Chapter Text
“Abs. Abby!”
There’s an incessant tapping on the back of her shoulder now that Abby needs to stop before she impulsively slaps someone—again. She should lean her head back and tell Norah to just fuck off—it’s what she would normally do—but she doesn’t trust that she wouldn’t find some other way to hit her given how she’s feeling right now.
“Oh my god, Abigail!” Norah gets louder. It hurts Abby’s ears.
“Jesus, what?” Her tone has a bite to it that’s extra snappy—even for Abby—and she can’t see this, because her head is still hidden in her hands, but both Norah and Ginny actually recoil from it. “Why are you screaming?”
“Because the bell rang like, two minutes ago and you’re still sitting here.”
That gets Abby moving; her head is up within seconds, and sure enough, the classroom is empty save for their English teacher scowling at them from her desk. What the hell? Abby’s cheeks burn red. She’s never not heard the bell ring before.
Abby squints against the harsh lights and her eyes find Norah’s—she observes Ginny’s presence in her periphery but passes right over her because she knows that the look of incredulity she’ll find in Norah’s eyes will be much easier to deal with than the blatant concern she’d find in Ginny’s. And sure enough, that’s exactly how Norah is looking at her. Like she’s grown three heads—it’s oddly comforting—and who knows, maybe she has. Could be kinda cool.
“What in the world is going on with you?” Norah demands. Aaaaand the comfort’s gone.
Abby’s eyes dart away, and she starts trying to stuff her things into her backpack, but her fingers feel shaky and fumble beneath the burning fire of three pairs of eyes on her—that’s six eyeballs in total and six too many.
“Uh, nothing,” Abby zips up her bag as she shoves the last handout inside and ignores how it crumples under the force of her shoving. She deflects with a laugh and hopes it doesn’t sound too forced. “No, um, I think I probably just dozed off or something. It’s dumb.”
Abby slings her backpack over her shoulder and hops to her feet in haste—she avoids looking in the direction of their teacher and ignores the way her head spins when she lands—before booking it out of the classroom so fast that Norah and Ginny have to scramble to keep up.
“She is so not okay.”
__
Abby makes a beeline for the nearest bathroom. Her head throbs, her eyes sting, and her insides are squeezing with an intense, nauseous pressure that she has become all too familiar with. It’s hard to even breathe. She has to get rid of it.
Abby weaves between students in the halls. With each step, she feels unsure that she won’t find herself landing the wrong way and crumpling to the floor. Her head feels floaty—the spinning feeling rages—and her ears are ringing. Why are her ears ringing? Gosh, has there always been so many people in this school? Damn. She just needs to get to the bathroom. She needs to throw up. Relief is so close. Just a few more moments.
And then she does it; she makes a complete and utter fool of herself.
Abby crashes into someone’s side, knocks their backpack to the ground, and feels herself start to go down with it, but a steadying hand grabs onto her and holds her upright.
“Hey, woah! Slow down, Abs.”
Tris. Shit. Of course it has to be Tris.
“Oh, sorry,” Abby mutters—head down—as she picks up Tris’s backpack off the floor and holds it out to them. “I didn’t mean to crash into you like that.”
Abby can see their soft smile—directed at her—and catches a glimpse of the care and amusement in their brown eyes when they lock for a brief moment. Abby’s insides constrict all over again when they do, and she’s quick to shift them to something else. Like, Tris’s hand taking their bag back and slinging it over their shoulder.
“No worries.”
Gosh, Tris is so chill. How are they always so chill?
“So… any reason for the rush? ‘Cause you were going pretty fast there,” Tris prods, gently—Abby can hear the lighthearted teasing in their voice—but this time, it’s not helpful. “It was impressive.”
Abby squeezes her eyes shut. She knows Tris is trying not to push, not to be too forward—she can feel it and that’s just the problem. Abby is feeling too much. Everything is just too much. She doesn’t know if it shows; it probably doesn’t—it never does—but Abby needs to find a way out.
“Oh, yeah, no dude. I was just—” Abby tries, but it’s like she’s lost her words. She tries to find them but Abby is just too aware of too much—the spinning, the ringing, her eyes. For some reason, they feel too dry. Why do they feel so dry? Wait, is she blinking? There’s the chattering of the students, the clattering of the lockers, and loud footsteps against tiled floors, and Abby feels like she’s drowning in all of the sounds. Tris’s eyes are watching her, waiting for her to speak, to respond, and probably thinking this girl they’re kind of, sort of dating is a useless, dumb idiot—and nothing is coming out.
“Abs, you alright?” Tris’s voice re-enters her ears like the volume is turning up from being on mute. “What’re you… looking at?”
Abby sees them look behind themselves, as though they will find something interesting that Abby just can’t take her eyes off of, but there’s nothing, of course, because Abby isn’t looking at anything.
“Oh. No, um, it’s nothing,” Abby’s brain remembers how to function. She waves a hand and shrugs a shoulder. She meets Tris’s eyes and forces them to stay connected despite the way it makes the pressure within her rise.
Tris just looks at Abby, with their eyebrows raised, and that soft smirk that Abby just hates so much—she hates it because she has never been able to stand a chance against it. Telling Tris things is so easy, and it’s not even because Abby feels connected to them in some kind of cosmic meant-to-be bullshit kind of way, but because Tris never expects anything of her. There’s never any pressure with Tris. Unlike with literally everyone else in her life. Abby often finds herself having to manually prevent herself from saying too much sometimes, otherwise she’d accidentally spill all of her secrets, and there’s no world in which that will end well for her.
