Dec 19th, 2013 – 2nd Choice Timeline
Max leaned against a cement column in the shade of a curving line of trees and benches. She, Kristen, and Fernando had relocated to a small seating area, just down the stairs from a water feature and overlooking the waterfront. Kristen sat huddled into her thick, faux-fur-lined coat, sipping on a large hot latte with some pretentious sizing name like maggiore, while Fernando paced, sipping a standard black coffee and glancing back and forth between Kristen and Max.
For her part, Max stared out over the rolling waves below, doing her best to avoid paying either of her friends direct attention. Instead she watched the waves crest and crash, white foam rolling and lapping at the shore. No swimmers were out today, and very few tourists walked the waterfront, but Max noticed one woman, standing alone staring out over the sea and felt immediately at one with the stranger. She imagined herself there in her stead, bare feet flexing in the wet sand as the waves licked at the shore and teased at her toes. Slowly she’d step forward, wading into the cold waters of the Pacific. The bite of that cold would sting at her ankles, then up to her knees as she continued her march into the water. Soon, she’d be up to her neck there off the shore, engulfed in the Pacific chill, and she’d tread water, fighting against the rolling waves, surging up each crest to bob down on the other side until at last her feet could find no purchase.
Then she’d let out one last exhale, and sink into the dark waters below, letting all light vanish as the cold embraced her. She deserved to die. She had murdered nearly 2,000 people; she couldn’t bear to be seen. No, she pictured herself slipping away into that darkness where no one would have to witness her ugliness, and in that imagining she felt a frightful peace.
These thoughts were no good for her. She needed to cast them off.
“The light’s nice,” she said. Her heart wasn’t in it, but Max was at the mercy of her friends. They were here for her, and no matter how much she wanted to sink into silence, to drown herself in her guilt, she felt compelled to offer up some semblance of an olive branch.
“What’s that?” Kristen sipped at her latte and turned her gaze to Max.
“The light… on the water; it’s not golden hour, but, there’s still something, I don’t know, magical about it? The way it outlines the crest of the waves, a bright, shimmering strip of white against the dark of the sea. You see it?”
Max pointed out to the cresting waves. As if they can’t see them without you pointing them out. Dog, I’m lame.
“Yeah, Max,” Kristen said. “I see. You’re right.” Kristen didn’t bother to note the stupidity of Max feeling the need to point out the ocean; yet Max assumed that was more out of politeness than oversight. “It’s pretty; it is,” Kristen finished.
“Mmhmm.” Max sipped idly at her water. She wasn’t really thirsty, and she’d rather have had Kristen’s latte than some boring spring water, but Fern and Kris had been worried and she had vomited up whatever lunch this Max had eaten. She probably needed to rehydrate. That’s what Fern had said, and like it or not, he was right in this instance. So, Max sipped her water and she nodded her head, and she grasped at straws hoping to rid her mind of the image of herself disappearing under the waves.
“You should take a picture.” Kristen gestured to Max’s messenger bag, but Max simply shrugged off the suggestion. She didn’t have the strength to even attempt a photo right now. She had been at least weeks away from overcoming that trigger even before all hell broke loose on Pine Street outside the cemetery.
“Nah. I think I’ll just watch,” she said. No need to get into my sudden aversion to photography yet.
“Come on, Max. I thought you’d moved past this? That you and…” Kristen paused, and it was clear to Max that whatever name she had thought to mention was now a person non grata, her own personal he or she that shall not be named. Attempting to cover her intentional omittance, Kristen cleared her throat, then continued. “…well, I thought that you were taking pictures again.”
Hmmm. Guess me and the former Max had that in common at least , Max thought. Wonder how she got past her block?
Max pondered that mystery idly for a moment, even while she knew Kristen sat waiting for some explanation to her relapse. Max wasn’t, however, about to speak to that aversion. Determined to avoid further questioning, she took a giant gulp from her water bottle. She couldn’t talk if she was drinking. That was a solid plan, right? Weak… totally weak… hella weak.
Max winced, her inner monologue calling up too many painful memories. Suddenly she couldn’t breathe as the water she’d been sipping found its way instead into her lungs. She choked and gasped and sputtered.
Smack!
A firm hand slapped against her back.
“Breathe, Max.” Fern’s deep baritone slammed into her almost as hard as his hand. It sounded deeper than she remembered, almost a bass now. So much had changed since she had last seen her Seattle friends; yet, as Fern continued to pat her back and stammer out a correction, she realized so much was also still the same.
“I mean, like, stop breathing in the water, and like really breathe. Okay. Spit it out… er… you know, just stop breathing water okay. Breathe normal-like.”
