Maximum Ride

Maximum Ride

The Kiss On The Dock

Fang's POV

I needed to talk to Max. There was too much that she was trying to put off. What was she, avoiding me?

"Yo, Max," I whispered yelled so that no one else would here me.

She woke up instantly, thinking something was wrong. She was clutching the bed sheets while saying "what'? What's, what's-"

I felt like smirking but didn't. She looked so dopey like.

"Let's take a little spin," I said motioning outside. She looked around then outside, the moon casting a shadow across her face. Seriously, you have to see Max in the morning, when she wakes up, she looks so… un-Max.

"Why?" she whispered.

Sometimes she could be so naïve. I smiled. "Because we can," at times that's all it took to reason with her.

I flew into the night while she changed out of the pj's Dr. Martinez had lent her. Out of my peripheral vision I saw her launch out of the window, diving in mid-air for a while, snapping those beautiful wings of her open. I would never admit it to her but I think that she has the best wings out of all of us, with me and her ranking the same score, of course. It took her only a few seconds to reach me, even though I was a really far up.

We flew silently through the air, our wings gliding in perfect unison. Not speaking at all, we left D.C. behind. Through our unspoken agreement we decided to land on a lonely dock. We shifted our wings, to change our course, and landed, running to the end, then sat down. We left our wings out, let them cool off. The space provided by the dock wasn't enough, my wing overlapped hers. I was thinking what to say to her about our situation when she said something.

"This is pretty," she had her feet dangling above the water.

"Yeah. Peaceful." I had to get this over with, "Are we back on track?" I avoided looking at her, not really knowing if I wanted to hear the answer.

She looked at me, confused. "What do you mean? What track?"

"You and me. We…" I looked down at the water intently, thinking of and appropriate word. None would come. "Broke up," I concluded. She looked into the ocean below us; I could see her cheeks get an undecipherable red that anyone could have missed.

"I don't want to split up again," Max would have never admitted that, so I had to.

"No me neither," OK, maybe she would. Now that that was clear I had some other things to say.

"Max…" Again, I was looking suitable words for the past situations. Hmmm. Oh I know.

"What do you want from me?" how was that for 'right to the point.'

"What do I- What do you mean? I want the usual stuff, like always." I could see she was obviously shocked, and uneasy about the conversation. I looked her in the eyes.

"Look, you didn't like it when you saw me with that girl at school, back in Virginia," I reminded her. She didn't look so happy at being reminded.

"And I wasn't thrilled about you and Sam, the possible traitor, also back in Virginia," I admitted in a barely audible voice. She responded by saying what I was thinking.

"Yeah, Virginia basically sucked," although I thought a little more about it. 1) Virginia had opened my eyes. 2) Eyes being open came with confused feelings. And 3) it left me with an unanswered question: What was I supposed to do about Max?

"Well why? Why would it bother us to see us with other people?" I asked.

Max looked like she was thinking about something. She took a while to respond.

"'Cause we're shallow and self-serving?" she asked childishly. Really, sometimes I was the only serious one in the whole flock. I rolled my eyes and took her hand. I knew my hand was slightly tough and scarred, but hey that's what you get when you're in the flock. She didn't mind, or she was disguising it pretty well.

You're so…" I racked my brain for the right word. Annoying, rude, a pain, beautiful. I could not believe that I had thought that last one. I'll go with the one before that. "Such a pain," I concluded.

"What?" I heard her ask before I closed in and kissed her. She tried to speak so I put a hand behind her head; she wasn't going to stop this early. I kept kissing her; she went along, a bit distracted but went along. I made my lips as soft as possible under her warm ones, maybe warm from all the talking she does. I wanted to smirk but thought better of it.

I turned my head while kissing her and had a weird light-headedness sensation that reminded me to breathe. I felt her breathe too, no doubt brought to mind by me. Again a smirk wanted to play on my lips. Now, seriously, how many of you have been kissing or kissed and one of the two smirks. How does it feel?

I wrapped my arms around her, letting them glide under those powerful wings of her. She put her hands on my shoulder, pulling me slightly closer to her. Then she pushed me away. She stood up suddenly, saying "I, uh-." I almost fell into the water. I was able to see her face before she ran off and all I could see was a troubled expression. She ran down the dock and streaked off into the night before I could even get my balance recovered. Again, she's run off after I've kissed her. What's up with her?