What We Deserve

Part 3: Aggressively Determined

I was silent the entire trip to the museum.

My mind racing with worries and fears of what will happen to me when this fun activity is over.

We walked around all the floors and stared at the art- not really conversing at all or even really gazing at each other. I felt the distance between us and for the first time in two days- I've felt worried about being alone with Max.

Either you end it or I will.

What does he mean?

He will end it?

I'm beyond confused by Mo's threat.

I don't want him to hurt Max in anyway.

I wouldn't forgive myself.

He's too nice a guy to deserve anything bad to happen to him.

"Helen?" My eyes pull from a cubism piece and find Max looking concernedly at me. Looking up into his eyes, I force a smile to my face and try to act intrigued by the art before.

"I feel this one provokes a sense of imminent dread the more you stare at it." Hardly true, but I'm not truly aware of this paintings over all tone of splotchy cube pieces all making a conglomerate picture of a man and his horse. "Maybe an old cowboy preparing for a duel or lost on the way back home."

"Helen..." He says once more and I look at him again- my head pounding. "Your eyes are all red."

"I suppose staring intensely at art can do that to you."

"It's not the art, Helen." All he does is gently place a hand on the back of my upper arm and it honestly hurts- so I flinch and pull back. He takes this moment seriously and tries to examine me fully. I immediately hold onto each of my arms with them crossed in front of my chest and then let go soon after due to the pain I feel on the back of my arms- deep in my tricep muscle and sub-dermal layers.

Bruising, most likely- if I had to guess.

His eyes widen and his hand comes up slowly and turns me manually to look. I hear him sigh heavily and brush my hair over my shoulder and sigh again. Coming back around to my front- he seems intensely angry and I'm sure there are scratches from the bricks on my back and bruising on my arms. And upon closer examination on my face, he picks up on the slight bruise on my forehead where Mo smashed his face into mine.

He's pissed.

I have never seen a white man's face become so red, so fast.

"Come on." He says and forces a soft smile to his lips and leads me towards the elevator. We wait for it to arrive and now I notice people looking oddly at us.

Him mostly.

They assume he did this to me.

How awful.

I feel terrible.

His hands are in his pockets and as we get in the elevator, he tries to appear happy and unfazed by anything- but I can fee the heat radiating off of him- much like Mo. No one in the elevator says anything and we all exit on the ground floor. Max remains quiet and calm all the way out of the building and into the parking garage.

We reach the car and he opens my door for me to get in- but says nothing.

It's when he opens his door and gets in that I feel the pot has boiled over.

"He put his hands on you." He angrily says, but he isn't screaming or berating me. He simply talking in a soft tone- that just happens to be filled with immense anger.