“Smooth, Fern. Real smooth.” Kristen laughed, though the laugh came out loud and a little too harsh, as if she were trying to force the levity.
Max was certain that was the case. Her friends meant well, but they couldn’t help her. Not now.
“I’m fine,” she said a little too sharply. She paused, catching her breath. Then, noticing all eyes on her and realizing that her friends expected her to say more, she took another sip from her water.
Kristen snorted. The girl was on to her.
Fern simply seized on the bottle for a topic change.
“I can’t believe that place wouldn’t just give me water in my damn reusable bottle. No, they’d only sell it to me in that stupid plastic.”
“Wait,” Kristen said. “Is this going to be another one of those environmental tirades?”
“Well, its fucked, Kris. We got a great big Pacific garbage patch full of plastic and these dipshits can’t just pour water into a damn reusable container. They could at least switch to some sort of biodegradable bottle or something.”
“Oh gawd. No, no we’re not doing this eco warrior shit, today.”
“What, you’d rather talk about Billy Jessup’s hair?”
“It was a fucking mullet, dude. A mullet. In 2013.”
“It wasn’t that bad.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me. Max, come on, back me up on this?”
Max knew Kristen was talking to her; she could hear Fern and Kris jabbing at one another, and she could see through their smokescreen — knew it was just one more attempt to lighten the mood and ease her out of her shell — but she couldn’t bring herself to answer. Her gaze had been drawn back to the shore and up the rolling waves, out towards a distant flock of gulls skimming over the ocean surface. Below that surface, the darkness and the cold waited, and she knew she belonged there. She did.
Her two friends tried to snap her out of her reverie, but their failure was inevitable. Max felt drawn to the sea, compelled forward by an inner storm that she could not quell. Yet another thought battled for dominance, as well — one of a blue-haired figure awash in cigarette smoke and cheap cologne. Chloe… Chloe was here in this timeline. She was alive, and Max, Max could see her once again. Perhaps she did deserve to sink below those dark waters, to breathe in the ocean’s waves and disappear into those depths, but she wouldn’t — not today. An unknown future lay before her, but it held one certainty that she could not sacrifice.
Reunion.
She would see her Chloe again.
A finger snapped inches from her face, and Max turned to meet Fernando’s concerned gaze.
“You know I’m not all puppy dogs and rainbows and stuff,” Fernando started, “but I think a heart-to-heart is in order.”
“No shit, Fern,” Kristen interrupted. She sat her latte down on the cement ledge behind the bench.
“Look, let me finish.”
“Did you just ‘look’ me?” Kristen asked, her voice inching higher with indignation.
“Sorry, I just want to say my piece.” As he spoke, Fernando ran his hand over a thick layer of fresh stubble. That hadn’t been there the last time Max had seen him, and she found her eyes drawn to that stubbled chin. It suited him somehow. Fernando was a bit on the hefty side, and Max had once feared that such an unkempt look might cast him somewhat as a neckbeard. Fernando, however, had always composed himself with enough earnestness and sympathy that such a false image would have been easily shaken; yet since she had left Seattle, Fernando seemed more solid now, as if that childhood fat had finally slid away, replaced with a simple heft that suited his Luddite temperament.
“Just, you know, don’t be harsh about it.” Kristen cast Fernando a warning glance, and Max could tell that she too had changed. Kristen looked the same on the surface. She still wore a mix of dark reds and purples with the occasional splash of color, and wore her hair the same as ever, and she still waffled between heralding her distaste for everything and enthusiastically spilling the latest Bayshore High gossip. Yet beneath that veneer a somberness had taken root, tinting her usual enthusiasm in shades of falsehood. Max hoped her ghosting Kristen when she went to Arcadia Bay hadn’t contributed to that shift in demeanor.
“When am I harsh?” Fern asked, and Max found herself once more drawn to the present.
“Yosemite 2012.”
“That’s one time, Kris, and leaving food out can attract bears. You know that.”
“Yashiro’s.”
“If I didn’t say anything, how else was that waiter to learn?”
“Chem, sophomore year.”
“Wait, the Susie incident?”
“No, Billy Clay.”
“He deserved it.”
“And Jimmy Orville?”
“Okay, fine. I can be blunt sometimes. But this is Max.” Fernando turned towards Max. “I’m never too blunt with you, am I?”
Max shrugged as she bit at her lip and averted her gaze. Yeah, Fern had a history of being blunt.
