teenage tragedy (Max Mayfield)

2. nine

Max, Steve, Dustin and Lucas sat in the bottom of the bus, waiting for Dart to come and find them. Cammie sat on top of the bus on watch, staring out into the dark for any sign of him.

She had offered to go on watch, purely because she was getting emotional and needed to calm herself down. She also couldn't take the stares from Max she'd been getting all afternoon, not after her little outburst with the metal hours prior. She wasn't helping improve her reputation in Max's eyes at all, but she was still too wound up to really give a shit.

Her entire life felt like it was falling down around her. The last thing she wanted in this world was for Max to have gotten involved in this bullshit. Hoping Max might like her back, it was so childish. Max would never like someone like Cammie.

Maybe they really were like Romeo and Juliet, not meant to be together because all that would follow is death and destruction. Max had said Cammie was Juliet and maybe she was right. Juliet was the reason Romeo ended up dying, after all. Cammie just prayed that, in their version of the story, Romeo wouldn't die because of Juliet.

Cammie didn't think she'd ever forgive herself if anything happened to Max Mayfield.

"So, you really fought one of these things before?" Max asked Steve. He nodded. "And you're, like, totally, 100% sure it wasn't a bear?" she said.

Cammie rolled her eyes from where she was on watch.

"Shit. Don't be an idiot. Okay? It wasn't a bear. Why are you even here if you don't believe us? Just go home," Dustin snapped.

"Geesh. Someone's cranky. Past your bedtime?" Max climbed up the ladder, joining Cammie on the roof of the bus.

Cammie kept her eyes ahead, trying not to panic at how close Max had sat beside her.

"It's kinda awesome," Max whispered after a minute.

"Huh?" Cammie looked at her.

"The fog, I mean. Looks like the ocean," Max said. Cammie smiled and looked back out at the fog.

"You miss it?" Cammie asked.

"What?" Max said.

"The ocean. The waves? California? Hawkins seems pretty lame, I bet," she said.

"No, no, no, it's not that. It's just... My dad's still there. So..." Max shook her head slowly.

"Why?" Cammie asked.

"It's this legal term called divorce. See, when two married people don't love each other anymore-"

"Yeah," Cammie giggled. Max smiled slightly.

"My mom and my stepdad, they wanted a fresh start away from him. As if... As if he was the problem, which is total bull. And things... are just worse now. My stepbrother's always been a dick, but now he's just angry... all the time and... Well, he can't take it out on my mom, so..."

"So, he takes it out on you?" Cammie asked.

Her mind was already whirring with ways for her to get Billy off her back, to try and get him to leave Max alone.

"I don't even know why I'm telling you this. It's just... I know that I can be a jerk like him sometimes, and I do not want to be like him. Ever. I guess I'm angry, too, and... I'm sorry. Jesus! What's wrong with me?" Max wiped the tears forming in her eyes. Cammie sighed and nudged her with her converse.

"You're not like him. He's a dick, by the sounds of things, but you're not. You're nice and cool and different," she said.

"I was a bitch to you when we first met," Max said. Cammie shrugged.