She paused, like she wanted to say more, but just couldn’t piece together the words. Finally, she let her eyes fall closed and said, “May our lives have a healthy dose of each. Amen.”
A chorus of hesitant amens filled the dining room, and Max stayed staring at her plate. I squeezed her hand and didn’t unlace our fingers.
Bethany placed a napkin in her lap and said quietly, “I’ve never heard a prayer quite like that before.”
“That was lovely, sweetheart,” Max’s mother said.
Max gave a nearly inaudible “thank you,” and it was the only thing she said for the rest of dinner. Luckily, Bethany dominated the conversation. She talked about Michael’s job, and their house, and how they thought they were almost ready to have kids. I was beginning to understand how she stayed so skinny. She never stopped talking long enough to really eat. Max distracted herself by picking at her food, and I distracted myself by staring at Max.
When dinner was over, Mrs. Miller shooed us into the living room while she cleaned up. And without the distraction of food, the discomfort level grew even higher. Mr. Miller pulled me aside to look at the various taxidermy pieces that were scattered across the living room. I’d grown up in Texas, where there were almost as many taxidermy places as there were churches, but I imagined what it must have been like for other guys that Max had brought home. I pictured Mace staring down the glassy, dead eyes of a twelve-point buck, and had to smother a laugh.
We were standing in front of a wild boar, while Mr. Miller recounted his hunting trip, when I overheard Bethany talking to Max on the couch.
She said, “It’s never a good sign when the fighting starts this early. I mean, between the arguing you two did upstairs and the uncomfortable silence between you at dinner, I give it a week, maybe two before you go separate ways.” Max was miraculously calm. She stared straight ahead, picking at a stray thread on the arm of the sofa. “You’re lucky I kept up the conversation during dinner or your parents would have noticed.” Max remained silent. “I know it’s hard.” Bethany placed a hand on Max’s shoulder, who stiffened in response. “But you could hardly expect to snag the first decent guy that looked your way. I’m sure you made some mistakes along the way, but next time you’ll know better.”
I didn’t know what Bethany had against Max, but there was a cruelty in her tone that told me she was enjoying this. I couldn’t listen to it anymore. I turned to Mr. Miller and said, “Excuse me for a moment, sir.” Then I headed for the couch. I plopped down beside Max, shocking her out of the statue act she was putting on for Bethany.
I said, “Hey.” And because I wanted to shut Bethany up and had been dying to do it since I first saw her this morning, I leaned in and pressed a kiss to Max’s lips. She locked up for just a second, but then closed her eyes and kissed me back.
My body roared to life, and I resisted the urge to deepen the kiss. I pulled back and draped an arm over Max’s shoulder. I tugged her closer until she was leaning against my chest.
“Sorry, I was getting lonely.” I smiled and asked, “What are you two talking about?”
Bethany sputtered, and a slow smile spread over Max’s face. It sent warmth to every part of me.
Max said, “I was just telling Bethany how great you were.”
“Is that so?”
“Oh yeah, I mean, you’re about as perfect as they come.”
I held back a laugh and said, “Oh no, you’re the perfect one.”
She leaned her head against my chest, and I wondered if she could hear the way my heart sped up. She said, “I guess we’re just perfect for each other then.”
I wrapped my arms all the way around her and held her close.
Bethany stood and said, “Excuse me. I’m going to go find Michael. I have no idea what could be keeping him.”
No doubt he’d snuck off to enjoy the superior company of his BlackBerry. We watched Bethany stalk out of the room. Max hesitated for a moment, and then turned her face into my chest to muffle her laughter.
“That is officially my favorite Christmas memory ever,” Max breathed.
“Why does she hate you so much?” I asked.
Max propped her chin on my chest and looked at me. When she wasn’t looking at me, I could pretend that this was all an act. That this was a role like any other. But with her eyes on mine . . . I lost focus.
She said, “I mentioned she’s the Antichrist, right?”
“Ah, so this is a battle of good-and-evil kind of thing.”
“No, this is a she’s-psycho kind of thing.”
