Chapter Text
It starts with a single text message.
Abby Littman wakes to the intermittent vibrating near her ear. The phone notification lights up the dark room in a rush of dopamine.
She nearly rolls off her bed, in a clumsy fit of scrabbling for the phone. The personal fan on the bedside table has long since turned off with an automatic timer. The evidence apparent by the old pajamas that cling to her sweaty skin.
She grunts, fumbling to switch it back on, and promptly knocking the phone off her bed. A resounding thud breaks the silence, and the glorious phone light vanishes, plunging the entire room into darkness again.
Of course.
Abby sighs through her nose, sleep beginning to evade her, as the slow irritation blooms. She waits for the fan to putter back to life, contemplating slumping back into bed.
It’s summer vacation and Abby has been counting the days until it’s finally over.
She doesn’t do well in the summer.
Clearly.
If there’s anything she’s paid attention to in school, it’s the fact that Wellsbury is a 354-foot-elevated-bowl of hell during the summer, trapping any and all heat between the surrounding mountains. Science and shit.
Wellsbury is a radiation zone. Her small, stuffy room is the epicenter.
She flops back down against her disheveled bed, flipping the pillow over, hoping for a cooler side. The hum of the fan grates on her nerves.
Summer has always been rather grim for her.
For as long as she could remember, Abby has dreaded it.
It’s the longest time she spends in her house – a personal prison of her parent’s making. How many vacations had she spent locked in her room, hiding in her closet, away from the sound of the arguments downstairs?
Summer meant long days at home.
For Wellsbury in particular, it meant a furnace for the next three months.
Abby doesn’t do well with the heat. Even when she was born, she had a penchant for developing rashes from the temperature. It’s instinct, the way her body rejects the town.
But summer also meant Maxine Baker.
Her best friend.
Sweat beads at her forehead. She wipes at it with the back of her hand.
Trying to sleep in her room is nothing like sleeping in a cabin. After three months at Camp Wellsbury, her own bed feels like a stranger’s. How odd. Especially when she’d been resistant to the entire trip.
It was an opportunity to collect volunteer hours for college applications. Naturally, Abby was not interested in the slightest.
She hadn’t thought much of her future, too preoccupied with the agonies of pubescent drama, namely the fractured toxicity of her femininity. She feels fat. She hates her best friend. The boy she likes detests her.
It’s all the same.
But it’s a cyclical routine that she was accustomed to.
Camp with screaming kids to round up?
Not so much.
It had been her father’s latest attempt at making up for the divorce. A distraction packaged between brochures and awkward dinners at Blue Farm Cafe with his new girlfriend.
In spite of her resistance, it was a much needed break from Wellsbury. Away from the drama, away from the gossip. Away from – Max.
Abby had been off the grid (not necessarily by choice as there was no wifi) for three long months. Being around so much nature kind of made her think of her own existence as perhaps not as detrimental.
Max would say it’s because she’s a Virgo.
“Earth signs need to be in the dirt for a bit.” She’d once told her, donning the self proclaimed astrology girl title for the length of an annoying week. One of the many phases Max had gone through. Brief, fleeting, with an abrupt end for something far more exciting.
She turns in her pillow, tempted to bug Norah into a sleepover, when the sound of clattering against the wooden floor draws her attention again. Another notification.
Abby snatches it from the floor. A reflex, really, one that doesn’t go away even after basking in the glow of nature.
The bright screen makes her blink clearly in the dark. Abby squints. Her foggy, half asleep brain is trying to make sense of the message. It’s not her birthday. It’s not until another few months. And she is definitely not turning ten.
She doesn’t give it much thought. Not even as sleep returns quickly and her dreams open up a world in which she’d rather not entertain.
Max: Hey. Happy 10 Years!
Abby had been busy. Too busy to remember their 10 year friend anniversary. What became MANG had really started off as just MA. August 25. Back when they were still in first grade.
