Dec 19th, 2013 – 2nd Choice Timeline
By the time Max returned home, it was just after two thirty in the afternoon. An uncomfortable quiet blanketed the house, neither of her parents having yet returned from work, and, despite the associated discomfort, Max felt that this was decidedly for the best — the one moment of the afternoon that had worked in her favor. In the absence of her parents, she could absorb the oddity of her homecoming wrapped in the security that came with solitude. Standing there in the open threshold, she felt grateful for this simple blessing: home had never felt so foreign to her, and she needed the peace of the empty house in order to cope with the shock of being back.
Entering the cozy foyer and letting the front door slip shut behind her, Max waded back through five years of comings and goings through that very entryway and felt the familiarity of the place surging in. Yet, despite being her old house, this place was not home. The scent of apple cinnamon potpourri still clung to the common rooms of the first floor, bringing with it a flood of banal memories — simple moments spread over lonely years — yet those moments remained distant and false, the potpourri nothing more than a pleasantly scented mask to conceal the rot beneath.
Looking about as she entered, Max caught all the familiar sights, from the coat hooks by the door to the entry bench on the opposite wall of the foyer with its matching wooden shoe cubbies tucked securely beneath it. Max eased down onto that bench removing her Converse sneakers, then secreted them away into the bin that had always been allotted to her – last one on the right, when facing the bench. Shoes implied dirt and dirt was not to be seen.
The sheen of the polished wood floors of that same entry spoke to the truth of that statement. They sparkled in evidence of their pristine condition. Moreover, no dust littered the nearby shelves, nor marred the lacquer of the bench. No tracks or footprints ran across the floor, nor any clutter stood out on the empty surfaces. A small console table lined the wall opposite of the entry bench, just beneath the single coat hanging from the hooks above, and even that table’s surface proved minimalist and uncluttered, occupied only by a single potted plant and a small wicker key tray that sat empty and waiting. Max reached into her pocket, pulling out her keys and gently laid them into the tray, careful to pick away any lint, lest it find its way in with the keys.
That done, she lingered there a moment staring at her simple gray hoodie on the coat hook. In its singularity it stood out, a beacon calling attention to its presence. It did not belong. That familiar nagging tugging at her, Max reached up and removed the hoodie from its hook, took two steps over to the coat closet and gently hung it on one of the half dozen empty hangers within. Clutter, like dirt, was not to be seen.
That done, Max made her way past the formal dining room, casting it only a fleeting glance. The room was off limits save for special occasions, and though this return held its significance for Max, it would not merit the Caulfield definition of special. Down a hall on her left waited the living room, but it too felt foreign and restricted — a room for adults or planned family time, and though Max was eighteen now, she doubted she rose to her parents’ definition of an adult. Letting that thought slide — or more accurately burying it down deep — Max continued on, pausing at last at the foot of the stairs. Just past those stairs she could see the open kitchen with its elegant island and its oh so modern, oh so boring, appliances. Even the surface of that brushed steel refrigerator lacked character, kept free of photographs or artwork, left pristine and unblemished — or it should have been that way.
A simple, circular black magnet held one photo to the otherwise barren surface. Easing closer, Max’s gut clenched, nauseated by the oddity of that single photograph. Had she broken precedent marking the Caulfield refrigerator with a Max original work? She half-expected to find Chloe smiling back at her from beneath that magnet, her blue hair shining out against a backdrop of the Washington coastline, and with that expectation Max’s barely suppressed anxiety leapt up sending her into a full body quiver. At last, however, she opened her eyes only to find her own face staring back at her — or more accurately, she found her own face flinching back at her, a fake smile donned beneath those half-closed eyes.
Dog, I look like a zombie. Way to strike a pose.
Perhaps her parents had missed it, but Max could see it there, the terror just under those lids and the panic held in that gaze. Her mother stood with her arm draped around Max’s shoulder, her false realtor smile plastered across her face. Neat, blocky lettering on the white of the Polaroid labeled the picture ‘Homecoming.’ Despite the moniker, Max knew this not for the high school rite of passage, but for her own return from Arcadia Bay. Only her parents would have been able to force her behind the camera’s flash and still missed the sheer terror of the moment so much that they would pin up this shot as a prize for all to see. No, this photo was their proof of the happy family, of mother and daughter reunited and all being right in the world; it was the image that social norms required.
Max wanted to retch knowing the panic and terror that she had to have been struggling to hold in check in that moment, and equally aware that this other her had likely received no comfort for, nor even acknowledgement of, that fear. That would have been silly. She would have had nothing to fear. It would have been contrary to the perfect family portrait.
Max didn’t bother to take in any more of the house before turning and trudging up the stairs, then disappearing into her own room. Even if it hadn’t been for that photo, or for the all too familiar feeling of walking on eggshells in her own home, Max would not have tarried long downstairs. She had barely been able to hold her composure for the Lyft home and she knew that she wouldn’t be able to keep her emotions at bay much longer. So instead, she eased her door shut, seeking the privacy of her own room, and motioned to lock the door behind her. Her doorknob, however, had been changed and no lock remained.
