IT'S BEEN A WHILE! That was not meant to be an all caps rage, but I kind of like it, so what the hell. I'll do what I want *puts on shades of responsibility* Thank you for all of those reviews! Honestly, I was just annoyed when I wrote that chapter, so I'm sorry because I couldn't quite get the same feeling to the last one. This one feels more docile to me, but with kind of the same edge.

Disclaimer: AHAHAAHAHA NO. I could not write something as beautiful as Maximum Ride, so therefore it isn't mine. D:

"Oh, shit." I sit up abruptly, not particularly noticing my surroundings as my eyes get fuzzier and fuzzier while looking around. I close them tightly, letting out a cool breath as the ringing in my ears starts again. "Fuck."

This is the second time this has happened, where I've woken abruptly with a painful jolt, muscles screaming for help, and my brain telling me over and over again:

Wow, you really fucked it up this time.

I don't remember what happened the first time I woke up, and honestly, I still wish I don't know what happened, because each time I think about it, I just remember how stupid I am for doing that. How horrible I am. And typically, that's all I do think about, because my head starts hurting far too much for brain comprehension.

There was no concussion, just a black eye, and Dylan was suspended for a few days, but there's no way that'll fix my pride at all. Dylan's like a hero now, and I'm once again just the quiet and secretly impulsive freak that fucks up everything he touches.

Okay, I know. Dramatic again, but I can't really help myself when the only thing on in the nurses's office is Ms. Kosminsky's telenovelas.

This time, there's someone sitting next to me on the back corner of the bed. Her ashen hair is like squiggles, her eyes shaking in front of my vision. I sat up too fast, and I'm starting to regret that as nausea pours over me.

Fan-fucking-tastic.

My hands reach my sticky face, probably plastered with sweat, and I run my fingers through my limp hair, getting a hold of my senses. When I see her, I groan.

"What the fuck, why are you here?" I ask, my tone ice and my glare fire. Before she can change her expression, I say, "If you dare to look at me with any sort of pity, I won't even want to talk to you."

Nonetheless, she gives me the look. The pity look, where your eyes start to look watery and your eyebrows curve like a puppy's that's been kicked too many times, where I lose any two shits that I gave about you before you made that look. I hate that look. I've seen it too many times.

"I'm sorry." Her voice is brittle and low, and she twiddles her thumbs in between her thighs without meeting my gaze.

"Okay, then, Max. Well, I'm sorry, too." She looks up at me for a moment, asking me to continue. "I'm sorry that I did those things to you, and would be rude to you. I'm sorry that I'm in this goddamn nurse's office smelling the antiseptic and feeling suffocated in the white walls, and I'm sorry that Dylan caught us. But I'm not sorry about one thing."

She gives me the look harder.

"I'm not sorry that I kissed you back. Okay? So just leave me the fuck alone right now. I don't want the girl I like to see me when I've just lost a fight." When did the lights get brighter, the walls whiter? I drape an arm over my eyes and start to lean back down, hating the way the sheets fold underneath me, and the way the blanket feels heavy and thick on my chest. I'm so fucking weak.

"Well," Max says, and her tone is a bit lighter, "I'm kind of a bitch to you anyway."

"Likewise." I swallow thickly. I think I'm almost at my word count for today. "And Max-"

"Yeah?" She interrupts, hoping that I'll ask her a question. I just don't know what it is. Maybe if I knew what it was, I wouldn't be so deep in my own shit that I'm used to it already. But I don't know what it is. And I don't think she'll find out what I'm supposed to be asking her.

"I still need you to reject me," I say, and a thought comes to my mind. "Don't kiss me this time, I don't need brain damage from your golden boy."

She laughs, but it's shaky and quavering, like she's wanting to say something but doesn't have the resolve to do it. Her hands twitch and her feet tap on the floor in an erratic rhythm, like she's wanting to run away, and I can't really blame her. I look like shit, I've acted like shit, and I'm pretty almost shit myself. I need the shower, I know it.

"I'm sorry that I can't reciprocate your feelings," she says, and I know that she's forcing it out of her strangled lips, like she doesn't want to hurt me, but it's absolute. Although I've been rejected, I start to laugh, a jittery laugh that's entirely nasal and unattractive.

