Page 48 of Save the Game

“For fuck’s sake,” I mutter, annoyed. Closing my eyes, I raise my voice: “What?”

“You’ve got a visitor.”

“Tell her to go away,” I call back, thinking it’s Margot and that she’s now upped her game to attempted abduction. Clearly tiring of shouting through the door, Bryce opens it. I turn my desk chair around, crossing my arms and scowling at him. He raises an eyebrow, unimpressed.

“Don’t be fucking rude,” is all he says, before striding back up the stairs.

Cursing under my breath, I get up to close the door, visitor be damned, when Max steps into view. He looks awful. The delicate skin under his eyes is blue with sleeplessness, and there is a hopeless slump to his shoulders; my heart gives a demented little jolt at the sight of him. He stops at the threshold, toeing the line between the hallway and my room like a vampire who has to be invited inside.

“Hey,” he says uncertainly. “Sorry, is now a bad time?”

He’s already turning away, clearly having heard the exchange between Bryce and I. I nearly leap across the room and grab him, desperate to keep him here after not having seen or spoken to him for a whole week.

“Hello, you,” I breathe, and I swear to god I can see a spark light up in his eyes at the words. “Come in. It’s not a bad time at all, come in. Here,” I sweep aside the clean laundry that’s on my bed, waiting to be folded, “you can sit. Do you want something to drink? Eat?”

I’m rambling, heart rabbiting around in my chest and palms sweaty. He’s here, he’s here, he’s fucking here! Inappropriately, I want to smile, even though I know there is a strong possibility of this being unenjoyable. I watch him, greedily drinking in the silhouette of him beneath his baggy shirt as he takes a careful seat on the edge of my bed and links his hands together.

“No, thank you,” he says, sounding as formal as though he was offered tea by the Queen of England. “Uhm…”

“Max, I’m so, so sorry,” I couldn’t stop my mouth even if I wanted to. Sitting down in my desk chair, I move it as close to him as I dare. “I know you’re mad at me, and you have every right to be, but I wasn’t trying to lie to you or pull a fast one on you. I didn’t know how to bring it up and so I didn’t, and now I’ve fucked everything up, and I’m just really sorry.”

“Luke, that’s not?—."

“I miss you so damn bad. God, I miss you. You’re, like, my favorite person, you know that? I don’t even think I knew that until this week, but it’s true. And listen, I know that you don’t need somebody to take care of you, or to treat you with kid gloves or anything, but I wasn’t trying to do that because I think you’re weak. I was doing that because…well, I don’t know, because you’re mine, which means you’re mine to take care of.”

Max’s eyes are wide and locked on mine. He looks shocked; I walk back what I just said and flinch.

“Okay, that sounded a little insane. I don’t mean you’re mine like I own you, I mean it in a romantic kind of way. Like, you’re my boyfriend and… well, you get the idea. Jesus Christ, stop me from talking, please.”

He laughs under his breath, and gives a small shake of his head. “I, uhm, I wasn’t sure you’d want to talk to me.”

“What?”

“When I didn’t hear from you, I guess I thought that was it and you were cutting your losses.”

“No, I was just trying to give you space,” I tell him incredulously.

“That’s what I was doing with you,” he agrees, and I can’t help but burst out into surprised laughter.

“Margot was right,” I mutter, rubbing my eyes, “boys really are idiots.”

“Listen, Luke,” he starts, and I watch as his eyes leave mine and settle on his feet, “I shouldn’t have yelled at you like I did. I was way out of line. It’s just that I hadn’t ever planned on telling you about what happened, and when I found out that you already knew, it felt like the relationship I thought we had was all some kind of charade.”

“No,” I interrupt, shaking my head even though he’s still not looking at me. “No.”

“I wasn’t this crazy before last year,” he says, and then gives a dry little chuckle that feels like a knife to the chest.

“You’re not crazy, you’ve probably got…I don’t know, PTSD or something. People aren’t supposed to treat each other the way you’ve been treated, Max, and you shouldn’t be apologizing for how you feel about it.”

“Yeah,” he says, looking up and at the wall, still avoiding my gaze. “There’s something else we should talk about. I was thinking this week, and I realized that you were smart about not wanting to sleep with me, especially since you know about what happened at the party. It hadn’t even occurred to me before now, that you were probably worried about your safety.”

I stare at him in bewilderment. I have no idea how I’ve lost the thread of the conversation so completely, but I really have no clue what he’s on about. Inhaling deeply, he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a square of paper, unfolding it carefully before silently handing it over to me. It’s lab results.

“That’s from the hospital, after Marcos brought me in, and then the second page is more recent,” he explains, even though this explains nothing at all.

“Why am I looking at this?”

“Because I doubt whoever raped me was thoughtful enough to use a condom,” he says to the wall. “Those are the test results so that you know I’m not going to give you…HIV or hepatitis or something. If you wanted to… well, now you know you’re safe, that’s all.”

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