One more oddity to puzzle out .
No matter. She didn’t have the wherewithal to focus on that minutia. Instead she face-planted onto her bed, eager to sink into the comforting embrace of sleep, even if only for a moment. She couldn’t take any more surprises, nor confront any more changes, be they of home or time. She needed only a respite, no matter how brief.
Her home, her house, didn’t feel right; it no longer felt like home – at least not her home. She knew that it was little changed from her five years of solitary here, still unaltered at its core, yet the place remained off all the same. It was as if the structural integrity had held, but a new coat of paint had been applied concealing past blemishes. Even this drab, brown bedspread was new, and most definitely not hers, and the sea of pillows all in that same drab brown did not belong there either — nearly all decorative, with no attention to comfort — but it was still very much a Caulfield formality… very much the house that she had left behind. Her face buried in one of those decorative pillows, Max didn’t bother to take in any more of her room, choosing instead to drift off, delaying that confrontation for a future Max, one not so freshly shaken. Sleep came swiftly, even if it did prove restless at best.
Max woke a couple of hours later. At least, she assumed it was only a couple of hours later judging by the daylight still streaming in through her bedroom window. Sleep still clung to her, and her body ached from the emotional toll of the afternoon, and yet she stirred uncertain of what had awoken her. Blinking, and wiping at her eyes, her room faded into focus, and yet more surprises awaited. Beyond the change to her bed, the pastels of her walls had been replaced with a simple beige, and while a few of her photographs still lined the room, they had been given formal frames and drastically reduced in number. Gone was the proto-Memorial Wall precursor to her dorm room decor. Now maybe a dozen of her polaroids graced the room distributed among four multi-picture frames. She knew that on some level she should be happy to see them framed up, and yet somehow it seemed to steal the life from the shots, binding them… like duct tape along her wrists.
Max cringed, rubbed at her eyes once more, and slipped from the bed. Very few signs of her remained in the room save for those few shots. Worse, not a single sign of Chloe could be found. Max’s childhood desk was missing, as were her old shelves, both replaced with formal antiques, the desk by an old roll-top that had belonged to her grandfather. Everything felt stiff, as if the same formality that clung to the rest of the house had stolen its way into her only sanctuary. She glanced back to her bed. Three or four stuffed animals hid among the pillows, but it was a far cry from the couple dozen plush friends that she had left behind when leaving for Blackwell in the fall. Worst of all, there was no sign of the Captain, although she could not lay this absence at her parents’ feet – his demise likely sealed by the onslaught of The Storm… the storm that Max had brought with her to this timeline.
Her thoughts lost in the swirling chaos of The Storm and the ripples left upon the timeline in its wake, Max almost didn’t hear her mother calling up from below. Her voice rose up faint, then stronger, until at last Max was able to rip herself from her own head long enough to make out her mother’s words.
“Can you hear me?” Vanessa shouted. “Are you up there?”
Well, Max thought, guess it’s time to face mom. It was a day of reunions – first with Kristen, then Fernando, and now with her own mother, Vanessa Caulfield. Yet the only reunion that Max wanted still eluded her.
“Yeah,” Max called back. “Yeah, I’m here mom.”
“Can you come down here for a second?” her mother shouted back.
“Sure.” Max rolled her shoulders, failing miserably at easing the tension from her knotted muscles. “Be right there.”
She cast one last glance at her room and figured what the hell. It wasn’t like this place offered any sanctuary for her anymore, anyway.
Coming down the stairs, she could hear the cabinets opening and shutting as her mother rummaged around in the kitchen, likely prepping the evening meal. Stealing herself, Max turned the bend, walking past the brushed metal refrigerator ( and that single sad photo ) and towards an empty stool before the kitchen island. She didn’t make it two steps towards that stool, however, before Vanessa turned, setting aside a pot and saucepan, and cast an expectant gaze her way.
“No hug for your mother?”
“Sure, mom.” Max veered off course from her longed for stool and embraced her mother with a simple one-armed hug. It was a small gesture and perfunctory at best, an act of obligatory affection – just one more line, one more stage direction, as she played the part of the perfect daughter.
Vanessa smiled down at her squeezing her back, clearly satisfied with her performance.
“Good to see you, Maxine.”
Max, never Maxine , Max thought, but she didn’t dare voice that direction to her mother.
“You too, mom.” And it was, wasn’t it? It had been so long, nearly three months for this Max, since she had seen Vanessa Caulfield.
“So, did you pick up the bag of potatoes I asked for? I didn’t see it in the bin.” Vanessa gestured towards the oddly specific wooden potato bin at the end of the countertop. That had always seemed like such a finite purpose for such a large furnishing.
“Potatoes?” Max asked. She had most definitely not picked up a bag of potatoes; not even known that she was supposed to do so.