It’s too pathetic to admit, and Max would never believe her anyway.
The truth is, well, she just forgot.
But that sounds far worse.
She contemplates her options, hours later, over breakfast. She’d been toying with it absently, picturing Max’s outrage as her mother is on the phone. She’s using her therapist's voice. The one that makes Abby’s skin crawl. Suddenly the eggs on her plate are beyond unappetizing.
She peers over at her mother, watching the impassive expression. She’s even trained her face not to react over a call.
For a fleeting moment, Abby considers yelling or tossing a few chunks of her scrambled eggs to get a reaction.
Might as well sit in a high-chair then, she thinks dispassionately.
Instead, Abby scoops a bit of the egg into an awaiting napkin beneath the table. Subtly. Her mother doesn’t even notice. She’d been distracted, depressed. Abby figures the two are probably mutually exclusive.
Finally, her mother hangs up. Abby quickly pulls out her own phone, a silent barrier drawn up between them. It’s both a relief and an injury how quickly her mother conforms to the silence. But Abby doesn’t care about that anymore. She’s too busy thumbing through her messages.
Max hasn’t sent another text.
That silence, in particular, is very loud.
What little eggs Abby had mechanically swallowed sit in the pit of her stomach, heavy and worrisome.
Another bout of Max’s wrath to start the school year. Fantastic.
Abby pushes the plate away, crumpling the filled napkin in her fist as she rises from her seat.
She has had years of practice when it came to Max and her temper tantrums, having been on the receiving end of them several times. The most recent however, Abby admits, had been awful. Something had shifted, something definitive that left Abby reticent and moody. More so than usual.
It’s no wonder distance would eventually grow. They couldn't be more different.
From a very young age, Abby understood Maxine Baker was out of her league. It’s one of those things that one doesn’t realize until the harsh reality crashes down on you in your formative prepubescent middle school years in the middle of English class. In Abby’s case, it was when Brodie tried to hit on Max in only the way a twelve year old can. Suggestive language far beyond their comprehension.
No.
Abby at least had self awareness. Enough to fade into the background as Max had fake gagged, making those around them burst into giggles.
Max was special and she wanted to be Abby’s friend. No matter how much she couldn’t fathom why.
How was it possible to resent her and yet possessively hoard every ounce of friendship from others?
Abby hasn’t seen Max in over three months. It’s like it’s registering finally that there is a decidedly large Max occupied space right now.
Her eyes dip down to the message again.
It’s too late to respond. Whatever traditions had been made over the years seem out of the question now.
Too much time has passed. And if Abby recalls, their chat thread has been dead for months. Maybe even longer. Abby doesn’t have the nerve to scroll beyond the latest message.
But it bugs, and it itches, and she suppresses the urge to automatically walk herself to the Baker’s house to grovel for forgiveness.
Resentment begins to build inside of her at that reaction. That seems to be Abby’s default, like her body knows the factory setting and is fighting the reprogramming.
She deletes the chat thread to prove a point.
Abby thinks she hates Max sometimes.
Not in the way she hates most things, most people. This had been far too personal. It’s a different type of ire that burns for a person you know so deeply.
Max can open her mouth and something innocuous pops out and Abby’s morning is ruined.
Abby knows she’s not very smart. She’s not very pretty and she isn’t the most interesting. The most interesting thing she’d done was dye her hair and that was after Max had scoffed and told her she was too chicken.
She’d gotten in a lot of trouble with her parents after that. But it was a point that needed to be proven. And after begging they allowed her to keep it.
But even that reluctant blessing had been nothing compared to Max running her hand through the red strands, with a satisfied smirk. “I think I like you as a redhead.”
Abby had internally preened beneath the compliment. But the feeling was soon followed by a hardening stoicism. She’d elbowed Max away and rolled her eyes.
“I wasn’t looking for your approval.”
But she had. She really had.
