Prompt 60 for max x Jane aaaaaaaa
Prompt 60: “Are you going to talk to me?”Max and Jane friendship, some time post-season two
“Are you going to talk to me?” Max asked, skateboard under her arm, battered and held together with what had to be a whole roll of duct tape.
She plopped down to the ground next to El — Jane, she corrected in her head — on the sidewalk outside Mike’s house. They’d beaten the boys there after school — they always did — and had to wait on the curb until Mike got home. On rare occasions, Nancy would be home and would let them in. But mostly, the two sat outside, practically daily, alone together, for all of fifteen very long, very quiet minutes. Max usually spent the time on her skateboard, rolling down the street, maybe doing a small trick. Jane generally sat on the curb, watching her silentl, observing the way the wheels moved on the concrete, the movement of the muscles in Max’s legs, the way they moved to manipulate the board holding her up.
Jane’s eyebrows furrowed, as if the idea that she would talk to Max were foreign to her. “About what?”
Max shrugged, dropping her board to the ground in front of Jane and sitting on it, knees bent up. “About anything?” she tried hopefully. “How your day was, what you’re thinking, I don’t know,” she trailed off. “You never talk to me.”
Jane looked at her in that way, that way that she looked at Max, as if Max were a strange object sitting in front of her instead of a teenage girl. Perhaps she was.
Max sighed and stood up, rolling her eyes. “Never mind,” she muttered. She made to put one foot on her skateboard but before she could, it rolled away from her slowly, turning and bouncing into the curb next to Jane. The bottom of Max’s shoe hit the pavement with a slap.
“I —” Jane paused. “I don’t know you.”
It was not a great excuse, and they both knew it. “You haven’t tried to know me,” Max said, moving to Jane’s other side, the one not blocked by a skateboard.
Jane said nothing for a long moment. I don’t know how, she thought, wanted to admit. Mad Max was a mystery and part of her was waiting for someone to explain it to her. She had learned quickly that Max had no interest in taking her place in their party, but that had done little to temper the loss of balance she always felt when the other girl was around.
Max held out a hand to her. “Come on,” she said.
Jane, sensing the weight of the moment, let her palm press against Max’s and her fingers tighten around her hand. “What are we doing?”
With the other girl’s hand in hers, Max used her left foot to pull her skateboard to them. When Jane stared at her, eyes a bit wide and confused, she added a quiet, “Trust me?”
Jane nodded firmly.
“We’re skateboarding,” Max told her. Jane eyed her and she said, “I’ve seen you watching me. So now I’m going to teach you.”
“And then I’ll be a zoomer?”
Max grinned, carefully guiding Jane on to her skateboard, their hands firmly clasped. “Yeah, and then there will be two zoomers, and no one will be able to keep up.”
Jane grinned back, finally. She felt herself relax and laugh, and that’s how their friends would find them later — holding hands, Jane balanced precariously on Max’s skateboard, spinning in slow circles on the pavement.