“Yeah, potatoes. We can’t have potato soup without potatoes.”
“Sorry.” Max shrugged. “I guess I forgot.”
“Really, Maxine. You need to get your head out of the clouds and stop moping already.”
“Sorry, mom.” Guess I’ve been moping, she thought. That’s something . It didn’t surprise her, though. With Chloe gone, of course she was moping.
As if reading her daughter’s mind, Vanessa cut in.
“It’s barely been a week. You need to snap out of it.”
“Huh?”
Vanessa paused, setting aside the pans that she had been prepping, and shaking her head. “Maxine, you and that girl have been attached at the hip for two months. You can stand to take a week or two apart.”
That girl , Max thought, a bubble of anger forming within her for the second time this afternoon. She was going to ignore the anger and fear that had welled up in that previous timeline. Don’t have the energy to go there, no. Have to stay focused. Concentrate on the new now. The one where your mom is calling Chloe ‘that girl.’
“The time will do you both some good,” Vanessa continued. “You’ll see. Now, if you’re done moping, we still have a dinner to prep. As we won’t be doing potato soup as an appetizer, looks like I’ll be busy rummaging up a salad. I need you to set the table. Your father will be home soon.”
There was no question there, no request. Max could see that now. It was funny the way time and distance could help crystallize the realities of a relationship so that you could finally see them for what they were. When it came to her and her mother, Max was to do as she was told. There would be no requests.
“Chloe and I don’t need time apart,” Max said, her voice soft, just above a whisper.
“What was that?”
“Chloe and I don’t need time apart,” Max said a little louder this time, though still soft and cowed.
“Don’t start, Maxine. I’ve had enough of that this week.” Vanessa pulled some greens from the fridge dropping them rather harshly by a wooden mixing bowl and then returned to rummaging through the crisper, never once glancing back at Max. “Frankly, your father and I are both tired of this conversation. We’ve been plenty hospitable these past two months. More than. Now, I need to focus if I’m going to get dinner ready. Get the place settings out if you can focus long enough to do that much.”
There was an uptick in Vanessa’s voice, that familiar hint of guilting and shame, and Max felt her stomach drop. She knew what wasn’t being said. Her parents had taken Chloe in when they didn’t have to, and apparently felt that Max hadn’t shown an ounce of appreciation for that. And of course she appreciated it, or she would have if she had been here to experience it, yet nonetheless she felt that tug of guilt swelling in her gut.
“I’m sorry.”
If her mother heard her, she gave no sign of acknowledgement; simply continued gathering together some tomatoes and bell peppers from the fridge, as she began to prep a starter salad. Max thought about saying something else, perhaps apologizing again, but what could she say? She didn’t know the reality of the past couple of months. Instead she swallowed back her words, and went about the business of setting the table.
She found the placemats and the silverware in the same drawers in which they had always stayed, comforted at least in that small commonality — that tiny shred of sameness with the past that she had lived. After setting the placemats and laying out the silverware, careful to lay each item in its proper place, Max returned to the kitchen cabinets gathering together three plates and glasses to finish the settings. Back and forth she went, a silence having settled over the kitchen broken only by the sound of a knife chopping vegetables and the gentle clatter of dishes and glassware being set out upon the table. The places set, Max removed the floral centerpiece from the table, replacing it with a couple wooden trivets for holding the main course and side dishes. Eyeing her work, she decided that she had reached a satisfactory conclusion, then turned back to her mother.
Old habits died hard, and as she stared at her mother preparing dinner, Maxe felt herself slipping back into a previous submissiveness – all the awkwardness and guilt of her former Seattle self returning to the surface.
“May I be excused?” she asked, one hand clasped to her other arm, her shield up.
Vanessa turned, taking a moment to eye Max’s handiwork, then nodded to her daughter.
“Be down in thirty. I’ll want your help with final settings before your dad gets home.”
“Yes, mom.”
Max nodded and made her retreat.
As she returned to her now unfamiliar room, Max tried to ignore how easily she had cowed, shifting back into her previous role as the dutiful daughter. Instead, she turned her thoughts to where they belonged: to Chloe.
According to that previous string of messages, Chloe was supposed to have returned after Joyce’s funeral, on the 9th. That was ten days ago, and, best as Max could tell, Chloe had not yet returned. Nervous about what she would find, Max dropped onto her bed, picking up the nearest plush: a stuffed otter wearing an eyepatch and a bandana. Potter the pirate otter was no Captain, but she’d do in a pinch. Max hugged her close as she fell back into the uncomfortable nest of decorative pillows that had taken over her bed.
Listless, Max stared up at the popcorn ceiling. She didn’t want to look anywhere else, lest she discover one more change, one more erasure destroying her sanctuary. Had she been moping since Chloe left? Had they developed some sort of unhealthy codependency as her texts and her mother’s hesitations seemed to suggest? What would that even look like?