“I-I was looking for Max, actually,” Abby sputters the words out—swift and without thinking. Did she just say she was looking for Max? Shit. Well, guess she’s looking for Max now.
For the first time, Abby sees a flicker of… something in Tris’s features that is not chill or soft or amused.
“Ah,” Tris bows their head and nods. Their smile looks kind of… sad? “Still thinking about Max, huh?”
Abby’s wide eyes shift between Tris’s. Okay, whaaaat is happening right now? She is so not prepared for whatever this thing she’s sensing is. Her bones are still vibrating and her ears are still ringing and she feels like a freaking volcano on the verge of erupting. She just wants to get to the bathroom and do the thing, so she can feel somewhat in control again for even just a few measly minutes. She cannot be doing this—relationship stuff, feelings, any of it.
“N-no? I mean,” Abby tries to laugh it off. She shifts on her feet, readjusts her backpack strap, and presses her fingertips hard against her sweaty palm. “It’s not like, that or anything. Not that I know…” Abby trails off. Seriously, why is speaking so goddamn hard? “...what you’re thinking.”
Tris’s eyes narrow, and Abby wants to facepalm so bad. She feels like a walking facepalm. She’s such an idiot. Why can’t she just communicate?
“No,” Tris starts, and Abby senses a shift in their demeanor. They stand up straighter, their shoulders are held back, and there’s a defensiveness in their eyes Abby is deeply unfamiliar with coming from them. “You don’t know what I’m thinking, and I don’t really appreciate it when people act like they do.”
Shit. Shit. Shit.
Abby feels her heart rate pick up. She doesn’t like this; she doesn’t like this at all.
“Wait, Tris, no. That’s not-I didn’t mean—” Abby tries and fails spectacularly as Tris brushes right on past her.
“I’ll call you later, Abby.”
The absence of warmth in Tris’s voice hits Abby like a ton of bricks. What the hell just happened?
Abby doesn’t even know. The burning pressure behind her eyes is back, and this time, it’s definitely tears. She wants to cry; she wants to scream; she wants to throw up—but she can’t. There are people around, and she just saw someone enter her bathroom destination across the hall, so that’s a no-go too. Fuck!
Abby locks her jaw and swallows the heavy, burning sensation down, locking it inside with all the other sensations that are tearing her apart from the inside out. She sees the disappointment on Tris’s face every time she blinks—a pain shoots through her fingers and lets her know that she’s pressing them against her palm way too hard—and Abby hates herself for causing it. The only thing she has ever wanted to do is impress Tris, to be good enough for them, and she can’t even do that. She can’t even do the bare-fucking-minimum. How pathetic is that?
The warning bell—five more minutes to get to class—dings and Abby wills her feet to start moving. The conversation replays in her mind as her feet drag along the tiles.
One, two, three, four—What did I say wrong?—five, six, seven, eight—I’ve never seen Tris get so like, defensive before—nine, ten, eleven, twelve—Why did they get so defensive?—thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen—Was my eye contact shifting too much?—seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, one—Or was it too like, strong?—two, three, four, five—Ugh, I can’t even freaking remember—six, seven, eight, nine—But like, they asked me what I was looking at so I must’ve looked like a frickin’ idiot—ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen—and they probably thought I didn’t care or something—fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen—but that’s not-it’s not like I could’ve just said “Oh yeah, no dude. It’s nothing. I just went like, brain-dead for a few seconds. Don’t even worry about it”—eighteen, one, two, three—because that definitely would’ve been even weirder and—
Abby’s feet stop moving without meaning to.
Max.
Abby sees her—standing at her locker—and she forgets.
She forgets—for a few brief moments—about the hurricane of feelings whirring within her—about the ringing in her ears, the spinning in her head, and the burning desire for control that continues to claw at her insides.
Suddenly, Max is the only thing she can think about. Max is the only thing she can feel.
Bryon and Bracia are with her, Abby notices. Wait, Bryon and Bracia? Since when does Max hang out with them outside of like, theater stuff? It’s weird, seeing Max around people who are not Norah or Ginny between classes—it feels wrong—and Abby can’t even pinpoint the reason why they don’t anymore.
A rando bumps into her shoulder in their haste to get to class and the hurricane comes roaring back to life—suddenly all too aware that she is quite literally standing frozen in the middle of the hallway like an idiot. It’s an all out assault on every single one of her senses. Boys are yelling down the hall; thundering footsteps and students rush past her—someone brushes against her arms; the contact hurts and the hairs on the back of her neck stand up with that horrific prickly feeling; chairs screech against tile floors; asshole teachers yelling; her palms are sweating—fucking gross; the fabric of her hoodie is way too itchy and she feels a tag she must’ve forgotten to cut off poking her in the side; her bones are vibrating again; the room is damn near spinning, and her head throbs in tune with the hammering of her heart.
Fuck this.
Abby presses the inner part of her thumbs against her eyelids, and wills it all to just go away.
This is truly the worst day.
Her eyes refocus on Max when they reopen, and Abby notices something else, then, about Max. She’s wearing a sweatshirt instead of one of her usual loud and colorfully abrasive outfits, and she’s talking, but not in her usual animated-like way, with her hands flying all around. She looks… well, not like Max.
