"So she's his ex?"

"Apparently," I breath, taking a sip of my coffee and taking in its sweet aroma.

"Well that explains a lot," she says.

I figured that Sam would be the most qualified person to go to in a time like this. She's not particularly close with Silas and she's only met Maxi once before, so telling her about their history together wouldn't trigger any unwanted conflictions in her part.

"I'm not even mad at him. Maybe I should be, but what good is that gonna do? We're not even officially a couple so what exactly do I have to be mad at him for?"

"You're missing the point. Yes, they have a history, and yes, they had a short fling. So what? He has eyes for you now and she's just gonna have to get over it. I say just leave it alone and let things play out the way that they're supposed to," Sam exclaims, making her opinion loud and clear as always.

Echos of Felix's words from the other day bounce off of the walls of my skull, ringing in my thoughts.

You'll do what you think is right.

That single phrase is all I've been able to think about. For some, it's meaning is as clear as day. Simply do what you believe to be right. In my case, the decision is either black or white. Only one option can be the right answer, or the right thing. And as of now, I can no longer tell the difference.

"Maybe I should talk to her," I blurt out, my thoughts suddenly becoming words.

Sam looks up from her phone and eyes me with an alarmed expression. "Woah, how about not," she says.

"Why not?"

"For three reasons." She puts down her phone and holds her hand out in front of me, preparing to count down the reasons. "One," she holds up the first finger, "You're not that lucky. Two, she will gut you like a fish. And three, you are thinking about talking to your boyfriend's ex-girlfriend, who he just so happens to be friends with. You adding salt to the wound is not gonna help anyone, regardless of your larger-than-life intentions. If anything, it will just make things worse."

I lick my lips nervously as my logical solution is suddenly pulled under by Sam's tide waves of reason. She's probably right. Talking to Maxi could make things even more complicated than they already are.

"Look, it's a double-edged sword," she continues. "If you talk to her and she goes blabbing to Silas, who do you think is gonna get stuck in the middle?"

"Silas is going to feel like he has to choose," I answer with realization, dumping my face into my palms. There is absolutely no ethical way that this problem can get any worse. "Maybe you're right. Instead of a win-win, it'd be more of a lose-lose."

"Of course I'm right," she says, turning her gaze back to her phone.

From the way she dismissed the topic in the wink of an eye, I can tell that she thinks that this conversation is over. However, I can't help but feel that this problem has more than one solution. If I were to take Sam's advice, I may never get the chance to make amends with Maxi, which could mean trouble for my relationship with Silas. Though if I were to speak to her, I could only make things worse. The likeliness of me stirring up more drama ultimately outweighs the remaining odds, and I don't know if I want to take that chance.

I feel as if every single thought that flows through my head needs to be said out loud, and regardless of anyone wants to hear it, I let them flow right on out. "But still. I mean, what possible harm could it do if I did try to talk to her? Even if she does tell Silas, what is she gonna tell him? It's not like I'm gonna go... full-on angry, jealous girlfriend on her. I just want to talk to her." Hearing myself say the word girlfriend sounds funny coming from my mouth. Even when I was with Noah, I never publically announced that kind of title.

Sam's eyes roll beneath the depths of her eyelids as she puts her phone on the table. "It doesn't matter. She'll find some way to twist it, just like she did before when she told you that Silas skipped town."

"Okay, fair enough. But who knows? Maybe I'll be able to talk some sense into her and we can talk through our issues like normal, civilized people. Maybe there's something going on in her personal life that's triggering her behavior."

"Who are you, Dr. Phil?" she asks. She looks at me with a concoction of confusion and crazy. "It doesn't matter what sort of shit is stirring in her personal life. She has no place in your relationship with Silas, and you need to stop concerning yourself for her. From what I've seen, she's pretty capable of handling herself."

Beneath the sarcasm and bold remarks, there is a hint of intelligence behind her words that are almost wise. Of course, the thought of Maxi living in tough conditions has crossed my mind, which is one of the reasons why I continue to pardon her for her behavior. If that's not the case, I don't know what is.

"Look," Sam continues, "All I'm saying is that it's a bad idea and you will end up regretting it."

An idea suddenly pops into my brain. If Sam is so against me going to speak to Maxi, there's only one alternative that will help to sway her opinion.

"Fine. Then come with me."

Her eyes meet mine.

"What?"

"Come with me to talk to her."

