What Happens in High School

Max’s POV

I got home from the most perfect date ever. Bob took me to the park and down a little path I’d never seen before. It led to a clearing overlooking the whole city. I’d never seen Jersey like I had tonight. It was glowing with life and the full moon only made it that much more beautiful. Oh yeah, and I told Bob I loved him.

I hadn’t really planned on saying it but somehow I ended up doing it anyway. I had pulled in Bob for a kiss and he took it further. He kissed me in a way he never had before. I felt his tongue graze my lips for entrance. I allowed it and felt him overtake my mouth. He wasn’t forceful, but I do have to say I was caught a little off guard. He was kind of the most amazing kisser. Ever.

I pulled away and he apologized for moving too fast, even though he wasn’t. He was so cool about it, normally most guys wouldn’t care if they were moving too quickly, but Bob was different. He cared about how I felt and I cared so much for him. I just wanted him to know too.

When I told him that I thought I loved him I could tell he totally wasn’t expecting to hear it. I didn’t expect him to say it back or anything but I still wanted him to know. I wanted him to know how much I cared about him and valued us being together and I honestly would have been okay if he hadn’t said it back.

But, Bob told me he thought he loved me too. I could see that these were new feelings for both of us but I still felt good. To be honest I didn’t actually know what love felt like but Bob was the only person I’d ever met who gave me butterflies each and every time I saw him and was the one and only person who I could never stop thinking about.

I walked into my house to see my mom in the living room flipping through a magazine. She looked up when I came in and asked, “Hey Max, how was your night?”

I hadn’t told my mom where I was going but she’d probably figured it out. “It was great. Bob took me to the park and showed me Jersey from…a different view point.” I didn’t want to give away all the details. This date had been my special night and I wanted to keep the memories to myself.

“Oh, well did you like it?”

I paused for a moment remembering the bright lights of the bustling city below. Seeing the stars above our heads and the full moon shining its bright soft light onto the two of us. I smiled at my mom and answered, “I loved it,” before saying goodnight and heading up to my room.

As I lay in bed I thought of the night again. Scenes played over and over in my head and I loved watching every single one of them. I pictured the city and the stars, and my favorite scene of all; just being with Bob. I thought of my wonderful boyfriend as I fell asleep that night, I probably dreamt of him too.
…

The next day I woke up before my alarm clock went off, which was strange considering it was Sunday and I didn’t have school. I got up anyway figuring there was no way I’d be able to fall back asleep now. I took a shower and put on some jeans and a sweater. It was now early November and it was really starting to get cold. I wouldn’t be surprised if it started snowing soon. If New Jersey was good for anything in the winter, it was a snow day. I went downstairs to see that no one else was up yet. I peeled and orange and sat down on the couch to watch some cartoons.

I ate my breakfast and relaxed for a while watching The Smurfs when my phone buzzed next to me. It was Ray. I pressed the green answer button and said, “Hey, what are you doing up, there’s no school today?”

“I have to work soon, John can’t come in today so I was asked to fill in. What about you? Anything planned for today?” he asked.

“No, not really. I’m just watching some cartoons. Could I come visit you later?”

“Of course, hey I should go get ready, I have to leave soon. Just meet me later and we can talk.”

I said goodbye to Ray and let him go get himself ready for work. I figured that two hours of The Smurfs was more than enough for one day and I shut off the television. I went back up to my room to see that my parents and Andrew were now awake.

“Hey honey, you’re up early,” my dad said planting a kiss on my cheek. “How was your night?”

I wondered what my mom had already told him. If I thought boy talks with Ray were weird, I could only imagine what they’d be like with my dad. “Fine,” I said trying to get off the topic. “It was good, you know, the usual.”

“When will I get to meet him?” So my dad knew. He wasn’t one of those totally lame fathers who forbade every male on the planet from even looking at his daughter, but he still wanted to make sure they were going to treat me right. My dad had only met one other guy I’d gone out with before. It was just for the homecoming dance so it wasn’t even a big deal, but this time was different. I technically was now dating Bob before my dad met him, but I had no doubt in my mind that he wouldn’t have anything against him.

“I don’t know, I’ll talk to him about it. Maybe we can have him and his parents over for dinner. He even has a little sister around Andy’s age, maybe they’ll get along too.” My dad smiled at my demonstration of grown up responsibility. I liked the idea of having our two families meet, and I guess so did my dad.

“Sounds good, Maxie. Just let us know so we can plan something out.” With that, he pat my shoulder as he passed me in the hall to go downstairs and get ready for work.