Something inside her chest squeezes, and it’s a different sensation to the intense pressure she’s used to. Enough with all the goddamn sensations already!
Should I say something? Or maybe just like, ask if she’s okay? But what if that triggers even more feelings and then Max spirals into another one of her verbal avalanches because I really don’t think I can deal with that right now and if I don’t respond in the most perfect way, that will probably just make everything so, so much worse, and I really, really don’t want to just keep making things worse by opening my stupid fucking dysfunctional mouth, again. ‘Cause that is really not working out for me today.
A sharp sting alerts Abby to the blood pooling in the corner of her thumbnail.
Shit.
Abby wipes the blood away in haste.
Then, she hears Max laugh at something Bracia said. It’s not her usual Max laugh—the bright and bubbly one that fills the entire room. It’s trying to be that; Abby can tell Max is trying to make it sound the same but it’s not; it’s way too stiff.
Max looks so… sad, and Abby hates it when Max is sad; she always has. It makes her feel all weird inside.
Maybe I should just like, apologize or something. About the whole icing-her-out thing. If that’s like, what we did, you know? Ugh, I don’t know! I don’t know! Why is this stuff so damn complicated? It’s stupid. Feelings are so stupid.
Abby stands in limbo for a few moments—should she just turn a blind eye or go up to Max? Going to class is probably safer. Maxine is an emotional trigger the size of the sun. Talking to Max when she feels like this would only be recipe for disaster. Although she did just tell Tris she was looking for Max, so talking to Max might be helpful in case they like, ask her about it later or something. Abby really hopes they don’t, though, because she’s made up her mind.
She’s going to class. Class is good; class is safe. Let’s go to class.
But Abby still feels out of control—she never got to make her bathroom pitstop so her ears are still ringing and her insides are still burning, so maybe that’s why her legs take a detour to Max’s locker even when what she wanted was to keep going straight.
“Max, hey. Can I talk to you for just a quick sec?”
The words tumble out of Abby’s mouth before she’s even aware she is speaking. She hears them, though, and they sound awkward, unsure. Great start, Abs.
Abby notices the way Max jolts and her fingers tighten around the edge of her locker. For a second, Abby thinks Max is just going to ignore her existence—like she usually does when she’s mad at her—but then she turns.
“Abby?”
So she’s acknowledging her existence. That’s good. That’s a good sign.
The tiredness behind Maxine’s eyes and in her voice, and the way she looks genuinely surprised that Abby is even standing here at all, is not a good sign.
There’s no anger or annoyance at all—which is like, Max’s favorite go-to emotion next to happiness—and it alarms her. No, not just alarms her; it deeply disturbs the depths of Abby’s soul. Something is very, very wrong with Max.
“Why’re you…” Maxine starts and then shakes her head and clears her throat. Tries again. “I mean, are you okay?”
“Don’t,” Abby blurts and Max flinches at the harshness of it. Abby curses herself. “I mean, you-you don’t need to do that.”
“I don’t need to do what?” Maxine questions. Abby can tell she’s genuinely confused. The crinkle between her brows and the soft pout of her lips are two telltale signs. Abby’s eyes soften; it’s kinda cute.
Wait. Cute? No, no, no, no. She does not think anything about Maxine Baker is cute. Does she?
Don’t think about it. Don’t think. Don’t think. Don’t think.
“Decenter yourself,” Abby confirms. “I know that’s what you’re trying to do. You don’t need to.”
Abby searches Max’s eyes—they are the only eyes she has ever been able to look into so deeply; have they always been such a disarming shade of light brown?—and hopes to see the recognition that this is Abby holding out an olive branch. Her own special way of apologizing. But Maxine’s eyes harden instead—just like Tris’s did minutes before—and they are no longer disarming; they’re guarding.
Man, I am on a goddamn roll today, aren’t I?
Then Max scoffs—she actually scoffs—but not out of like, anger or annoyance or anything like it.
“Then what do you want from me, Abby?”
Abby blinks, bewildered. This is not… Max.
There’s no anger or annoyance at all. It’s more… sad. Tired. Broken. Abby breaks further along with it—did she cause this?—and suddenly it feels like someone pressed the wrong button and now everything is in slow motion. The world, her thoughts, her feelings. Every sensation—the thundering of her heart, the ringing in her ears, the spinning in her head, the all-consuming-nauseating pressure that pulses and burns within—feels weighed down and heavy, like she’s being drug down into the deep, dark depths of hell and she has no way to fight it. She doesn’t even know if she wants to.
“Just, to talk,” Abby manages to choke the words out. If she were a phone battery, she’d say she’s probably working with about thirty-one percent juice right now. “I missed you.”
Abby sees a flicker of surprise—happiness, maybe?—in Maxine’s eyes before its blinked away and the guard resumes its position.
“Like, right now?” Max asks and an unsure smile toys at her lips. “We only have like two minutes before the school po-po comes to tackle us down.”
Max stops speaking but Abby sees there’s more she wants to say. It’s in the way she chews on her bottom lip and her fingers tap restlessly against the backpack straps she is holding onto for dear life. Abby can see that Max is holding herself back—trying not to be too much—and Abby regrets ever uttering those words about her. She regrets thinking them for even a single moment.