"Um, when did we make that arrangement?" she asks.

"Just now. Look, if things start to go downhill, I'll have you to pull me out of the blow or do... whatever it is you do in a confrontation," I explain, though I'm already regretting it. With Sam now involved, there's no telling what sort of irrational schemes she'll come up with. Any sort of tyranny she has ever gotten herself into ended in some form of violence. Whether that violence was inflicted through words or fists, there's no simplicity involved.

For a moment, I actually think about taking back what I said and simply go about this solo. She may have given me advice, but that doesn't mean that I have to take it.

She cocks her head slightly as her gaze begins to drift, her thoughts swirling around whatever sadistic ideas she conjuring. I find it completely terrifying, the way her mind words.

"Alright, I'll go with you," she says. "But if things go South, you are gonna wish you never asked me to come."

~~~~~

We wait until evening arrives to go forth with the plan, if you can even call it a plan. My intentions are simply to confront Maxi at her house and ask her about her history with Silas, though the chances of my scoring an uneventful meeting with her are highly small. For all I know, she'll probably slam the front door in my face the second I ring the doorbell. There are a million different ways that this can go wrong, but I only need one in order to make some sort of progress. With an opportunity like this, I have to be careful not to say the wrong thing, or else I'd be at risk of making things even worse.

Sam is still against the idea. Even though she agreed to my offer to accompany me, I can tell she's unhappy about. She isn't one to get too concerned over these types of things, but the worry is vigilant in her eyes, no matter how hard she tries to cover it up with her cockiness and I'll fight you attitude. Deep down, she's still a human being; a person with real sadness and real concern for those she cares about. Of course, I would never bring that up to her. It's best to just let her think she's made of stone while I know better.

The two of us scan the green street signs as we drive slowly past them, reading each of them carefully to ensure we get to our destination.

"What's her address again?" Sam asks as we round a corner.

"42 Ambrose Avenue," I reply.

Earlier, I had texted Silas asking for Maxi's home address. As one could guess, he answered my question with another question. Without disclosing too much information, I told him that I wanted to talk to her about something important and left it at that. He didn't bother arguing much after that.

After a few more minutes, we come across Ambrose Avenue and Sam turns the car on to the street. The road is lined with a cluster of homes, each with large front yards and chimneys of red brick. Most of them have lights that illuminate spacious, screened-in porches, and windows with dark shutters. It's obvious that the residents have large enough incomes to afford places like this. If I ever wanted to live in a place like this, I would need at least two jobs to pay half of the first month's rent, if these houses are even available to rent.

A examine each of the numbers on the mailboxes, counting though the twenties, then the thirties, and then to the early forties until I finally spot the number 42.

"Stop here," I say, the car beginning to slow down.

We stop in front of a beautiful house at the end of the road. The vinyl siding of the house is tinted in a navy green color with windows framed in white and a roof that looks like new. A beautiful porch stretches across the front of the house, this one not screened in like the others. Apart from the tilted mailbox at the entrance of the driveway, this place is the perfect family home.

Sam and I look at the property with disbelief crossing both of our expressions, though it's more obvious on hers.

"Holy shit," she says as her voice raises a few octaves. "You sure this is the place?"

I double-check the address on my phone before glancing at the number of the mailbox, discovering that they are a perfect match.

Shrugging, I reply, "It's the address Silas gave me."

She sighs and takes her keys out of the ignition. "Alright, let's get this over with."

The two of us get out of the car with ease, Sam slamming the hers with more force than expected. The noise it releases startles me, and I can't help but look around to see if it caught the attention of others.

All of the sudden, I feel more nervous than I did approaching the house. If this does happen to take a turn for the worst, I have no backup plan to accompany that possibility. This is the only chance I'm getting, and Maxi sure as hell won't give me another one, if she even gives me a first one. And to top it off, having Sam seems to only increase my nerves.

We walk along the pavement of the driveway and my heart begins to race more than ever. "Remember what you're here for, Sam," I say, capturing her attention as we stroll past the alignment of shadows.

"Yeah, I'm your Plan B in case that jealous blonde gets out of line."

"You're only here to pull me out of the fire in the case that this goes wrong, so don't do anything stupid," I correct her with utmost seriousness so that she understands completely. Sam has a way of misinterpreting words or instructions, so vagueness will not do this expedition of sorts any good.

