Shit.

That was the first word that went through Max's mind when she woke up. Max was now staring at the large clock that hung in the library. She had completely slept through her biology test.

Shit. Shit. Shit. Max thought a few more times as she pulled on her brown hair, which fell just past her shoulders.

She sighed. It was too late. She had missed the biology test. Max found herself thinking that she probably would have failed anyway, even if she had shown up. At least now she had an excuse for why she failed if her mom pestered her about it.

Max was a bit more settled now, and she looked around at her surroundings. She was still in the library where she had fallen asleep last night. Several other students were now inside as well as it was daybreak. She looked over at the table that the girl from yesterday had been seated on. As expected, she was nowhere to be seen.

Chim! Max suddenly thought to herself. The girl's name was Chim, but when she had asked her the night before, she was too high to even remember it.

She could have at least woken me up, Max found herself thinking angrily. She didn't think the girl would be so spiteful about her burning her review sheet that she'd let her sleep through a test. After all, it wasn't like she had done it on purpose.

Last night Max had ended up following the girl into the library rather than spending the night in her car. She figured since the library had sofas, she'd just sleep on one of those instead. It was much more comfortable than the hard leather seats in her car. But now Max found herself wondering if she had made the wrong decision. The sofas were really comfortable. Too comfortable that they had caused her to sleep through her test.

Max ran her fingers through her hair as she simultaneously let out a sigh. She figured she might as well head home. She was sober now and she could do with a shower and a change of clothes. She arose from her position on the sofa, her eyes widened when she caught sight of Jared seated at a table not too far off.

"Jared," Max said as she approached him.

As she got closer, she noticed he had gotten a haircut. His hair no longer fell over his face in curls, but it was now a sharp buzz-cut. He was dressed in jeans and a button-up shirt, and Max eyed him with amusement.

"Do you have an interview today or something?" Max asked as she took a seat opposite from him.

Jared looked back at her, disoriented. "Um, what do you mean?"

Max leaned back in her chair casually. "What's with the hair and the clothes?"

"Excuse me?" Jared asked, looking down at his clothes with an offended expression etched on his face.

Max caught sight of the expression. "Relax, I'm just teasing. You look a bit ridiculous, but it's not too bad."

Max snorted after saying this. That was a total lie. She thought he looked absolutely stupid.

There was a moment of silence in which Jared stared at her in perplexity.

"Um, do I know you?" He asked.

Max was taken aback, and she blinked at him through her lashes. "What do you mean?"

"I mean," the guy repeated as irritation seeped into his voice, "do I know you? Do we have a class together or something? How do you even know my name?"

Max suddenly started laughing. She had just remembered that she had ignored Jared's calls and texts the day before, and this was probably his bizarre way of punishing her. He sometimes ignored her when he was mad at her, so it did not surprise her ‌he was pretending not to know her altogether.

"Ha ha, hilarious Jared." Max said, "look I'm sorry about yesterday, okay?"

Jared looked back at her like she was speaking another language altogether.

"Um, lady...you're kind of beginning to freak me out," Jared said as he eyed her.

"Come on, Jared, I said I'm sorry," Max replied, suddenly growing very irritable.

"I sincerely do not know what you're talking about," came Jared's curt reply.

"Fuck Jared, can you stop acting fucking immature?" Max yelled.

She hadn't expected just how loud her voice would be and all the heads in the library had turned to look at her.

"Ma'am," the librarian said from where she was standing up front, "I'm going to have to ask you to leave."

Max was getting up already. She couldn't stand Jared's pettiness. She sent one final glare in Jared's direction, and he responded with a look of fear on his face. Max rolled her eyes as she stormed out of the library. He was a fucking good actor, she'd give him that.

Max had cooled down a little and slowly walked to the library carpark where she had parked her truck the night before. The wonderful weather did not go unnoticed by her, and everybody seemed to be taking advantage of this. All around, students were sitting outside as they talked amongst themselves, playing games on the grass.

Max wondered if in another world where she actually had friends, if she'd be out playing in the sun with them. She noticed a group of people playing a game with a frisbee and she wished she was in on that. They looked like they were having lots of fun.

However, Max had just cursed out Jared, the closest person to a friend that she had, and wouldn't be surprised if he never even wanted to speak to her again.

Max arrived at the library car park and headed to where she had parked her truck the night before.

However, rather than seeing her usual beaten down brown truck, she was met with an empty space. She ran around the small car park furiously searching for her truck, but it was nowhere to be seen.

