Max | After

If I had a pound every single damn time someone's told me to smile over this past week, I would be a goddamn millionaire. Everyone has been saying it. Mr Gilbert, my other teachers, Carlos, Zeph, Kaci, even Margie, one of the the cooks at school. Grief counselling isn't exactly how I'd love to spend my Sunday, but at least it buys me another free day from Viv. Thank God I don't share any lessons with her. 

"Smile, Max," Dr Summers says with a sickening sweet one of her own. 

"I'm guessing you're scared of the dentist, Max," she says. 

"Who wants to look at people's dirty mouths all day for a living?" I mumble. "And I'm not scared of the dentist. He's kind of nice actually, gives me stickers even though I'm almost sixteen." 

Dr Martha Summers smiles again. It doesn't reach her eyes. Her eyes are pale blue in colour. At first, I'd been painfully reminded of Mr Covey and his daughter. But now I see the obvious difference. Their eyes are blue and green and grey, like the wild seas outside school. But hers are just pale blue. It reminds me of the portraits we did when we were kids in plastic aprons and Mike supervising us. Just blobs of colour for eyes. 

"So, anything particular you want to talk about?" 

"Yeah." I nod. "When can I go?" 

"Not yet, we haven't talked at all," she says. "Don't you want to talk to me, Max?"

"You're kidding, right? I don't need a shrink. I'm fine. Perfectly fine." 

"Your hands haven't stopped shaking since you entered this room," she replies coolly. "Holding your shirt won't help. And tuck it in, dear. You don't want to look untidy during your first week as a prefect." 

My hands are shaking. They haven't stopped shaking since I left Tristan in the tower. I'm shocked they haven't been shaking the whole summer. Since her funeral. Since she died while Carlos and I held her on that beach with wind slicing through the her hair. 

"What if I don't want to talk to you?" I ask with a sickly sweet smile, mimicking hers. 

"I'm not Mr Porter, Max. I don't give up so easily," she answers. 

"Neither do I," I say. "Illumen Hills are still trying to get their flag back from when I was in Year Seven. It's in my dorm and I intend on hanging onto it for the rest of my damn life." 

"Hm." 

She moves her pen across the pad to form irritatingly loopy letters. I can usually make out what loopy handwriting said, but upside down? If I share this with Carlos, he would say something along the lines of sul serio? Parli di lettura con me? He would have a point though. I always make an effort to write in clear letters, not joined up and loopy. 

"Why are you writing?" I ask suspiciously. 

"Taking notes," she answered. "And you are very suspicious, Max? Is this just something that you've always had, or something that's developed since her death? Have any of your other friends mentioned it?"

"One of my friends is dead, one is currently hacking away at a piece of wood with a saw, one has a knife while—" 

"Carlos Salvatore, the Kebran twins- Zeph and Kaci." she said. "None of them? Not even Grace when she was alive if this isn't a new thing?"

"Don't say her name," I rasp. "Please don't say her name." 

For the next few minutes, we sit in an icy silence in the room. I try to control my ragged breathing, going through mathematical sequences in my head. Square, Cube, Triangular, Fibonacci, Arithmetic, Quadratic. 

"So, how did you spend this summer, Max?" she asks. "How did you deal with her death?"

"I went home," I reply. "With my dad. He cancelled his shows. We spent the summer with my abuela. She taught me how to make paella." 

"You're Armando Enright's son, aren't you?"

"Yes, I am," I say. "Did you know him?"

"We went to school together," she explains. "You know, he always wanted to become a doctor when he was in school. Shocked us all when he became a dancer."

"I've heard that a lot. He switched careers because he said blood makes him feel faint now." 

"How does blood make you feel?"

"Grace drowned, there wasn't any blood," I tell her. "And it doesn't bother me."

"Max, my door is always open," she says. "Whenever you want to talk. I know this session was mandatory, but you can come to me. Okay?"

She's lying. Her door is closed now as we talk about Grace's death and how it's left me. It's been closed all day as people from our class have gone in and out to talk to her. 

"Okay." 

