“You loved her, too,” I say, turning back to him. He grimaces yet again, letting his head fall back. X is clutching the letter in his fingers so hard that the page crinkles in his grip. “You wanted to get back together with her. This isn’t fair to you.”
“It isn’t fair to you either. Or to Parrish. To Chasm. To the fourteen dead kids that the Slayer murdered. To the … however many more people he plans on killing.” Maxx sits back, putting one palm on the floor to brace himself and extending his long legs beside my folded ones. “I need to talk to you, Kota.”
“Now?” I ask softly, because I’m already processing a lot today. Tears brim, but I flat-out refuse to let them fall. Maxine is the one who’s hurting most right now; I have to stay strong for her.
“Now.” X closes his eyes and lets his head fall back, still holding the letter in his left hand. It’s draped across his lap, tempting me more and more with each second that I stare at it. “I haven’t been completely honest with you.”
Um.
What?
I blink at him, but I can’t make myself talk. Not right now. I just wait.
“When I first saw you at the coffee shop, I knew right away who you were.”
I stay silent, still staring at him. My pulse starts to pound in my head like the shushing of the ocean waves against the shore.
“What?” The word is whispered, so quiet that I’m surprised he can hear it.
He opens his eyes and lifts his head to look at me again, green eyes blazing.
“You know, I’m worried about my parents actually. They’ve been acting weird as fuck lately. I mean, like, really weird. They demanded I come to the track yesterday even though they knew Tess was having a press conference and that I’d want to be there. I asked myself why they’d do that. They’ve known Parrish since he started kindergarten; I was in second grade at the same school.” Maxx taps his foot, staring at it instead of my face. I’m wondering if this is a non-sequitur or if he plans on segueing back into the fact that he fucking lied to me. The truth is important, he says. Important enough to tell Maxine about us.
So what is this about?
“They’re back in town all of a sudden, even though they rarely leave Portland anymore. All of that plus they’re staying at Seamus’ cabin. Doesn’t that seem odd?” I don’t know his parents, but I assume that he does, waiting for him to get to the point. I have a feeling that whatever it is he’s trying to say to me isn’t easy; he feels it requires explanation. “Did you know there’s a party on Friday?”
“Uh, okay?” I reply, feeling the minutes tick by. With each one, I get closer to seeing Justin again, to making my proposal, to … whatever comes after that.
“A big one. All the who’s who of Medina will be there.” He turns to look at me, an apology clear in his face. Even before he tells me what this is all about, he’s apologizing. I once said that Maxx was the sort of person who never apologized, but that only applies to his existence, to his taking up space, to being who he is unfiltered. When he’s wrong, he has no problem admitting it, no problem saying he’s sorry. “My parents are going to that. That’s why they’re here.”
“Maxx, you’re killing me,” I whisper back, shaking out my hands to keep myself from grabbing that letter. “What’s going on?”
“Justin is having a party on Friday. It’s the official launch party for Milk Carton. And my parents are planning on attending.”
Hmm. Well, that’s interesting news. And it might be relevant somehow to our situation with Parrish, but what does that have to do with him lying to me at the coffee shop?
“Anyway, when the news about your and Tess’ story first broke, it was actually my parents who encouraged me to seek Maxine out. They’d heard she attended U of O with me. They made it seem like they just felt sorry for her. Plus, we’re really close with the Vanguards, so it all made sense to me. I found her on campus, and we clicked.” He releases the letter, leaving it to lie on his lap, and crosses his fingers together. My heart seizes in my chest, but the reasons for that are complicated, so I choose to ignore them. “I really, really liked her. More than any girl I’d ever met before.”
I exhale sharply, shifting uncomfortably in my position and then finally uncrossing my legs. I stretch them out, mirroring Maxx’s pose, just in the opposite direction.
“But then I met you.”
“Please don’t say those sorts of things to me,” I warn him, but he’s on a truth bender apparently, and I’m not going to be able to stop it without fleeing him and this tiny, closed-in space. It’s packed with emotion in here, so dense that it’s almost hazy.
