Chapter Text
On a ghastly night such as this when the winds howled tremendously across Arcadia Bay and an onset of industrial-strength tidal waves clash against the cliffs, and loud percussion of lightning storms clapping furiously in the sky, have coerce our once well-spirited, modest protagonist named Max Caulfield to wake up from her slumber as she found herself in the woods. She hadn't the faintest clue at how she got here, but she knew instantaneously on where to go; and her destination was not far: the lighthouse was nearby, it illuminated effulgently like a holistic sanctuary amidst the bizarre storm and it represents the beacon of hope and light for those who seek it. The lighthouse had appeared before Max's eyes as it was obscured sparsely by the swaying trees, moving directionally to the storm just as her weak, fragile body felt like going; but her strong purpose to live and determination to save Chloe was just as important than succumbing her entire body to the tornado like a sacrificial offering.
The tornado was like a swirling funnel of deaths and destruction, destroying everything it touched, vacuuming them like a black hole and spewing them out like mother nature's version of poltergeist. Max fiercely battled against the intense wind hurling her way as she crossed the path of perils and dooms only to reach the lighthouse where she knew she would be safe and sound. The translucent doe was there, guiding her way to safety, but it disappears as soon as the dark clouds in the sky took shapes and swirled into faces of Joyce, David Madsen, Nathan, Mr. Mark Jefferson, Victoria, Kate, and many more with whom Max knew whilst attending Blackwell Academy.
To Max: this was a nightmarish rendition of the Lion King entwined with some serious elements used from Jehovah's witnesses.
"Max, why did you choose to save Chloe when it was her destiny to die from the start." the voice sounded like Victoria. "I was only eighteen years old; I had an entire life ahead of me and you ruined it, Max Caulfield. You ruined it. I only hope bad things would come to you because you deserve it."
Max did not have a proper answer for such reprimanding question, but she was shaking her head and clapping her hands to her ears, refusing to hear any more insults from them ever again. Did they deserved to die? No! But it was her powers, she could do what she wanted. Who said life was ever fair?
"I hope you fully capture one last photo of Arcadia Bay in a tornado because that would be one photo you would not forget, Miss Caulfield." Jefferson's cynical voice echoed softly through the storm.
"Eat shit and die, Mark Jefferson! Just eat shit and die!" Max screamed at the sky.
"Oh, Max, we don't blame you for choosing Chloe over Arcadia Bay. I know you love Chloe. We love her too, and I believe you made the right decision, sug." The voice of Joyce burned in Max's mind, leaving a carbon print etched on her brain, never forgetting the good times she had with Joyce and Chloe when William was alive.
"Oh, Max, you promised me that we would go to Portland and look at tea setting and purchase books at Powell's. You broke your promise, Max; you broke your promise. You only convince me out of killing myself on that roof so you can let me die by your wrath. Why Max? I thought we were friends." The voice of Kate resonated in her head, booming loudly in rapacious strokes of thunder.
"I'm so sorry, Kate. I never wanted you to die."
"Bullshit!" Victoria hissed, menacingly to Max's hypocritical statement. Her tongue were split into two and morphed into snakes. All of her female classmates like Alyssa, Brooke, Dana, Juliet, Stella, Victoria and even the docile Kate turned into wind spirits and screeched past Max like screaming banshees; and Max could not move away from the cesspool of blood-curdling screeches and the guttural storms whirling around her. She could not move a muscle for she suffered from sleep paralysis.
"Max, wake up? Oh god, Max! You're having a fucking seizure!" Chloe put Max on her side and waits for the seizure to elapse. After that a heterogeneous mixture of blood, vomit and phlegm spewed out of her mouth and her stomach churned at the malodorous waft that came from the vomit.
The sapphire-haired Chloe pressed her hand onto Max's bare shoulder and the other one was removing her hair from her mouth. She could hear her life partner wheezing uncontrollably and her teeth chattering. Chloe kissed her shoulder and her forehead emotionally with tears dripping out of her eyes, understanding full well of her girlfriend's situation.