"Sorry, sorry," I say, putting up the other hand that isn't blocking the light. "I just can't believe you used the word reciprocate to reject me," I say wheezily between laughs, waving at her again and again in dismissal. I take the other hand off my face, and I only laugh harder as I see her face, blush creeping up her neck and onto her cheeks. My head starts throbbing, but I don't really care. It's just too funny, for some reason. Maybe I was hit a little too hard.

"Shut up!" She says, and then walks out of the room, leaving me with the curtains open and the lights on.

"Look at me," I say, running my hand over the rough surface of my comforter, "Fang Walker, the guy who'd rather laugh at the girl he likes and never face her again than get some balls and win her over. Look. At. Me. I'm pathetic. At least I won't talk again."

And for the second time that day, I groan, burying myself with the pristine pillows and crumbled blankets.

If only I knew she'd been listening.

It's been a week since I've spoken to Maximum Ride.

There are times when I sneak looks at her in the hallway, or just find pictures of her from the school newspaper, or something else. I don't think I've ever been so aware of someone, and I don't think that I've ever been so annoyed at myself, either. I'm such a fucking idiot.

I suppose the bully has become the bullied, and I can't help but think how reversed it is as someone starts to jeer at me for the second time since I came back to school. Dylan's back, too, and I seem to have this Dylan-radar that lets me know when he's by me. I don't need to be looking, I just need to feel the hair rise on the back of my neck to know that he's glaring at me from some direction, somewhere.

I'm just not going to talk, I tell myself, shifting my weight on my backpack. My eyes are red, and it's not because I've been crying, but it's because I stayed up all night watching one of the telenovelas from the nurse's office, ¿Dónde está Maria? My friends ditched me, I suppose, and I'm not back in the game at all. It's so fucking frustrating, because now I'm spending nights alone.

"How are you?" The server asks me. I put my coins in her outstretched palm, my lunch in the one hand. She takes a look at my healing black eye, and to be honest, she's the only one who has talked to me all week. I want to tell her a lot of things, and I feel the words starting to crawl out of my mouth until I bite down on my jaw, hard, getting the taste of impulsivity out of my mouth.

"Better." It's only one word, but she smiles, because it's the first word that she's gotten out of me. There's snickering behind me, the kind of childish snickering that makes you want to punch a wall and tell everyone to grow up, but I ignore it and choose for walking to the library to eat.

Lunch is easy. It's just eating, something that I'm good at, something that I've always been good at. And now, it's the easiest fucking thing in the world, something that I don't even have to try to do. I don't have to watch what I'm eating, or eat too much, depending on who I'm sitting with at lunch. I can just do what I want, without worrying about people talking to me.

"Oh, how are you, dear?" I hear the librarian ask. Probably a stray student, or someone that doesn't have A lunch.

"I'm fine, thank you for asking, Mrs. Hall." I flinch. Of course it would be Max. Immediately, I stand, grabbing my tray and starting to move out the door and into the Commons, but Max has noticed me even before I stood up. She knew I was there all along, and it's obvious by how she's sneaking glances at me now and then. Each time our eyes meet, I stare, challenging her to keep looking, but there's a part of me that wants to get lost in her honey eyes, to drown in them and never worry.

However, I'm more pissed than in love at the moment, and my glare isn't as strong when I have an eye that's always squinting. I get up and lift my backpack over my shoulders and start to walk away, the weight becoming heavier and heavier, like bricks are being added onto my shoulders with every step I take.

And for some reason, some unbeknownst reason that I would actually really like to murder, I take a look back, just to see if Max is watching me walk away, and she's not. She's not at all, because why would she? I'm just another guy that she's rejected.

"Hey, it's lover boy!" Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. Fuck. I start to speed up. Come on, school's over, give me a break! I think, twisting around corners of the school, navigating my way to one of the back exits that lead to the bus stops, but he's fast, and my chest hurts from the bruising he's done to my ribs. I can't even see all that well, either.

Dylan grabs a fistful of my hair, stopping me abruptly, his hand clamped around my neck. For a moment I try to worm my way out of his grip, but my head is on fire and is screaming with protest with each jerk my body gives. My throat starts to clench and feels constricted.

"Tell me what you want from me," I gasp, gulping in the precious air.

"Don't come to school, or face this every day."