“Well, fuck.” Fernando brushed his hands over his stubbled jaw, again, then let out a deep sigh. “Okay. Well, I won’t be too harsh, right now, okay. I just… I mean damn, you gotta admit that was a serious breakdown, Max. I mean I didn’t see it, not from the start, but from what Kristen says, and from what I saw on the Climb, you were severely over the edge. Hell, when I showed up with reinforcements,” Fernando raised his hand displaying his own large coffee, “you were still pale and trembling – like paler than usual. You looked like death, Max.”
Max lowered her gaze, chewing at her lip as she did. Fernando had a point, of course, but Max couldn’t bring herself to admit it out loud. She felt guilty enough without giving voice to her breakdown. She had tried so hard to hold it together, but the sheer enormity of everything that had happened (both in this timeline and those before) had been too much to withstand.
“You had us worried. Still do really. So yeah, I know you’re not the sharing type, but we can’t help you if we don’t know what’s going on. So how about it Max? Throw us a bone, will you? What the hell was that all about?”
Her gaze still averted, Max tucked into herself, bracing one arm across her chest and clutching her other arm.
“Damn it, Fern,” Kristen said, gesturing at Max’s defensive posture. “Look what you’ve done. She’s retreated into Max Shield mode.”
Fern shook his head. “She does that if someone looks at her wrong, Kris, or speaks in a raised voice, or, I don’t know, acknowledges her existence.”
“Or gets blunt with her when he’s asked not to.” Kristen shook her head.
Or speaks about her as if she isn’t here, Max thought, although she said nothing to her friends. They had a right to be worried. She had taken a serious tailspin.
“I told you confronting her was a bad idea,” Kristen continued.
“And sticking our heads in the sand, that’s the answer?”
Maybe, Max thought, biting harder at her lip. She wished she had stuck her head in the sand; that she had just delayed digging into this timeline for a little longer, instead of checking those messages. But she had done it, and now she couldn’t take back the knowledge that she had gained.
Kristen and Fern slid into their usual back-and-forth, and Max took the opportunity to turn back to the waters below. Her suicidal ideation did not return; she forced those images into the exile to which they belonged; but she still found herself fixated on the woman standing alone on the beach, her back to Max. Only now, she envisioned her with blue hair, and a spiked bracelet, a cigarette loose in between her fingers, and a trail of smoke rising up with her exhale.
After Kristen had left the bathroom to wait for Fern, Max had tapped into those messages from Chloe. She had picked at that scab, and the wound had opened, and now Max had no idea how to close it.
As Max had clicked into her messages from Chloe, she had immediately swiped down sending the text chain scrolling back a couple weeks. Tempted as she had felt to read the last message first, based on what she had seen with her exchange with Mr. Madsen, Max decided the need for context was more paramount than her need to know the current status quo. The one would likely not be decipherable without the other. Another brief swipe down and Max had dug into the text chain.
Chloe: when do u finish up
12/4/13 – 2:13 pm
How have you not figured this out, yet? :Max
12/4/13 – 2:15 pm
Chloe: bored
hurry up and get out here
12/4/13 – 2:16 pm
I can’t leave before the bell. :Max
12/4/13 – 2:20 pm
Chloe: fuq that
ditch
12/4/13 – 2:20 pm
I’m not ditching. But I might get detention if I keep texting. :Max
:c
12/4/13 – 2:23 pm
Chloe: NO EMOJI
12/4/13 – 2:23 pm
(-,_-,) :Max
12/4/13 – 2:30 pm
Chloe: cheap shot i will not cave to your crocodile tears.
12/4/13 – 2:31 pm
Fine. On my way out, now. :Max
😀
12/4/13 – 3:16 pm
Chloe: I left
2 many emoji
Couldn’t handle it
12/4/13 – 3:19 pm
Seriously? :Max
(T oT)
12/4/13 – 3:20 pm
Chloe: No u dork
look behind u
And 4 the love of everything holy
NO MORE EMOJI!!!
12/4/13 – 3:21 pm
I hate chemistry. Sooo bored. :Max
12/5/13 – 2:17 pm
Chloe: On my way….
12/5/13 – 2:21 pm
I thought you were job hunting this afternoon. :Max
12/8/13 – 2:24 pm
Chloe: No texting in class
no detention for u
12/5/13 – 2:25 pm
Nice deflection. Why aren’t you job hunting?. :Max
12/8/13 – 2:28 pm
Silent treatment? Really? :Max
(¬_¬)
12/8/13 – 2:35 pm
Chloe: What no
Was in traffic
12/5/13 – 2:38 pm
Chloe: Tried looking 4 a job
Saw an opening at a diner and thought of mom
Got me thinking about her funeral lost motivation
12/5/13 – 2:40 pm
Chloe: Max?