"How could I ever forget what you did for me ten years ago, Super-Max! It seems like forever but you chose me and I wouldn't be here, appreciating life to the fullest if it wasn't for you, Max. You helped me open my eyes and see the world so differently, broadening my horizon and making me appreciate the littlest things in life. I have never felt so grateful in my life, and I might have said this a thousand times but you hella save my life, and I have never love someone as much as I have love you."
"They didn't deserve to die, Chloe; I could have return back to the past and try to save you and Arcadia Bay but I felt like it was one or the other: I couldn't lost you again, Chloe no matter what the universe was trying to say."
Chloe clamped up to Max and hugged her tightly so she would not talk ill about herself; Max deserves better than hearing how much everything was her fault. "Listen: you don't need to carry the burdens all to yourself, I have to carry them too. I don't want you to suffer because of your decisions; instead all I want is for you to learn to forgive yourself. It has been ten years: don't let the past haunts you forever and just move on with your life. You have so much potentials, Max, but you are just impeding yourself from your true calling. I know that it was my fault: if it wasn't for my brash and irrational actions then you wouldn't have to rewind time several times and Arcadia Bay would have been saved; and you have prove yourself over and over again that regardless of what the universe has been telling you: you defy the universe and choose what you want in your life. I'm tryna say that the universe is a big bully - "
Max pushed Chloe aside, aching her back and shoulder and trying to pour some moralistic sense into Chloe. "You don't understand, Chloe: I killed Joyce and David, your parents, and everyone with a tornado. I destroyed the whole town; I killed Kate, Warren, Alyssa, Victoria; I killed everyone I have ever met there. I could have save them and even you each time I have a fucking chance to go back in time; but every time I return, I end up in a fucking loophole, telling me to choose either you or Arcadia Bay and the consequences of my actions always worsen."
Chloe leaned her face against Max and laced her hands into her girlfriend's hands as though they were supplicating their God: "Max Caulfield, you did save me, like a million times and you have prove it a millions times. No matter what Max, you have to remind yourself over and over again that it was never your fault, and that you can't save everyone like you can't impress everyone with your great aesthetic talent. I believe you have talents and powers far beyond anything the world has ever seen regardless of the position you are in. I still believe in you Max Caulfield. Don't give up on your life so easily because I won't let you. Be strong and show the world what you're made of, Maxlock."
"I can show the world that I'm a fucking monster that let an entire town be obliterated by a tornado." Her sobs exacerbated and her body convulsed suddenly. "For fuck's sake, Chloe, I never even get to see how my friends' families were doing after all this shit that I've done. I never bother attending any of the funerals being held in their names, and I never even bothered contacting their families and seeing if they were okay. I'm a fucking monster: I should have died in the tornado when I had the chance, or, I should have killed myself before the loop started."
Chloe embraced her and hugged her tightly, mustering as much effort as she could to make sure that Max wouldn't breathe another ill word about herself: "Max Caulfield: you be nice to yourself! I feel sorry for the people of Arcadia Bay but that was way beyond your powers. You have to remember that you are not the Greek Titan Atlas: you can't shoulder the entire world like you can't burden yourself with everyone's problems and try to solve them yourselves; rather you have to let them solve it themselves and endure the inexplicable, insufferable road of life like we have. I would never let you die: not at my watch. You have to be strong and live. If you die then I never get to see what life would be like to have a family of our own."
"Chloe, not now. I don't even want to think about having kids this instant." said Max, sniffing and sobbing altogether, making her choked every word she said.
"I know: you don't want kids because you feel that your conditions can affect the child; and you don't want the child to feel as miserable as you do. I understand... I just thought adopting a child together would be a big step for us to move forward, and not go backward from where we started."
Chloe stroked Max's hair and caressed her back gently. Max took Chloe's hand and placed it around her shoulder and asked very solemnly as if it was the last dying words: "Please don't leave me. Not from everything I done."