Frustrated, Max muffled her face into a pillow and screamed.
“Maxine?” Her mother called up.
“Nothing, mom,” she yelled back.
“Okay. Just keep it down up there.”
“I will.”
Max pushed the pillow aside and hugged Potter tighter. She hated being back here. She hated it.
Letting out a deep sigh, Max sat up and reached for her phone. Hating home wasn’t the real problem, though, was it? No, she was avoiding the real problem. She needed to know what had happened between her and Chloe. She needed to read the rest of their messages.
You up? :Max
12/8/13 – 8:49 am
Chloe: yo
12/8/13 – 8:51 am
You get any sleep? :Max
12/8/13 – 8:51 am
Chloe: a little
12/8/13 – 8:51 am
Are you lying? :Max
12/8/13 – 8:51 am
Chloe: a little
12/8/13 – 8:52 am
Sorry. Do you need to talk? :Max
12/8/13 – 8:52 am
Chloe: meh
12/8/13 – 8:52 am
Is that a yes? :Max
12/8/13 – 8:52 am
Chloe: just weird is all
12/8/13 – 8:53 am
David? :Max
12/8/13 – 8:53 am
Chloe: everything
12/8/13 – 8:53 am
Do you have some context? :Max
12/8/13 – 8:54 am
Chloe: hanging with step-douche and aunt Karen
and the grandparents
Joyce’s parents at least
worlds collide
plus Newport
mom never liked it here
feels wrong for her to be buried here you know
not next to dad
12/8/13 – 8:56 am
I’m sorry. :Max
12/8/13 – 8:56 am
Chloe: nah just need to vent
Fucking Prescotts not letting anyone in
Arcadia Bay being off limits for the foreseeable future she has to be buried somewhere I guess
12/8/13 – 8:57 am
I could catch a bus. :Max
12/8/13 – 8:58 am
Chloe: nah
I got this
12/8/13 – 8:58 am
But you don’t have to do it alone. :Max
12/8/13 – 8:59 am
Chloe: I know super Max
Did I tell you uncle aaron didn’t even bother to show
Says he can’t take time off work
fuckwad
12/8/13 – 9:01 am
I’m going to catch a bus. I don’t want you to be alone. :Max
12/8/13 – 9:02 am
Chloe: No Maximus its okay i got this
really
gotta go need to leave 4 the service
12/8/13 – 9:03 am
Call? :Max
12/8/13 – 9:04 am
Chloe: I will
12/8/13 – 9:04 am
Chloe? :Max
12/8/13 – 3:34 pm
Worried. Call when you can. :Max
I need to know you’re okay.
12/8/13 – 7:51 pm
I’m sorry, Chloe. :Max
I should have been there. Please call me.
12/8/13 – 11:23 pm
Chloe? :Max
12/9/13 – 1:11 am
I’m super worried, Chloe. Please let me know you’re okay. :Max
12/9/13 – 2:17 am
I’m sorry. You’re probably asleep. See you tomorrow? Today? :Max
You know what I mean.
12/9/13 – 2:24 am
Chloe? You’re scaring me. :Max
12/9/13 – 7:13 am
David’s worried, too. Says you didn’ take things well. :Max
That’s understandable. Please let me know where you are.
I love you. I need to hear from you.
12/9/13 – 9:31 am
Max set her phone down pushing back into the stupid decorative pillows on her stupid drab bed in her stupid bare room. It had been a different her getting the silent treatment from Chloe, and yet it was as if she could feel that Max’s pain. It rose up within her as well and her throat felt dry and her hands shook.
Some asshole had killed her friend and forced Max to erase all her progress and to come to this timeline and she couldn’t even be with Chloe; no she had to sit here in the dark, longing for the girl for whom she had been grieving for months, and knowing that even though she was alive, she was not there – that the gap remained just as insurmountable.
Her phone buzzed and for a moment the dread vanished and Max felt her heart flutter, some tiny glimmer of hope piercing the gloom. When she glanced down, however, it was only Kristen’s name that flashed back at her, checking that she was doing better. Max texted her a quick assurance that she had recovered from her afternoon breakdown, then resumed staring at her phone screen, willing herself to return to those messages, yet finding herself unable to do so.
It was stupid. She knew that. She needed to find out what had happened with Chloe and the answers could be right there. She had to finish reading…
… only before she could, her mother’s voice called up.
“Maxine. Your dad’s almost here. Come down and help finish setting the plates, please.”
Max sighed.
“Yes, mom,” she called, then pushed herself off from her bed and forced herself to don a semi-human smile and head downstairs.
Max passed the next fifteen minutes with her mother in relative silence as she set the table, placing out a few dressing options for the salad, and a basket of dinner rolls carefully covered to maintain heat, along with a butter dish. She then helped carry over a serving bowl of sauteed kale and a plate of ham. Finally she laid out the corn on the cob, and had just finished prepping a pitcher of iced tea when her father arrived, gently depositing his keys in the tray on the console table, slipping out of his shoes, and tucking his work bag away in the hall closet.