12/5/13 – 2:44 pm
Chloe: Wait r u giving me the silent treatment
12/5/13 – 2:52 pm
Chloe: Max
12/5/13 – 3:01 pm
What? No. Mr. Isaacs took my phone. Just got it back. :Max
Heading out now.
12/5/13 – 3:18 pm
Are you going to be okay, today? :Max
You seemed pretty down this morning.
12/6/13 – 12:18 pm
Chloe: Im fine
12/6/13 – 12:25 pm
You sure? :Max
I could get Fern or Kristen to cover for me and bail.
12/6/13 – 12:26 pm
Chloe: who r u and what have you done with Max
12/6/13 – 12:27 pm
Is that a yes or no to bail? :Max
12/6/13 – 12:28 pm
Chloe: negatory Maxi-taxi.
Already on thin ice with Ryan
Your fall into delinquency might be the last straw
12/6/13 – 12:29 pm
This is my decision. Not yours. He can’t blame you. :Max
12/6/13 – 12:30 pm
Chloe: I fear judge caulfield may disagree
12/6/13 – 12:31 pm
Fuq dad. :Max
12/6/13 – 12:35 pm
Chloe: Have I ever told u Im a good bad influence on u
12/6/13 – 12:36 pm
All the time. :Max
Literally.
Pretty sure you told me that this morning.
When I threw my pajamas at the hamper and they missed…
and I didn’t pick them up.
12/6/13 – 12:40 pm
Chloe: Its the little acts of rebellion that start the revolution
12/6/13 – 12:41 pm
Look outside. :Max
12/6/13 – 12:46 pm
Chloe: No can do
Important things afoot
12/6/13 – 12:47 pm
I see you on the couch, Chloe. :Max
You’re binging X-Files and hogging the salt & vinegar chips.
12/6/13 – 12:49 pm
Chloe: Creeper.
Wait… why r u home?
12/6/13 – 12:49 pm
Let me in already. :Max
12/6/13 – 12:50 pm
Chloe: Your dad’s going to kill me
12/6/13 – 12:50 pm
I miss you. :Max
12/7/13 – 7:55 am
Chloe: I just dropped u off
12/7/13 – 7:55 am
Don’t care. Still miss you.. :Max
12/7/13 – 7:56 am
Chloe: Goober
12/7/13 – 7:56 am
Dork. :Max
12/7/13 – 7:56 am
Chloe: Hippie
12/7/13 – 7:56 am
Nerd. :Max
12/7/13 – 7:56 am
Chloe: Wannabe hipster
12/7/13 – 7:57 am
Poser. :Max
12/7/13 – 7:57 am
Chloe: Whoa too far
12/7/13 – 7:57 am
Sorry. :Max
Just going to be hard with no Chloe this weekend.
12/7/13 – 7:57 am
Chloe: Im coming back
promise
12/7/13 – 7:58 am
I could still come with you. I don’t like the idea of you there alone with David. :Max
Just turn around and pick me up.
12/7/13 – 7:58 am
Chloe: U r not missing your finals for me
c u Sunday night
12/7/13 – 7:59 am
No fun. Too long. :Max
12/7/13 – 7:58 am
Chloe: Didn’t ur therapist say we were 2 codependent?
This could be good for u
12/7/13 – 7:59 am
Misdiagnosis. I fired her. :Max
12/7/13 – 7:59 am
Chloe: Sounds healthy
12/7/13 – 7:59 am
Wait. Are you texting and driving? :Max
12/7/13 – 7:59 am
Chloe: Would u believe really really long stop light
12/7/13 – 7:59 am
no :Max
12/7/13 – 7:59 am
Chloe: Gotta go
12/7/13 – 8:00 am
Chloe! :Max
>=\
12/7/13 – 8:00 am
Chloe: NO EMOJI!
12/7/13 – 8:01 am
Are you okay? :Max
You sounded down at lunch.
12/7/13 – 1:21 pm
Chloe: Long road trip
No first mate
12/7/13 – 1:25 pm
The Captain misses me! :Max
(^u^)
12/7/13 – 1:26 pm
Chloe: I’m revoking your texting privileges
12/7/13 – 1:27 pm
No can do. You lack the authority. :Max
12/7/13 – 1:28 pm
Chloe: Really
R u testing me
12/7/13 – 1:28 pm
eep. :Max
12/7/13 – 1:29 pm
Are you there yet? :Max
12/7/13 – 3:30 pm
Chloe: Sorry just pulled in
Call in a min
12/7/13 – 3:36 pm
Chloe: super weird
Step-douche is being uber nice
Want to throw up
12/8/13 – 2:15 am
Can’t sleep? :Max
12/8/13 – 2:16 am
Chloe: Im nocturnal now
12/8/13 – 2:16 am
So you sleep during the day? :Max
12/8/13 – 2:17 am
Chloe: No
12/8/13 – 2:17 am
Then pretty sure you just can’t sleep. :Max
12/8/13 – 2:18 am
Chloe: Do I overanalyze everything u say
12/8/13 – 2:17 am
Yes. :Max
12/8/13 – 2:18 am
Chloe: Carry on then
12/8/13 – 2:18 am
Would it help if I called? :Max
12/8/13 – 2:19 am
Chloe: Nah just go back 2 sleep
12/8/13 – 2:19 am
You sure? :Max
12/8/13 – 2:19 am
Chloe: Yes
Sleep now Super Max
12/8/13 – 2:19 am
K. :Max
I love you.
