I couldn’t stay there anymore without doing something crazy. I gritted my teeth and spat out, “My name is Max. Max. And that ‘little music thing’ is my life. I’m tired of you trying to turn it and me into what you want. I’m not Mackenzie, and I’m not Alexandria.”
Mom gasped like I’d slapped her. Even that made me furious. She threw around Alex’s name all the time, trying to push photos and old knickknacks on me. But the minute we tried for honesty about my sister and me, I’d apparently taken it too far.
I spun around and went to the table at the end of the foyer where Mom and Dad kept all the car keys. I found the familiar key of the car I used to drive before I moved to Philly.
“Where do you think you’re going, young lady?” Mom cried.
“To clear my head. I’ll be back when being here doesn’t make me sick to my stomach.”
Though at the moment, the answer to that felt like never.
It was becoming harder to breath, and I knew exactly where I would go—the same place I always went when I wished for a different life.
39
Cade
I’d almost dragged her out of there several times myself. I knew it would be difficult for her to have it out with her parents, but I hadn’t anticipated how much it would affect me, nor could I ever have dreamed her parents would have reacted so badly. I thought parents were supposed to love unconditionally? I assumed they would be mad, scream a bit, maybe cry, then settle down and talk it out like adults. When her father called her a tramp, I very nearly hit a man that was three times my age.
I followed Max out a door in the kitchen that opened into the garage. I expected her parents to come after us, but they didn’t do that either. Her parents had a three-car garage. At the far end was a black Volvo that lit up when Max pressed a button on her key. I tried to catch up to her, but she was already opening the car door, and it blocked my path.
“Max—”
“Just get in the car, Cade.”
Thank God. I was worried she wanted to leave without me. Needless to say, going back into that living room would have been awkward. I jogged around to the other side and slid into the passenger seat. The electric garage door was already opening, and as soon as it was up, Max peeled out of the garage, tore down the driveway and out into the street. She shifted the car into drive and slammed on the gas.
“Max, be careful, please.”
She slowed down a little, but not much.
“I’m sorry,” I said. God, that seemed so inadequate. All of this was my fault. “I never should have made you do that. I am so sorry.”
She smiled, and her eyes were watery. “Don’t be.”
“I shouldn’t have pushed you. You were scared, and apparently with good reason.”
“I always find a good reason to be scared, Golden Boy. I think it’s time I got over that, don’t you?”
I knew what she was saying, and my heart tried to soar, but I was still too torn up over what I’d witnessed. Anything that made tears form in her eyes was something I never wanted her to have to face. For the first time, I felt afraid of where this was heading, afraid of the depth of my feelings for her.
My life moved at a slow pace. It took months before I had feelings for Bliss. Never before had I felt so intensely and so quickly. Max swept into my life like a hurricane, and I never stood a chance.
She made a sharp left turn, then a right, and another left. We were in subdivision hell, and for all I could tell, it looked like we were back on the same street. She turned right again and dead-ended into a two-lane highway. She made a left, and we drove toward the rising sun. Her knuckles began to relax against the steering wheel. The farther away we got from her parents, the calmer she looked.
“Where are we going?”
She sighed. “To the only place more depressing than home.”
Every time I thought I understood her a little bit more, I was proven wrong.
“Why?” I asked.
She looked at me. Her hair glowed in the light of the waking sun. Her eyes were a bottomless ocean that I would give up air to explore. A perfect moment passed, uninterrupted by the world, unhurried by time, untainted by fear of the past or the future. And she answered, “Closure.”
We drove for another five minutes until we reached a hill on a deserted stretch of highway. Trees lined each side of the road, and they curved over the highway like a tunnel. At the top of the hill was the sun, and it looked like we’d drive right into it if we didn’t stop. It was breathtaking. The kind of scene you see in landscape photos and paintings. Max pulled over into a ditch just before the hill and trees started. She turned off the ignition and sat there, staring for a moment. Her gaze was so intense that I didn’t want to say anything. Whatever this place was, it meant more to her than just pretty scenery.