At around noon or so I decided to pay my visit to Ray. I threw on a jacket and my converse and headed out. Andy was at a friend’s house so I didn’t have to worry about being home to watch him any time soon. As I was walking down the street I noticed something move in front of my face. I looked up to see dozens of little flurries falling from the sky. I knew it was going to snow sooner or later.

I got to the music store and opened to door to see a bored looking Ray sitting behind the counter flipping through a new music catalogue. “Check this out, Max,” he said as I entered, not even saying hello.

“Hey there,” I said a little sarcastically though Ray didn’t seem to pick it up.

“What I wouldn’t give for this guitar, just look at it. It’s gorgeous and probably sounds even better.” He stared at the Epiphone Elitist Les Paul Standard guitar. I had to admit it was a pretty rad looking guitar.

“Sexy,” I said back to him. He looked up at me and smiled at my sarcasm.

“You just watch, one day this guitar will be mine.” I smiled back at him and looked down to the magazine. We sat there for a while just looking at different instruments, him admiring guitars and me pointing out French horns.

It was pretty slow all day and I didn’t blame anyone for not going out. It had started to snow pretty hard and I was beginning to imagine how fun it would be to have to walk home later. For now though I just enjoyed the alone time with my best friend.

“So,” he started. I was wondering when this would come. “How was your date last night?”

“It was very nice, thank you for asking.” I wasn’t sure if Ray was being serious or not so I treaded lightly. He saw right through me.

“Oh come on, Max. I know how bad you want to talk about it, so just go ahead, I’ll listen.”

I didn’t have any girl friends to spill my guts out to so when Ray offered I jumped at the chance.

“Oh my god it was great!” I said almost as if it were one word. “Bob took me to the park at night. We walked down this little path and saw Jersey from the top of this clearing. It was so pretty. I would have taken pictures but you know. It was perfect, just everything. The walk, the view, the kiss...”

“Ugh, Max,” Ray cut me off just as I was about to enter la-la land. “Too much information, thank you.” He said a little jokingly.

“Sorry,” I replied thinking for a moment longer. “I just can’t imagine any part of it going better than it did.”

“I’m glad you’re happy, you deserved this. And Bob’s a great guy, it’s good that things worked out between you two.” Ray was honestly the best friend anyone could have ever prayed to high heavens for. And I was so glad he was mine. I smiled and draped my arm around his shoulder pulling him into a sort of sideways hug and said, “Yeah, me too.” We went back to our magazine when suddenly we heard the phone ring. Ray stepped away to answer it.

“Hello? Oh hey. Yeah kind of, it’s been snowing for about an hour now. Pretty hard I guess, there’s maybe an inch or so on the ground. Are you sure? Okay, will do. Thanks, bye.” He hung up the phone and turned to me. “That was John, looks like we’re calling it an early day here. He told me to close on account of the weather.”

I hopped down from the counter and grabbed my jacket as Ray shut off the lights and headed to the door. We walked out and were instantly hit with the cold. Ray locked up and we headed back home.

“Hey want to come over for a while?” he asked as we made our way down the street.

I thought about this for a while before replying, “I don’t know, it’s starting to come down pretty hard. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to get back home later.”

“So just stay over. We can stop by your house and you can grab a change of clothes, then we’ll head back to my place where we’ll drink gallons of hot chocolate and eat disgusting amounts of candy while we watch real scary movies, none of that shit that Mikey is afraid of.”

I laughed at the way he described his master plans and nodded, agreeing to his proposal. “Alright, sounds good to me.”

We got to my house to get my things and my mom was already home. “Glad to see you two didn’t get stuck in the storm, but Ray, honey, you should get home soon, unless you’re planning on spending the night. “

“Actually, Mom, we were just stopping so I could get a change of clothes. That is if it’s okay I stay over at Ray’s tonight?” I asked my mom knowing full well she’d let me.

“Of course, the school called and cancelled class for tomorrow so you don’t have to worry about that. Just be careful though, it’s coming down pretty hard, stay warm.”

She said this as she walked into the kitchen leaving me and Ray in the living room. “Well hurry up kid, get your shit together.” I laughed at Ray and headed up the steps to my room with him trailing behind. I grabbed my overnight bag and threw in some pajamas, clothes for the next day and an extra sweatshirt along with my tooth brush and tooth paste. When everything was all packed up I motioned for Ray to head downstairs so we could get to his house alive.

I said goodbye to my mom as Ray and I left the house. We got to his house in one piece; freezing cold, but in one piece. As promised, Ray and I made hot chocolate with marshmallows and took out the stash of candy we kept at his house. We went downstairs and put in a movie. We got all snuggled up in our blankets and watched people get killed in rather creative ways. Mikey would have pissed his pants during the first ten minutes alone.