“I could buy that. She enjoys hearing herself talk too much to not be at least a little bit sociopathic.”
Max’s eyes fluttered closed, and I realized that my hand was threading through her hair. I hadn’t even realized I’d been doing it. I knew what that did to her. I started to pull my hand back, but she laid her cheek back against my chest and wrapped an arm around my waist.
If that wasn’t permission, I didn’t know what was.
Bethany came back with Michael, and Mrs. Miller brought out a tray with mugs of hot chocolate. I took one, but Max declined. She stayed pressed against me, her head resting over my heart as her family took seats around the room.
I tried to keep my body calm, and my mind calmer as we sat there.
I was tired of questioning what everything meant, so I just gave in. I brushed my fingers through her hair, skimming her neck and her back. I didn’t know what she was thinking or if she was thinking at all, but it was peaceful, like a reprieve from the world.
Bethany kept glancing our way, but for once she didn’t say anything. I closed my eyes and leaned my cheek against the top of Max’s head. I took the reprieve because we both needed it.
“Michael,” Mrs. Miller called to her son. “Why don’t we put all those years of piano lessons to work and sing some Christmas carols?”
Ah, there was the Christmas fiend Max had mentioned.
Michael obediently moved to the piano in the corner of the room, and he pulled the cushion of the bench up to look in the hidden storage beneath. He picked up a book.
“The red book,” Mrs. Miller said.
He returned the book he’d chosen, and picked up a red one instead.
He flipped through the pages for a few seconds then asked, “Silent Night”?
Mrs. Miller nodded, and he began to play.
Max sat up a little, and leaned her head against my shoulder instead. Everyone began to sing, but my ears only heard her.
“Silent night. Holy night.
All is calm all is bright
Round yon virgin mother and child
Holy infant so tender and mild
Sleep in heavenly peace
Sleep in heavenly peace.”
It was amazing how even a song I’d heard a hundred times sounded beautiful and special coming from her. There was something just slightly different in her tone, in her phrasing, that made the song sound fresh to my ears. Her voice was soft and vulnerable, and I couldn’t stop myself from turning to face her. She lifted her head up and looked at me. I brushed a hand across her cheek, and she leaned into my touch.
I brushed her hair back, and I could feel her walls dropping. Her fear fled, my anger abandoned me, and certainty crept in. I was certain that we weren’t as different as we wanted to believe, certain that she felt something for me, certain that this could work.
She took a breath, and I was certain that she could feel it, too.
Then the music ended, and the spell broke. I saw her retreat back into herself. She slid over on the couch, and all my certainties came crashing down.
I understood that she was unsure, but I just couldn’t take this anymore.
38
Max
I kept my distance.
It was the only way I knew to keep my heart.
I knew I couldn’t keep him away forever, but I managed it through the rest of Mom’s impromptu caroling session. I maintained the distance until it was time for be
d. He was in his room, and I was in mine. And I was going to need my sleep to recharge my resolve—both with respect to Cade and to telling my parents the truth.
It was a bad sign for both that I was still wide-awake at 2:00 A.M. when a knocking started on my door.
I was wearing an oversized T-shirt and a pair of boy-short underwear. I thought of rummaging for a pair of shorts to pull on, but whoever was knocking was making enough noise to wake up my parents, so I figured it was better to just answer them.
When I pulled open the door, Cade stormed into my room. Panicked, I peeked my head out the door, but there were no lights on, which meant he hadn’t woken anyone . . . yet. I shut the door quietly and said, “What are you doing here?”
His eyes snapped from my bare legs up to my face, and his eyes were blazing.
“You’re mad,” I said in confusion.
“Hell yes, I’m mad.”
“I told you that I would tell them, Cade. I was planning to do it in the morning, in fact. It’s all I’ve been thinking about.”
“That’s not what I’m mad about.”
I barely had time to mutter, “Then what?” before he’d caught my face in his hands and pulled my lips to his.
His kiss was angry and punishing, and I felt it all the way in the marrow of my bones.
“I’m angry that you keep pushing me away when I know you don’t want to.”
He crushed our lips together again, bruising and beautiful.