I climb the stairs that lead to the surface of the porch with Sam following a few inches behind. When I first pictured myself doing this, I envisioned myself with more confidence and dignity than what I am displaying now. I had a whole entire speech planned out and now I can't remember a word. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if no one answered the door when I ring.

Keeping the shaking to a minimum, I raise an arm in front of me and press the doorbell. The button is encased by silver framing that adds an extra touch of elegance to the overall, frontal layout. Even the damn doorbell has more dignity than I do.

After a few seconds, I hear no sounds stirring from the other side of the door. Not even the slightest screech of a loose floorboard is heard, and I begin to fear that no one is home. My lips squeeze together tightly, waiting for some kind of sign or a flicker of some small light, but there's nothing. In the back of my mind, I'm thoroughly relieved. If no one is home, this is just another problem that I can push aside and worry about later on, and I end up praying cautiously that the door doesn't open.

However, those hopes are smashed into a million tiny pieces when the door whips open. A girl stands in the entrance that I immediately recognize to be Maxi. She doesn't seem to return the same look during the first second or so, though as more pass over us, that familiar glare that I'm so used to by now appears, and I automatically know that this is not going to end well.

"What are you doing here?" Maxi asks, paying no attention to the fact that there's another person standing right next to me. I can only imagine Sam's reaction.

Letting my relief drown away and surrendering to my gut, I breath softly. Here goes nothing.

"Maxi, I need to talk to you."

"If you're here for more relationship advice, I'm afraid you wasted your time," she spats as she begins to shut the door. My muscles begin to tense I let my actions take full control, putting my hand over the frame so she can't shut it completely.

I pull the door open and Maxi sighs in frustration. I almost feel guilty about doing this, but I decide to push that aside and focus on the matter at hand. "I'm not here for relationship advice, Maxi." She rests her left side on the framework of the front door. "Can we please just talk? Give me five minutes."

Her eyes dart over towards where Sam is standing, a questionable presence lingering within them. "Who are you supposed to be?" she asks her.

"Samantha, but my friends call me Sam. And you must be the jealous ex-girlfriend I've heard so much about," Sam answers.

"Excuse me?"

I utter her name from under my breath, indicating that she take it down a notch, though she doesn't seem to hear me. "She's just my ride."

"Your best friend is an uber driver. Original," Maxi jokes. This is really not going well.

Sam takes a step forward toward the front entrance with purpose in her step. Her hands are already clenched into fists though her face remains still. I know all too well where this is going, and before things can get even more unpleasant, I stop my friend in her tracks. "Okay, Sam, why don't you go wait in the car and let me handle the rest."

"Seriously?" She looks shocked as her hands return to their normal states. I'll be expecting her to yell at me about this later, but stopping her before she can do something that'll she'll later regret is the kindest thing that I can do for her, even if she does yell at me for it. "Okay, fine," she says, giving Maxi one last threatening scowl before making her way back down the driveway.

For as long as possible, I watch as Sam walks away, leaving me alone with Maxi.

"Quite the friend you got there. Although, I have to admit, you two don't seem all that alike," I hear her say from behind me, and I know that I have to suck it up and face her.

Looking back, she wears a different look on her face. This time, she almost looks amused. She doesn't even seem to be angry at the fact that I showed up on her doorstep without any means of contact, or reason as far as she's concerned.

"I'm sorry about Sam, I didn't know she was going to flake out like that."

"Of course you didn't." Maxi is less quick to close the door, and I can't bring myself to stop her. She won't listen to me. Why would she? I mean nothing to her. In her mind, I'm just the girl that in the way of her friendship with Silas, and there's no coming back from that. So, I let her dismiss me completely. I blew my chance.

However, to my astoundment, the front door begins to creak back open and Maxi appears once again. Maybe there's still hope after all. "Hang on, what did your friend mean when she called me a jealous ex?" she asks.

My breathing begins to stutter in my lungs. This is is. This is what I came here to do and I can't even get to the point. Regardless, she knows that I know something. Otherwise, she wouldn't have questioned it.

"I know about you and Silas," I blurt out, letting the words sink in. I know that the two of you weren't always just friends, and I know what happened between the two of you a few years back."

Maxi's eyes focus on me, her glare disappearing, then hesitating to make its reappearance.

"Who told you that?"

"If it makes you feel any better, it wasn't Silas who told me."