Max had lived so long away from this formality that she could feel it stifling her, and yet, she felt that all too common tug of guilt as well, reminding her that this was the Caulfield way, and how lucky she was to have both her parents here with her, parents that loved her and provided for her, and who sat down to dinner with her every night (or so she assumed; they had before she left and it didn’t look like things had changed much now). So she buried those feelings down, welcoming her father home, and sitting down at her side of the table as her parents each took up their spots at either head of the table.
For the most part the dinner conversation remained light, focused on idle chatter, and barely real inquiries into each others’ days. Vanessa had spent the afternoon showing a rather promising house in a nearby neighborhood, while Ryan had apparently had a big meeting with a potential marketing client, a promising startup in the tech sector looking to market their upcoming video chat software. It all seemed inane and surface level, never allowing for the admission of difficulty or struggle. Yet Max could tell from the bags under her father’s eyes that things were not well at the office, and her mom may have been boasting about promising buyers, but she wasn’t going into specifics, which usually implied a lackluster day into which she would rather not go into detail.
For her part, Max kept her details at a minimum. As if I have a choice in the matter. She told her parents about seeing Kristen and Fernando and about visiting Pike Place Market, though she left out any mention of her breakdown.
Oh yeah, mom and pop, I went to visit Chloe’s grave this morning after I was released from the hospital with a broken arm after getting into a fight with Nathan Prescott at a Vortex party last night. It went okay. I planted a hibiscus next to Chloe’s grave, panicked and started hitting myself, then finally said goodbye thinking perhaps I could move on with my life knowing Arcadia Bay was safe and Chloe would want me to be happy, but then some maniac crashed his semi-truck into our car, while another maniac ran Victoria Chase down with a van, and after I manipulated time to save as many of my friends as I could, I had to hold Victoria dying in my arms, then turn back time, stop Nathan from killing Chloe, knowing I was condemning most of Arcadia Bay to die in the process, then woke up somewhere near Pike Place having a complete and total breakdown. But it’s okay. Kristen and Fern talked me down from it, and I pretended to be better while staring out at the ocean and daydreaming about drowning myself.
Yeah, Max thought , that might be a bit much.
Feeling herself once more on the verge of tears, she sniffed and took a bite of kale, then assured her parents she’d had a pleasant afternoon enjoying the start of the winter break. Her mom nodded along, but her dad stayed quiet a moment, chewing at his ham, and gently setting his silverware down. Finishing his mouthful, he turned his gaze to Max, biting at his lip for a moment, before wiping the grease from his beard and clearing his throat.
“Is there anything else you want to say, Max?”
“Anything else?”
“Your mom had other dinner plans tonight, didn’t she?”
“I’m sorry about the potatoes.” Was he really bringing this up?
“It’s not about the potatoes.”
Yep. He’s bringing this up.
“Okay.”
“Ryan,” Vanessa interrupted. “It’s okay.”
“No, no it’s not.”
Max set down her own silverware. Suddenly she didn’t have an appetite.
“This isn’t the first time you’ve spaced on us lately, Max,” Ryan continued. “Today it was potatoes. Yesterday it was the dishes. The day before that we hear you didn’t even finish your Algebra final. You just flaked.”
“Flaked?” Max asked. That didn’t sound like her. Stressed out and got stuck and couldn’t finish because she was struggling with a particularly bad bout of testing anxiety sure, but flaking… no that didn’t seem right.
“That’s all you have to say for yourself.”
She decided to take a gamble.
“I’m on an IEP for a reason. Testing anxiety. Focus. General ASD concerns. That’s not flaking.”
“No. It’s making excuses. Those diagnoses are given out like candy with your generation. Now you can sit here and wallow and mope, or you can rise above it. I get you’re upset, but life is hard. That’s just life. But you, I’ve raised you. I know you’re stronger than that.”
Like I need someone telling me life is hard, Max thought. She was pretty sure her life had already been one hundred times more painful and traumatic than her father’s, and he had to at least be aware of a good bit of that trauma – especially The Storm.
“Sometimes,” Ryan continued, slipping into his sage dad advice voice, “you’ve got to suck it up and just deal with it. The world isn’t going to be easy on you, no matter what evaluations you have. Yeah, your mom and I, we agreed with the school and we worked with your counselor to get your IEP because we want you to succeed, but it’s time to stop using it as a crutch. When you’re out in the real world, no one’s going to care how that brain’s wired or what special help you think you deserve. You understand that, right?”
“Yes, pop,” Max said. It would do her no good to argue.
“Good. So I want to see you shape up, okay? No more of this flaking on us, you got it?”
“Yes, pop.”
“Okay. Now do you have something to say to your mother?”
