The Saddest Song

Chapter 13

Rainey

An entire day away from Max made me realize a couple of undeniable truths. First, I missed him when he wasn’t around. I had to stop myself from texting him non-stop while I was at Grandma and Grandpa’s house. I kept it to a respectable twenty or thirty. Still, it made me smile when his reply came back mere seconds later. So different from his brother who had always texted back an hour later, “Sorry babe, I was….fill in the blank. Playing video games, football, basketball, weight lifting…. I forgot how much time I was apart from Garrett. I would have said we were inseparable. After the past three months with Max, I now knew we weren’t, not really.

The second truth I realized was that I did feel possessive of Max, and probably in an unhealthy way, if I really was honest. I didn’t care. The black cat girl had made me see how close I had gotten to him. Kara told me to pay attention to my feelings when I saw her and I was doing that. I was the one Max was usually smiling down at, laughing with, even crying with. I felt replaced seeing him with someone else. I didn’t know what I would do when he began dating again. But if Kara was attempting to tell me that I had romantic feelings for Max, she was wrong. No, I wasn’t buying that at all. My feelings were platonic. And so were Max’s towards me.

By Monday morning when I ran out the front door to hop in his truck I was feeling no awkwardness at all. Everything was back to normal. I greeted him like I did every morning and he seemed like the same old Max. Any weirdness that I had felt was behind me. I was happy to be back to normal. Our normal was good enough for me.

We met for lunch under our shady tree as always. The weather was cooling down since we were going into November, but it was still around 70. Fall in California was rarely cool, although it was supposed to rain later in the week. It would be the first real rain in months so I was looking forward to it. Caitlynn walked up halfway through lunch and plopped down beside me. “Hey guys, I had fun bowling, we should do it again soon.”

“Yeah,” Max smiled, “I need to beat you, Cait.” They laughed and we talked for a few minutes until Hudson wandered over. He spoke to all of us but his eyes were most definitely on Caitlynn. She seemed pretty receptive to his attention and Max raised his eyebrows at me, grinning. Good for Cait, I thought. Hudson was a super nice guy and that’s what Caitlynn deserved.

I wondered if Max noticed how we were always surrounded by couples. If he did, it certainly didn’t bother him. I wouldn’t let it bother me either.





Max

I could tell my mom was dreading our first holiday season without my brother. Her way of dealing with it was as irritating as it was expensive. She began several projects around the house which meant workmen under foot and everything torn up. The walls of the downstairs were all being painted a dark khaki color. She ordered new carpet and a couple of rugs, and she was remodeling the guest bath. Rainey and I took refuge after school at her house, which made her mom happy. Mine was too busy to notice our absence, or at least it seemed that way. She was so preoccupied that I decided it was a perfect way to distract herself and the house would look great when it was all over.

We hung out with Colin and everyone each weekend and we all became close really quickly. Both Rainey and I looked forward to the time we spent with them. It soon became our favorite day of the week. The Saturday before Thanksgiving Day, after Colin, Ethan and I had actually finished two songs that we were really excited about, the girls came in with take-out from a little Greek restaurant nearby. We all sat around the coffee table eating and talking when Sophie suddenly made an announcement.

“Okay everyone, I have to ask you all something! I have the best idea for next weekend. What do you guys have planned after your turkey dinners?”

“Colin and I have no plans, just dinner with my folks on Thursday, why?” Rylee asked.

“What about you two?” Sophie looked back and forth from me to Rainey.

“Nothing at all, same as always…”

“Why?” Rainey interrupted.

“Well, Ethan and I are having Thanksgiving dinner with my parents and grandparents up at my grandparent’s house in the mountains at Big Bear. My folks have to go back Friday morning so I asked my Gran if I could invite you all up for the weekend. They live on a lake and there should be snow since we’re getting rain this week here. We can ski or snowboard. What do you think?”

“Isn’t that a lot of work for your grandparents?” Rainey said.

“You haven’t met her Gran yet,” Rylee said. “Rainey, Sophie’s grandparents are so much fun. They are not your typical old people. They act so young. Their home is gorgeous, it has like, what Sophie, 5 or 6 bedrooms?” She looked at Sophie.

“Six,” Sophie said, taking over from Rylee,. “And they will love having you. They love to meet my friends. Gran has a lady that comes in every day so it wouldn’t be hard on her at all. What do ya think?”

“I would love to go. I have to see what my mom and dad say, but I’m sure they will let me. Max, do you think your mom and dad will be okay with it?”

“Should be fine, “ I said. “Sounds like a good time.”

“Good! And now the best part is that if you guys all like it up there we get the place to ourselves for New Years Eve! Gran and Grandad are having a big party at their Palm Springs house and offered it to us.

Everyone began talking at once and I tuned them out to gage Rainey’s true reaction. I was looking for signs of distress, but she seemed happy. Really happy. Carefree, even. She was talking animatedly to Sophie and I sighed in relief. Milestones were tough, but how lucky had we been to find these new friends right when we both needed them the most. It was the best thing that could have happened after going through the worst thing that did.