“I’m angry that you left me after the best sex of my life.”
He turned and pressed me against the door, just like he did that night. I whimpered in response.
“More than anything, I’m angry that I had to wait so long to kiss you again.”
Then he poured his anger into me, our tongues battling for dominance. I was so in shock that I didn’t know whether to push him away or pull him closer, not that he gave me much of a choice. His hands found my wrists, and he pressed them into the door above my head. He wrung every last ounce of fear out of me until I was weak and panting and absolutely out of my mind with desire.
When he started to pull back, I shot forward and kissed him again. He released my hands, and I grasped the bulge of his shoulders. His teeth grazed my bottom lip in an almost-bite, and I lost it.
All my excuses were buried deep beneath the heat of his body against mine. I pressed my hips into his, and he groaned into my mouth. I couldn’t control myself. My hands trailed from his waist to his chest, and he held me tighter in response. I spun us, and started pulling him toward my bed.
His hand slid down to my ass, and his kiss was so devastating and consuming that I wanted to rejoice or scream or cry.
The back of my knees hit the bed at the same time that he pulled away.
His eyes were dark, and his breathing labored. “Whatever stupid reasoning you’ve got for staying away from me, it’s wrong. And I won’t stop until I’ve proven it to you.”
Then he left, and I fell back on my bed in shock.
It took nearly five minutes before I could do anything but sit there with my fingers pressed to my swollen lips.
As soon as I heard Mom bustling around downstairs, I pulled myself out of bed. It was still dark out, but even without a sufficient amount of sleep, my strength felt renewed. Maybe Cade had kissed some confidence into me the night before. Whatever the reason, my heart was eerily steady as I dressed that morning. I put on the scoop-neck shirt that I’d started the day in yesterday.
I pulled my hair around to the side and did a quick loose braid that left the other side of my neck and my birds completely visible. The shirt only showed the very tips of my branches, but the lines were dark enough such that they couldn’t be missed. I replaced the plastic retainers with my usual ear piercings.
This moment was years in the making.
I’d spent so much of my life, too much of it, altering myself to please other people. This was my crossroads moment, and nothing would be the same on this new road, including me.
Before I could change my mind, I went next door to the guest room and knocked.
Cade opened the door, already up and ready for the day. His hair was damp and curled around his face. I could smell the familiar, masculine scent of him from here. Last night came rushing back at me, and it took a serious amount of self-control not to throw myself at him.
He said, “Good morning.”
His tone was cautious, like maybe I had come to deliver an angry tirade of my own. But I wasn’t angry, just . . . on the verge of hyperventilating.
All the calm I’d woken up with disappeared upon seeing him. Somehow, he made it all feel real. My control crumbled, and my throat felt like it was going to close up. He must have seen the freak-out coming because he pulled me into his room and closed the door behind us. I turned my back on him and said, “Just give me a second.”
I pressed my palms into my eyes to try to stop the tears that were building there.
“Max . . .” His voice was soft and came from right in front of me.
“I’m okay,” I whispered without lowering my hands. I hated getting emotional, but nothing was worse than getting emotional in front of another person.
His arms circled me, and I sunk into his chest. My breath rattled in my chest, and I fisted my hands in the front of his shirt.
“You can do this,” he said.
There it was . . . the belief. He had far more in me than I had in myself. If nothing else good came of this, at least there was that.
“It won’t be easy,” he said. Understatement of the year. “But your parents love you, Max.” I laughed, even though nothing was funny. My throat was thick with emotion. He brought a hand up and pulled my hands from my eyes. “And if they can’t see how amazing you are, they’re blind.”
I swallowed, and my throat felt raw. I didn’t know what I’d ever done to deserve him. I didn’t know why he would come anywhere near someone as toxic as me, but I was thankful.
Silence filled the room, but it was the comfortable kind of quiet that Cade and I had had before everything had changed. I didn’t say anything because I didn’t need to.
He held out his hand, and I latched onto it like I was falling and he was the only thing that could save me.
“I’ll be with you every step of the way.”
Some of the tightness in my chest eased, and I nodded.