12/8/13 – 2:19 am
Chloe: Luv u 2 hippie
12/8/13 – 2:20 am
Luv you 2.
Max had paused pondering over that last text. Chloe loved her. In this timeline, that was a thing they said. She and Chloe loved one another; they even sent love you texts. Had they been dating? Was that more than a best friend ‘I love you?’
Max had known for months now — ever since that week — that she loved Chloe, and not just as her best friend. As she pondered all the hints, and the teases ( flirtations? ), Max had suspected that Chloe had loved her as well; or at least that given time (time to bond, time to forgive, time to mourn) that Chloe might have loved her. She could still taste Chloe’s lips against hers, that hint of smoke and weed, as their lips parted and they pressed together on that overlook, the storm raging around them. Yet in that moment, they had been saying goodbye. Chloe had known Max was going to turn back time and let her die; and Max had made it clear that Chloe was her only priority. For once, Max had worn her heart on her own sleeve and Chloe must have known how she felt then. Yes, Chloe had looked at her as they had parted, pulling back from that kiss, and she had told Max that she loved her; but Max never had been sure that Chloe meant it. Knowing what Max was sacrificing, understanding how Max felt about her, would Chloe have denied her that comfort, or would she have faked it to provide her friend some solace in those final moments?
Yet here, her other self had saved Chloe instead of Arcadia Bay. No storm raged around them, and they had resumed some semblance of a normal life, or so it would seem. Would Chloe have faked those emotions then? Or had she meant it? Had Chloe actually loved her back?
Those texts had stopped Max cold. She hadn’t been able to read on. She had sat there, her head leaned back against the stall partition, holding back tears that she refused to let come. She had cried enough for a lifetime and then some. Besides, she had doomed a whole town to die; could she really cry over the love that she had missed rather than over the souls that she had doomed. What sort of callous person would she have to be in order to place her own self-interest above the fate of Arcadia Bay? If there were tears to be shed, they were for those that had perished in The Storm; not for the ones that had survived.
Slowly, Max had swallowed back the lump in her throat and returned her gaze to her phone. She still didn’t know what had pulled her and Chloe apart; why they had gone so long without messaging one another. She needed answers.
Only, as she tapped back into her screen, she had heard the bathroom door open, and Kristen’s familiar voice called out for her.
“Max?”
“Yeah?” Max replied, her voice raspy, still fighting back the heavy lump threatening to choke her.
“Fern’s here. You coming?”
She wasn’t ready to go. There had still been so much that she did not know. Yet, she had also feared the answers that waited at the bottom of that text chain.
“Sure,” she had said. “I’ll be right there.”
Slowly she had shifted to her feet, and exited the stall.
“Max, you with us?”
Max blinked back thoughts of her breakdown in the bathroom and of the many texts from Chloe through which she had scoured. “Huh?”
Kristen narrowed her eyes. “I thought we lost you for a moment there.”
Max blinked a few more times, clearing the last remnants of her musings, and found herself still staring out over the beach below. The waves still lapped gently against the shore, but the woman along the waterfront had departed, leaving behind only vague footprints in the wet sand.
“No… no,” Max said, rubbing at her eyes. “I’m good.”
She turned back to Kristen then, briefly locking eyes before averting her gaze. Her friend’s brow had been furrowed, her expression both worried and skeptical, and Max felt that all too familiar tug of guilt returning.
“I’m not buying it.” Fern popped the knuckles of his free hand, then clasped his coffee with that same hand, and popped the knuckles on his other. “You’re hiding again, Max.”
Kristen rolled her eyes. “What’d we say about being blunt?”
“That sometimes it’s necessary.”
“Yeah, no. That wasn’t it.”
“My bad.” Fern sipped at his coffee then refocused his gaze on Max. “So spill.”
