your ass back inside. Now.”

He continued to glare at me as Max looked between the two of us. He seemed confused as to which side to choose and I didn’t really blame him. I felt bad for doing this to him, making him choose between two of his best friends, one of which was his girlfriend. After a few moments of glaring at one another, Ronnie scoffed, sneered at me, and then spun around and walked back into my house.

“You’re an idiot, Wendy,” Max commented from beside me, causing me to stop glaring so that I could look at him. I raised a brow and he just smirked and shook his head. “You’re my idiot, though. So it’s okay. There really are not many people who can say that they turned Ronnie away from going to do drugs. I can’t even do that shit. Mad props, girly.”

I just smirked and leaned over to peck his cheek. “Thanks, Max. C’mon. I’m bored and hungry and we should watch a movie or something.” With that, I grabbed at his hand and began dragging him inside and to the kitchen with me. Skye smiled at me shyly from our Lazy Boy chair and Ronnie’s lap. He just nodded at Max before returning to ignore me.

Whatever. I didn’t really honestly care…

----

An hour and a half later, my living room was covered in popcorn. I was going to be royally fucked when my mother returned home, but for now I was stuck laughing my ass off on the floor while I watched Skye try to pick little pieces of popcorn out of Ronnie’s hair. Ronnie didn’t look all too pleased, but whatever. He was the one who started the whole damn popcorn fight in the first place. Max was still showering him in the shit that was on the floor, and laughing his ass off along the way. We were all covered in popcorn, but Ronnie definitely got the worst end of it all thanks to his hair and the fact that Max and I pretty much dumped our entire bowl of the stuff on his head.

It was funny as hell, though.

So how did this all start? Well, we had been watching a movie. Ronnie had gotten bored half-way through it and started throwing little pieces of popcorn at Max and I while we cuddled on the couch. So Max retaliated by throwing popcorn back at him. And that escalated into all four of us throwing pieces of popcorn at each other while I became a hypocrite by telling them all to pick up their mess. And after we couldn’t get enough satisfaction from just throwing pieces of popcorn at one another, it turned into little clumps of popcorn. And then that turned into handfuls. And from there, it turned into Max tackling Ronnie down to the ground while I poured the remainder of our popcorn bowl in his face.

Hence the reason that we were all laughing our asses off.

Our laughter ceased when we heard the front door knob turning. I looked up as I saw my mother walk in through the door, arms full with her suitcase, cell phone, and a large grocery bag. Max stood up quickly from the floor, dropping the popcorn he had in his hands as he rushed to go help Mom.

“Thank you, Max,” she told him happily. I wondered when she was going to notice that the four of us had massacred the living room in the span of the five hours that she had been gone. I smiled as she walked past, oblivious as she continued to chat animatedly on the phone. It sounded like she was making plans with someone for tomorrow or something. Oh right, tomorrow was Christmas Eve. Holy shit…

A few minutes later and Max and my mother came back out into the living room. She wasn’t talking on her phone, but texting now and she almost dropped it when she looked over to see a popcorn-covered Ronnie and Skye picking the shit out of his hair still. Max skirted around her to come sit by me and wrap his arms around my waist.

“What the fuck happened?! Where the hell did the fucking popcorn tornado come from!? Wednesday Kahlen Lee, what the hell is wrong with you!?” I winced at her tone before pulling away from Max and standing. I opened my mouth to speak when I was cut off.

“It was my fault, Ms. Lee. Sorry.” Woah. Wait, what just happened? Ronnie Radke, chief ass hole of school and everywhere else in the world, had just apologized!? I looked back at him, incredulous. Neither Max nor Skye seemed fazed at all by that apology. I frowned at him and wondered what his motives were.

“And why exactly were you throwing popcorn?”

Oh great. Now came the time that I got royally fucked. Because Ronnie was probably going to say something along the lines of “Max and Wendy were making out and it was disgusting and so I threw popcorn at them to get them to stop.”

But he just shrugged. No snippy remark, no snide comment. Just silence and a shrug.

Bastard needed to take some fucking pills for that bipolar disorder of his. Or his compulsive lying skills. I didn’t believe him, but that was probably because of the fact that Ronnie was a complete and total ass to me. I’d never seen him around adults other than his teachers, though, so I suppose my surprise came as no surprise to anyone else.

“Whatever, just clean it up quickly. This is disgusting,” Mom shook her head before disappearing back into her room. Skye was the first of us to burst into laughter again. That caused Ronnie to pick it up and then Max. And finally, after a few seconds of glaring, I began laughing once more as well.