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Maxine was redecorating her room for the fifth time this summer.
She had read something about feng shui on an Internet blog at 3 AM, during a mid-June doomscroll. “Energy permeates every part of our soul. If you were blocking the energies within the space that you hold, you are doing yourself a disservice. ”
Those had been the words on Julie Kirkpatrick’s summer blog. And with 1264 likes, Julie Kirkpatrick must be doing something right.
So in hopes of unblocking the energy in her life, Maxine rearranged her bedroom. And at the end of June, when Marcus (who had asked her not to visit him) didn’t respond to her really well-written and very funny letter, she changed it again. And in early July, when Nora and Abby had both canceled—separately, for the second time—their planned MANG (minus G) dinner at Blue Farm mid-July, she knew the energy around her must still be blocked. She rearranged again.
Now, during the first weekend in August, six days before school was supposed to start, her mom sat on the edge of the bed with her too-large smile—the one she wore always to break bad news—and gently explained, “Marcus just isn’t ready to see you yet, sweetie,” and “He’s been doing so well, we need to meet him where he’s at.”
Max took that as a sign that she hadn’t gotten it quite right just yet.
And Max needed to get the energies right before hell year started, before she took the stage as a junior, before she was forced to face the reality that the friend group she had meticulously cultivated and grown up with had moved on without her. Max still had a chance for this Schrodinger's cat of a school year to be perfect.
So when Ginny arrived home from Korea, and the MANG group chat remained as stilted and dead as it had since the last weekend of school, Max tried her hardest not to type and retype a welcome back message. Tried her hardest to stop herself from knocking on her door. Tried her hardest not to notice when the blue convertible pulled out of the driveway. Tried her hardest to stop the spiraling and incessant thoughts that fluttered around her head.
Maybe she went to see her dad… who she had just spent all summer with. Or maybe she went to see Bracia, who had just posted a picture of her date with Bryon on Instagram. Maybe she’s gonna see Wolfe, what the fuck knew what was up with that guy anyway?
And then Maxine, trying to ignore the ceaseless thoughts about her best friends meeting up without her, being better without her, being happy without her, stumbled on a much worse thought. A terrible thought. A very bad, horrible, no good thought.
What if Ginny was going to see Marcus? What if—unlike he had with her—Marcus let her.
Thus began her fifth attempt to find her feng shui. Nothing was right, and the only reason she stopped rearranging everything was because around three in the morning, her mother, half asleep, told her feng shui was so loud that her father, as deaf as he was, could hear her through the walls.
Max didn’t appreciate the joke, but she laughed anyway, wide and loud enough that her mother winced as she turned out the light and closed the door.
***
“Max, it’s not about you,” her mother told her for the umpteenth time as she ready the car for the 30-minute trek over to Rangeview, the rehab center Marcus had spent the summer in.
“I know,” Max said with a wide smile and an impossibly cheery tone. “But mom, it’s 60 days.” And that distinction mattered. This was a special occasion, one she shouldn’t miss, regardless of how reluctant Marcus was about seeing her. “I read that that’s a huge deal! I want to help celebrate his accomplishment, show him that I’m proud of him, too. And since I can’t throw him a party until he’s sprung free —”
“You can’t throw him a party at all,” her mother said exasperated, but Max continued to talk.
“—The best I can do is show up with cookies!” And she held up the cookies she had made last night around 2:30 when she couldn’t sleep and was just reciting measuring instructions in her head for some reason.
Mom looked at her dad—the look that Max had learned to understand meant ‘Max is being Max again.’ Dad just shrugged.
Let her come. Dad signed.
Mom worried her lip as Max waited, hopeful, on the tips of her toes, ready to jump up and down in victory. “I know you want to show your support. But Marcus isn’t ready to talk to you yet.”
Ouch. It was lucky that Max had perfected how to take an emotionally devastating punch to the ribs with a smile; she didn’t even flinch. Didn’t even have to try hard to hide the hurt her mother's words dug into her. She just swallowed them.
“I’ll wait in the car again,” she insisted, voice too cheery, too hopeful, too Max. “Just in case he changes his mind!”