Dog, this whole thing felt so surreal. This morning she had been fighting for her life, struggling to save her friends, and battling with time itself; now here she was being chastised by her parents and losing, as if she was some delinquent teen. She paused at that last thought, images of Chloe dancing on her bed stealing in. Max could still picture the smoke billowing from her joint and out on each exhale, that blue hair sparkling in the dim light shining through the American flag over the window. She could still hear Sparklehorse over the Hi-Fi, as she laughed and took Chloe’s picture. Then there came her voice:
“This song fucking rules. Can’t dance hippie. Come on. Rawk out, girl!”
“Max,” Ryan interrupted. “You’re doing it again.”
“I’m sorry,” Max said, attempting to bury that memory of Chloe down as deep as she could.
“This, this right here is what I’m talking about. All week, you just don’t even listen. You just drift off in your own little world. And if it’s not that, you’re actually snapping at us. This attitude has to change.”
“I’m sorry. Really. I’ll do better.”
“Good. I hope so. And your mom?”
Max wiped at her eyes, trying to be as discreet as she could about it, then shifted her focus on her mom.
“I’m sorry, mom.”
“It’s okay,” Vanessa assured her.
Max averted her gaze, staring down now at her half-eaten meal. She picked at the kale with her fork, but she couldn’t bring herself to take a bite.
“May I be excused.”
Her parents exchanged a glance, then Vanessa nodded.
“Yes, Max,” Ryan said. “You may be excused. But first…”
Oh great, where is this headed?
“… a hug for your pop to show there are no hard feelings.”
“Sure.”
Max rose with a soft thank you, embracing her dad. Again, just one more part of the Caulfield way. You weren’t allowed to stay mad. You hugged it out and, if you were Max, you did as you were told.
“Love you, babygirl,” Ryan said.
“I love you, too.” Max squeezed her dad a little harader, then finally let go and retreated back to her room.
Once safely tucked away in her oddly drab sanctuary with its suspicious lack of a lock, Max plopped back onto her bed, yanking Potter the pirate otter back into her arms. She squeezed him tight, careful not to scream in frustration, then let out a sigh and pulled out her phone. She wasn’t going to be able to win with her folks, but she could at least drag some answers from her phone messages. Returning to the chain with Chloe, she continued with the messages from the 9th, but the chain proceeded much the same, with Max reaching out for answers, apologizing, then reaching out again, and with Chloe maintaining complete silence. Things didn’t show any sign of change until the evening of the 10th.
Chloe. I can’t. I need to know you’re alive and not off in a ditch somewhere. :Max
I’m worried. I grabbed that stupid photo my dad took from the fridge.
12/10/13 – 5:32 pm
Chloe: dont you dare
12/10/13 – 5:33 pm
Got your attention. :Max
12/10/13 – 5:33 pm
Chloe: you cant ever do that Max
never again
12/10/13 – 5:34 pm
You could have been dead :Max
12/10/13 – 5:34 pm
Chloe: Im not I wont ever leave u
12/10/13 – 5:35 pm
You ghosted me for days :Max
12/10/13 – 5:35 pm
Chloe: five years dude
12/10/13 – 5:35 pm
You promised you wouldn’t mention that. :Max
12/10/13 – 5:36 pm
Chloe: u promised no more changing time
12/10/13 – 5:36 pm
I didn’t :Max
12/10/13 – 5:37 pm
Chloe: u implied
12/10/13 – 5:37 pm
You could have been dead :Max
12/10/13 – 5:37 pm
Chloe: Im not
12/10/13 – 5:38 pm
Just don’t want to talk to me? :Max
12/10/13 – 5:38 pm
Chloe: fuq its not all about you
12/10/13 – 5:39 pm
Then what’s it about? I want to understand? :Max
12/10/13 – 5:43 pm
Chloe? :Max
12/10/13 – 6:02 pm
</3 :Max
(T^T)
12/10/13 – 6:19 pm
Chloe: use your big girl words
12/10/13 – 6:22 pm
This hurts so much. :Max
12/10/13 – 6:23 pm
Chloe: Im not leaving I just need time
the funeral hurt left me with a lot to consider
12/10/13 – 6:25 pm
Us?. :Max
12/10/13 – 6:25 pm
Chloe: Never.
12/10/13 – 6:26 pm
//^v^\\. :Max
12/10/13 – 6:26 pm
Chloe: Words Maximus
I cant decipher your emoji hieroglyphics
12/10/13 – 6:27 pm
Just happy. Thought we were over. :Max
12/10/13 – 6:28 pm
Chloe: fuq no. never never never.
Im an ass calling now
12/10/13 – 6:28 pm
After that, the texts ended. Whatever she and Chloe had said on that call, that remained between this Chloe and the Other Max, the Max that this Max had replaced.
Replaced? Was that the way of it? What happened when she jumped forward from a photo jump into a new Max. Outside of that alternate reality where Chloe ( nope… not thinking about that one… not doing it ), where Max had been a member of the Vortex Club, outside of that forward leap, most of her jumps had been minimal – a Max that lost a few hours or a few days. This, this was different. Try as she might, reading through a few weeks of text messages just didn’t fill in the gaps. She needed her diary.