"Hm," I pause, starting to think. Dots start dancing over my field of vision, and I tell them to go away in my head incessantly."How about no?" I spit at him, a stream that hits him in the face. He jolts for a moment, only for a split second, but it's enough time for me to wrench myself out of his grip and kick him in balls. A low blow, I know, and he winces as I hit him. He's paralyzed for only a moment, but I grab my bag and start to run, faster than I did before.

Even if he won't get up for a moment, I can't waste any time. For just a moment, my head turns to look behind me, hoping that he's out of my sight, but the absence of his presence is more disconcerting than the large body that is the alternative. When I whip my head back, I bump right into something.

Someone.

"Oh, sorry," I mutter, looking behind me quickly with paranoid eyes, not noticing who I had hit in the first place. "Shit," I start repeating over and over again under my breath, but I'm positive that this person has already figured out what's going on.

"Come." I look up just in time to find the owner of this modulated voice, and it's someone that I haven't seen in a long time.

He looks the same, even with the pained expression that seems to have molded over his far more pleasant grin that used to be plastered on his face. He seems longer, his arms and legs spidery and his hair wispier, his torso skinnier and eyes paler, if possible.

He seems to navigate purposefully and with ease, and we end up at one of the many janitor's closets. He doesn't think to turn the light on, so we're in utter darkness for a split moment, both of our breaths labored and our fingers entangled with each others. Finally, when my breath comes back and my eyes focus, I let go of his crushing grip and turn on the light to the closet.

"Thanks." Another one worded response. I'm not tired, just unwilling.

"Fang?" He asks, and I smile. Although we haven't spoken since primary school, he remembers.

"Yeah, Ig, it's me," I say, but I don't quite understand how he couldn't have known. I search his features for an answer, and find that his eyes, paler, are glazed over and are unseeing, lacking purpose as they gaze at my ear, not my eyes. Blind.

Iggy gives a crooked grin, but his teeth are straighter. It doesn't work as well, and seems forced. "Do girls still fawn over you?" He asks.

"Do you still want girls to fawn over you?" I retort.

"I'll take that as a no."

"Smart, aren't you?" I ask, and start to sink as my back pushes against the wall of the closet, narrowly missing the cart full of chemicals and the duster that is blacker and dirtier than my hair. That's disgusting.

"How'd you get in?" I finally ask, giving the room a clean sweep. It's dull and bleak, but at the same time looks newer and more used. This closet is older, and not a lot of janitors use it anymore.

"Ask yourself that again, you're a smart kid," Iggy says, picking at his cuticles and trying to look bored, but I know that he's just as excited as I am.

"You picked the lock, didn't you, but you did it before I came, because you were taking the chemicals and building a bomb. Of course."

Finally, Iggy laughs, and it's real this time, warmer. "Some things never change."

We start talking for a bit more, remembering times from primary school, joking about the things that happened. We talk about our old friends, and we talk about Iggy's bombs, but it feels like it's taboo to talk about Dylan.

"You're probably wondering how this happened, huh?" Iggy says, pointing to his glazed eyes. He must have noticed that I was staring at them. I don't say anything. "It's not something too difficult to talk about. It was just a bad chemical reaction that didn't react until I was certain it wouldn't, when my goggles were off, and I was peering at the tube. That's also why this exists," he says, pulling up his upper lip to reveal sores and blisters, "And this." He points to the cut on his lip that seems old, but also festering.

"You're a naughty little pyromaniac," I observe.

"Yeah but I'm fucking sexy, aren't I?" Iggy teases, attempting to be seductive while caressing his torso.

We're silent for a moment, and then a few minutes, but it's not the awkward silence that makes you want to do something homicidal to the person who isn't talking, but it's comfortable. Maybe it's because Iggy can't see how stupid I look, and that he can't see my black eye, or the handprint around my neck.

It's been another ten minutes when I say, "I think Dylan's gone," I say. "Thanks."

"Hey, wanna get something to eat?" Iggy asks, but I blush as I think about my goddamn car.

"Nah, I've got work at the City Market."

Well! That was a bit longer, kind of as compensation for all the time I made you guys wait. I'm trying to be more regular with my updates from now on, so expect a lot more from me!

-SOCIALLYOBSCENE