Mom shot a forlorn look at her dad—a pleading look, one that she knew meant she was pushing too much.
But her dad shrugged. It can’t do much harm.
And her mom acquiesced.
Unsurprisingly, Marcus didn’t magically change his mind as soon as she arrived. And even more unsurprisingly, about three minutes after her parents walked into the front doors of Rangeview, Ginny walked in too.
What was surprising was that she wasn’t alone. Nora and Abby were laughing, Colton’s arms around Nora’s shoulders. Tris’ arm around Abby. Silver was talking, smiling, beautifully, and effortlessly. Behind them, Padma and Hunter, holding hands, walked through the doors.
Max watched, frozen like one of the statues at the bottom of the ocean. Unadmired, invisibly falling apart. Crying.
God, was she making it about her? Crying at the sight of her friends being welcomed into Marcus’ 60-day sober celebration? Most of whom, at one point, had been her friends. Half of which were not even his friends. Half of which had helped him fall into the drunken mess that he had been. None of whom had bothered sticking around to put him back together again, to make sure he got home safe, to put him to bed, to beg and plead her parents to get him help, risked his rage and hatred to make sure he could be okay.
God, how fucking selfish was she? She hit her head against the car window.
At least he had support, even if he didn’t want hers.
***
That morning, waiting in the parking lot, wasn’t the first time Maxine thought about killing herself. No, that has been at age 12, when Brandon Smithson, kissed her behind the slide on the playground, and then called her a whore when she told him she was gay.
In that moment, all she wanted to do was die of embarrassment and shame.
No, it certainly wasn’t the first time thinking about it all stopping; about going to sleep, finding herself in the silence at the end of the unrelenting spiral, and never waking up.
In fact, Max couldn’t remember a day since the playground where she hadn’t thought of some variation of ‘ I should just kill myself’. Some of them were dramatic, over-the-top reactions to microcosmic doings in her life. Some of them because she was tired, and a break would feel nice. Some of them were because she felt more like a bruise than a woman. The emotional punches she had to take with a forced smile were growing more and more frequent and more and more painful. And she never really liked pain.
But that morning in the parking lot, it was the first time the thought of how clicked. So perfectly and easily, as if it took no pre-thought at all, as if a plan had already been written out in the back of her mind and was just waiting to hit her.
Her mom had sleeping pills. Ambien. The doctor had prescribed them when she started having trouble sleeping, not that she ever told either Maxine or Marcus that. Maxine caught her signing about it to her dad in the living room, where she sat on the stairs, engaging in one of her favorite pastimes: eavesdropping.
That had been the same way she had heard about Melissa Humphrey, one of Mom's PTA friends, being hospitalized a few years ago. According to her mom’s frantic signing to her father, Melissa had forgotten she had taken a few of the sleeping pills and then had a glass of wine.
That would be simple if she took some sleeping pills and maybe had a few drinks.
No . No. That was stupid and ridiculous and dramatic. And so wasn’t what she should do. She was overreacting. This wasn’t about her. No. No.
When her parents got back into the car, she asked how the visit had gone and about the celebrations, and if Marcus had liked her cookies. They smiled encouragingly —pityingly—like they saw her as fragile as their china plates. They didn’t mention her friends. So she didn’t either.
***
The problem with pretending that everything was all right was that no one knew everything wasn’t all right.
This is how Max found herself on the first day of school, sitting at a table with all the people she used to have lunch with, talking about all the things they used to talk about. As if their existence was a script, and they were fed lines to recite.
And when Abby turned to her and bluntly asked why she wasn’t at Marcus’s celebration in the way that Maxine knew every single person had been talking about it—probably in Brodie’s basement to a hangout she was no longer invited to—all Max could do was smile widely, and say the line that had been written for her, “I was busy.”
A lie felt safer. She wasn’t sure she could handle the pitying looks and I’m sorry, Max ’s that would come with her admitting Marcus was refusing to talk to her. And she definitely couldn’t handle it if they agreed with him. Best to pretend. “I’m glad he had people who could celebrate him, though.”