It’s the same reason she still catches her reflection in the empty store front windows to fix her hair. The dark red is dull, fading into something more of a lighter orange. A silly thought occurs to her. What would Max think?
It promptly fades when she checks the time and realizes she’s late. About a half an hour late.
It’s still acceptable, she thinks, as she slips inside the busy cafe.
Blue Farm, as it turns out, is going through a remodel, a permanent stage is being installed in the far corner. Poetry night seems to be a permanent fixture after the several successes in the past. Abby doesn’t mind. In fact, she enjoys watching Ginny perform, even if it does come off as a little melodramatic.
But that’s the whole point of whining about feelings on a stage for everyone to hear.
Her eyes roam the dining tables, catching sight of a few familiar faces. It’s a small town on the precipice of the start of Junior Year. There’s really not many spots to socialize. And it seems that Joe has recently attracted an onslaught of Wellsbury High students.
A few people raised their hands at her arrival.
This, she doesn’t miss. Being recognized. Her time at Camp Wellsbury had given her a tiny three month reprieve from the small-minded hive of the town. She still hadn’t forgotten the very same person waving to her now, had glared at them in the midst of Georgia’s trial.
A small wave of protectiveness hits her at the thought, and she turns without a returning wave.
She weaves through the wooden tables until she spots them.
Ginny sees her first. A bright smile spreads across her face as she calls her name. Abby sighs in relief, finally a destination to pull her from the awkward spotlight she had created.
Norah turns in her seat and waves her over.
“She’s alive!” Norah says, as Abby slips into the seat beside Ginny. They bump shoulders. A flicker of affection passes through her.
“No internet, no phone,” Abby whines, sinking into her chair. She turns to Ginny beside her. “How was Korea?”
“Jaemi-isseosseo.”
Norah and Abby exchange an incredulous look before bursting out into laughter. It’s not long before they’re listening to Ginny’s adventures overseas. She’d talked about literature and architecture. The culture on the streets. But Abby and Norah had been far too busy grilling her on any boy prospects.
“It was like I was some carnival attraction,” Ginny admits with a wince.
The conversation continues without much fuss in the busy cafe. It’s nice. Abby hadn’t realized how much she’d miss them after being surrounded by little booger-nosed kids. She’d missed the lilting tone of Ginny’s voice, or the way Norah would cut in with a bemused question. Things had never settled so nicely.
Abby enjoys herself far too much that she’s not even that deterred when Joe arrives at their table with four hot subs and drinks. It’s at this moment that she realizes something, when he places the last plate in the empty seat across from her.
Norah is in the middle of regaling them with the latest plot point in her latest romantasy book, when Abby glances around Blue Farm.
“You guys talk to Max recently?” She keeps her tone even, as she picks up her sandwich. It feels heavy and greasy in her hands, with the cheese melting down the edges. Her stomach does a sour flop, and something else seems to add to the queasy feeling. Something that has nothing to do with the food in her hand.
Slowly, she lifts her eyes. Both Ginny and Norah’s chatter comes to a dying close, petering out pathetically. Ginny purses her lips. Norah frowns.
Well, that answers her question.
“No, why?” Ginny’s eyebrows tug together.
A question as an answer. Abby’s parents would love that. She resists the urge to roll her eyes, instead tearing the bread apart.
“Is it Marcus?” The worry in her tone feels a little misplaced to her. Especially when there’s a glaring empty seat at their table. One that none of them seems very willing to bring up.
The invitation was sent by Ginny, alerting them of her arrival, as they planned to meet up the week before term started. It’s not lost on her that the actual invitation was sent out through the ANG group chat.
Abby chews the inside of her cheek. It actually takes a lot of effort to not roll her eyes. Ginny was predictably soft with a skewed view. But Abby couldn’t blame her fully. She’d had a lot to deal with and Marcus was important to her. Is Important to her. Understandable. Her parents would probably say they’re trauma bonded and that’s something difficult to break.
