Iron & Wine

by Candace Osmond

  I concentrated extra hard in school on Monday. I wanted, more than anything, to not think about Jack. All weekend I laid wide-eyed in bed trying to figure him out.

  Did he like me? If he did, he seemed pretty guilty about it. I just wished that he would talk to me about it. If Jack did have an interest in me and it was already this difficult to even be friends, then there was obviously no hope for a relationship. Lattie hadn’t even been home for me to talk to and distract myself. She’d been out gallivanting with fig fairies or something. I shook my head to clear my thoughts. I’d spent almost my entire night obsessing over Jack, I wasn't about to spend my day doing it.

  "Problems?" asked Max beside me. "You seem more crazy than usual."

  "None of your business Max, I just didn't get much sleep," I groaned back at her. I focused on my project in front of me. Art always helped me to concentrate or distract myself, to get away from certain things in my life. When I was younger it would help me to forget that my dad was always gone.

  "Not that I care or anything," she huffed as she crossed her legs and sat all proper and stuck up like she usually did. "I just don't fancy sitting next to a nut job."

  "Funny, neither do I," I replied and shot her a glare. What did she think, that it's rainbows and sunshine sitting next to her all the time?

  The bell rang and I got up to gather my things. It was Tuesday and I was due at the gallery. I wanted to get over there as early as possible and get out, avoiding the risk of running into Celadine and her asking questions that I myself still didn't have answers to. Or worse, run into Jack. A sudden rush of frustration ran over me as his face popped into my head.

  "Hey, chill," Max said, apparently mistaking my anger as a personal attack on her. "Just trying to be civil," she added mockingly.

  I turned on my heel to face her. "Max, for someone who is a professional bitch twenty-four-seven, you're not very understanding of someone who is just having a bad day," I snapped.

  Everyone stopped and began to stare; probably anticipating round two between Max and me. She flushed pretty red and began to vibrate in anger.

  I noticed whenever she got really pissed that she actually emitted a wave of heat, like standing right next to someone who’d just jumped off a treadmill. Maybe I shouldn't push her today. I wasn’t in the mood to get nearly beaten to death again.

  "Hey, simmer down. I didn't mean that." I surrendered. "But I am having a really bad day, actually a bad week."

  She took in a deep breath and closed her eyes like she was concentrating. Maybe Max was getting help for her anger issues. She seemed to be able to calm herself down a little. "It's okay. And, no, you're right. I should be more understanding; it's hard to care about other people when I’ve never wanted to."

  Wow. I was shocked. That sounded somewhat sincere. Or was I in such a bad mood that Max appeared somewhat sane next to me? "Uh, it's cool, don't worry," I assured her. "I've gotta get going, though, I’m due at the gallery today.” I turned to leave this uncomfortable conversation as fast as I could.

  It felt very strange to end a conversation with Max and not have broken anything or fought the urge to slap her. Maybe there was hope for us after all.

  I was headed across the parking lot, toward my bike, when someone tapped me on the shoulder. I turned to find Max, who looked very antsy.

  "What do you want, Max?" I asked impatiently, almost scared to hear the answer as I threw my bag on the back of the Vespa.

  "Why are you having a bad week?" she blurted out. What was she doing? I knew she didn’t care about my life enough to follow me out here and ask. Was she just being nosey?

  "Why?"

  "Well, you just seem to, like, I dunno, need to talk about it or something," she replied, awkwardly.

  "Max, look, don't do this. We can be civil; we don't need to be best buddies or anything."

  "Why won’t you tell me?" she snapped in anger. I rolled my eyes. Here we go.

  "Max! It's none of your business!" I yelled back. "Plus, I don't feel like talking about it! And you know what? If I did want to talk about it, I wouldn't come to you! You can't treat me like a leper, throw me through glass doors and almost push me over a five-story balcony and expect me to just forget it!" I hopped on my bike, gave her one last glare and took off.

  None of those things had anything to do with anything right now, but the anger inside kept boiling up. I probably could have handled that a lot better, but I just didn’t care right now. The last thing that I needed was another cryptic person to keep me up at night trying to decipher them. One was enough.

  CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

  IRON WORLDER