They nodded as she smiled wide, pretending like she didn’t see the look that Abby gave Nora, or Ginny’s eye roll, or the lack of pity on Padma’s face. Instead, she turned to Bracia and ask about who she was auditioning for in Jefferson, the winter musical.
And when the bell rang and Ginny stayed behind, and Max had to take a metaphorical emotion punch to the stomach when she looked at her and earnestly said, “Marcus is really trying, you know. He needs people who care about him to show up.”
And if Max hadn’t been so tired from caring about Marcus, then she might have actually slapped Ginny across the face. But instead, she was frozen to the spot, the feeling of shame washing over her.
“Okay,” was all she could say as Ginny turned to leave.
***
The first week of school was the worst thing to ever happen to her. The things that made school enjoyable, all sucked.
She failed her first few pop quizzes in AP Language and Composition because she forgot to complete the summer reading assignment, as she was too busy feng shuiing her room. She smiled and pretended like she wasn’t a total idiot failure, burying the failed test so far into her bag, even though she could hear it calling her names.
She didn’t get a part in the musical because the director wanted to go in “a different creative direction.” He had pulled her aside and assured her that while she was very talented, she had already had the opportunity for so many lead roles, and the underclassmen should have a shot. She cried in the bathroom stall because when she tried to tell Abby about it, Abby told her she didn’t have time for the drama between science and history class. She should have known better than to bother her.
On Friday, she got home to find her mom packing away all of the alcohol and locking it behind a padlock cabinet. “Your brother is coming home tomorrow,” she announced with a large smile filled with actual joy and relief in a way that Max couldn’t ever possibly imagine being the cause of.
Max cheered, hugged her mom, and didn’t say anything about her terrible week. She wanted her mom to enjoy this joy. She didn’t want to risk it shattering. But after she turned away, Max looked at the padlock. It was gonna be a whole lot harder to kill herself with the alcohol locked up.
***
Max wasn’t going to kill herself. She was fine.
She had stayed up late, researching the multiple ways to kill oneself. She memorized the hotline numbers. Then she called the hotline just to make sure it worked —It did. She hung up before she talked to anyone. She didn’t want to waste anyone’s time when there were people who were actual in trouble.
This was a perfectly normal thing to do. Researching the ways to kill oneself was probably good because it meant that her mind was trying to understand it. The same way she watched Annabelle of The Conjuring a billion times. If she understood how it worked, it couldn’t be that scary.
Besides, Max knew it was a Max thing to do to get stuck on something, like with Sophie… she had always had this sort of “obsession”. Like the time when she had to wear her pink Barbie shoes, wherever she went: to school, to the park, to synagogue, to Nana and Grandpa's, even in the bath. She loved them so much that she had to wear them. And if she didn’t, the world was gonna end.
Eventually, she got over those.
And she got over the obsession that came from hearing that eating carrots was good for her vision, so she had to eat a carrot every day at 2:27 PM or else her vision would deteriorate.
It was 2:48 and there wasn’t a single a carrot in sight. But she should have one… No.
Last night’s research was just a new obsession, and she would get over it. Besides, Marcus was coming home in just a few minutes, and everything had to be perfect and fine. She was excited to see him, to tell him she loved him, and to let him know she was proud of him. And to assess just how much he hated her. Because once she figured that out, she could figure out how to get them back to normal and be great again.
She waited eagerly at the bottom of the stairs. When the door opened up, she sprang to her feet.
He looked better; the dark circles in his eyes were almost completely gone. His hair was quite a bit longer. Did they really not let him cut it? He was taller. Stronger. He had been eating.
“Hey,” she said with a wide smile. “You’re home!” She jumped into his space almost immediately. “I missed you. I wanna hear about how your summer was. Did you make any friends?”
This punch might as well have been directly in her throat, as Marcus craned his neck up towards their mom. “I told you, I can’t do this today.” And then he moved past her, avoiding physical contact. “Sorry.”
Her heart sank as she stood in the hallway, like an idiot, with a smile on her face, and an empty hollow ache in her chest.
Her mom stepped forward. A hand on each shoulder as she let out a deep breath. “Just give him time, okay?” Her mom said, “He’s going through a lot, and I don’t think he knows how to talk to you yet.”
Talk to you.
