We Won't Back Down

Chapter 15

Sheila Elwell.

I was making a pasta side of creamy garlic shells in the kitchen when there came a tapping at the front door. I left my station for a few moments to go answer the darned thing, hoping to God it wasn’t my parents already. I hadn’t exactly gotten everything spotless yet. Our parents were the type of people who no matter what you did, the place could be as pure as a nun and it would still be a dump to them.
I opened the door to see none other than the infamous Maxwell Green leaning on the doorframe, one eye cocked, as if he were judging me. We stared at each other for a moment or two and I remember blinking a few times. Then out of nowhere my hand did this extreme twitchy thing and as a result, the door slammed shut.
“Shelia… I’m still on the other side of the door…” I heard Max whine and a part of me kind of felt bad for slamming the door in his precious fac…what was I saying?!
“What I can’t hear you! I’m blind!” I exclaimed at the top of my voice and continued to look through the peephole like the creeper that I was.
“That isn’t very nice.” He said and a pout formed on his lips and those puppy dog eyes of his.
“Aww alright, alright I will let you in!” I sighed in defeat, not feeling like seeing more and more of that pouty lip, feeling almost like I would end up doing something stupid.
He came in and quickly ran past me and into the bathroom, which made a lot of sense to why he was in such a hurry to get in.
“Sorry I had to pee.” He said coming back out a few moments later, oh boys and their oversharing.
“Did you wash your hands?” I ask, raising an eyebrow at him and he looks at me skeptically.
“Oh come on, you can’t be…of course your serious…Fine I will go wash them!” he exclaims and goes back into the bathroom.
“Damn right you’re going to listen to me.” I muttered to myself, smirking like a Cheshire cat and sat back down on the couch.
Max entered the living area again and plopped down next to me. Then he played this weird inch worm game, inching closer and closer to me until I jumped and sat on the edge of the couch, turning to face him.
“The fuck are you doing kid?” I questioned with some alarm.
“Are you a magnet? Because you sure are magnetic!” he winked at me and I rolled my eyes and laughed before realizing that I had food on the stove.
“Shit!” I shouted in Max’s face, sprinting to the kitchen. The fastest I’ve ran in my life. He followed me and watched as I scrambled to salvage my dinner, or what was left of it anyway. It was mostly charred since someone distracted me for a good while. I sighed and made my way over the trash can.
“Whoa, whoa, wait a millisecond. What if I wanted that?” Max said, making his way over to me and taking the pot of ruined pasta out of my hands right before I dumped it.
“Max… it’s going to taste like shit.” I stated, watching him pull out some porcelain bowls from the cupboard.
“I’m sure it tastes fine. I prefer my creamy garlic shells Cajun anyway.” He looked up at me with a gentle smile. My god, he was so fucking sweet, offering to eat my ruined dinner in order to make me feel better. I smiled back at him and walked over to the counter, lowering the pot of pasta before he poured it out into the bowl.
“You don’t have to do this. Come on, let’s go out or order in or something. Sound like a better idea?” I asked, staring into those deep green eyes of his. They were gorgeous from afar, but they were absolutely breath taking up close.
“Only if I get to pay.” He smiled that cocky grin of his and I died a little inside. Why was I swooning over Max Green? Why now?
“Fine by me!” I giggled and my arms did this turrets thing and I thrusted them around his torso. Suddenly I was hugging him for the first time in a long time. I would be lying if I said it wasn’t the best thing in world.
I pulled away and watched as he forked a huge spoonful of scorched pasta side into his mouth, immediately he spit it onto the floor…the floor I had spent cleaning most of the night. I let out a small whimper, causing Max to look at me strangely before realizing what he had just done.
“Ahhh oh my god Shelia, I’m so sorry!” he exclaimed and proceeded to run around like a chicken with its head cut off to clean it up. It brought a smile to my face to see how far he had come from who he had once been as a person. He used to be such a little hell raiser and while there were part of him that still were, he had those redeeming qualities.
“So Athena was pretty pissed about you skipping school.” He says and I look at him, a glare forming on my face.
“Well, you didn’t have to tell her.” I pointed out and heading into the living room, seeing the set list on the screen of my laptop and my heart stopped. Fuck, fuck, fuck I really hope that he hadn’t seen this when he had come into the apartment. I slammed my laptop shut just as he was coming into the room, causing him to look at me with a confused look.
“Wha…so would you like to order for a pizza, so we could work on the house together and what not?”
“That sounds excellent actually; I would kill for some fast food right now.” I grinned at him, feeling an odd feeling from the look he was giving me.
Max called in the order to the pizza place down the street. We had a good half hour wait to do nothing in particular. We started going through some of the junk in the hall closet when Max pulled out an old dusty photo album. I had forgotten all about it. It had sat up there for almost five years just collecting dust.
“Hey, what’s this?” Max questioned staring down at it and wiping the dust off. He blew at it and puff of smoke exploded off of its surface. I came up behind him and peered over his shoulder, taking the other half of the photo album in my left hand. The first photo was of my sisters and I when we were young. As we flipped through it, we grew older. There was Dahlia’s first bike ride, Athena’s first skinned knee, and my first incident with fire and the scorch mark on the floor in my room that is still there to this day. I felt a smile crack my lips and then I realized that Max was standing right next to me seeing all of this.
“Oh my god… Is that… oooohhhh whyyy?” He whined when he flipped further to find the ancient picture of the two of us butt-ass naked enjoying bath time together, the one Mrs. Green was talking about earlier. My hair was slicked up into a Mohawk and Max’s was matted to his forehead, the same way it gets when he’s sweaty or after he’s taken a shower. There were bubbles everywhere and plastic toy dinosaurs and hot wheels cars lined the rim of the tub. We were smiling; happy. Something I had not felt in the longest time…
“Can you believe how close we used to be?” I asked quietly, flipping through seeing more pictures of us going to the zoo together hand in hand, me chasing him around his front yard with a Gartner snake, and him putting mud down my pants when we were two. Those memories that were made what seemed like centuries ago and almost hurt to look out how much we had grown apart.
“We could be that close again”
“I don’t think I want you putting mud down my pants Max.” I state laughing, which caused him to look at me, but his face fell back into all seriousness.
“I mean it, we can be that close again Shelia…that’s all I have wanted.” He whispered, leaning closer to me and I could feel his breathe on my lips. Was this really happening? Was I really about to kiss Max Green?
“Who ordered the pizz…well, looks like I’m interrupting!” a familiar female voice sounded and I nearly jumped out of my skin.
“DAHLIA!”