"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.
"It's some dodgy as fuck dating platform..." Heather frowns at the screen, grabbing her own phone to search for the details. The rest of us sit like lemons; there's nothing we can do except wait for Heather to do her thing.
Even though I never realised that Heather's 'thing' was hacking. It's not like she's studying computer science or anything scientific for her A Levels.
"Oh... my... God..." Heather's jaw literally drops open and my blood freezes in my veins.
In sync, Max and I get up — we cross the lounge and move to perch on the same sofa as Heather and Lilia, squeezing up together until our shoulders and our knees are jammed up against one another.
"It's a called GoodHoneys," Heather explains stonily and raises Chance's phone so we can all see it. "It looks like Chance was using it to earn money..."
One of Chance's videos opens up — she's sat at the desk in her room, wearing a lacy red bra which she starts unclipping — speaking dirty words in a low, sultry voice.
I look away, sickened. Not because of what Chance is doing, but the fact she felt she had to do it for some obscure reason.
"Turn that off," Max snaps and Heather fumbles.
"I didn't mean to, it just—"
"Turn it off," Max repeats.
Heather closes the video section of Chance's profile, then she navigates to the chat section of GoodHoneys. She quickly skim-reads the messages, not wanting to linger over the details.
"Chance was meeting up with all sorts of guys over the summer, selling her body and sexual gratification to them. I think she took the train as far as Bridstain to meet some of these people," Heather informs us.
"Why would she—?" Lilia frowns.
I cut her off. "Because her mum was the breadwinner and her dad struggled to make ends meet — even for just the two of them. She had a job in the local Spar, but I never thought she did anything other than that..."
"You're forgetting about the 'off-the-rails' part of the post-it notes of reasons," Lilia says pointedly. "Maybe she needed that extra cash to buy alcohol."
"She does love that cheap, shitty rosé," I think aloud.
"Did she turn to drugs at any point?" Max asks, fighting hard to keep judgement out of his tone. "I mean, those are pretty pricey and they're a teenager's go-to fuck-this solution."
Shaking my head, I admit, "I don't know. I don't even know who she was — or who she became."
Because it's true; the more I find out about her, the more I question whether I ever really knew her at all. Yes, she went through hell. But I didn't expect her to turn to exploiting her own body to get some cash.
Why didn't she tell me?
Because we live in a society where the expected response to "are you okay?" is "yes, I'm okay." it's so rare that anyone would say "no, I'm having a fucking awful day." So rare for anyone to tell the truth — everyone's too busy saving face or some bullshit like that. Maybe that's why Chance couldn't tell me about what happened — because she didn't want to rock the boat.
"I thought that Chance was a lesbian." Lilia frowns at the GoodHoneys home screen.
Somehow finding my voice once again, I say, "She is. She must've hated having to do those things with men."
"Who's the last person she contacted on this app?" Max asks quickly as he sees how close I am to the edge of losing it.
"Well, they met up in New Ridge. He's some guy with the username BJBx7er."
"That stupid bastard." I look up at the ceiling and laugh loudly with incredulity.
"Is that Baxter? From school?" Max shakes his head with the same level of incredulity as me. "Man, Chance hates Baxter even more than me."
"Wait, the tracking app has popped up with the last person Chance called... It was her mum," Heather speaks up. "Chance left a voicemail and her mum never called back..."
I bite my lip. "Can we listen to it?"
Heather nods and presses play on the audio. Chance's voice is eery; I've not heard it for weeks and yet it's still so familiar. Her words are stressed, and her throat is hoarse as if she's been crying for hours.
"Mum, I'm so sorry I fu— messed up. Mum, I tried to make it work with boys instead of with girls, but they just hurt me. I was trying to earn a bit and I never meant for it to become physical, but they wanted me so badly and I just wanted you to be proud of me for not being a lesbian. But this last guy." She let out a stifled sob. "He hurt me really bad, Mum. And now I need your help. This is probably the last thing you want to hear but I can't—"
The message cut off.
"What happened?" I demand.
"It — it just stopped," Heather rushes out, rewinding the message and skipping it forward again. But we can't find out what Chance thought was the last thing that her mum would want to hear, or what she can't—.
"The voicemail must've timed out," Max reassures me, hesitatingly placing his hand on my shoulder. "But now we know who did that final thing to Chance — Baxter must be the reason she has this head injury. We can talk to him tomorrow at school, and find the truth, Rory."
Numb, I nod. "Thank you, Heather, for finding that out... Thanks, Lilia, for letting us use your lounge."
"Let's get you home, Rory." Max eases me up to my feet; it feels like I can't function on my own anymore.
"See you at school..." Lilia trails off as she holds the door open as watches us walk off her street and round the corner towards mine.