“Thank you,” I said.
“I don’t know why you’re thanking me.”
I remembered the way he’d put himself out there last night and said, “You faced your demons, and came out on top. So, maybe I can, too.”
He smiled and squeezed my hand.
“Come on, Fearless Girl.”
I was far from fearless, but knowing he thought I was provided me with half the courage I needed. We left the guest room, and descended the stairs together.
Dad was watching television, and Mom was messing with something in the kitchen when we came downstairs. Michael was on his phone, and the Antichrist was flipping through a Better Homes and Gardens magazine.
Bethany saw me first, and her jaw dropped. God, it felt good to be the cause of that horrendous look on her face. I hoped it stuck that way.
She called, “BETTY!” Her face turned smug, and I thought back to Cade’s question the night before. Why did she hate me? Probably because, just like my parents, she liked her world nice and neat and clean. I wasn’t any of those things, with or without the tattoos.
Cade squeezed my hand, and I took the deepest breath that I could get. Mom came in from the kitchen drying a pan with a towel and said, “Yes?”
Bethany pointed in my direction. I took a few steps until I was all the way in the living room. Cade kept close by my side. Mom’s eyes settled on me, but it was several long seconds before she really saw me. She dropped the pan and it clanged against the hardwood floors. Her face passed through a spectrum of emotions that normally I would have found funny, except that I had no idea which one she would end up landing on
. It was like Wheel of Fortune, only all the good possibilities had been removed. Dad looked up from the television just as Mom said, “Mackenzie Kathleen Miller, how could you do such a hideous thing to your body?”
It stung, but I kept my expression as blank as possible.
Dad asked, “What horrible thing?” He turned to face me, and I saw the anger wash over him. Out of the two of them, he was the more unpredictable one. He stood slowly, his motions stiff and small. His eyes flitted between my neck and my ear piercings and back again.
“What in the name of God have you done?”
His tone was soft, but clipped. This was the scariest version of him—still and silent and like the calm before the storm. Mom came to stand by Dad, and he took her under his arm. She turned weepy and mopped at her eyes with the back of her hand.
“Why does she do these things to us?” she asked him.
All my anxiety ignited into anger.
“I didn’t do this to you. I made a choice about what to do with my body. It had nothing to do with either of you.”
My father exploded. “You mark yourself up like some kind of . . . tramp on the street, and you expect it not to bother us?” He didn’t raise a hand to me, but he might as well have. It hurt just as bad.
“Mick.” Cade’s voice cut in, hard and firm. Dad paused, and I could see his embarrassment and fury at having someone outside the family witness this conversation.
“Son, I think you should leave us alone to deal with this.”
Panic crushed me, and I crushed Cade’s hand between mine in return.
“With all due respect, sir, I’m not going anywhere.”
Mom sputtered in disbelief, and Dad fumed. I didn’t want them to hate Cade for something that was all about me. I took a step closer and said, “I know you don’t like these kinds of things, but—”
“Don’t like them?” Mom’s voice turned hysterical. “We raised you in the Church. You’ve been taught since you could speak that your body is a temple, and now you’ve destroyed it. You know what the Bible says about those kinds of abominations.”
“The Bible also says to give away your riches, but you guys sure haven’t bothered to do that. And I didn’t destroy my body. There are no needle tracks on my arms. I’m not addicted to anything, nor have I become a prostitute, Dad. This is art that means enough to me that I made it a part of myself.”
“Squiggly lines mean a lot to you?” Dad barked. “And birds? Yes, I can understand why birds mean a lot to you.”
“Freedom means a lot to me.”
“I’m glad to hear that because you’re going to get plenty of it. If that’s what you do with the money we give you—mutilate yourself and ruin all your chances of having a decent, respectable life—then we’re done helping you.”
That news hurt a lot less than I thought it would. In the grand scheme of things, their money meant nothing. It was the least important thing they could take from me.
“You’ve not been interested in helping me in a long time.”
Dad said, “I mean it, Mackenzie. You better hope your little music thing works out because you’ll not get a decent job anywhere else looking like that.”
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.