I leave, letting the next person walk in. She spent the whole twenty minutes talking to me like I don't have any problems. That's stupid. Of course I have problems. Like Mr Gilbert painstakingly reminded us when he announced this session, we are teenagers who would be deeply affected by something like the death of a peer. And the stereotype that rich, beautiful people didn't have any problems is the biggest lie I've ever heard. I'm good looking, aren't I? But Grace is still dead, my own mother died two minutes after giving birth to me, I have to talk to my father through scheduled phone calls and someone fucking murdered my best friend.  

"Hey, you," a voice says behind me. 

A soft, melodic voice I recognise. Vivienne Fell. 

"Viv," I say blankly. "You're here." 

"You have been avoiding me." With every word, she's taking a step towards me and takes a few more, closing the distance between us. 

"You know we're in a school corridor, right?" I ask. "And I've had a lot on my mind." 

"Let's fix that." 

She takes my hand and leads me to Artemis Tower. Up the spiral staircase and onto the roof. I flashback to the first proper day of school, doing my video diary before assembly and up here with Tristan during break. 

"Better?" I ask. 

"Much." She reaches up to kiss my lips, but I turn my head quickly so her lips brush against my cheek instead. "Max?"

"I'm sorry," I say quietly. "It's just... I don't really like being close to people right now. Since Grace, it just doesn't feel right." 

My words trip over each other, fast and rushed. God, why? Why can't I even talk like I used to? Grace didn't yank my tongue out on the night she died. I should be able to speak to the girl I was crazy for last year. 

"It's okay," she replies. "It's completely fine. Take your time."

I don't reply. Instead I walk to the edge of the roof and sit down on the ledge. Someone walking out of the school from the front entrance of the school may have a heart attack when they see a pair of black converse hanging from the roof. 

"I don't get how you can just sit here," Viv says, awkwardly taking a seat next to me. "Thank God I didn't wear a skirt, right?" 

"Right. That would be awkward." 

"Have you talked to Tris lately?" she asked. "He hasn't been talking to me since we came back. Hell, we didn't even talk during the summer. He was off with Dad most of the time."

"Maybe he's being trained to join your Dad's company?" I suggest. 

"I don't get how going on long runs for hours will teach him how to do whatever my dad does. Seems like all they were doing this summer was... sporty stuff. Not Tristan and Dad stuff."

"Tristan's doing GCSE PE, Viv," I remind her. "He's on the football team. He loves sports just as much as he loves reading. And your dad? I'm pretty sure he's just as active. He was on the football team when he went to school here."

"Yeah, but they've never done that stuff when they hang out." 

She goes on for a while about how they snuck off together all summer to do outdoorsy things that they never did before. And it irritates me. As she talks, I realise why I avoided her all week. Because as pretty Vivienne is with her masses of chocolate coloured curls and those glassy blue eyes, I can't think of a single reason why I was so interested in her last year. 

"Viv, why is this bothering you so much?" I ask. "Are you jealous that Tristan's spending more time with your dad than you? Scared you aren't the favourite kid anymore?"

"Max, I thought we could talk about this," she protests. "I thought we talked about these things."

"Just drop it. Please." I rack my brains for an excuse. "Your dad probably just wanted to make Tristan feel like you weren't getting all of the attention. You know, with the vocal nodes and everything."

"Yeah, you're probably right." She lets out a light laugh. "God, I sound real paranoid, don't I? It's not like they were plotting murder or anything."

I force laugh too even though it makes my throat hurt. 

"You know, Frankie was telling me that you'd go right back to Year Six Max this year."

I freeze. Year Six Max? "What does that mean?" I ask nonchalantly. 

She shrugs. "Just that it would be like you cared about Grace and nothing but her. I dunno, Frankie's weird sometimes. I told her that you cared about a whole bunch of people."

I can count them all on my fingers. The people who my life would crumble without. Dad, Abuela, Carlos, Zeph, Kaci, Grace, Mike, Marian. At a stretch, Mr and Mrs Covey too since I saw them just as much as Grace. Vivienne doesn't make that list. Ten people I really and truly care about. Now nine people I really and truly care about. 