Max doesn't ask me if I'm okay or if I feel better about finding out what happened to Chance before that night. He simply takes me home and makes us both beans on toast for dinner.
My parents are out. Mum's volunteering at the local soup kitchen and Dad's working late. So, for now, it's just me and him.
He nudges me to keep eating even though all I want to do now is curl up into a tight ball and sleep. Or maybe scream until I drown the world out.
Max puts the empty plates in the dishwasher and leaves the beans pan in the sink to soak.
Then as we walk up to my room, I feel myself coming back to reality and the present moment. I don't even consider showing him Lauren's room — I don't want him far away from me.
"Are you going to be all right tonight?" He asks.
"Yes — because you're staying with me," I tell him. "I don't want you far away from me right now."
"In your room?" He raises an eyebrow.
I reach into my drawer and pull out a pair of checked blue-and-grey PJ bottoms, passing them over to him.
"Is this the part where you tell me you sleep naked?" I check as Max's fingers brush mine.
"I'll wear PJs if you want me to." He smirks at me.
Red tinges my cheeks. Max walks to the bathroom and changes into the PJs I gave him, while I quickly pull mine on as well.
It's only when Max comes back into my room that I realise I didn't give him a top.
My mouth half-drops open at the sight of him.
He's slim but muscular and defined. He's sculpted like a Greek god; biceps and triceps and pecs and abs and countless other muscles that I don't know the names of.
We step closer together and I raise my hand to the centre of his torso — pausing and looking up at him. He nods at me a couple of times.
A muscle jumps in his jaw as I press my hand between his pecs. His brown eyes darken as he moves ever closer to me. My heart races at a million miles an hour, hammering in my chest so loudly that the entirety of New Ridge must be able to hear it.
"Do I make you nervous?" Max murmurs and brings his hand to the side of my face, his touch bringing me back to life again.
"Yes — but in the best way possible," I admit, sliding my hand down his chest and over his abs.
"You make me nervous too, to be honest," he confesses as he watches me intently. "I've liked you for so long but now..." He swallows and looks down at our feet. "Now I don't want to fuck it up."
"And how would you fuck it up?" I ask, raising his head up with a gentle finger under his chin.
He presses his forehead against mine. "By rushing things — going too far, too fast."
I know what he's talking about, and I feel that clutch in my lower stomach. Because I want to go too far, too fast with him; it feels right. Righter than anything else going on in my life right now.
Pressing my lips to his cheek, I murmur, "How bad do you want me?"
"Rory, you have no idea." He shakes his head.
But I do have some idea; I want to touch every inch of his skin and stroke him and caress him. Nerves bubble up in my throat as Max and I stand so close together, so clearly wanting to touch and show each other love.
"I do, actually," I tell him, standing away from him to admire the pure fact he's standing half-naked in my room. I end up blurting out stupidly, "You're so fit, Max."
Passion flares up in his eyes, igniting at my words. "So are you," he fires back.
"Yeah, right," I scoff yet instinctively draw close to him again.
Max's fingers find the hem of my t-shirt. "Bet I can prove you wrong."
He pulls my t-shirt over my head, and he kisses me hard. My entire body shudders with lust and I lead him over to my bed before I collapse.
We become a mass of tangling limbs and stroking hands, fingers curling and knotting together as his lips sear kisses into my skin, and I try to show him how deeply I care for him through physical touch.
It feels like it's only the two of us in the entire world; everyone and everything else pales into inconsequentiality.
Despite the lust we feel for one another, we're still hesitant, and cautious. Neither of us wants to go all the way — and while we double-check and triple-check it verbally, it feels like we just know that we're on the same wavelength.
Our kisses slow as fatigue begins to encompass us.
So I pull the covers over us both and we have to adjust to sleeping beside one another. Sleeping together, in (almost) the most innocent sense.
"Big spoon or little spoon?" Max's late-night husk is a velvety rumble in my ear.
"Whatever's best for you back," I tell him as we lie on our sides facing one another.
"Forget about my back, I want you to hold me."
"I want you to hold me too," I argue back, though only in joking.
"Fine — how's this?" He rolls over onto his side, before reaching back to me and pulling my arms around his middle.
I guess I'm the big spoon, then.
I wriggle to move closer to him until my chest is against his back, my crotch slotted against his ass and our legs tangled together.
It's comfy — much comfier than I thought spooning would ever be.
I hold Max as he falls asleep, and it feels like the rightest thing ever.
How come I didn't see you before, Max Bellamy?
As I surrender to sleep, a sense of complete solace washes over my soul. It feels like I've found the Erin Wright to my Charlie Brewer — even if it's not the person I expected it to be.