And how am I supposed to make it through the night?! After such a cliffhanger! I shouldn't have read it. I should have gone sleeping to be fresh tomorrow for the tests but no, I had to read the new chapter. Now I'll have to wait for the next chapter until Saturday morning at least! Damn, I'm without the internet this weekend! ...so this was what flew my mind before getting here.
OK, that remark above is somewhat reassuring but Mark, you can't do this to me very often! Remember your readers became emotionally attached to your characters. Because of you! And how beautifully they were written...
As for Bruno, we can say he's a bastard (I hope such words are allowed here, last time I got that Warn Status for the F word...) but it also seems that he only took his chance from the situation. And what once seemed to be good for Max' psyche and self-confidence now caused its total destruction... quite interesting indeed. And as for me, totally unexpected. I let Mark pull my leg...
And also it was quite interesting how quickly Marcel went for drugs to deal with his issues. He seemed to me to be a strong personality... I'd understand his need to drown his sorrow in alcohol but why drugs? And I must say (although I'm some ten years younger "in real" than him I still compare him with me, because now-in 1995 he's around my age) it's mid90s, it's another era (than 1968), people knew about drugs and how dangerous they are - it wouldn't come to my mind to deal with this by using drugs. But it may be counted to the "rich people" effect - you have money for that and you try everything because you're bored, desperate, whatever...