Chloe nibbled on her ears and whispered softly: "I'm never leaving you: not from all the things you have done and the fact that I love you so much." Max wanted to hear those words again as it resonated softly through her ears and across her minds until she was sure it was gone as she asked Chloe to say those words softly to her again; and Chloe always complied.
After that emotional, heart-wrenching tryst, Chloe made an effort to clean the pillowcase on which vomits were stained, but Max wouldn't dismiss her just yet. "Oh, Chloe, please don't leave me." she said, shivering from the cold from which she descended at the cost of all the grieves and anxieties she had endured for ten years. Imagine all the efforts and work to make sure Chloe was alive would be all for nothing.
"Don't worry, Max," Chloe assured her compassionately, "I'm just taking these sheets to the laundry. You can't sleep in your own vomit -that's deplorable - and you deserved so much better in life."
"No, I don't... I'm tired of victimizing myself...and Chloe, I'm not tired at all."
"Well, fine with me, after tossing this in the washing machine, I could fetch some late night snacks at Taco Bell? I think they're opened until 1am or two...I'm not really certain about that but I'll go out and check for myself-"
"No, that's not what I want?"
"Are you certain you don't want Taco Bell? I meant...there's a new flavor crispy taco shells which are made entirely from Hot Cheetos. Hot Cheetos! "
"That's not what I meant, Chloe." Max said, stubbornly.
Chloe's intuition kicks in and hits her in the noggin: she realized she was the biggest idiot in the room. "I understand: something bad is going to happen to me when I'm on the drive-thru lane at Taco Bell...like getting robbed or something. Was my predication? Or was it off-course?"
"No, you know that I don't have rewind powers or any premonitions of what will happen in the future; I lost all that powers after I came to the decision that I want you in my life."
Chloe felt a pang of remorse and intense love, entwined together in a cesspool of emotions that were unfathomable to those with no eyes, ears and hearts to see, hear and feel what was she could sense in Max. But she was arching her eyebrow in confusion as to what her girlfriend wanted. "Whaddya want, Mad Max? You are making my head spins. If it's something humiliating then you should spill it out because I wouldn't mind a few laughter from you."
"Thanks, but making someone laugh is harder than you think...what I really want is for you to be by my side and -
"-and you want me to make love to you." Chloe jumps in; although she felt a peal of moroseness tolling at the weight of her heart, there were giddiness that made her very happy to make Max happy even though it was temporarily. But in her heart she wanted more than to give Max a temporary relief that ease her from the burdens she have mourned and lamented heavily for a decade now; she wanted Max to change her whole perspective of life so that she wouldn't be haunted by the past. "Max, I'm going to be by your side and smother with conversations you want believe your ears."
"I would like that very much." Max's weak smile began to widen gradually into a luminous beam.
This was the forefront of Chloe's stratagem of delaying lovemaking because there was a little voice in her that felt Max was using sex as an excuse for leaving reality temporarily, like sex to her was a addictive substance that only gives momentary relief, and Chloe's conscious couldn't account for that.
Chloe changed the bed sheets and pillowcases and tossed the dirty-stained ones onto the floor as a reminder for her to do laundry first thing in the morning, or in the afternoon unless she was too lazy. Chloe slid right next to Max's side and kissed her on the lip: "Tell me about your nightmare - I want to know everything about it."
Max told her everything from the lighthouse to the tornado to the destruction of Arcadia Bay recurring over and over again in her minds like the repercussion of lightning strikes; although this very incident had occurred in their lives - to Max, it became a huge reminder of her errors and ways, which she can never forget the onslaught of people for which she could never be pardon.
They talk for hours nonstop: not just about the nightmare, but the upcoming tenth year anniversary of the Memorial Calamity that had occurred in their hometown Arcadia Bay; the several rejection letters of Max's submissions to the art world; the plethora of financial issues mounting high on their desks that categorize from federal loans, past bills and rents; Chloe's qualifications that got her a job as counselor for people at their local drug rehab; and most devastatingly of all that would actually occurred more in everyone's lives than a tornado, was the pink slip that Max acquired as a first-grade teacher at school, which can mean that she would have a higher risk of being selected to the unemployment office, if she didn't get her acts together. Sensing that none of the teachers, the principal, the superintendent and all the board of the education understand what she has been going through for the last ten years, made Max feel like karma was not on her side after all she came to the notion that she deserved this punishment. She no longer covets any immunity from any punishments whether it was the law or the boundless spiritual realm that directionally sent her these bad karmas or jujus.