What could she say that wouldn’t be a lie? How could Max open up to her friends when she didn’t even know what she had and hadn’t survived in this timeline. As quickly as she could, Max reviewed what she knew. The Storm had come. Chloe had survived, as had David, Victoria, and Hayden… and Mark Jefferson. The latter had been arrested. In the immediate aftermath of The Storm, she and Chloe had fled Arcadia Bay, taking their time to reach Seattle. David had tried desperately to reach Chloe in the wake of Joyce’s death. Max could assume Frank and Warren had died in the diner alongside Joyce, and Evan and Alyssa had likely died there in the raging storm along that street without Max there to save them.
After finally hearing from Chloe, David had left them in peace until Chloe cut off contact and he showed up on the Caulfield home doorstep sometime in November before causing some sort of drama and leaving with a texted apology. During this time Max had returned to her old Seattle school, reconnected with Kristen and Fernando, and apparently become significantly closer with Chloe. Then in December, Chloe had left to attend her mother’s funeral while Max had been taking her finals, and subsequently, Chloe had run off, leaving Max alone for an as of yet unknown reason. The framework was there, but Max feared she knew too few of the details to be convincing.
“Max?”
Kristen waved her hand mere inches in front of Max’s face.
Max glanced up with a weak smile. “Sorry. I zoned again, didn’t I?”
“It’s okay,” Kristen said. “We’re just worried is all.”
“I know.” Max deflated, her shoulders sagging as she pressed back into the far corner of her bench.
Fernando set his coffee aside and leaned in towards his friend. “What can you tell us?”
Dog, she didn’t want to do this. Max didn’t want to pretend that she was Fern and Kristen’s friend, the one with whom they had obviously spent the past couple of months. She didn’t know how their relationship had evolved. She wasn’t the girl that they had probably comforted upon her return from Arcadia Bay, nor even the one that they had met on Pike Street earlier this afternoon. She was an imposter and a murderer and she was going to mess this up. She knew it.
“Max?” Kristen leaned forward, gently brushing a hand across Max’s knee.
Max flinched, then let out a deep sigh. She had to say something.
“It was… it was just too much. Too much at once, you know?”
“Too much?” Kristen eased her hand back from Max’s knee, but she did not draw back, still leaning into Max’s space and waiting for more.
“Yeah.” Max bit again at her lip, realizing that if she continued to worry at it as she had been she was going to chew it raw, but finding herself unable to stop. “Too much. We were…” Max paused. Where had they been when that panic attack hit? Max had never bothered to get all of the details. She had to be careful.
That’s right , she thought. You’d hate to be caught in a lie, wouldn’t you?
The guilt bubbled back with that thought, with the knowledge that she was an imposter; yet what choice did Max have? She continued on.
“We were… just there, and suddenly I couldn’t… it all just hit at once. Arcadia Bay. The Storm. Joyce. Warren. Everyone. And here I am.. I’m just living my life in Seattle like nothing happened, when they’re… when they’re…”
When they’re dead , she thought, but she couldn’t bring herself to say the words.
“I get it, I do.” Kristen said. “But that’s survivor’s guilt, Max. You get that right? That’s what your therapist told you.”
“Yeah,” Max muttered. Her therapist. Chloe had mentioned her therapist in their texts as well. Months of therapy that she’d never remember. That was money well spent.
“It’s just…” Max continued, knowing she hadn’t done enough to explain her actions; hadn’t said nearly enough to explain her total collapse. “They’re all… gone, and here I am, just happy that Chloe and I made it out of the Bay, and yet confused and sad that she’s not here… and what right to do I have to be upset, when so many…”
“Are dead?” Fern finished.
Yeah, Fern, Max thought. You’re definitely a bit blunt. Rather than put voice to her thoughts, however, Max simply nodded.
“Jesus, Fern! Show some tact.” Kristen whacked him upside the head.
“Ow! Hey! What was that for?”
Kristen shook her head and turned back to Max.
“We get it, we do, but you’d been doing so well.”
Max cast her eyes back out to the water, unable to meet Kristen’s gaze.
“I know,” she mumbled, letting out a trembling sigh.
“It’s not a judgment, Max. Just concern.”
“I just… I’m longing for her, happy she’s alive, and…”
And crap… do they know I’m gay? Too late now. Keep going.
“…and here I am hoping for a normal life with her, but I don’t, I don’t deserve that, do I?”
Max turned her gaze back to Kristen then, her eyes flooding over as the guilt and the longing and the months of pain all piled on top of one another. Unfair as it was, she needed Kristen to have the answers.
“No, Max,” Kristen said. “No. You don’t deserve that. You deserve so much more. And for… for she who shall not be named to do this, no, you deserve better.”
Fern nodded. “So much better.”