This was her fault. He was fine around everyone else, but for some reason—she knew the reason was because she did this to him—he couldn’t handle her.
She nodded, but all she could hear was the soundtrack of the summer—a remix of Marcus’s final words to her before going to Rangview.
No wonder your friends hate you
You make everything a big deal
We’re all just living in the Max show
***
Time. Max could give Marcus time. Sure. No problem.
But the problem with time was the passing. And with each day of the passing week, Max realized how utterly unnecessary she was in the grand scheme of the world. It hit her as she was coming down from her room one night, as she overheard her mom talking to Georgia.
“It’s so nice having him home. The house feels normal again. Settled, you know?” She laughed as if she were making a joke. “I didn’t realize how stabilizing Marcus’s presence is until the whole house was just Max.”
That punch felt more like a blow to the head.
“That girl of yours has one big personality,” Georgia said in her soothing southern drawl, “How’s she doing with all this?”
“Max?” Her mother said, as a surprised someone would even ask, “She’s great. I mean, she’ll tell you her life is falling apart, but beneath all the dramatics, she’s doing great. School play. Good grades. Friends. She’s got it down pat.”
Max often felt like a window, fragile and see-through. But it wasn’t until then, leaning against the wall on the other side of the kitchen, that she realized how invisible she was. Completely inconsequential, she was to this house. To this world. To any of their lives.
For the first time since beginning to obsess about killing herself, Max wondered if anyone would honestly mind.
And after scrolling through Instagram and freezing as she came upon Ginny’s most recent post —a picture of Marcus and the group, obviously taken at his 60-day sober celebration, with the caption 'Grateful for everyone who showed up this summer' —she came to the obvious conclusion that not a single person would.
And if they didn’t care, why was she fighting to be here?
***
Maxine gave herself a week to get everything in order.
She was determined to make this as simple as possible for everyone involved. She bought a new notebook and wrote out all the essential details she would like at her funeral, mainly that no one was allowed to wear black.
She made a list of who she thought might say nice things: Nana, Rabbi Issac, Mom, Ginny —only if she wants to, she totally didn’t have to, but she’s like a super talented writer and might remember something nice.
She also detailed exactly what she wanted to wear and the seven items she wanted to be buried with.
In all her research, she had come across that a sign that someone was about to commit suicide while they would often give gifts to people that they love. And, honestly, it made a lot of sense as to why someone would do that.
How else would Abby get the pair of thigh-high chucks she had been hoarding, but secretly thought would look good with her outfits? How would Nora know that the pair of iridescent butterfly wing earrings were for her? How would Ginny ever guess that the book of poems “The Hungriest Stone” had made Max think of her?
And sure, the “Uh, Weird” from Abby and “Thanks, Max!” and “Cool” were not revolutionary and life-changing responses, but there’s something nice and knowing that they would have a part of her after she was gone was almost comforting.
They were the only people she gave things to. She mailed Sophie a handmade coffee mug that she had always liked from her house. And before she and Silver broke up, she had bought this steampunk-looking watch, so she broke into her locker and left it there. In her notebook, she had a list of the important things she wanted to give away, but couldn’t without it being too obvious. She was sure her mom would make sure people got what she left them.
In her notebook she took special note that she wanted to ensure that there wasn’t too much of a mess for her parents to clean up, so she had packed her belongings into boxes and separated them into three piles: ‘giveaway’, ‘things that are so ugly they might as well just be burned’, and ‘sentimental’ to make the aftermath easier on them
She did all her laundry and cleaned under her bed. She even cleaned the kitchen after dinner without being asked. Her mom looked like she had two heads, but Max just hugged her tightly. She hadn’t known what to give her, so this seemed like the best choice.
“You’re a good mom,” Max told her, with a genuine smile, the first one in a while. The last one.
Her mom cried, not because she knew what Max was doing, but because she thought Max was talking about Marcus. Max just hoped she remembered it was true about her, too.
Before she went upstairs, she watched an episode of some TV show with her dad, who signed jokes all the way through. She laughed at them. When the credits rolled, she hugged him tightly and thanked him for always making her laugh.