“No, it’s just…” Abby pauses. Her words feel stuck. She doesn’t want to bring up the text to them. It feels too personal, too much like a secret one hides beneath the floorboards. Her gaze moves from Ginny to Norah. “It’s quiet, right?”
It’s like the words have lifted some kind of enchantment from the table. Norah looks around, as if she too has just noticed the absence. Ginny’s expression falters, the worry deepening.
She regrets bringing it up the moment she says. And now she can’t take it back. Abby backpedals almost immediately. She shovels the sandwich into her mouth and chews loudly, distractingly, as the girls before her exchange a guilty look.
“I mean,” Abby starts through a mouthful of it. Her throat seizes at the texture. “I can finally hear myself think.”
She lets out an undignified snort, nearly choking on the food. The joke falls flat and no one laughs. Abby feels worse than before.
She never responds to that text message.
Silly friend anniversaries fade into the background as the thought of the new school year approaches.
She spends most of the remainder of the week with Ginny and Norah, holed up in her room passing a joint between the three of them. It feels like a nice distraction. A nice vacation within a vacation. Ginny tries to teach them some Korean she picked up, which leaves them all giggling at their botched pronunciation.
It almost feels perfect.
Almost.
Except there’s a nagging feeling that irks Abby. It’s like the lack of dramatics has her on edge like her body is anticipating some kind of outburst or absurd ramble.
Max was especially good at that.
Abby almost brings it up. Almost. But then she looks at Ginny and sees the bright smile and warmth in her eyes that had been lacking over the last year. Bringing up Max would almost certainly have her mind diverting to Marcus.
Abby doesn’t really know where Ginny’s thoughts stand regarding the Bakers. Besides, they don’t really do that. Talk about feelings much or go into depth of them. Not like Max.
Relief spreads through her, as they all fall into a silly conversation.
Junior year feels different.
Abby isn’t sure if it’s a good thing or bad thing. It feels too early to tell. But there’s something, some kind of shift that takes place when she steps into the hall.
She doesn’t particularly miss school or classes. Just the thought of migrating to the usual spot, hearing the dumb comments Press or Brodie make, leave a sour feeling in her stomach. Even worse, having to deliver a satisfactory rundown of her time spent as a camp counselor to Max.
She’d been dreading that, already preparing her script of grovelling. It’s usually how it happens. She comes in heavy doses until Abby can’t stand it anymore. But the withdrawal feels even worse.
She had been running over her apology as she packed her things. Cupcakes. No. Too forward. The keychains she and her kids made last week. Too presumptuous.
Abby figured a straight to the point apology and plans to hang out (to do anything and everything Max enjoyed) would suffice.
Plus, with the return of Ginny, she thinks she may be able to slip away with some of her dignity still intact.
Yet, despite the impending doom from a reconciliation with Max, Abby at least has something to look forward to.
She drifts to the Red, already spotting Tris splayed out across a bean bag. They’re talking to someone, maybe it’s Silver. Abby isn’t sure. She hasn’t exactly joined the group officially, really only hanging on to Tris and their invites.
Once Tris spots her, they brighten, moving to make room for her on the bean bag.
That had been a recent development before she was shipped off to Camp Wellsbury. A tentative flirtation had blossomed into something that gave Abby a reason to get up every morning. As sad as it sounded.
Tris breaks out into an easy smile that sets her stomach aflutter.
Abby squeezes in, brushing up against the body she had become so accustomed to. Warmth spreads down to her toes, as she smiles back.
“Hey, stranger.”
Abby’s cheeks are warm. “Hey.”
An arm goes around her immediately.
That was also a new development. Public affection.
She glances around nervously, waiting for the looks or comments, but she settles in when nothing comes.
Even being on this side of the hallway feels monumental, a step towards her identity.
