hours & ours | [ maxine / mackenzie ]

[umber vivuus 12b 🥀 [dars]]

M A C K E N Z I E

The art of hypocrisy was dizzying at times. They said it would've been typical to take on drinking but, even the thought of him stumbling around town with a bottle of beer permanently attached to his left hand was enough to keep him from even considering it. A drink or two, here and there, he'd decided. But the memories thrived on his sobriety, so much so that he still woke up drenched in sweat, heart pounding like a war drum within him, teeth on edge, and his palm burning in pain;

Thank you,

Friend.

Daphne had dedicated months on his rehabilitation. Hand exercises, attempts at a therapy session here and there. He'd never given her much more than a few words at a time, but one thing she'd said really stuck with him: "Be with the ones you fought so hard to come back to."

Truth be told, he was afraid of doing that. Max had been adamant about forcing things back to the way they were. She wanted him to believe things were not so different after all that time, and she was a passable actress. But he knew, deeply within himself, that nothing would ever be the same. He wouldn't let her, or Marley, or his mother, or Lex, or Angel, or anyone in until he was sure they wouldn't hate what was waiting for them.

The fear wouldn't leave on its own, he refused to drink, so he isolated. He shut himself down: smiled at family dinners, quietly helped Lex when she found something new about his supposed state-of-the-art home that needed to be fixed, told Marley he was proud of him. All the things he was supposed to do. But a hollowness had begun to grow within him, and when some Capitolite had offered him something that looked similar to a cigarette, but wasn't, he took it. And he liked it.

And that was why he was walking out of the woods now, in the fleeting light of dusk, with a slightly vacant expression and a feeling of warmth spreading throughout him.

He found Maxine sitting on the porch, sharpening arrow heads, probably to distract herself because she knew what he'd been doing. He doubted she'd say anything; everything was fine. It was exactly how it was before, right?

He didn't say anything for a long while as he tried to gauge the look on her face. Once he'd decided she probably wouldn't bite, he took a seat next to her, laying his head on her shoulder while she worked.

"I'm sorry," he said, because he was. In a way. Because it was the right thing to say. "For this. And for... everything. For shutting down."

He breathed in deep, closing his eyes to the world and listening to her careful breaths.

"I'm sorry."