New OC dropped. Meet Max. He's kind of a loser. Let me know if you wanna play with him?
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Maxim hadn't technically been invited to the bonfire on the beach, but that didn't stop him from making his way to the party as the sun began to set. You don't really need an invite to a public place, and events like these usually drew a crowd, but Max had only known about it because a senior on the bus had mentioned it in passing to a friend that morning, and he'd overheard. He didn't know if it was a bonfire the high school kids had organised — and if it was, then he'd find something else to do — or if it was the university kids, or maybe the burnouts, but it could have been anyone and he wouldn't have expected to be remembered long enough to make it to a guest list.
That's what it meant to be Maxim Trudeau. If you're the boy who'd spent his life wandering on the outskirts of everything, you don't get remembered for anything.
It was about a forty-minute walk from his tiny house at the back end of Bluestone to the beach, and by the time his beaten-up white Converse were crunching on the sand of the sidewalk that ran along the top of the beach, the flames were licking up at a black sky. Max could see over the Pennywort and Morning Glories growing in the dunes down to the flat stretch of beach that it was a gathering made up, mostly, of people he knew from school, and he kicked the familiar ache of loneliness away as he picked his way down the dune towards the crowd.
As Max drew closer, he felt the invisible, impenetrable force that surrounded the group build between them. Max had been at school with most of the people there; he could even see a couple of guys he'd been on the swim team with, and Dolly Parkins from the religious school, who had tutored him in math, and Juliana Vidal from the private school, who had bought weed from him a couple of times. More than half of the people there had given him cash to borrow his spare bedroom for whatever they wanted privacy for since his sophomore year. Still, Max's feet stopped moving before he reached the gathering of people. They hadn't wanted him there, and he didn't know how to make them want him there — never had been able to figure that out — so he let the invisible force win again, choosing instead to sit in the sand nearby.
It was a clear night, and this far down the beach away from the busy casino and hotel and the other touristy highlights of the small coastal town, the sky was polluted with stars. Max followed flames and smoke upwards, trying to find the different constellations he had once known above his head. He could barely remember what they were called now, let alone where or what they were, and he knew his mom would be disappointed in him after having spent so many hours teaching him, but he'd not seen her in twelve years, so he didn't really think it mattered anyway. It had once been a cool party trick to know so many of the constellations, even the obscure ones, or it would have been…
Max's eyes were drawn back to the group when he heard Klaudia Vidal laugh. He knew it was her because he'd heard it filter to him in his own room a couple of times when she and Kasper, a former swimming teammate, had hired out his spare room. He found Juliana first, which he supposed was fair considering they were identical, but it didn't take him long to find Klaudia laughing in the sand where she'd clearly just been dragged down by Kasper. Max realised that, despite the pair of them having been at his house together multiple times, he didn't even know how they'd met. They weren't his friends. Maybe that was his fault, but they didn't really allow him to try when they were over.
So, Max stayed at the bottom of the dune a couple of yards from the fire and turned his attention from the smiles to the ocean, the ache back behind his ribs. Max closed his eyes and leaned his back against the sand after only a moment of watching the eerie black ocean, taking deep breaths against the tightness in his chest. The sky smelled smoky and warm, but beneath it was the salt and sand and the earthy smell of Dune Rosemary that would cling to his clothes and skin and hair as much as the firesmoke would.
Someone at the party turned on music, drowning out the pulse of the ocean against the shore and the crackle and pop of the bonfire, and it wasn't even music that Max liked, but it didn't drown out the talking or the laughing. Max heard some people get up and dance, and a glass bottle shattered as it was thrown into the fire, and Rosalind Myers shrieked at Cane Dawson to leave her bikini top alone, and Genevieve Crawley stumbled past Max, begging someone on the phone to hurry up and get there. Max heard a couple of people call out, excited that Tyler Zelnik had shown up and joined the party. A yard or so away, Kasper told Stevie Wolfe, someone else whom Max had competed with for years, to bug someone else, and Stevie replied with some violently slurred colourful language that just made Kasper laugh and, judging by the sound of Stevie's voice getting louder, walk away. Someone, a male voice that Max didn't recognise, asked Juliana loudly how much it would cost for her to dance at the party, which Max thought rather tasteless considering she wasn't at work, and he scrunched his nose up at the stars. Juliana handled herself like a professional, and the party roared to life with raucous laughter and teasing of the man who had asked.
Maxim just shared a smile with the sky.