"I love coming home." I announce to Max as we walk into the apartment. My breath can nearly be seen in the freezing living room.
"Except when you turn the heat off," I shiver and she chuckles.
"I still haven't figured that thing out yet, it's too high tech," she defends herself and I laugh.
"I'll grab some blankets." I say as Max tries to figure out the thermostat.
I grab the blanket from the bed and two from the closet before taking them back to the couch then returning to the room to change out of my dress.
"Maxxy!" I call.
"Coming!"
"Can you unzip me?" I ask her, turning my back to her. I flinch from the coolness of her fingertips against my bare skin.
"Sorry." She hastily unzips the material and it drops to the floor. I take my shoes off and the concrete floor is freezing as well.
I hurry to the dresser to grab the warmest pajamas I can find.
"Here, let me give you something," she says and walks to the closet, pulling out a gray hooded sweatshirt.
I smile, thanking her. I don't know what it is about wearing Max's clothes that I love so much, it's almost as if wearing them brings us closer. I never wore Chase's clothes except a sweatshirt once when we were camping with his family.
Max seems to like when I wear her clothes too. She watches me slip the sweatshirt over my head with lustful eyes. I notice her struggling to get the tie off and I pad over to help her. She watches me silently as I pull the tie from around her neck and sit it down before grabbing a pair of socks. I go with thick, fuzzy purple socks that my mother got me for Christmas last year. Christmas is only three weeks away, I wonder if my mother will still want me to come home. I haven't been home since I left for college.
"What are those?" She chuckles and flicks the balls of fur at the top of my ankle.
"Socks. Warm ones to be exact." I stick my tongue out at her.
"Nice." she teases and changes into sweat pants and a sweatshirt.
By the time we get back to the living room the apartment has warmed up drastically. Max turns the television on and lays on the couch, pulling me onto her chest and encasing us in the mound of blankets.
"I was wondering what you were doing for Christmas?" I ask her nervously. I don't know why I feel shy asking her about Christmas when we already live together.
"Oh, well I was going to wait until next week to bring it up with everything being so chaotic over the last week but since you brought it up." She smiles, her face holds the same nervousness that I feel.
"I am going to go home for the holiday and I would like if you would come with me?"
"Home?" I squeak.
"To England.. to my mother's house," she explains the obvious. "I get it if you don't want to, I know it's a lot to ask and you've already moved in with me."
"It's not that I don't want to, it's just.. I don't know.." The idea of going to another country with Max is thrilling but terrifying. I have never even left Washington.
"You don't have to answer me tonight but let me know soon okay? I will be leaving the twentieth," she explains.
"That's the day after my birthday," I tell her. She suddenly moves and lifts my head up.
"Your birthday? Why didn't you tell me it was so soon?" She questions, accusation clear in her voice.
"I don't know, I haven't really thought about it I guess. Birthday's aren't really a big deal to me." My mother used to go all out on my birthdays, making each one special but not in the last few years.
"Well what would you like to do for your birthday?"
"Nothing, maybe we can go to dinner?" I don't want to make a bug deal out of it.
"Dinner.. I don't know, that's a bit extravagant isn't it?" She teases.
I giggle and she kisses my forehead. We end up falling asleep on the couch and I wake up sweating in the middle of the night. I lift myself off of Max and peel the sweatshirt off before going over to turn the heat down. The small blue light blinking coming from Max's phone on the counter peaks my curiosity. I lift the phone up and swipe my finger across. Three new messages. Put the phone down Charli.
I have no reason to go through her phone, that's insane. I sit the phone back down and walk back towards the couch only to be stopped by the vibration of another text message arriving.
Just one, I will only glance at one. That's not so crazy right? I know it is insane to be looking through Max's messages but I can't seem to stop myself.
*Call me back dick.* The message reads. Jace's name covers the top of the small screen. Reading that text message was a terrible idea. It didn't get me anywhere at all and now I feel guilty for going through Max's phone like a crazy person. Why is Jace texting Max anyway?
"Charli?" Max's voice croaks causing me to jump and the phone slips out of my grasp. It falls to the floor and a cracking noise is heard.
"What was that? What are you doing?" She asks through the dark room, the only light being cast from the television.
"Your phone went off.. and I grabbed it." I half lie and scramble on the floor to pick up the phone. The screen now has a small crack along the side. "And I cracked the screen." I add.
"Just come back to bed." She groans and I sit the phone down and lay back on the couch with her.
The next morning I wake up to Max trying to move from under me. I shift against the back of the couch to let her get up and she grabs her phone off the counter before going to the bathroom. I hope she isn't too pissed about me breaking her phone, if I wouldn't have been so nosy this wouldn't have happened in the first place. I pull myself off the couch and make a pot of coffee. Max's proposal of going to England with her keeps running through my mind. We have already moved so quickly in our relationship by moving in together at such a young age. However, I would love to meet her mother and see England, especially with Harry.
"Deep in thought?" Max's voice interrupts me.
"No.. well sort of." I laugh.
"About?"
"Christmas."
"What about it? You can't figure out what to get me?" She laughs.
"I think I am going to call my mother and see if she would have even invited me for Christmas. I feel bad not at least seeing first you know. She will be alone." I tell her.
"I understand." she agrees.
"I'm sorry about your phone."
"It's fine."
"I read a text message from Jace." I blurt. I don't want to hide things from her. no matter how embarrassing the confessions are.