“Yeah. I-I know. It’s j-just…” Words fail Abby, and she feels her long-dormant stutter creeping back in. Her cheeks flood with heat as her eyes meet Bracia’s for a quick second, and Abby thinks she sees something akin to pity in them. Abby hates it. She tears her eyes away and refocuses on Max. “I tried messaging you. When I got home. From camp, I mean. You never responded.”
Abby speaks in short, clipped sentences. It’s all she can manage right now and she prays that it doesn’t sound as inhuman to Max and Bracia as it does to her own ears.
“Oh,” Maxine drops her gaze to the floor. “So those were like, purposeful? You meant to send those? It wasn’t like, an accident or-or anything?” She tries to laugh; it’s empty and hollow, and when Max looks back up, Abby sees undisguised pain in her eyes. “Like, ‘whoops, my bad, my finger just slipped’.”
And wrote a whole entire sentence each time?
“No, wha-what? Max. That’s in-insane,” Abby tries to be lighthearted—tries to be jokey—but her mouth barely forms a smile and the words sound all wrong. Too monotone. Way too monotone.
“Aha, there it is! Insane. A new word to add to the never-ending list of everything that is irrecoverably wrong with Maxine Baker,” Max turns and shuts her locker. She sighs, “Great talk, Abby.”
Abby’s eyes go wide. The pressure amplifies. It consumes her—head to toe. The sounds that suffocated her moments before fall away to nothing more than muffled noises in the background, and the sensations within her amplify. The hammering of her heart; the blood pumping in her ears; the pounding and spinning in her head; her sweaty palms and dry eyes and parched throat; the twisting and burning in her stomach; the still way too itchy fabric of her clothes that has her skin feeling like it’s crawling with fire ants; the stupid-fucking-tag poking her side—she feels it all. Abby swears she can hear it too—it’s the only thing she can.
The pressure reaches her skull, like the walls of her cranium are closing in around her brain and squeezing tighter and tighter—like a balloon on the verge of popping.
“Just ignore her, Max.” Bracia. Abby barely hears her say it. Everything is muffled, like someone has been holding her head underwater for way too long and she’s seconds away from blacking out.
SHIT. SHIT. SHIT.
Maxine starts to walk off—arm in arm with Bracia.
It triggers something within Abby.
“N-no. No. Wait— Max. Maxine,” Abby reaches out for Max with jerky movements, and manages to grasp onto her arm. “M-ma-a-a-x, that’s-that’s n-n-not.. I mean. I-I didn’t—”
Max pulls her arm out of Abby’s weak grasp but she doesn’t leave.
(Abby doesn’t know this—because obviously she’s not inside Max’s head and Max doesn’t even know this herself—but the reason she doesn’t is because there is something about the way Abby stutters over her words and syllables that Maxine’s subconscious finds undefinably familiar)
“You didn’t mean what, Abby? What am I not understanding now? Because you were devastatingly clear the first seven hundred times you said it.”
And gosh, she sounds so tired. Abby hates it. She hates it so much. She wishes for Max to be angry instead. Anything but this tired emptiness—a hollow husk of the Maxine Abby has known and loved for so long.
Abby doesn’t even try to fight it this time.
She loves Max. She always has. She just never knew it was this kind of love.
Until right now.
“Is my mere existence simply too dramatic for you now, Abigail?” Maxine keeps going. She can’t stop now that she’s started, a slight fire inside reignited. “Should I just go ahead and press the self-delete button so that ANG—” The acronym is spoken with a bitterness and devastation that stabs a stake through Abby’s heart even if it’s only her eyebrow that twitches in response. “—can continue to thrive without the threat of my suffocating dramatics existing within your mere superior vicinity?”
Abby swallows; her lips and throat are way too dry, and Maxine’s voice is hardly louder the thrumming of her own pulse. She opens her mouth to push back—to tell Max that, that’s not true—but finds the effort to speak too tremendous. Her tongue is drowning in that muddy sludge again, and Abby wants to scream.
Not now. Please not now. Seriously, you decide now to go full on malfunction? When your oldest friend is bearing her soul to you? After you’ve shut her out and made her feel worthless? She’s not the worthless one, Abby. You are.
Pathetic.
Abby starts shaking her head, trying to shut off—shut out—her spiraling thoughts. The sludge is overtaking everything now. It fills her chest with an unbearable heaviness; her head and all of her limbs feel as though are being pulled under by quicksand. Abby tries to refocus on Max—to listen to Max. It’s important. Max needs to know that Abby hears her—that she understands. Abby needs to sacrifice herself to Max’s verbal lashings. She deserves it.
Listening won’t fix the damage you’ve caused, Abby. Look at her. She’s broken. You broke her. You’re a monster.
An ugly, fat, pathetic waste of human life.
She’s not looking at Max anymore; she can’t; she’s too exposed. Her eyes are burning and her mind is spinning, and she might actually be crying; Abby can’t tell.
“And I know you’re probably thinking—Max, stop being dramatic again. It’s no biggie. Just chill out—but it is a biggie and I can't just chill out. And maybe that’s just ‘cause I ‘feel too much’ and I’m a ‘drama queen’ and I make everything about me and maybe everyone else is right and I just need to accept that no one else thinks the way I do and maybe this entire planet would just be better off without me—I don’t know!—but it still hurt, Abby.”
Max is spiraling too.
