Terrible Ideas

Chapter Six

"He wants you to meet his friends?" Meg repeated skeptically, and Max nodded glumly and handed his phone over so she could read the conversation that has been haunting him for most of the previous evening. Meg read the texts fast, unimpressed, before she looked back at Max. "We really need to work on your impulse control."        

"I have a problem," Max sighed in agreement.

"I don't see why you're so worked up," Eva said, as she also said last night when Max had rushed into her room, full panic mode, when he'd been texting Kevin. "You're planning to date he guy. Meeting the friends is part of dating the guy."

Eva had become something of a permanent fixture in Max's daily life since she'd become involved with the Kevin dilemma. Not that she hadn't been before when he would see her every morning at breakfast and on their way to school. But her involvement in his life had increased as if helping him cross-dress had brought them back to the point of being inseparable. Max wasn't entirely sure he minded, hadn't truly realized how much he'd drifted away from his twin until she was back in his life.

In the week and a half since Eva had found out about Kevin it was like a damn had broken. She was coming into his room every evening to talk, dragging him out of his room to watch TV with her, talking about how things were going with her boyfriend, Heath, and wheedling details about Kevin out of Max like it was her job. She started talking to him at recess, stopping him in the hallway to say 'hi' with a secretive little smile, and joining him at lunch whenever he decided to eat with Meg and Brook. Obviously, Meg and Brook didn't mind having Eva around, and had been just as upbeat while they prepped for the two other dates he'd had with Kevin since Eva joined them.

It was nice. Maybe annoying, but maybe the good kind of annoying.

"Meeting his friends means more people that I have to lie to," Max told Eva with a mild glare.

The four of them were on the bleachers. It had cooled down enough that everyone was wearing hoodies and thin jackets. Brook had declared it scarf season and had a bright orange monstrosity wound fashionably around her neck.

"You probably shouldn't have said 'yes' then," Meg said flatly.

"We've already gone over how much of an idiot I am, thank you," Max grumbled, and Eva laughed a little.

"It's not that bad, Max," Brook consoled him, soothingly patting his shoulder. "It's not really lying."

"I'm very sure that telling people I'm a girl is a lie," Max blinked at her and she grinned, waving him off.

"Gender is a social construct," she announced with much gusto and then poked him roughly in the chest. "You're not lying about who you are!"

"Brook what the fuck?" Meg mumbled, and Eva was laughing louder.

"You need to stop," Max told her, but she wasn't completely wrong. He was himself. Himself in female clothing, albeit, but himself none the less.

"This is one of those things you need to make your mind up on, Max," Meg told him with none of Brook's softness. "Are you going through with it or ending it?"

"I don't think I can end it," Max groaned and dropped his head into his hands. "He's literally my dream guy!"

"That's sweet," Eva said, pained, and Meg grimaced.

"I've pretty much resigned myself to stick this out until it blows up in my face because I don't have the balls to end it like I should," Max continued.

"You must have some balls, or this really wouldn't even be a problem," Brook said and Max glared at her, making all three girls laugh.

"I hate all of you," Max declared.