Max’s brows furrowed as her friends sat there along the shore attempting to console her, to console this stranger sitting before them. Yet Max couldn’t help but to realize that too much context was missed, too much subtext hidden in a life she had never lived.
“The girl who shall not be named?” Max asked.
“That girl has issues.” Kristen leaned closer. “You have to see that, right?”
“Chloe?”
“Yes, of course her.” Kristen settled back, her expression still sympathetic, if slightly more stern.
Max, however, only saw red. Meaning well or not, Kristen was not going to question Chloe.
“Her father died, Kristen. Her best friend abandoned her. Her girlfriend was murdered.”
Kristen held out her hands, gesturing for Max to stop. Max paid her no mind.
“Then a freak storm killed her mother and all of her friends, leaving her with nothing — ”
“— She doesn’t leave your side for months,” Kristen cut in, “then — ”
Max would brook no interruption.
“No. You stop and listen. Everyone she cares about is gone and she’s left with no one but her asshole step-douche. So yeah, the girl has issues. She has a fuckload of issues. And every last one of them is completely understandable.”
Fern rubbed uneasily at his wrist. “Max, we mean well. Kristen was just saying — ”
“Kristen won’t even use Chloe’s name,” Max cut back in. She knew she was being harsh, but she had been through too much, seen too much. To come back and find herself being consoled by Kristen while the girl questioned Chloe, the girl for whom Max had been grieving for months, for whom she had sacrificed so much — she couldn’t do it; she couldn’t sit there and listen to Kristen, no matter how good her intentions.
“So, I don’t care what she’s saying,” Max continued. “Chloe’s life has been dipped in shit and she can’t catch a fucking break. So maybe, just maybe, she can back off her high fucking horse and cut Chloe some damn slack.”
Kristen hung her head.
“I’m sorry, Max. I just, I don’t like seeing you like this.”
“Angry?” Dog, she was angry, wasn’t she? She never let herself get this way, and yet it felt earned; it felt right. Normally she’d cower from this feeling, retreat from it, or at the very least turn that anger towards herself instead. Now, however, now she embraced it. She was a murderer after all. What was a little anger added to that?
“No, not that,” Kristen said. “You’re on edge. You just had a massive breakdown. And you can say whatever you like, I won’t believe that she — that Chloe — has nothing to do with it. You two have been inseparable since coming back to Seattle and now she just cuts you off and leaves you in the dust, and you want me to be okay with that?”
Max paused, letting out a tremulous sigh. No, she wasn’t even okay with that herself, but she didn’t have the details either. Even realizing this, even seeing the reality of what Kristen was saying, Max could barely hold back at hearing Chloe called into question. So, rather than the reply, she simply held her tongue and turned back to the waves lapping against the shore. Even the vague impression of footprints that had been left in the wake of the woman once standing there along that beach had vanished, washed away with the tide and time.
“Max?” Kristen’s voice had softened. Just as quickly as Max’s anger had flared, it dissipated, replaced by that familiar sense of guilt and regret.
“I’m sorry,” Max muttered. The words lacked the conviction they deserved, stumbling out at a mere whisper, Max herself still focused on the absence of footprints in the sand — a dance with time finished and faded until it was no more. All she knew was no more. The friendships that she had made, the grief that she had endured, and, yes, even the deaths she had witnessed — and caused. They were nothing. Not even dust. An absence that had never been.
Max’s phone buzzed. Her heart leapt a little, and even despite all the anguish of the past hour, despite the emotional exhaustion of trying to explain herself to her friends, and even despite the grief and guilt still lurking just beneath the surface of her thoughts, she found herself hoping to see her name there on her phone — to look down and find that Chloe had broken her silence and was coming home.
Retrieving her phone from her pocket, Max glanced to the screen.
Victoria.
Her heart sank. The Queen Bee was texting. This was just icing on the spoiled cake that was her day. Now, she had to deal with the nemesis that remained rather than the friend that she had so recently held in her dying moments. No… this Victoria could wait.
“Victoria? That Victoria?” Kristen asked, clearly snooping.
“Yes,” Max said, finally returning her gaze to her friend. “That Victoria.”
“I didn’t think you were on speaking terms.”
“Me either.” Max fidgeted with her phone, her thumb hovering over the text icon.
“Are you going to read it?”
“It can’t be anything good, can it?”
“Only one way to find out.” Kristen held out her hand, waiting through an expectant pause. Max had forgotten how demanding Kristen could be, but she really didn’t have the energy left to fight it either. She handed over the phone.
Kristen tapped in, reading the message, then looking up at Max.
“Not much to go on,” she said, handing the phone back.
Max glanced down, and she had to admit, Kristen was right.
Victoria: Max?