Abby can barely digest it. Between her own viscous, spiraling thoughts and Max’s verbal avalanche and the pressure—god, the pressure—and the ringing and the pounding and the vibrating and the burning, it’s all too much. Everything is spiraling out of control, and Abby can no longer process a single thing. The muddy sludge has its tentacles wrapped around her and it won’t let go. It’s cut off her circulation and any connection to the world outside the trappings of her own mind and body.
She needs to throw up. To get down on her hands and knees in that disgusting, grimy school bathroom and shove her fingers down her throat so hard that she sees stars. She needs to rid herself of all these sensations and feelings that are slipping so far out of her control.
She needs to not feel. She’s feeling way too much. She just needs it to stop.
Just for a minute. Please. Just stop for a minute.
Abby wants to tell Max this. She wants to tell her to slow down—to give her just like, a minute to process—but she can’t. She’s reached zero percent. Her vocal chords won’t work, and not for a lack of trying. The words just won’t come out. It’s like all of the muscles responsible for just speaking have suddenly atrophied. It’s such a simple thing too—speaking. Most people don’t even have to think about it.
Max sure doesn’t have to think about it. Why is it so hard for me to just speak? Like, God! Why can’t I fucking do it? Is there really something so irreparably broken inside of me that I can’t even perform one of the most basic functions of existence?
Abby can hear Max still. She doesn’t know what she’s saying, though. The words reach her ears and turn into gibberish instead of something that actually makes sense. She got the gist of it, though, before her faculties fully shut down.
And it’s not true. None of what Max is saying is true. She’s not too much; she’s not too dramatic; she never has been. Not in the way she thinks she is. Not in the way she thinks Abby means it. Maxine is everything good in this cold, dark, and depressing hellscape that masquerades as life. She colors every part of Abby’s world with her beaming smiles and passionate rambles and quippy remarks, and the ability to just always know exactly who she is, how she feels, what she wants, and how she can get it.
Abby wants so badly to just tell her this. She wants so badly for Max to hear from her own mouth that there is nothing wrong with her.
Because Maxine Baker isn’t too much; she’s just too much… for Abby.
Because she makes Abby feel. And Abby hates feeling.
The way Max makes her feel is something she has never been able to control and Abby needs control. She needs structure—and Max is all chaos. Abby needs easy and light and chill—like Tris. She needs things that don’t make her feel so damn much all the goddamn time.
“—and I am so tired of apologizing for just wanting to have a freaking conversation about it because people always say that’s what you’re supposed to do, you know, when something hurts your feelings and it’s making you feel all icky and sad, and yet they never tell you that like ninety-nine percent of people don’t actually want to do that and—”
—
Now it’s Maxine’s turn to notice.
She notices Abby isn’t listening. Or paying attention to her. Like at all.
No, she’s staring. At the ground. Is the ground really more interesting than she is?
Max’s ramble cuts itself short when she notices it. She doesn’t feel like talking to a brick wall—anymore.
And that’s what Abby is. Because of course—of course, she isn’t listening.
This girl, she really has some freaking nerve. With her fire-red hair, and cool pink highlights, and that completely bullshit “oh I’m so chill and so cool and ew feelings are so gross that’s why I don’t feel anything at all” attitude. Or maybe it’s not bullshit. Max doesn’t know anymore.
The actual nerve Abby has, though—to pull away, befriend Ginny—of all people—and then call her dramatic all in the same dumb breath. Over and over again, too, like a broken watch that just won’t stop beeping even though you’re smacking it with all your might. Kinda like Phoebe in that one episode of “Friends”. You know, the one with the fire alarm? Pretty hilarious.
Anyway, Abby just kept saying it. Hammering it into her heart like the final nail in a coffin. Like, jeez louise, she gets it, okay? She’s dramatic; she talks too much; she feels too much; why not get a tripod set up and stream it to the whole freaking world? Max is keenly aware that she is so devastatingly suffocating to everyone in her mere vicinity that they can’t even stand to be around her for more than two minutes anymore. How can she not when they make it so damn obvious? Max can’t even stand to be around herself for more than two minutes anymore.
Maxine is painfully aware that if she were to just up and disappear one day—out of the blue, with no notice—because she happened to fall in that really deep ditch on the side of the road she passes every day on her walk to school, that no one would care. They probably wouldn’t even notice. No one would come looking for her, and she would just rot there until she dies; all cold and alone.
Max doesn’t understand why Norah and Ginny and—especially—Abby feel like they have to keep telling her something she already freaking knows. And she doesn’t even blame them, really. Like, they’re right. She is all of those things. Max just wishes it was different. She wishes they understood that it’s just that she just cares so much, and all she wants is to do is show them that. She’s never trying to make everything about herself. She just cares. Is that a crime now? Is her punishment to be forced to sit by and watch as every single one of the friends she brought together apathetically begin to drift away from her and form their own little clique that she has no part of?
It must be.
Max thought Abby understood that about her—how much she cares. She used to think Abby was the only person who would stick by her side when she was too much for even herself to handle. Guess she thought wrong.
But back to the nerve. The gall. It’s floundering.
For Abby to make Max feel like there is something fundamentally wrong with her just to then waltz up to her locker out of the blue in the middle of the school day on a random freaking Wednesday—saying she wants to talk and that she misses her and whatever other bullshit—and then not even have the decency to listen to her?
Astounding behavior. Truly. Abby has unlocked a brand new level of avoidance—the Abby Littman special addition.