Chloe did not like that especially when it was happening to her distraught girlfriend, and by all means, they need a lot of financial resources to pay for all those bills, federal loans and late rent dues under which they have been buried for three years now. Thanks the goddesses that Max had a hobby in her spare time: an eye for capturing great scenery with her astounding Polaroid instant camera which she would carry around so that way she won't miss a beat of her wonderful little adventures in her daily life and she had always love to boast the pictures she would shoot for Chloe to see afterwards; and having to hear Chloe says, "Damn Max, you're fucking talented with those camera," is more fulfilling than hearing the commendations of professionals. What separate the professionals from Chloe is that Chloe is all that matters in Max's life: she would rather hear her thoughts, compliments, criticisms because it stands the loudest in the crowd of uproarious fans, critics, professionals, trolls and friends and families.
As a freelance photographer, she would ask Chloe to model for her - and of course the blue-haired Chloe would always complied just so she could be seen on camera - and Max would upload those photos on the internet as stock images for monetary purposes. People would love photoshopping Chloe's bodies into their forms of art, particularly a favorite of Max was the avant-garde Aegis Strife - who have a very strong connection to his feminine side and known for his critical-acclaim artwork Deliberation - have been artistically attracted to Chloe and have manipulated her image on Adobe Photoshop CS6 and transformed her into a beautiful angelic beacon of light and femininity, surrounded with the pinnacle of nature and the destruction of a "man-made" civilization: this was to deliver a strong message to the world about the very importance of femininity and the chaos and destruction behind religions, sexism, racism and all generalizing bigotry especially astrology.
Of course Max did ask Chloe's permission before uploading them on the internet, because those images was Chloe's entire body, by uploading them without her permission was wrong, and it was infringing her rights. Max had always have a good conscience and morals, but she was afraid Chloe might say no after what Nathan had put her through, taking her photo when she was unconscious. She knew that Nathan was only capturing her essence whilst unconscious to impress his avant-garde, fatherly-figure Mark "Fucking Shithead" Jefferson.
Max had always suggests Chloe to take up modeling since she had the look, the height, the style and everythin, but Chloe refused. Seeing what Max had went through in the Dark Room with that sadistic-masochistic serial photographer Mark "Shithead" Jefferson, coupled with some weird indie experimental documentaries she watched during her college years about the horrors inside of the modeling world, particularly when those female models were forced to pose however the photographers wanted them to be subjected, especially when they had to pose nude or be used like a sexual object for men; but they can't do anything about it because they signed a contract and their blood is on the covenant. Chloe hated this man-possessed, materialistic society but she was no feminist, because she felt feminism had a strong masculine trait that promotes women to think like a man more often than be blessed with their sensitive side and intuition; although she might reconsidered at the fact that feminism have helped promote women's rights around the world, Chloe can't criticize them anymore, because if it wasn't for feminism, she wouldn't be able to break the glass ceiling and have a girlfriend as her life partner.
On June 26th, 2015, two years after the tornado, gay marriage was legalize throughout the United States but Chloe and Max were still in school, and education was predominately their main focus because it can transcends them from many obstacles which education could resolve. A holy matrimony together would be the last thing in their minds while they were in school. On the topic of school, they were lucky that they did not bother going to a four-year university eight years ago instead they both chose to enroll into community college whilst working a part-time job for money they saved for that 46 dollars per unit tuition at Pacific Northwest College in Seattle, and another spark of luck charmed their paths in life when they living with Max's parents. Of course, Max's parents were happy to pay for Max and Chloe's tuition fees, but they both refused wholeheartedly because it had occurred to them like needles pinning directly into their skins that both of their parents have done so much for their child. For instance Chloe never bother looking for a job or getting her GED after she was expelled from Blackwell Academy, and her mother and stepfather had to foster her till the very end; and that's when she came to term with reality and finally learn the importance of responsibilities which was the reason why she is less brash and irrational because her actions have spoken before and taught her something about herself that she could not find in good conscience to redeem, not from all the bullshits her mother and step-father had went through raising and taking care of her.