Maybe I left it parked in the main car park, Max thought to herself and headed there instead.

Max arrived at the main car park and immediately searched every inch of the car park. There were a lot more vehicles parked here than the library car park, but still no sign of her beloved truck.

Max raised her hand to her head in exasperation. She couldn't believe it. Her car had been stolen.

Crowtney Town had a pretty low crime rate, but yet, her truck was gone. Stolen.

Max found herself wondering who would possibly steal her broken-down truck when there were much better-quality cars around. She wondered how whosoever had even stolen her truck. After all, she still had her keys in her pocket. Whoever it was had probably hot-wired the truck.

Max sighed deeply and began heading to the Campus Security office to report her stolen vehicle. Today was off to a rough start for her, and she really wasn't enjoying this. Max arrived at the office. Making her way inside, she walked over to the woman that was sitting at the front desk.

"How can I help you?" The woman asked, looking up at Max.

Max studied the woman briefly, noting the tight ponytail that she had her hair packed back in.

"I'd like to report a missing vehicle," Max said.

The woman began typing something into the computer monitor.

"Your name?" She asked, not bothering to look up at Max.

"Maxine Campbell," Max replied, cringing slightly as she said her full name.

The woman nodded and typed something into the computer before pausing and looking at the screen in confusion.

"The system doesn't recognize you. Are you a student here?"

"Yeah," Max replied.

"Are you new?"

"No, I've been here for almost two years already."

The woman frowned at the computer screen again. "Could you spell out your name for me?"

Max resisted the urge to roll her eyes but spelt out her full name to the woman, even offering her middle-name in the process. The woman typed on the computer again, but still wore the same look of confusion on her face.

"There might be a problem with the system. It doesn't seem to recognize you even though you say you go here," the woman said, turning her attention to Max. "I'm going to take this issue to my higher ups so they can address it. But unfortunately, campus security would be unable to deal with your report for the time being. You'd have to file a report with Crowtney Town police instead."

Max watched as the woman wrote ‌something on a piece of paper before handing it to her.

Max took the slip of paper from her and headed out of the office, extremely confused at the whole ordeal that had just played out before her.

Max glanced down at the slip of paper in her hand. The woman had written ‌a number for Max to call. Underneath it she wrote 'Crowtny Police'. Max noticed ‌she had misspelled 'Crowtney'.

Sighing to herself, Max brought out her phone from her pocket and dialed the number that was written on the paper. The call didn't even go through, instead Max got a notification telling her there was 'no service'.

Great.

Max decided that she'd just have to try calling the number again once she got home; she suddenly felt an inclination to smoke a blunt. She pushed the thought away. She would have to wait for later.

Max walked to the bus stop, standing idly as she waited for the bus to arrive. There were a few other students around her and she was already hating this. The whole idea of having to be in a tight space with lots of people was irking Max, but she hoped this was only a temporary thing. Hopefully, her truck would be found soon, and everything could go back to normal.

The bus finally arrived, and Max lined up with the other students to get onto the bus. When it reached her turn, Max held up her Crowtney Community College ID to the driver before attempting to walk past.

"Hey hey‌!" the bus driver yelled out at Max, causing her to retrace her steps, "you think you can fool me? Get off my bus!"

Max stared at him, blinking in confusion. He had an angry expression spread across his face and seemed to be in his late 40s.

"Excuse me?" Max asked, bewildered at what was occurring before her.

"You heard me." The bus driver said, "take yourself and your fake ID off my bus. You think I'm not used to people like you creating fake student IDs trying to get free rides?"

Max looked down at the ID in her hand. She was certain that this was a real ID. After all, it had been issued by the College and Max had used it a couple of times to take the bus. It had always seemed to work then. Max couldn't for the life of her understand what was going on.

"You could at least have tried to make it the same color as the actual ID," the bus driver said. He was laughing now. "You might have even gotten away with it as well. Just how stupid do you think I am?"

Max looked at the color of the ID that the other students had in their hands. It was a light-green color. She frowned slightly. That was off. The IDs were the school color: sky blue. Max was very much disoriented by this point and just stood there awkwardly scratching her head.

"Girl," the bus driver said, he wasn't laughing anymore, "for the last time, get off my bus."

Max did just that. Without waiting for another second, she climbed down from the bus and now stood at the stop, watching as the doors slid closed and the bus disappeared down the road without her.