She hated just how smug he looked. The dark-skinned boy sitting opposite her was smirking at her in that slippery eel kind of way. Like he knew something she didn't. Max hated looks like that. It made her skin prickle with anxiety and made her heart race.

In L.A. , her dad used to bring her to bars and play poker and card games with people while she sometimes watched or fiddled with the lock of an old diary, popping it and then finding random objects to see if she could achieve the same result. The men there, with their beers and whiskey, guzzled down their disgusting concoctions and smirked at her with empty glass eyes. Some would eye her, then yell at her dad about how much she was like him. He would smirk and wink at Max, carrying on swiftly with the game at hand. He would ignore her for the night, then tell her all about his winnings while they waited for the pizza deliverer. She was twelve then, a pre-pubescent child that had thought her rough father was awesome. Now she was sixteen, and miles away from him. Did he even notice how she had stopped visiting or calling? Does he care?

"So, how are you?" Lucas asked, his deep voice low as he rode on his bike beside her, but loud enough for her to hear. "Good. You?"

"Alright." He flashed Max a quirk of his lips. She smiled back, having friends again was nice. Even if he did look a little sneaky. She hadn't seen her old friends ever since Neil moved in, which meant exactly four months of comic books, skateboarding, and hanging out by the pier, alone. But Lucas and the gang were different, they were warm and open, and she couldn't help herself but melt into them a little.

"So, why aren't you wearing a costume for the halloween countdown?"

"Oh." Shit, a costume.

She used to wear a costume every Halloween week, it was her one other holiday that she loved besides Christmas (which was cheesy to admit because almost everyone loves Christmas), but Halloween was her one day where she got to be someone else for the night instead of angry MadMax, the girl that no longer had friends, and despised her new family.

But she stopped wearing costumes on Halloween after Billy convinced her to not wear one to school. She was almost thirteen, and she was going to wear an awesome Micheal Myers costume. She was going to wear a blue suit like Micheal Myers and carry a hatchet that her dad had got her for her costume. But back then, she had been too afraid to say anything, too afraid to stand up against Billy, so she just ran back upstairs and threw the mask and wig on her bed. She didn't cry or make a fuss. She just accepted it, just like how she accepted that there were worst things than a selfish unbothered father.

One more thing that stopped being hers.

"I don't really dress up for Halloween countdowns. It's not my thing." Max noticed how his expression dulled to a sullen expression. "Oh... So you don't like Halloween?" Lucas asked tentatively.

"No! I love it! It's the one holiday i love where i can be anyone but myself. Where i can dress up and pretend to be a monster, an alien, or a superhero. See, a few years ago i-" Max froze suddenly. Shit, what did she say?

"A few years ago? You mean, you do dress up and you just don't do it anymore?" Lucas asked, his brown eyes glinting with the amusement of discovering that she had lied to him. "Are you..mad?" Max asked tentatively, subtly slowing down her skating to match Lucas slow pace. "No, i'm not mad. Just shocked that you're a horrible liar." Max gasped loudly before laughing at that, a large rich sound from the back of her throat.

Lucas stared at her in wonderment, barely paying any attention to the road ahead of them. She had never sounded so happy before in her life, and Max blushed when she realised just how maniac her laugh must have been. "Sorry." she apologised, but the warm after feeling of laughing brought back a sliver of happiness back into her life. She didn't feel sorry at all.

"It's okay, you sounded really happy, so there's nothing you should apologise for."

The pair travelled together, side by side towards school, carefully watching ahead for incoming cars. When they reached Hawkins High, Max picked up her skateboard and tucked it under one arm, "Well, see you in homeroom." Max said, before hurrying off towards the steps.

"Hold on, i'm coming with you!"

Max turned back, her head of beautiful hair looking like flames in the slight glow coming from the sun, her eyes sparkled like precious crystals as she laughed.

He was weird, but he was pretty cool too. Always staying close and offering to help her whenever in bio and english (their only two classes together).It was sweet, he was sweet, and she had the perfect nickname for him.

"Then catch up, Stalker."

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