Subsequently after completing their associates degree in community college, they vaulted to the banks and ask for federal loans of a hundred fifty thousand dollars: Chloe wanted to enroll to a public university after community college and got sixty thousand dollars from government loans whilst Max's desire to become a artist had cost her ninety thousand dollars at Art Center College of Design as she majored in photography and minored in graphic design. Financial aids did not cover everything, or most importantly, the fact was that they did not get any financial aids from the government, or procure financial scholarships regardless of how laborious Max and Chloe have worked during their poignant times in community college: acquiring good grades and participating in club activities. Currently they have been paying up their dues with a monthly payment plan, and it would have been a lot more easier to pay them if they weren't exacerbated with rents and other bills like electricity and insurance and more. But that was life; and Max was still late on those dues, and the government was growing impatient with the money that they send another payment bill requiring her to pay in interests too. America! A place where you can't get anything done when the government is all over her ass.
After finishing their jesters and chats together, Max felt tired after exhausting her inordinate energies talking to Chloe, with whom she could talk endlessly, without having to feel the insecurity that comes with acquainting new people and talking to them. Chloe was definitely priceless: she was her best friend and lover, and when it comes to someone in that relationship status, it becomes much more easier for Max to open up and humiliate herself in front of her lover. She went to sleep in Chloe's arm by the side of her bed and they both slept noiselessly until the alarm clock on their phones triggered, waking them from an hour of somnolence.
"I really have no intention of going to school today." Max yawned, pressing the snooze button on her smartphone.
"Lucky for you, at least your students are first graders and you get to be around kids more than I do." Chloe intoned sardonically. She jumped out of bed and collected the memento of dirty laundry she had left on the floor to remind herself of the first thing she had to do in the morning. "My job is more heart-wrenching than yours: I have to counsel misguided people on their own paths of discovery - talk about a douche for their souls."
Max couldn't stop laughing at the subtlety being poured into that joke.
"I wasn't trying to be funny, but at least I made Max Caulfield laughed, which is the first thing I've done in the morning: that's a win in my book."
"Chloe, I'm sorry."
"What for? You were laughing; I made you laugh: isn't that not the best thing in life."
"It's just ...it had never dawned on me that you wanted a child so badly."
"When I'm with you, I want all the children in the world; I want to adopt them all like Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt and Mia Farrow, and turned an orphanage into a sanctuary like those sisters from that oldies show we used to watch when we were kids: I think it was called the Flying Nun."
"You're so sweet." Max kissed Chloe on the forehead.
Surprisingly, Chloe said something that would make Max winced at the idea. "What are we waiting for then? Let's go have a child of our own!"
Max could not respond, and she wanted to respond so hopelessly to Chloe's enthusiastic exclamation so she said nothing; but her tenebrous expression nonetheless spoke a thousand words that convince Chloe to understand the gravity of the situation that were taken in place.
"I know...I know: I just don't want to point out your conditions like it was an excuse for everything."
"I'm sorry, but it's not always that - we also have financial issues... Chloe, I love you but I don't want to bring a child to this world because of me."
"Don't worry Max. I don't want to push you anymore into having a child than I ought to; and no, Max, having no children of our own will not inflict a scar upon our relationship. Let's just call this a lover's quarrel. "
"Isn't it always?" Max chuckled.
They both embraced each other, and Max could feel the soft thumping of Chloe's heart tingling on her skin, intensifying her desire to make love to Chloe. She withdrawn from the hug so suddenly that Chloe felt like she did something wrong to make nothing of this issue go Max's ways, but she dismissed that issue from her head and bustled outside her apartment and went downstairs, where the laundry facility was stationed.