Abby has always been like this closed up little clam, and it has both mystified and intrigued Maxine since the day she first laid eyes on her in kingergarten—before they were even friends. Over the years, Abby would open up just a teeny-tiny bit every once in a blue moon, but if Max made any sudden movements or talked just a little too fast—which is always because duh; too much remember?—she would retreat back into her frustrating, stupid shell.
Abby has always been the hardest of her friends to read. Max never knows what she’s thinking or feeling and sometimes she’s not sure if she’s even thinking or feeling anything—like maybe it’s just all empty up there. Like, head empty—for real.
But surely, she has to feel. Because everyone feels. Don’t they?
Maxine hears a squeak—a squeak? Can it even be called that? It sounds more like a cat getting strangled—and she snaps out of her rambling thoughts.
Her eyes zero back in on Abby, and she notices. Maxine realizes that she really notices Abby, for the first time in… woah—a couple years? Is that like, accurate? Max feels a pang in her chest—a rarity these days; she’s been quite numb as of late.
Has it actually been that long?
Max knows she started pulling away from Abby at some point. It was conscious when it first started—a deliberate effort to distance herself from the moody enigma that is Abby Littman. Because after that kiss they shared—that Max stupidly initiated for “fun”—over the summer before high school, Max knew she had to if she had any chance to avoid becoming that classic lesbian trope of falling in love with your straight best friend. She hates tropes, but she also kinda loves them—she hates being a real life, walking, talking version of one, though.
And after a while, it stopped being conscious. Max fell into the dismissive, provocateur role so easily she convinced herself that’s just what her and Abby’s friendship had always been like.
She convinced herself that Max never found Abby curling up against her during their M.A.N. sleepovers and Norah wouldn’t wake up looking like an intruder who didn’t belong; Abby never calmed Max down with that low, soothing—honestly kind of illegally sexy—voice of hers when her thoughts became too overwhelming and they raced too fast; and no, Abby’s presence never became this solid and steady rock that grounded Max when she felt like she might just up and float away—never to be seen again.
And Maxine definitely didn’t only just realize that it was Abby’s constant presence since second grade that has been the only thing keeping Max from disappearing into her own endless thought spirals of death, once Abby’s presence was no longer there.
And Maxine’s entire world certainly did not—absolutely did not—fall off its axis the second she saw Abby with them.
With Tris.
No, it didn’t make a lick of difference when Max found out that Abby—somehow—is not actually totally, completely straight.
(And she didn’t even tell her. She told Norah and Ginny though—the straights)
Because like, why would it make a difference anyway? It shouldn’t. It should be like, the best news ever, you know? Max’s not the only gay one anymore—yay! That’s awesome. It should be awesome. It should be spectacular.
But instead it feels like her heart has been ripped from her chest and crushed into tiny dust particles before the ashes were scattered over the grave of her lesbianism.
There lies Maxine Baker—killed by the sapphic right of passage: realizing you are in love with your best friend, and she will never love you back.
The final bell dings. Crap!
“Max, c’mon,” Bracia tugs on Max’s hand.
“Oh! Coming.”
Max starts to turn. But wait—Abby.
Max glances back at her. She hasn’t moved. Something’s not right. Max knows it.
“Actually, just go on without me. What difference is a sixth tardy in only twenty-seven days of school actually gonna make, like really?”
Max cringes when her joke falls flat, but Bracia leaves. Phew.
Max turns back to Abby.
Abby, who is quite literally standing still as a statue in the middle of their barren school hallway and looking like a sad, kicked puppy. It’s concerning. If Abby didn’t want to speak to Max, fine—she’s not sure why she came all the way over here pretending like she did but it’s like, whatever, you know—but still. Why isn’t she like, moving? She’s gonna be late for class and Abby is never late for class—unless it’s on purpose but this doesn’t look to Max like it’s supposed to be on purpose.
Abby hasn’t moved a single muscle in like two minutes—is that even healthy? How long does it take for muscles to begin to atrophy—and she—
Oh, wait.
She is moving. Kinda? She’s… shaking.
It’s subtle but it’s there. Why is Abby shaking?
Maxine notices more about Abby now. Like, fully takes her in.
Her eyes are entirely glazed over—wow, she really does have puppy dog eyes but like, super sad ones—and they’re also super red and watery, like she’s about to cry, but Abby hates crying. She never cries—like ever, really. The last time Max saw Abby cry was like—her thoughts pause to do the mental math: So it’s September. 2021. And her parents got divorced like… it was—right before Thanksgiving, yeah, so…
(Max flicks a finger out for each month)
August, July, June, May, March, April—no, April then March—February, January, December, November… so—
(Max counts her fingers)
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. Okay, ten months ago.
So the last time Max saw Abby cry was at Blue Farm, when she S.O.S.’d about her parents divorce—guilt twists in her gut as it dawns on her just how dismissive and uncaring she was towards Abby during that time—and that was pretty much only because they, M.A.N.G.—I, Maxine—left her like, no choice.
But, yeah. Abby doesn’t cry. Especially not when there are potential spectators around to see. There isn’t a hint of emotion on her face, either, which Max also finds odd because usually if someone is about to cry well, there’s like, contortions and stuff.
A pit of anxiety forms in Maxine’s gut. Something is def off with Abby.
