Concerning Chance ✔

TWENTY-SIX

We leave straight after we've eaten lunch, catching a bus into town to the train station a few streets over from Alexandra Street. The bus was almost empty, so while Max and I could've held a fairly private conversation, it felt like we were both holding onto our words until we could face one another.

And so, when we slide into our seats on the train headed for Bridstain, I make sure to sit opposite him. Between us, there's a table and a thousand unspoken words.

"Thanks for paying for the tickets," I tell him; I didn't have any change on me, whereas he had his bank card.

"It's okay, Rory." He leans his head back and runs his fingertips over his forehead like he's got an oncoming headache.

"Are you okay?" I ask him, resting my hands in front of me on the table.

"I'm sorry for what happened at the bonfire," he says, still staring at the ceiling. His voice is emotionless. "It wasn't fair."

"As I said in the bathrooms at school, I'm not sorry," I admit. And that catches his attention.

Max finally looks at me, and I see glassy, unfallen droplets swimming in his eyes.

Unknowingly, I drop my voice to a hush, even though our carriage is empty apart from the two of us. "What's wrong?"

"You make me..." He grits his teeth, setting his jaw tight in annoyance. Yet he doesn't waver in our eye contact. If anything, he stares at me more. "You make me feel, Rory."

"What do I make you feel?" I prompt, feeling that he's dangerously close to slipping away from me if I let him close himself off from me now.

"You make me feel all the things I shouldn't feel — all the things that have been drilled into me as wrong." He tilts his head down, a flop of brown hair hiding his eyes.

A bizarre and utterly foreign sensation of confidence overwhelms me, and I reach out to his hand over the table. I close my fingers over his. "Does this feel wrong?"

"It should." His eyes catch onto mine in a look that's on the borderline of glare and something else I can't describe. "But it doesn't feel wrong. Not with you, Rory."

He turns his hand over and links our fingers together.

"You make me feel too, Max. Things I've never thought would be mutual," I confess and curse myself silently as I talk about her. "I feel more myself with you than I did with Chance at times."

"I'm not looking for competition." Max shakes his head. "I just want you to be happy."

My heart swells. Because Max understands me.

A thought dances through my head; what's more romantic than being understood?

"I want you to be happy, too," I tell him — even though I'm beginning to get irritated at how I'm parroting every little thing he says. So I speak again before he can open his mouth, "I was so blind and stupid not to see you before Chance left... And I'm sorry for that — I'm sorry for how she treated you."

"You don't have to apologise." He shakes his head slowly.

"Max," I say his name like it'll draw me closer to him. "You make me feel alive. When I was breaking down in class and freaking out over Chance, you held me, and you took care of me until I was okay again... You make me like being alive."

"You make it worth the beatings," he admits without a flinch but squeezes my hand tightly.

I squeeze his hand back. "You should report your dad."