❝There's a thin line between love and hate.❞
You will fall in love with a beautiful girl with hair so rich it looks like red flaming embers, and a past so haunting you can see it in her eyes. She'll love you, you know, long before you ever love h...
It was another couple minutes of pure torture, and Billy finally stopped, lighting his cigarette, and kicking Max's body out of the way as he passed her on his way upstairs.
Max was on the brink of passing out, her body ached and she could feel bruises already beginning to form. She knew she needed to leave before he came back, but she physically could not move her body. Her brain was sending signals to move, but her body had shut down.
Max lay still for a few moments, giving her body time to heal, at least a little bit. She had nowhere to go. She could go to Lucas, but she didn't want to explain everything to him. She could go to Annika, but she didn't want to burden the poor girl. Deciding her best plan was to at least get out of the house, she inched her body towards the door.
Leaning on the door for support, Max forced her body to restart again and stand up, wobbling a bit as she stood, sharp pains shooting through her ribcage.
"Mayfield!"
Her head shot up when she heard his voice, wondering if she was becoming delusional or if she had actually heard it. Blue eyes met brown and Max had never been more relieved to see Mike Wheeler in her entire existence. She felt her lips pull into a small smile as she saw him discard his bike on the ground before racing towards her.
He reached her just as her knees buckled underneath her, and she fell into him. He clutched her close to him, terrified of what would happen if he let her go.
He looked down at her, his stomach plummeting when he saw the bruises covering her face,
"We need to leave," she said, her voice small.
All Mike could do was nod, he let her lean on him, supporting her, and they both walked back to his house in silence.
Mike's thoughts where racing. He had been horrified when he saw her standing there on her doorstep, blood dripping down her face. He had never seen something so terrifying in his life, he would rather face 1,000 deme-dogs alone, then watch Max writhe in pain. He knew that he was going to have nightmares, even though it was broad daylight when he had seen her, the environment had been nothing but dark.
She trembled under him as they walked, and even though she didn't once say anything he knew she must be in an excruciating pain.
How was she so calm about this?
Then it dawned on him, that maybe the reason she was so calm, was because this had happened before, that this wasn't uncommon, and that thought made his skin crawl.
What happened behind those closed doors?
- o -
Max let her exhausted body fall onto Mike's bed as she watched him rummage through his closet. Finally, he pulled out an overly large blue t-shirt along with some shorts. He handed them to her, and stared at him confused,
"Why are you giving this to me?"
He looked at her, his expression timid, "Maxine, you have dried blood on you, it's everywhere. You need to change."
Max was struck by how generous he was being towards her, he had seen her at her worst multiple times now, and instead of tearing her down, even more, he was helping to put the pieces back together. It was in her moments of pure vulnerability that she found herself standing next to none another then Mike Wheeler himself. He always seemed to be there, right when she was sure that it was all over, he was there. Time and time again he had proven to be the light she so desperately sought when consumed by darkness. Over the course of the last few months, she had slowly started to peel back layer by layer the hard shell Mike build around himself, and she would do so until she was left with nothing but him. Just him.
It dawned on Max, for the first time, that perhaps she had got it all wrong. Maybe she didn't hate him at all, maybe they weren't destined to be enemies. They kept up a facade of loathing each other because that was all they knew, that's how it had always been. If they got past the labels they didn't know where they stood, they where the grey area between love and hate and Max was determined to find out what exactly that was. So as she sat on Mike Wheelers bed, on a Sunday afternoon, red locks covered in crimson blood she restored her faith, that maybe in the end things could be ok. That they could make it work. She didn't know how she was going to do it, all she knew was that when Mike had given her that smile in the gym, she liked it, and she was going to do everything in her power to make him smile like that again.
"Max, go change please," Mike's voice was soft and there was a slight desperation in it and he pushed her slightly towards the bathroom.
She walked slowly, being careful to not put too much pressure on her throbbing right hip. Right before she slipped into the bathroom she decided to poke fun at Mike,
"Onto first name bases are we Micheal?"
She heard him groan from behind her, and a small smile played on her lips as she shut the door behind her.
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Hey guys! So last chapter I introduced a new character Aanika and she didn't really appear this chapter, needless to say nor did anyone else. This chapter and the next will solely be Mike and Max. However, I promise the action will pick up after that, I just wanted to give you guys one more Madwheeler moment before things get a bit messy. Also if you guys see any grammar/spelling mistakes feel free to leave a comment about it, i'm going to go back and edit this book soon. Thank you for reading!
This chapter was very gruesome and dealt with some very touchy subjects, if anybody reading this goes through anything like this or something related, please let someone know. Feel free to dm me and reach out, or you can call a hotline and get help.