How many things have I missed? What if there’s something like, actually seriously wrong with Abby? Wait, no—not like, wrong wrong—but wrong as in like, not okay? Because she doesn’t look okay. She looks very much not okay. What if Abby isn’t okay—wait, is that blood on her hoodie sleeve?— and if she’s not okay, how long has she been not okay for? And what is it that’s like, not okay? Does anyone know? Do Norah and Ginny already know and I am—yet again—the only one who doesn’t because clearly I am such a terrible friend that I haven’t even noticed that Abby isn’t freaking okay, until like right this very second.
Should I ask her?
Her thoughts flip.
No. No, Maxine—she would hate that. She already thinks you’re too much—too dramatic. Leave her alone. Just let her be.
Her thoughts flip back.
Let her be. Right. I can do that. Just let her be. Abby is probably fine, you know? I probably am just being too dramatic, again. This is just… normal behavior for Abby. You know, freezing up in the middle of a conversation like—
Hold up.
A faint memory tugs at the back of Max’s mind. It’s an old one—a really old one. Like, covered in dust and cobwebs with spiders crawling all over it old—but Max thinks she remembers something like this happening with Abby before.
Max scans Abby with her eyes once again, checking for anything she missed the first go around. Nothing stands out. Except for the fact that she still has not moved—which is scary enough by itself, honestly—but Max knows that if she’s gonna risk more of Abigail’s wrath by asking a feelings related question, she’s gonna need a real good reason to justify it.
She seems a little tense but like, Abby’s always tense so. It’s like her natural state of existence basically. And her breathing’s a little shallow, hmm. Max narrows her eyes; there has to be something.
Or she could just stop with the stupid guessing game and just ask. So what if it pisses Abby off—everything pisses her off. What’s the worst she can do? Call her dramatic again? Big whoop. Max has got an armor now, formed from being all cold and dead inside. Abby will hate being percieved by more eyeballs than the two Maxine owns than anything else, and the longer they stand out here past the tardy bell, the more likely that possibility becomes so—
Screw it.
I care. Sue me.
Max reaches out a hesitant hand—she’s careful, like Abby is a baby deer with wobbly legs that still hasn’t quite figured out how to walk yet.
“Abby?”
—
A hand lands on her shoulder and Abby jerks away from it—violently. She notices Max pull away—sudden, like Abby’s shoulder is a stove that burnt her—but that’s all she can do. That’s all she can notice.
Look what you did. You hurt her again.
Monster.
Abby feels her mask slipping; her grip on sanity, her control over herself—it’s all slipping away. She doesn’t have a grip on anything, and that’s the freaking problem.
She feels it building. That otherworldly thing inside of her she has tried so hard to bury.
God, you’re such a pathetic fucking freak. Just use your words, Abigail. It’s really not that fucking hard. Open your mouth and speak. Be a person.
Abby is running on borrowed time. She needs to get away. She needs to get away now. She can’t let Maxine see her like this; she has never seen her like this. This version of Abby hasn’t left the four walls of her bedroom since she was like, six years old.
No wonder Dad left and Mom started drowning her sorrows with liquor. How couldn’t they, when they were cursed with a daughter who can’t even function like a goddamn human being for more than twenty minutes at a time? What a fucking embarrassment.
The balloon pops.
Abby takes off down the hallway. Her feet move faster than her brain can form a thought, and Maxine is left in the dust of her hasty departure.
Before she even realizes it, Abby finds herself locked inside a bathroom stall. Her backpack gets discarded as Abby sinks to the floor and tucks her knees to her chest. Her shaky hands grasp onto fistfuls of her hair as she begins rocking herself back and forth.
One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Se—
You’re not a child anymore, Abigail. Stop acting like one. You’re overreacting. You know this is not normal behavior. Fifteen year-old girls don’t forget how to speak out of the blue; they don’t hide away and rock themselves on disgusting bathroom floors in the middle of class just because everything all of a sudden became too loud and too bright and they felt “too much”. There’s something wrong with you. Max knows it now, and soon Ginny and Norah will know it, too. Because she’s going to tell them. You know she is. She’s going to go and tell them what a pathetic fucking loser you are. And then you’ll have them on your back about yet another problem with you, because that’s all you are. A bunch of problems. They’re going to abandon you. You’re not worth their time or their energy or their effort. You’re not worth anything.
It’s all your fault.
A strangled sound escapes Abby’s throat—some kind of mixture between a frustrated scream and a sob that got swallowed up halfway to its exit by the sludge obstructing her vocal chords. She’s definitely crying now; she can feel the wetness of the tears streaming down her cheeks. Abby hates it. She hates crying. It feels weak. She hates feeling weak.
Look at that. Crybaby Abby making an appearance. Wow, it’s been a while, huh? You made it what—like a year? Year and a half? Bravo. Imagine if Mom saw you right now. What would she think? How would it make her feel to know that you still have these little tantrums that she tried so hard to fix? She’d be ashamed to have even reproduced something so pathetic and pitiful. You tried so hard to hide them too. Sad. And Dad—please—he won’t stick around long enough to watch. He has a new girlfriend now; a new, fancy house; in a year he’ll probably have a brand new child, too. He won’t need the old one anymore. It’s broken anyway.
Abby bangs the heels of her palms against her skull; she’s still rocking—it’s not helping. It’s too loud and it’s too hot—when did it get so hot?—and her shirt is too itchy; she’s suffocating. Her sobs steal the air from her lungs and she finds her chest heaving. It hurts.