Max lifted her eyes from her screen and scanned “her” room. It felt so blah. So beige.
She scanned the perimeter of the room ( I hope you checked the perimeter, as my step-ass would say ), but nothing shouted diary. Nothing really shouted Max at all. She saw her grandfather’s roll-top desk and her old dresser (cleared of its knick-knacks), along with an updated antique bookshelf. Sure, that contained some of her books, but it also seemed to hold a good deal of her parents’ collection now as well and was missing most of her childhood favorites. Beyond the dresser, shelf, bed, and desk, the room stood largely empty. Max stood and forced herself to check her closet.
Inside, at last, she found some semblance of herself, her array of t-shirts and hoodies on display, along with a couple of milk crates full of old knick-knacks, including some of her abandoned stuffies.
There you are Finnick , she thought, pulling out an adorable plush fox and hugging him close. He would be joining Potter on the bed. Rummaging through the crates further however, she saw no sign of her diary. She stood, ready to shut the closet door, when a sleeve of red flannel caught her eye.
Rachel’s jacket? No, that was lost in The Storm, but the plaid was similar and reminded her of the one she had worn that morning after the pool, that morning after she had kissed Chloe. Flipping through her clothes, she noticed about a dozen other unfamiliar shirts beyond the plaid. Long tank tops with skulls and smoke, a simple Firewalk tee, and even a Jane Doe t-shirt that stood as an odd inversion of Max’s own favorite. This one was much too big for her, and had bold pink lettering over black… and it smelled of cigarettes. They all smelled of cigarettes.
Max pressed her face into the odd assortment of shirts and breathed in, basking in the awful, wonderful musk of the smoke lingering on the fabric. Chloe had been here, and finally she had evidence. Glancing to her door, Max checked the handle, looking for the lock to ensure her privacy, only then remembering as she caught sight of the smooth metal of that doorknob that she no longer had a lock on her room.
Fuck it, she thought. Privacy be damned.
She stripped out of her current t-shirt and quickly donned the much too big Jane Doe shirt that she now mentally dubbed ‘punk doe.’ It draped over her, the sleeves coming down to her elbows, and the hem falling to her mid-thigh, but it felt right, like a comfortable sleep shirt. She wanted to curl up on her bed and squeeze herself into a ball, just basking in the smell of that shirt. In that spirit she grabbed a pair of pajama pants from her dresser, reveling in the comfort of sleep clothes, then paused halfway to her bed.
Focus, Max, she thought. She was getting distracted. She needed to keep on target. She needed to find that diary.
With one last longing glance at her bed, and one last urge to cuddle up into Chloe’s shirt and just breathe her in, Max turned her attention to her grandfather’s roll-top desk. She pushed up on the tambour slats rolling them back until the internal cupboard of the desk was revealed. A new laptop rested on the marble center of the desktop base, below those drawers and cubbies, and beside that lay a scattering of old polaroids of her and Chloe from their childhood. Obviously former Max had spent some time here thinking about her Chloe. Her diary, however, was nowhere to be seen. Checking each cubby and cabinet, Max eventually found her familiar journal tucked into a side drawer of the desk. Immediately she flipped to the last entry, scanning to the final passages.
Chloe is back!
I didn’t even care that this was the real end of the world… It just felt so good to hold her again after everything we’d been through. I thought about all the timelines I’d jumped through for her, and how much she’s always meant to me…
Our lives have always been entwined.
How could this not be some kind of fate or destiny? Even though we’re opposites in so many ways, we’re also so alike. We’ll always be pirates in spirit and we’ll always want to take on the world… It sounds so stupid to say that she’s my hero, but if not her, who else? Sometimes Chloe and I feel like yin and yang.
Who knows? Maybe we’re here to give each other strength… or more.
There is nothing like the sense of relief after waking up from a vivid nightmare. Despite all the terrible things that have been happening this past week, I felt so free and hopeful when I finally woke up. And my nightmare was so obvious. All my fears about being an artist, about my rewind power, and, of course, about my partner in crime and time, Chloe Price.
We’ve been through so much together and we might go through more, depending on how this all ends… either in Heaven or Hella… Sorry, I couldn’t resist.
Chloe is more than my best friend, but who knows how she really sees me? She did dare me to kiss her, but she seemed surprised that I actually did. I am too, but I don’t regret it for a second. Maybe that’s why I hated watching Chloe being so cruel in the nightmare, calling me names and flirting with all those people… I was surprised that it was like a physical pain in my heart. Is that the power of friendship… or love?
Doesn’t it have to be love? Is that why that Other Me told me to save her above all else?
I believe you’re about to find out, Max Caulfield.