12/19/13 – 1:43 pm
“I guess not,” Max said.
“So?”
“So what?”
“So,” Kristen continued. “You going to say anything? This girl tormented you for months right?”
“Yeah, I guess,” Max said, though she found it hard to commit to that answer. Sure, this Victoria had, but another Victoria had become her closest friend and confidant. She couldn’t find it in herself to hold a grudge anymore. She watched as three dots appeared on the text chain and suddenly she could feel the lump hardening in her throat.
“And you don’t have anything you want to say to her?”
Hell, what was Kristen’s deal? After everything they had just discussed, why did this even matter? It baffled Max, and the best she could guess, she figured that maybe Kristen was hoping to seize on this distraction to blow past the argument that had nearly been — to move past Max’s heated response regarding Chloe.
Perhaps that was for the best.
“Not really,” Max said instead.
“If you don’t, I do.” Max could see Kristen itching to reach for the phone.
“Fine. Give me a minute.”
Max stood and wandered off from her friends, waiting until the ellipses vanished and a new message appeared.
Victoria: Are you there?
12/19/13 – 1:45 pm
How do you respond to that? How do you answer the ghost echo of the friend you lost? This Victoria was of the same clay, but the mold was different — the resulting form sculpted by different hands and weathered by unknown times. The best Max could do was fall back on former connections, ones that might have been if her guesses on the timeline were accurate, and hope that something, some semblance of the girl she had come to know could be salvaged.
Yeah. I’m here. Just up to my usual waif hipster bullshit. :Max
12/19/13 – 1:46 pm
Those dreaded ellipses returned and vanished, then returned again. Max paced the shaded alcove, clutching one arm and shielding herself as best as she could against the afternoon cold. The wait dragged on, until at last a new message appeared.
Victoria: Are you free?
12/19/13 – 1:48 pm
Not at all what she was expecting. Of course, best as Max knew, she was herself one of the few survivors of Arcadia Bay. As Hayden had said, survivors needed to keep close, to commiserate and overcome. Was it really so unreasonable to think that Victoria needed someone with whom she could share her grief? Perhaps that was why she had reached out before as well. Still, the pain of losing her Victoria being so fresh, Max couldn’t bear the idea of connecting with this Victoria. Not now. Not yet.
Not really. Sorry. :Max
Later?
12/19/13 – 1:50 pm
Victoria: Yeah. Okay.
Soon though? In person?
12/19/13 – 1:51 pm
Dog, Max didn’t have the energy for this.
Sure. Tomorrow, maybe. :Max
12/19/13 – 1:51 pm
Victoria: Good. Tomorrow. Brunch.
I know a good cafe. You’re in Seattle, right?
12/19/13 – 1:52 pm
Max bit back her frustration. She’d said maybe. Not yes. Still, it seemed this was happening, and she so wasn’t ready for this.
Yeah. Okay. :Max
12/19/13 – 1:53 pm
Victoria: I’ll text you the address.
C u tomorrow.
12/19/13 – 1:53 pm
Well, fuck, that was happening. Max pocketed her phone and tried to swallow back the lump in her throat. She could barely hold it together. Again. She didn’t want to see this Victoria. She wanted her Victoria.
My Victoria?
She shook her head then pressed her palms into her eyes, relishing in the pressure, and yes, to some degree, in the pain.
“You good, Max?” Fern hovered nearby, his hand inches from her shoulder, but as Max turned and their eyes locked, he pulled back.
“What’d she want?” Kristen had deposited her empty coffee into a nearby bin and handed Max her water.
“To meet.”
“Ouch. That sounds less than fun.”
Max let out a pained chuckle.
“Yeah. You could say that.”
“Look, this afternoon has been a bitch,” Fern said, cutting between the two. “You need a break.”
“Definitely.”
“Want us to take you by Capitol?” Kristen asked. “We could walk you by the skater boys?”
“Or girls?” Fern shrugged. “Your call.”
“Appreciate it,” Max said, “but not today.” She could feel the damn breaking and that damned lump in her throat was solidifying into a massive rock. She needed to be alone. She needed to get back to Chloe’s messages. She needed to break down… again. Preferably in private this time.
“I think I need to head home.”
“Chez Caulfield it is, then.” Kristen patted Max on the back. “We’ll call a Lyft.”
“Thanks.” As Kristen pulled up her rideshare app, and Fern inexpertly tried to shift the conversation to anything other than Max’s breakdown, Max tried to ground herself in this moment with her friends. Yet try as she might, she just couldn’t.
Her past had been erased, footprints washed out to sea. Now the sands were shifting in new tides, and despite her friends at her side, Max felt more alone than ever before.