Two movies and a nauseating amount of sweets later, we decided to call it a night. We cleaned up the basement and got ready to go to sleep. Like usual I’d stay in Ray’s room with him on the trundle bed he had tucked under his. He used to share a room with his older brother, Lou, until he moved away to college just before Ray started high school. I pulled down the blankets and tucked myself in as Ray shut off the lights then did the same. We said goodnight as I kissed my hand and lightly hit his face transferring the love.

“Oh thank you, Max.” he said as he kissed his own hand returning the favor. I’m not sure when this started, but it had kind of become a sleepover ritual of sorts, granted I was still awake to do it. Even though I really hadn’t done much that day, I was still pretty tired, and I guess Ray was too. I soon heard his breathing slow and quiet as he fell asleep. I closed my eyes and soon fell asleep myself. Spending the day with my best friend was nice, something I hadn’t done in a while and was starting to miss.
…

Since there was no school, Ray and I naturally slept in. Until 9:36 to be exact. I don’t know how we did it but Ray and I had the tendency to wake up at exactly the same time. It was almost as if we had twin-telepathy, except we weren’t twins, or blood relatives for that matter, which made it extra freaky. “Morning Max,” he said in a groggy ‘I-just-woke-up’ kind of voice.

“Morning gorgeous,” I replied nodding at his messy morning-fro. He ruffled his hair and flipped me off.

We stayed in bed for a while until Ray said, “Alright, I’m hungry. Let’s make pancakes.” And by that he meant, “Alright, I’m hungry. Can you make pancakes?”

If there was one thing Ray should never do, it’s become a chef. He was a terrible cook. Like the worst. Ever. “Let’s.”

We got up and went down stairs into the kitchen, still in our pajamas. Ray had managed to kind of ‘tame’ his hair although no matter what he did to it, it would always be a frizzy puff ball to me. We got out the pancake supplies and Ray was assigned the job of mixer while I’d be the one to actually make the pancakes in an effort to prevent Ray from setting the house on fire.

Once everything was finished we sat down at the table and stuffed our faces with pancakes. I loved that I could be a total dude around Ray and he wouldn’t care. It was nice to let go sometimes, but I definitely wasn’t gross about it, and thank god neither was he. We looked out the window to see just how much it had snowed. I was no meteorologist but it looked like about ten or so inches. This only meant one thing.
...

“Heads up, fuzzy!” I screamed to Ray as I threw a snowball. I nailed him right in the shoulder. Not a fatal shot but still deterring. He dusted off the powder from his shoulder and shook it from his hair before running at me with a handful of snow. I tried to get away but he tackled me into the soft ground before I got very far.

“Oh there’s no escaping now, sister.” He taunted as he shoved a fistful of snow in my face, coating my glasses and blurring my vision. I laughed like a little kid; I hadn’t had fun like this in a long time, it was nice to get outside and run around like I was nine again.

I was so busy laughing and joking with Ray that I didn’t even notice him standing there. I saw a shadow cast over me. Knowing it couldn’t have been Ray who was on the ground next to me, I looked up to find Bob staring down at us with a smile on his face. I sat up and tried to get to my feet but Ray wouldn’t have it. I felt him grab onto my shoulder, pulling me down onto the wet snow again. “Ray! Come on, give it up!” I pleaded as he continued to shove snow down my shirt.

“Ray seriously, that’s really cold! Please stop, Bob help!”

Bob pulled Ray off of me and laughed a little at our antics. Sure we were high school juniors, but in reality, we might as well have been ten year olds merely trapped in these teenage bodies. “What are guys doing?” he asked as Ray and I helped each other up off the cold, wet ground.

“Oh you know, just kicking her ass. Holding her captive as snow-point.”

I faked being scared saying, “Oh no, anything but snow,” rolling my eyes at the last word.

Bob was clearly lost. He wasn’t sure if he should play along or just face the fact that we were mental. Ray must have seen this too and took matters into his own hands. He made Bob’s decision for him. He picked up a handful of snow, chucking it at Bob, starting another war. “Oh, it’s on, Toro!”

Notes

Woot Woot!! As you can probably tell, I wrote this chapter a while ago (probably around December or January or so when the snow was still on the ground to inspire me) anyways, once I finish posting this story and Completely (Un)expected, I'm probably going to go back to only posting one story at a time (I already have my next one all written!!) since I'm going to be working on writing four more fanfics about MCR, a FOB one about Patrick and continue work on my two originals, one of which is partially up on Wattpad...phew.

Enjoy the reading, comment, vote, message me and I'll see you back here again next week!!!