“No one cares,” Tris answers her unspoken worry. She lets out a nervous chuckle, guilt gripping her at being caught. Tris seems unaffected, comfortable in their own skin. It almost makes her envious. They probably rolled out of bed unaffected, while Abby tossed and stressed over an outfit that wouldn’t make her feel like a fucking whale.
Panic worries over her nerves as she contemplates what to say, how to seem unbothered, how to emulate that nonchalant vibe the entire crew seems to exude.
“I don’t care about that,” Abby says, tone steady she even convinces herself. “I just don’t want to hear Maxine.”
It’s a low blow and a lame excuse. But as the words come out, Abby realizes there’s truth to the statement. She shared everything with Max until recently, until Max stopped caring to listen. She would not share Tris, either.
Explaining this recent development to Max is something she’s still kind of avoiding, dancing around the topic like it didn’t matter.
Tris’s arm tightens around her. “You think she’d make a big deal about it?”
“Oh, I know she would,” Abby says, voice colored with irritation. The nerves have morphed into something more controlled, more familiar. Annoyance.
Perhaps it’s the revelation of this new unknown relationship with Tris, or Abby’s reluctance to see Max that makes this irritation rise higher than she expected.
“Everything is about her. Even my relationship.” The venom in her voice surprises even herself. Okay. Ouch. A lot of unprocessed emotions there, her parents would say. The thought of her parents makes her mood sink.
“Relationship, huh?” Tris smirks.
Abby flushes realizing her mistake. She sputters, trying to put as much distance between them but Tris holds her.
“I didn’t mean – I just thought…”
“You guys are cute,” Silver, thankfully, interrupts. She winks as Abby’s face burns.
“Thank you.” Tris’s smile widens.
There’s a weird tension in the air the rest of the day. Abby isn’t sure if it’s all in her head. She peers at the students around her wondering if they too feel the change. Perhaps it’s just an inherent thing all Juniors feel. The impending importance of the semesters hovering above them right before college applications.
Maybe it was all in her head.
The day isn’t a complete loss, she reasons. She’s now in a relationship. A whole girlfriend. The label was something she never thought she’d ever deem worthy enough to wear. Much less for someone like Tris. But it feels nice to feel claimed, wanted. God knows how long she’d chased that lust filled rush with Press.
And even with Max, a friendship so fragile and toxic, it was its own special little torture.
It was the Max Baker show and everyone else was the underpaid guest stars begging for more than five minutes of screen time.
The bell rings right as Norah walks into the class. She waves and slips into the seat beside her. She sags in relief, at least one person is here.
Ginny is notably absent.
Probably back in honors English with Max, she thinks. Good. She really could do less with the judgemental eye of the learning material. At least Ginny kept her comments to herself though, unlike Max.
They haven’t had any classes together since the sixth grade, since Max had matriculated to a more sophisticated group of academic students. While Abby had struggled to get through remedial Algebra.
Max took that in stride though, loudly announcing that she’d help Abby get by.
Abby burned in embarrassment and refused.
It was for the best, she thinks. She couldn’t imagine what kind of charity case she’d be made out to be if she shared English Lit with Max.
Norah greets with a tiny hey. She’s distracted, Abby knows. She peers over to Marcus’s empty seat behind them. And then she’s thinking of Max again.
The unsettled feeling grows in the pit of her stomach.
She decides she’ll wait for Max, or at least for her to approach. She always does. Even when Abby doesn’t want it, she has a penchant for sticking her nose into other people’s business. In fact, a part of her is relieved she can spend so much time with Tris without Max’s prying questions.
But Max never approaches.
The school day goes by.
Not even during lunch, where Abby drifts to their usual table. She drops her food tray with an annoyed clank. Ginny looks up from her book, with a raised brow.
“Is something up?” Norah asks.
Abby hesitates, looking between the two of them. Clueless. Not even Ginny, whom she hoped to share at least one class with Max, appears to understand her irritation.