She brushed her teeth and her hair. She put on eyeliner because she wasn’t sure if the makeup artist who painted corpse faces would do it, right, and she had a particularly tricky left eye.
And then she went to Marcus’s room.
She should’ve knocked. Especially because Ginny was there, and they were obviously in the middle of a pretty heavy make-out session.
“Sorry!” She said in a chipper tone, looking nervously between the two of them.“ I didn’t know you guys were back together.”
Marcus rolled his eyes and muttered under his breath, and didn’t look at her. His head hung low. They hadn’t spoken in the two weeks of him being home, and not hearing his words now felt like a loss.
She swallowed and glanced at Ginny, who was looking a little embarrassed to have been caught. Max didn’t plan on doing this with her here. She had wanted a final moment alone with her brother. Other than the 6 1/2 minutes before he had been born, she hadn’t known a life without him. She wanted a proper goodbye. Wanted to say a few last things.
“I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
“Then leave,” Marcus said softly, pleading almost. Ginny dethroned herself from his lap.
A punch in the nose. No worries. She could shake it off one more time.
“I just wanted to give you these.” She held up the prints she had been collecting from the artist's booth at Wellsbury's farmers' markets this summer. Small souvenirs she had gotten in hopes of showing him how much she missed him, how much she thought of him when he was away. “They’re kind of stupid, but—“
“You know, you could give me max?” He said with sharp words cutting through her. “Time and some space. And I’m not talking about waiting in the parking lot space.”
She glanced at Ginny, embarrassed. Her friend’s face lit up in a weird mix of surprise and pity. She swallowed and tried to hold it in. Her hands were shaking. “I know you want to talk, but I can’t do this on your timeline, okay. I can’t take you! It’s too much right now, don’t you get that?”
Her stomach dropped. You're too much right now.
Ginny said his name softly, as if she thought he over overstepped. The big emotion left him, and all that was left was the soft and quiet boy she loved more than anything in this world.
“Please, Max. Can you just give me that?” He begged, his voice breaking, and she saw the pain she was causing him by existing in this room. “Please.”
She didn’t know how to tell him there wasn’t any more time.
Not without sounding like she was being dramatic or crying out for attention. So she wiped away the tear and nodded. He would be fine. He would survive this, and he would stay sober because she wouldn’t be there to make him like this.
She wasn’t going to get to say goodbye. But that was what was best for him.
“Okay,” she said with a smile. “Bye, Ginny. Bye, Marcus.”
“Night,” Ginny said with her crinkling eyes and apologetic smile. Max shut the door.
She went to her room. Her hands were still shaking as she closed the door. She moved like she was floating. She pulled the emerald green dress from her closet, the one she had asked to be buried in, but she didn’t really trust her mom to find the right one, so she hung it on the outside door of her closet.
She changed into an old pair of sweats that probably belonged to Marcus at some point and a tank top before she sat on her bed. Reaching over to her empty bedside table, and grabbed the pill bottle she had taken earlier. She counted out fifteen Ambien. She went through her mental checklist one last time.
The only thing unfinished was her words to Marcus, so she ripped a page from her notebook and wrote the five words she was supposed to tell him tonight.
I’m sorry. I love you.
She folded it in half and put hit name on the outside and set it next the the notebook. When he had his time, when he was ready, she hoped he would read it.
She swallowed the pills five at a time. All in quick succession. All with a glass of water placed on the bedside table. And then, with shaking hands, she opened the MANG group chat.
The last message had been sent in June. A break a leg GIF from Abby to her minutes before she was meant to go on stage for Mousse.
She typed out her message. The one she has been obsessing over is getting the wording just right. If this were a perfect world, it would have been monologues to each of them about how wonderful they were and how much joy they gave her. But if it were a perfect world, Max wouldn’t be killing herself.
Love ya. I’m really grateful for you guys.
Vague enough. And still, after she sent it, the small piece of her that wondered if anyone would notice waited: for three dots to appear, for Ginny to storm their room, for Nora to call, for Abby’s ‘what the fuck?’ Gif.
But nothing came.
And with a shaking breath, Max curled beneath the covers and scrolled through Instagram and waited for it all to go away.