She can’t take it anymore.
God, just fucking shut up already! Shut up, shut up, shut up!
Abby scrambles to her knees and throws her head over the toilet bowl—she doesn’t even notice the small streak of urine on it. She shoves her fingers down her throat—hard—and her entire body jerks with the heave it produces. She does it again, and again, and again. Again.
Bile and stomach acid are the only things her efforts manage to bring up. She forgot; she didn’t eat anything this morning.
Stupid. So stupid. You can’t even purge right.
Abby grips the edge of the toilet bowl—again, not noticing that her hand has smeared through the streak of urine on the seat. She’s too far gone to notice, and even if she had, Abby is too far gone to care.
She falls backwards, her back colliding with the stall door and she hits herself in the head with her fists this time. Maybe if she hits herself hard enough, her brain will finally shut up. Maybe it’ll distract her from the fire ants crawling all over her skin. Maybe her ears won’t hurt and every sensation won’t burn and maybe she’ll finally have a moment of peace.
Abby squeezes her knees tighter to her chest. She wants so desperately to just curl up into the tiniest ball and simply disappear from existence or maybe someone can just step on her and squash her like a bug. That might be nice. It might even feel good, to be honest.
Abby’s attempts to purge herself of the overwhelming thoughts and sensations and feelings didn’t work. She still feels out of control. Her bones still vibrate. Her head still spins. Her ears still ring. Her thoughts still spiral—something nasty and mean and wicked; they flip-flop between “I” and “You” as though she holds two different voices within—one talking to her and the other just herself. Everything is still too much and too loud and too painful.
The pressure ramps once again. She feels. God, Abby feels so much. It was supposed to stop. The purging was supposed to stop it. It was her last resort. What is Abby supposed to do when even forcing herself to fucking vomit no longer helps her regain control?
Maybe this is just what I deserve. Maybe I deserve to suffer. Maybe this is my karma for being such an evil human person. My karma for fucking around with Press and being so mean to Ginny when she first moved here and for abandoning Maxine and for yelling at my mom—Shit. I shouldn’t have yelled at my mom—and—oh God, Tris. What is Tris gonna think? I’ve already taken enough from them and they’ve been so freaking nice to me even though I don’t deserve it, and they shouldn’t have to put up with all of my ridiculous fucking bullshit.
You’re selfish, Abigail. It’s that simple. You only care about what makes things easiest for you. Fuck everything else right? You cling to things when they feel good and toss them away when they don’t. You’re not good enough for anyone. You’re not kind enough; you’re not even pretty enough, and you’re definitely not thin enough.
Just look at you. You’re disgusting. Your thighs are too big and yet your hips are too narrow, and you think your legs are the only issue? The fat goes to your arms too, Abby. The only place it hasn’t gone is your boobs and it’s a shame because it’s the only part of you that could actually use it.
Tris will toss you away once they see more than your shins and the midriff exposed by those crop-tops you keep wearing like no one is gonna notice your gut spilling out over your waistband. It’s time to start covering that up until you drop at least another ten pounds, don’t you think?
And Maxine? Maxine is already done with you. You’ve burned through her endless grace. She will never love you. There’s nothing to love. You would drain her of all that energy and light and love that she exudes. You would ruin her—you would squash that light out like a bug; more than you already have—and you’re going to ruin Tris, too. Surely you still have enough of a heart to know that’s not fair.
At least with Press you weren’t aiming above your worth. Stop trying to be something you’re not. It’s pointless.
Abby clamps her hands over her ears; still rocking—she might even be muttering those weird numbers under her breath now; she doesn’t have enough awareness to tell. She’s still trying to block it all out, but the thoughts keep coming. The same endless stream of critique she’s been fighting against her whole life. It’s gotten worse within the last year, though. So, so much worse.
Abby doesn’t know how to fight it all anymore. The thoughts; the feelings; all of the overwhelming sensations. She doesn’t know if she can—if she even wants to. Maybe it would be better to just give up and let it consume her. Maybe everyone would be better off.
Abby knows she shouldn’t think like that. The therapist programming her parents instilled in her fights against it at every step. All humans are worthy; your feelings matter; talk about it, Abby; tell me how you feel, Abby; tell me what you’re thinking; we can help you; you aren’t alone.
It’s all fucking bullshit. It’s not real. It’s all lies.
(Not for everyone; just for Abby)
Just because her parents told her all of these things, it doesn’t mean they meant them. They preached healthy communication, yet spent countless nights screaming obscenities at each other at the top of their lungs. They preached respect and trust; didn’t stop her father from cheating on her mother. They’ve had her drawing her feelings since she was fricking three years old; didn’t stop her parents from ignoring them because of some so-called “empathy fatigue” or their failing marriage.
Abby talking about her feelings never stopped her parents from brushing them off because “Oh well, you know, little Bobby has x going on. You’ll be just fine, sweetie”.
None of it meant anything. Why should she trust it?
They’re just words. Anyone can say words.
Well, except for you.
Fuck off.
Abby vaguely remembers that she’s supposed to be in History class right now.
Shit.
Abby bangs the back of her head against the stall just once more. The pang of pain it causes feels good. It’s real; tangible—something she can control. A small distraction from the hurricane raging within.
Abby’s mind fights for structure, but all she feels is chaos.