Max went to the closet and donned a khaki pantsuit and dark navy coat for today because she didn't feel like she was in the stylish mood, heck it never dawn on her mind that she ought to look very stylish and exquisite just to impress people. She was never any good at impressing people unless she had her rewind power back, but what for: it never did any good for her and Chloe, look what had happened to Arcadia Bay if she didn't have to rewind time just so people would like so much and become popular and be known as an artist. Regardless of her low popularity scale and her curriculum vitae, she was a fucking artist: she knew how to draw, paint, play the guitar and take great quality photos with her Polaroid instant camera that she didn't need to be branded as an artist; but just Maxine Caulfield, the Queen of Versatility.
Soon this Queen of Versatility would be cooking up a hearty breakfast with the Queen of Arcadia Bay, and that is all that matters to Max right now: breakfast with someone whom she loves so much. She entered her small, mahogany kitchen and set up the preparation bowls and pans for a delicious blueberry delight of pancakes. She grabbed the frozen blueberries from the freezer and tossed that into the batch with cracked eggs, a half gallon of milk and an entire butter into the batter, then mix it good. Chloe arrived just in time for the cooking part because the preparation segment was a complete boredom to administer.
A small slice of butter was tossed onto the frying pan and they could hear the sizzling sounds of melted butter, screaming for its life in agony. During their cooking session, Chloe struck up the conversation on behalf of renting the other room of their two bedroom apartment for monetary purposes.
"I had thought about that but the last time we did an open house thing, everyone treated us like a second-class citizens." Max said.
"When was this?" inquired Chloe.
"Three months ago when I was showing this crazy woman the guest bedroom and I said to her that me and you live here. At first she thought we were roommates or something but when I mentioned to her that we were a couple, she freaked out and scrammed for the door, calling me a sinner of lust and... (sigh) the facilitator of all unorthodox things."
"What a homophobe! Why didn't you tell me about this three months ago?" inquired Chloe inquisitively.
"It's nothing for you to be concern about. There are more things to be concern about than bigots who would drown our love with their hatred and shove their antediluvian beliefs down our throats.
"True." Chloe could detect the anger brimming into Max when she mentioned about that homophobic woman, it was like her instinct was a giant spider's web that can detect the pace of Max's heartbeats whenever a mood struck her. "By all means, Max, you could always tell me anything that is always bugging you, and not to mention but I am a licensed guidance counselor - don't you forget about that."
"I won't." Max said. She poured the batter into the frying pan and cook them one by one. She started chuckling at the idea of a male roommate. "There was another person I should mentioned."
"Yeah. Was this person a homophobic pastor or something?"
"Not really. He was weird when I told him about us being a couple and all. He just keeps saying how cool it was that we were gay and stuff."
"Go on." Chloe insisted.
"He had a capricious penchant for cameras like me."
"Oh my god! You guys would make a great couple." Chloe joked sarcastically.
"Don't joke. I didn't like him that much because I was scared -"
"Scared he might rigged the nook and crannies of our bedroom and bathroom with miniscule cameras so he can spy on us with our clothes off."
Max nodded shamefully.
"It's a good thing you rejected him, Max. I don't want a perverted voyeur under our roof."
"That makes the two of us, Chloe."
"Especially if he was a man - a cute man trying to take my Max away." said Chloe, jokingly.
"Don't jester and besides I love you." Max said, pensively.
They placed their dining sets on the oak table and sat down across each other as they would wolf down their meals with gusto. Chloe began a conversation with her mouth full.
"Don't you have any attraction for the opposite gender?"
"Yes, I do: I used to like skater boys, but I only like them because when we were on our adolescent years, you were always skating therefore... it just coalesce together." Just thinking of Justin and Trevor skating at school and Trevor getting hit on the crotch with the skateboard as he tried to execute a tree flip made Max sad.
Chloe also sense that too as she swallowed her pancakes. "Let's talk about something else then...I see you saw my skating photos."
Max's eyes trailed off to the distance: "I remember that photo: it was downstairs where David would look at them devotedly after Joyce kicked him out...you had long blonde hair and you look amazing."