"You what?"
"It vibrated and I looked at it. Why was he texting so late anyway?"
"What did you read?" She asks ignoring my question.
"A text from Jace." I repeat.
"What did it say?" Her jaw clenches.
"Just to call him back.." Why is she getting so worked up? I knew she wouldn't exactly be happy that I looked at her text message but she is overreacting.
"I have a few things to do today so can you keep yourself busy for a while?"
"What do you have to do?" I ask and intantly regret it.
"Jesus Charli, why are you always on my case!" She raises her voice.
"I am not always on your case, I just wanted to know what you were doing. We are in a relationship, a pretty serious one at that so why wouldn't I ask where you are going?"
"You just don't know when to let shit go is your problem. I don't have to tell you everything, whether we are living together or not! If I would have known you were going to start shit with me today, I would have left before you even woke up." She snaps.
"Wow." Is all I respond before storming off to the bedroom with her hot on my heels.
"Wow what?"
"I should have known that last night was too good to be true."
"Excuse me?" She scoffs.
"We had such a great time, you weren't an asshole for once but you wake up today and bam! You're back to being a jerk!" I scramble around the room picking up Max's dirty clothes off the floor.
"You forgot the part that you went through my phone."
"Okay and I am sorry for doing that, but its honestly not a big deal. If there is something on there that you don't want me to see then there is a bigger problem here!" I yell and shove the clothes into the hamper.
"No Charli, you are the problem. You're always making something out of nothing!"
"Why did you fight Zayn?"
"We aren't doing this right now." She says in a cool tone.
"Then when Max? Why won't you tell me? How am I supposed to trust you if you are keeping things from me?"
"Does this have to do with Jace?" I ask and her nostrils flare.
She runs her hands over her face then up through her hair leaving it sticking straight up.
"I don't know why you can't ever just mind your own damn business." She grumbles and walks out of the room. Seconds later I hear the front door slam and I wipe the angry tears from my cheeks.
Max's reaction to me asking about Jace is gnawing at my stomach the entire time I clean the apartment. She overreacted, there is something she isn't telling me and I don't understand why. I am fairly certain it has nothing to do with me but it just doesn't make sense why Max gets so worked up about it. I have known since the moment I met Jace that there was something about him I didn't like. If Max isn't going to give me answers I will have to go through another source. I look out the window and watch as Max's car pulls out of the parking lot before grabbing my phone.
My new source answers the phone on the first ring.
"Zayn? It's Charli." I say into the phone.
"Yea... I know."
"Okay.. well I was wondering if I could ask you something?" My voice comes out smaller than I intended it to.
"Uhmm.. where is Max?" He asks. I suspect that he holds a small grudge against me for blowing him off after he was so kind to me.
"She isn't here."
"I don't think this is a good idea.."
"Why did Max fight you?" I ask before he finishes,
"I'm sorry Charli, I gotta go." He says and the call ends.
What the hell? I hadn't been one hundred percent sure he would tell me but that wasn't the reaction I was expecting either. My curiosity is now peaked more than before and my annoyance is as high as ever. I try to call Max again but of course she doesn't answer. Why would Zayn act that way? Like he was almost.. afraid to tell me? Maybe I was wrong and this does have to do with me? I don't know how or why but none of this makes sense. I take a step back and reevaluate the situation, am I overreacting? Max's frantic expression when I asked about Jace replays in my head and I know I am not. I take a shower to try to calm my nerves and my mind but it doesn't work, the feeling in the pit of my stomach pushes me to come up with another option. When I get out of the shower I blow dry my hair and get myself dressed while I decide what to do next.
I feel a little like Miss Havisham in Great Expectations, plotting and scheming. I had never cared for her character but now I find myself relating to her slightly, I can now see how love can make you do things that you normally wouldn't, become obsessive and even a little crazy. My plan really isn't all that crazy or nearly as dramatic as it seems in my head. All I am planning to do is to find Addison and ask her if she knows why Max and Zayn got in a fight and see what she knows about Jace. The only thing that makes it crazy is that Max will lose it as soon as she finds out that I called Zayn and went to Addison. Now that I think about it, Max hasn't taken me around any of her friends since we moved in together which I suspect is because none of them actually know about our new living arrangement. I wonder if Addison and Tristan ended up working out their problems, I hope they did.
By the time I leave the apartment my thoughts are jumbled and I end up leaving my phone on the counter.
It begins to snow as soon as I pull onto the freeway so it takes me over thirty minutes to get to the dorms. They look the same as I remember, of course they do it has only been a week sine I left them. It seems so much longer. I ignore the rude stare from the bleach blonde across the hall who once yelled at Max for spilling vodka outside her door. That first night that Max stayed in my dorm with me seems so distant, time hasn't made sense since I have met Max. There is no answer when I knock on my old door. Of course she isn't here, she is never here. She spends majority of her time at Tristan and Sam's apartment and I have no idea where that is. Even if I did would I go there?
Just as I am about to give up on my radical decision to practically stalk my old roommate, I pass Blind Bob's, the biker bar I went to with Addison. As soon as I recognize Sam's car in the lot, I pull in. I take a deep breath before getting out of my car, the cold air burns my nostrils. The woman at the front smiles at me when I enter and I am relieved when I spot Addison hair from across the room. If only I had known what was to come.
THE END.