• Please re-read the last part of chapter 5 I’ve added some stuff. This won’t make sense otherwise. ? 2019-08-25

“Do you know why I live alone?”

“Doesn’t your parents like live outside town or something?”

“Well yeah that’s what I told everyone when I started school.”

It got quiet for a while. Max was gathering courage. It was not a thing he liked to talk about, it made him remember.

“My father left me and my mother, Stacy, when I was 10. One day he was just gone. He took the car and drove away. He didn’t even leave a letter. But he left one thing and that was the huge debt he had accumulated over the years. He had a drug problem…..”

Ella sat quietly while looking into the fire. She was shocked. This was really not the explanation she was expecting.

“We were forced to move to a super cheap apartment and Stacy started working double time. Even I was forced to start working. Just to afford the interest.”

“Why didn’t you go to the police…..” Ella mumbled

“We couldn’t, the gang that fucker of a dad had borrowed from threatened to kill us. They are quite big, probably the biggest in town. They even have people in the police. We were too afraid to do it.”

Max started to get a bit emotional

“We kept going like this for a couple of years with reoccurring house visits and assaults. Sometimes they would even come and rape my mother while I was in the other room hearing her screaming. That was probably the hardest part. I used to hide under a blanket covering my ears. Afterwards mum would usually be really upset, sometime even so that she would beat me. But I couldn’t complain, even I as a ten-year-old did understand what mum went through.“

Max Showed Ella a big scar he had on his back.

“But when I was fourteen…”  Max said while his eyes started to tear up.

“That fucking bitch of a mother killed herself!! She was too weak, she couldn’t take it anymore. I found her hanging from the ceiling with a chair kicked under her. Leaving me with everything, she left. Just like dad.”

At this point, Max started crying. All the pent-up feelings started to flow out again. All his anger and sadness. For two years Max had been doing ok, he had repressed the events som much that they didn’t even feel real anymore. But this was the first time in two years he really talked about it with someone. It felt good to get it out but at the same time, he was worried about what Ella would think. Maybe she would be creeped out. Maybe she also would leave him.

“For the last two years, I have been living alone trying to keep paying the interest. Last week they raised it… I was acting as a middle man on one of their “jobs” … I was selling drugs….”

Ella didn’t know how to feel. It was a lot of feelings that needed sorting. Max really shouldn’t talk like that about his mother but at the same time, she understood. Ella couldn’t even begin to imagine what it would be like to go through that. She had no advice to give him. No way to help. But one thing she knew she felt stupid. Stupid for complaining about her dad who drank too much, stupid for not understanding that something was wrong and stupid for not knowing how to react. She was scared to say anything. It felt like her words would hurt more than do anything well.

It was quiet for a while and Max laid on his back with tears in his eyes looking at the stars. Ella gathered up her thoughts and decided to lay down beside him and after a while, she hugged him.

“If you want to, I can be here for you. I promise I won’t leave.”

Max quietly whispered.

“Liar”

He put his head on her stomach while she was combing his hair. Max knew that even she would leave but, right now for the first time in a while he felt safe and after a while, they both fell asleep beside the fire. This night was warmer, and it was a lot easier sleeping.