She doesn’t want to be a downer or bring up any dark depressing things on the start of their first day. But she tries to read them for any sign of the guilt she’d been feeling.
Abby slides into the table seat bench.
“Long line at the cafeteria,” she says instead.
It was true. There was a long line.
She doesn’t say that she's more upset at the fact that she couldn’t find Max anywhere in the cafeteria. Not even the table the theater club occupied.
She’s back to her thoughts, racking her brain for Max’s whereabouts, straining to remember her favorite haunts. She hadn’t checked the auditorium. Though, that’s just depressing. Unless…
Another sudden thought occurs to her – Max is pouting.
God, of course she is.
The silent treatment, Max’s specialty, for her insolence, for her ineptitude. She was punishing Abby for forgetting, as if on purpose. Or perhaps she’s still upset about keeping Tris a secret. It was just like her. Every time Max seemed to gain some kind of sympathy, she’d take it all.
Abby is so caught up in her mutinous thoughts that she doesn’t realize Ginny and Norah are staring at her intently.
The silence is thick.
She looks up, alarmed.
“What?”
Norah winces. Ginny inhales sharply, eyes darting down to the pizza slice on her tray. Abby’s eyebrows pull together in confusion. What is she –
Oh.
“I’m gonna eat it, relax.”
The silence is tense, like everyone is holding their breath. Abby rolls her eyes, grabbing the slice and taking a big bite. She even chews for good measure.
Ginny’s shoulders relax and Norah sighs.
“We just worry,” Norah says.
Well, don’t, she almost says. But she bites back the remark. Her frustration is getting misplaced. This revelation about Max’s attitude souring the taste in her mouth. Or it could be the fact that when she returned from camp her favorite jeans had started to feel a bit snug.
Whatever the case, the dough feels stale, going down like wet cardboard. Her mind is already running to the bathroom, ready to scope out the perfect window. She doesn’t miss the look that passes between them.
But before she can muster up another snarky comment, someone slides onto the bench beside her. An arm comes around her shoulders, a soft greeting. Finally, she thinks. She turns but stops short when she realizes it’s Tris again.
The concerned looks from Ginny and Norah dissolve into furtive smiles. Abby, despite the close contact from earlier in the morning, feels a wave of embarrassment. She shrinks from the hug, and Tris drops her arm instinctively. Day one of being a girlfriend and she’s already fucking it up epically.
She has half a mind to put Tris’s arm back around her, just to not see that disappointment on their face again. But something makes her pause.
For all the absence and distance spent the entire summer it’s like second nature the way she recognizes her from the corner of eye. Like magnets, always drawn to each other regardless of how she’s feeling.
Max.
She’s across the quad, alone, standing uncertainly near the entrance of the school building. Even from a distance, Abby knows the moment their eyes meet. The business of the crowd falls away. The smell of the greasy pizza on her plate is muted. Even Tris beside her fades into a small presence.
Two things hit her immediately.
First, the guilt pools in her stomach when she realizes she never acknowledged the text message, nor the friends’ anniversary, nor Max at all. She’d completely compartmentalized it all, shoving it down to be dealt with later. A very dismissive approach that would get her nowhere later on.
But the second thing is perhaps worse than the guilt that has begun to frost over. Sharp, cold, fear seizes her.
She had expected dramatics. Anger, perhaps. Maybe even the fake pleasantries from a special dose of Maxine passive aggressive attitude.
But there is nothing in the gaze directed at Abby. Nothing at all. An impassive blank slate.
It makes Abby’s blood run cold the more she stares at her.
She should call out to her, wave her down to join them, but her limbs feel heavy and sluggish, halfway paralyzed to her bubble of friends.
Max’s eyes slide to Tris beside her, then to Ginny and Norah, before finally settling upon Abby again.
Something flickers in Max’s expression, urging her forward. Abby doesn’t even realize she’s straddling the bench now, not until Max turns and pushes through the entrance doors, leaving without a word.