"I still do...let's change subject then."
Max snapped from her hazy reminiscence and thought of something to talk about. "I recalled there was another person who wanted a room here but he was too stingy with the rent, and he wanted the room for eight hundred dollars."
"I would have accept that seven or eight years ago if inflation didn't increase to two hundred percent; and with this stagnant economy and inflation and the fact that our monthly rent is $2600, we can't even afford to pay up our bills hence our groceries."
"I know: this is the only affordable place in Portland." Max sighed, wishing she could live with her parents in Seattle had she not been so prideful of being independent. Of course, her parents would be so happy and relieved for Max and Chloe to live with them just like before they had during their college years but Max was getting sick and tired of the immense downfall of rain in Seattle, it only made her more depressed and sad. She understands people loves the rain especially those who loved them in cities where rain comes seldom, which is like a cathartic ritual for their cleansing of their souls and spirits and bodies; but the rain always feel like it was affiliated with tragedy, and that's why she kind of hated it.
They didn't live in a penthouse or a townhouse or anything beyond luxurious, instead they lived in a simple, decrepit two-bedroom apartment with rudimentary amenities such as the laundry facility downstairs, parking spaces, and paid utilities, in which they lived for three years since Max was twenty-five years old and Chloe was twenty-six years old. Portland had a huge employment rate, great working benefits and it was the one of the cleanest cities in the United States with its outstanding green programs, and it was also close to Arcadia Bay: that's the reason why they chose Portland to live Arcadia Bay.
"Speaking of attraction," Max strike up this conversation again because it always come rarely in the house although they were a couple, "I always envisioned Victoria in a burlesque outfits."
"O-kay, that came out of nowhere." Chloe said, affrightedly.
"I remember going to Dana's room before -" Max swallowed, thinking about her friend's attempted suicide. "Kate tried to kill herself. Dana was going to throw all these awesome Halloween decorations around the campus, and I went onto her computer and saw the website of amazing burlesque costume for 150 dollars...and one thing led to another."
"Ooh-la-la, I don't know what that means, but you are definitely a certified latent homoromantic."
"Yup...I don't really understand the whole labeling system used in the LGBT community but I do sponsored their support in championing gay rights and all."
"Me neither...about the labeling thing, that is. I don't know if sexuality is fluid or fixed at birth, but I couldn't care less; it's just those things that makes people different but the same. No one is clearly a hundred percent gay or a hundred percent straight; it's just somewhere on the margin of spectrum. " Chloe finished her meals and rinsed it immaculately on the sink.
"Well, Max, just because you are attracted to girls...and boys does not mean your life should revolves around your sexuality."
"I know...all I know, Chloe, is that I am physically, mentally, spiritually, emotionally and sexually attracted to you."
"Those are the qualities I find in you, too."
"I don't know what I would do without you."
Chloe looked at Max's empty dish. "Are you going for second?"
"No...do you want to clean my dishes."
"I'll be so fortunate to clean the dish on which you eat these pancakes so wholeheartedly and left your mark." Chloe said graciously. She made a perfect, low curtsy used customarily for women in England when they try to acquaint themselves with the Queen.
"You're such a dork." teased Max.
"I know you are but what am I?" Chloe cleaned her dishes while Max went to the bathroom to brush her teeth.
Chloe sighed deeply as she dropped the dish into the sink and watched the sunrise through the window. She could hear the synthetic-bristled toothbrush running vertically and horizontally on Max's teeth, doing a lot of wonders for a fantastic dental hygiene which Max would carry in stride. The whole tenth anniversary of Arcadia Bay had got her so preoccupied which was bad but also totally good because there was something Chloe had hid from her partner for too long, and it had to stop. She couldn't live with the guilt, and the tendrils of darkness was taking her to the abyss. Max will find out immediately because she was a snoop; and Chloe wanted to tell her deep dark secret to her when it was time, but she couldn't bear to bring herself into this.
She will have to find a way to tell her somehow.
Part 1 ends here