She looks down at the ground and purses her lips. I can already feel the waves of her unspoken anger begin to drown out her silence. "Okay, yes," she admits, pulling her gaze upwards. "At one point, Silas and I were more than friends. What's it matter to you?"

"It matters because you still have feelings for him."

She shakes her head. "That's ridiculous."

"Is it? Because it makes perfect sense to me. Since the moment we met, you couldn't stand being within five feet of me, and for the longest time, I couldn't understand why. But now I do, and Maxi," I stop mid-sentence, drastically changing my tone to a sound that emerges as sympathetic. "I want to make things right."

There's a tenseness in her movements that does not go unnoticed, like a mannikin coming to life before my eyes. Her lips curl up a bit to mask the denial she's attempting to display. It's now almost impossible to tell exactly what she's thinking. I had just surfaced her past, the past that she seems to want to forget, and a position like that can have a mix of after effects.

Her mouth perks up for just a second or two, acting as a diversion while her mind spins her next moves. "I don't hate you because you're with Silas," she says finally. My eyes borrow and blink, refocusing. "When I told him how I felt for the first time, I convinced myself that he felt the same way. Even after we broke things off, I still felt that there was some part of him that missed the way things were when we were dating. But then he met you, and I can honestly say that he's never looked at me the way he looks at you." She pauses, a deep, drastic shadow of her past dancing in her eyes. I know that shadow because I see that shadow. I see it every damn day.

Fessing up the courage to continue, she adjusts her figure so its alignment is perfectly straight.

"You make him happy, and that's one thing I couldn't do. That's why I hate you."

I finally begin to understand. Not just the little pieces and insignificance, but the big picture, and all makes sense.

"I can't say that I know how you feel," I begin, "But I do know where you're coming from."

"How's that?"

A muscle is triggered involuntarily in my eye, and I force my gaze away.

They say the most beautiful memories leave the most painful scars. In my case, the ugly ones outweigh the pretty. Both my parents are apart of the pretty, but they are also apart of the ugly. It's in times like these that remembering the ugly can leave behind the scars that are pretty; the type of scars that we want to remember forever.

Now, in this moment, it's time to remember the ugly.

"When my mom died, my dad was never the same again. He started drinking, him and my brothers started arguing, and I was always caught in the crossfire. But since he lost her, he's never looked at me the way he used to. He never asked how school was, he never cooked breakfast for me, he didn't even," I stop myself suddenly as I realize that I accidentally released every ugly memory of my father at one, feeling my eyes go glossy. But I force the words to take flight. "He... never even said that he loved me. It was like I was a burden to him, or some... cruel reminder of what he lost. And for the longest time, I couldn't look at him that same way either."

"What happened?" Maxi asks.

"That's an even longer story. One that I'm sure you don't want to hear," I say, putting all of the uglies back into their dignified coffin.

She looks at me blankly, but doesn't say a word. Instead, to my own surprize, I can almost spot pity afloat in her eyes. However, I think nothing of it. My past is nothing more than a sob story that even the most peculiar of people can't help but sympathize over.

Though I soon realize that the pity isn't for me. It's for her. It's for the both of us. We both had to undergo events so different, yet we both felt the same pain. We both felt loss.

I shove my hands into the pockets of my lightweight jacket and offer an empathetic smile. I don't expect one in return. In fact, I expect her to completely forget about our conversation and go about life still hating the very existence of me. I don't know why I would've expected any differently or why I thought that this would fix things. Maybe being more pessimistic will do me good in the near future.

I turn my back and prepare to take my leave. I catch a glimpse of Sam's car sitting at the very end of the long driveway, probably more impatient than ever. Licking the dryness from off my lips, I walk back down the steps of the porch, anticipating the sound of Maxi's front door closing. Instead, I hear her voice practically ring vividly through the evening air.

"Rowen," she sings my name from the entryway. I turn my body around suddenly at the tone of her voice. It isn't defensive, nor is it angry or threatening. Instead, it's calming, and I wait for her to speak, not moving a single muscle until she does. Even from this distance, I can see a glimmer of hope beginning to materialize in her eyes. "Have a good night."

Smiling reticently, I say, "You too."

Maxi then makes her departure and heads back inside, and I do the same as I continue my stroll down the driveway.

I open the door to Sam's car and climb inside, releasing a pleasing sigh as I buckle myself in. Sam has already started the engine and is in her signature driver's posture.

"How'd it go?" she asks.

"Actually, better than expected."