Concerning Chance ✔

TWENTY-EIGHT

"For the record, I knew you and Max would get together," Lilia proclaims as the four of us walk back to hers after school. We got the public bus as far as we could, so now there are just a couple of streets left to go down. "From that moment when Max showed up when Rory and I almost hooked up in the performance hall..."

"You two almost hooked up?" Heather exclaims incredulously, shaking her head in disbelief. "I mean, I can't believe I thought there was even a chance that Max might've liked me."

I'm blushing bright red now — I glance to my right to see Max is also a shade of embarrassed beetroot. We hadn't even decided on if we were 'together' — let alone told Lilia and Heather — and yet it felt right.

Max speaks my thoughts, "I guess we are kinda together. Is that okay with you, Rory?"

"Yes, of course, it's okay!" I exclaim quickly before he can begin to doubt our relationship.

I reach across and grab his hand, pulling him closer to me and linking our fingers together. Shyness passes over his face at the fact I'm doing this publicly, out in the open. But I squeeze his hand — and he squeezes back, like a heartbeat bouncing between us.

"You know, I never thought Rory and I would get together," Max muses aloud.

"Me neither," I admit. "And even though she tried to keep us apart for a while, Chance's disappearance actually brought us closer."

Max smiles across at me.

"And I never thought I'd be able to breathe the same air as Heather and be okay about it," I joke, laughing lightly.

Rolling her eyes, Heather replies, "Just because you hated my guts for years."

"Well, you did avoid Chance for years." I point out.

"And now we're like one big, happy family!" Lilia laughs loudly. "Caught in a love quadrilateral, plus me, trying to find out why a girl is in a coma."

"At least we're trying," Max says with a small smile.

The conversation trails off as we approach Lilia's house.

"Where's the hack up to?" Max asks Heather.

She sighs as she looks at Chance's phone. "98% — almost there."

Lilia unlocks the front door, and we pile in through the narrow doorway. My hand feels cold as Max lets go of it temporarily.

"The living room is probably best for this little group project," Lilia decides aloud and ushers us towards the front room.

I hang back and turn to Max. "How are you doing?" I ask him sincerely.

"I'm fine—"

"I mean your back." I raise my hand to touch the back of his shoulder but hesitate.

"Better after what you did this morning." He nods, his face once again becoming stony.

"C'mon guys!" Lilia shouts to us. "You can make out later!"

Ignoring her, I grasp hold of Max's wrist. "I won't let him hurt you again."

Max says nothing as we walk into the lounge.

"Right, it's finished," Heather announces as Max and I sit down on one of Lilia's maroon sofas.

"Where do we start?" Lilia turns to me — they all do.

"Whatever app she was using the most," I decide on the fly. "And what she was doing on that app."

All of us know how big of an impact social media can have on mental health — especially if Chance was already feeling useless and unwanted in this world. And yet none of us is quite ready to admit that Chance's head injury and subsequent disappearance could be entirely to do with her mental stability, or lack thereof.