"I think I going to go back to the dorm," I tell her. "I have homework and I promised to call Dad to prove I'm alive and sane, so..."

"Sure." 

I walk fast, trying not to make the fact I want to run away from her at top speed obvious. I punch in the codes to House as quick as I can, the buttons on the keypad familiar from years of use. Carlos is heading back to the dorm too, a rectangle of green and blue plastic in a small, clear folder hanging from his fingertips along with a Physics textbook. 

"Maximus," he says, turning. "What's wrong?"

"How'd you know I was here?" I ask. 

"I always know when you walk into a room, Max," he answers, opening our door. "We live together if you hadn't realised."

"Well, it's Vivienne." I shut the door with a snap. "Something's wrong, Carlos. It like everything last year before the Rager happened a million years ago."

"I know," Carlos agrees. "It feels like everything that mattered before then doesn't. School, football, swimming."

"What's the deal with you and swimming now?" Zeph asks from his bed. "Haven't seen you at the pool yet."

"I don't swim anymore," Carlos replies. "I can't. I keep having panic attacks in the water."

"Panic attacks?" I echo. "Like, can't breathe, losing control panic attacks?"

"What else would I mean, Max?" he sighs. 

"Sorry. It's just... I had a few this summer." I glance towards Zeph awkwardly staring at his bare feet. "Looks like Zeph's the most normal one in our dorm now."

"None of us are normal, Max," he answers immediately. "All our lives have been destroyed by the death of one girl. And, not to disrespect her memory or anything, she was a real bitch."

"She wasn't always a bitch," Carlos says. "I mean, before the last half term, she just minded her own business. She didn't like a lot of people, but she didn't make it obvious. Only we knew if she hated someone's guts."

"What happened to her?" I wonder aloud. "It's like Alton Towers was the last day with the nice Grace."

"It was the last day with that Grace." 

"I'm going to go take a shower," I tell them. 

I grab clothes from my wardrobe and head into the bathroom. We're the luckiest guys in Rosewood— we don't have to use the shared bathroom since our dorm came with one. Of course, there's always that one guy (who's always Darren) who cashes in all his favours to take a hot shower for longer than seven minutes before someone starts pounding on the door, yelling at the person to hurry up. 

The water is scalding hot, almost burning me and definitely steaming up all the mirrors. But I don't turn the temperature down. Cold showers remind me of the sea. The sea she drowned in. The sea that was wild and unpredictable the night she died. The sea that has caused so many questions in our minds. But there's only two that I thought of. 

Why would Grace who never went swimming in the sea because she said it was dangerous so swimming in it the night she died. And how did a star swimmer drown? 

It doesn't matter. That's what some people would say. They would say that finding out what happened wouldn't change a thing. But it does. Every single damn week of that last half term matters. The first week when she dyed a streak of her hair the colour of blood. The second when she stopped smiling. The third when she bailed on her lacrosse team's final match. The fourth when she didn't show up to the House Charity Fair. The fifth when she didn't even show up for Sports Day, let alone do any races. And the sixth when it was like she took a vow of silence and didn't speak a word until the morning of the day she died. 

All of this runs through my mind as I get dressed. I walk over to the mirror to debate on whether to comb my hair or just leave it as it is. In the end, I don't make the decision. 

"What the——"

Scrawled on the mirror over a thick layer of steam in dark pink lipstick is one word that chills me to the core while also creating that warm feeling in my chest. The word is frantic and rushed like the person didn't have time to be neat and tidy. 

Maxxx. 

Triple X. One for my name, one for love and one for luck. But really, both of the extra letters are for love. Grace for me. Best friends since we were tiny and all that. There's only one person who would use that name. Only two other people besides me and Grace even know about it. Mike and Abuela who are both miles away, up north. 

"Grace is still here," I whisper. 

The raven who's been perched on the window— the raven I didn't even notice until it made that raven sound— suddenly flies off. Like it heard me. Like it wants to know what happened to Grace as well.