That’s it, Max thought. She flipped forward and backward, but there were no newer entries. The last entry was dated October 11th. When had she even written this entry? It had to have been after that nightmare, but it also had to be before that decision on the hill. Or after it? It didn’t make sense. Time had become a jumble, a knot that Max couldn’t untie. And seriously, it looked like she had changed no more than a line or two from the best of her recollection.
This was useless. It told her nothing!
Max flung the diary across the room. It slammed against her dresser, then crashed to the floor.
“Max?”
Her father. Damn .
“Sorry, dad. Slipped.”
“You okay?”
“I’m good.”
The door clicked open a fraction of an inch, and Max bolted behind the door. She didn’t know why, but she knew she didn’t want to be seen in Chloe’s shirt right now.
“Hey!” she shouted. “I’m not decent.”
“Huh?”
“I’m changing dad! A little privacy.”
“Sorry.” The door shut. “You sure you’re okay?”
“Yeah.”
“Why are you changing? Did you spill something?”
“No… just felt like getting in pajamas.”
“It’s barely eight o’clock, Max. You sure everything’s alright?”
“Yeah, yeah, it’s fine, pop.”
“Okay.”
His footsteps retreated and at last Max calmed, her sense of privacy returning. She was going to have to do something about that lock. And about that diary. Yeah, that was going to have to be maintained. If she had to ever jump again, that new Max would need context and a good journal could prove far more useful than parsing text conversations. She carefully retrieved her diary from the floor and returned it to her rolltop desk, this time leaving it open next to the scattered Polaroids and the new laptop. She’d come back to it soon… as a safety measure.
First, there was something else she needed to do. Max lifted the collar of Chloe’s punk doe shirt and angled her nose down, breathing in deep and taking in the faded scent of her best friend. Dog, she missed her. She missed her so much.
She picked up her phone and clicked back into that abandoned text chain. This distance needed to be resolved and it needed to be resolved now.
I need to see you. Please come home. :Max
12/19/13 – 8:04 pm
Max paused a moment, knowing that that alone would do no better than the many desperate pleas sent by her Other self. She needed something to break through to Chloe. To stress the importance of her message. One thought came to mind, triggered by their childhood adventures, and though it seemed a long shot, Max figured it couldn’t hurt.
All hands on deck! The red flag is raised. :Max
A black spot is bestowed.
12/19/13 – 8:04 pm
Her text sent, cryptic code and all, Max sat down at her grandfather’s desk. She could do no more now, but hope that Chloe remembered their childhood games, and that if they meant to her what they meant to Max, she’d break the long held silence.
Refocusing on the desk, Max found that she actually liked the antique frame of it, the smooth indentations of the worn wood and the cool of the marble base proving comforting to the touch. Drab as the rest of the room had become, this piece did add character. She sorted through its various cubbies, at last finding a simple Bic pen, and began to write. She had a lot to tell herself. Hopefully, she’d never need to read it.
About thirty minutes into her journaling, as Max fought to record everything that she had been through over the past two months, the two months that no longer existed, her phone buzzed and she felt that surge of excitement and anticipation once more. It had to be Chloe, it had to be Chloe, it had to be Chloe.
Victoria.
Again.
Max knew that she should check the text, but the thought of one more confrontation with one more person, today, was just too much. As her father called up to her, she felt relieved to seize on any excuse to avoid another exchange with this Victoria, Victoria of the Vortex Club. That meeting could wait until tomorrow.
“Yes, dad?” she called down.
“You have a visitor.”
“Huh,” Max thought, forgetting her phone and heading down the stairs. The text alert buzzed again, flashing across her screen, but Max did not see it, nor pay it any mind.
Victoria: I hope u show tomorrow
Polaroid Princess
12/19/13 – 8:40 pm
As she reached the bottom landing, Ryan gently laid a hand on Max’s shoulder.
“She has extended family, you know.”
“Huh?”
“I know the two of you are close, but she can’t just live off of us forever. She can’t just come and go.”
“What are you talking about?”
“She has aunts and uncles that can take her in, Max.”
Finally it clicked.
“Chloe.” Her name slid out barely a whisper, yet with it came hope and a deep sense of longing.
Chloe was here.
“Max, are you listening to me?” Her father’s words rang out behind her, but they did not penetrate.
Chloe was back.
“What are you wearing? Max, don’t run away from me. We have to talk about this.”
Nonsense. There’s nothing to talk about.
Chloe was alive.
Max burst through the front door in nothing more than Chloe’s punk doe shirt, and a pair of baggy pajama bottoms. She didn’t care. Nothing else mattered in that moment.
She felt the grit of the concrete stabbing into her bare feet, but it barely registered. She ran straight towards that beat-up truck, and to the blue-haired angel leaning against the hood, cigarette in hand.
Chloe was alive and right here, right now.
“Hey, Long Max Silver. Long time…” Chloe started, a nervous smirk about her expression, but before she could say anything else, Max glommed onto her, pressing into Chloe’s side and squeezing her in the tightest hug that she could.
Chloe was in her arms.
