I'm new to this fandom. But the moment I made Max comfort Victoria Chase on that step, I was chasefield trash! Do. You. Hear. Me? Lol. Hope you enjoy and I would love feedback!
Disclaimer: Mentions of bulimia.
It's not like Max Caulfield's some extraverted social butterfly. She's easily drained, selective and cautious about who gets her energy. Even still, the pact-like silence that's following her around campus is startling.
She's been enrolled three days. An outsider looking in, this time not by choice. Maybe that's what bothers her – that she hasn't gotten chance to reject Blackwell's elitist bullshit before it can reject her.
And she would have, in her own reserved way.
She doesn't keep her finger on the pulse of all the latest fashion trends, nor does she cruise Arcadia Bay's streets in the kind of car that frequents rap videos.
Her shapeless graphic t-shirts and battered hatchback suit her fine.
She doesn't raise her hand in class and enunciate long-winded answers to showcase how knowledgeable she is, and she doesn't care to theorize about why Abella Couture collapsed on stage during her Super Bowl performance.
Her mumbled answers are to the point, and who even is Abella Couture?
She doesn't.
They do.
And she knows: that's why silence is her companion.
Not that she has some vendetta against silence. It's serene. Insights live there. Reflection. Possibility too. Observations dismantled and reassembled in infinite ways there.
Yes, these are the states that Max prefers. That's not what this silence is. This is Blackwell's own brand: uppity, scornful, and cliquey. Just as well. She prefers to dip her toe into social wells only when they're devoid of plastic. Only when there's depth to them and meaningful life roams abundant.
Unlikely at Blackwell Academy.
Wet toes are gross anyway, Max decides as she pushes her dorm room door in shut behind her. Her back sags against it. She closes her eyes, blindly tosses her bag to the foot of her bed. Listens to it slowly sag on its side, books, tablet, and cell phone slipping from its tattered mouth.
Her need to face the here and now is masochistic. Still it lifts Max's eyelids. She peers around her room. Her room, she scoffs. Nothing about Blackwell Academy is her. Nothing about this side of Arcadia Bay is her.
She misses Aurora Creek, the rundown musty bookstore that would swallow her for, it seems, days at a time. She misses Colton's Record Store, covets that time has rubbed away most of the establishment's letters and she's old enough to remember when they winked in the distance. She got swept into the whirlwind that is Chloe Price in the punk rock aisle at age thirteen.
Within ten minutes Max was ghost-white and wearing handcuffs in the store's back because, "don't lie Chloe. I saw you stuffing CD's down your buddy's pants. Little shmucks."
The guy in the duck costume. The one who stands on Pacing Ave flapping his wings and encouraging passersby to toss money into his tin of nickels. For all the lulz, Max misses him too.
She misses the undercurrent of unity that colors her memories of Aurora Creek's people. The kind of unity that pricks the thumb and threads people together via mutual struggle. The kind that nods at its neighbor and says, 'I understand. We're in this together.'
Max isn't deluded enough to pretend it's all prayer circles and kumbayas. Aurora Creek people don't have much. Never have. And that spurs all sorts of theft-related violent crime, high school students met each morning by hard-faced security guards wielding handheld body scanners. But the majority? The majority of the dilapidated town's residents, despite outside consensus deeming them vermin, are kind-hearted, compassionate, inclusive people.
Max really misses that.
She slumps down onto her bed and reaches down by her lopsided bag, fingertips roaming its spilled guts until they clasp her cell phone.
4 Messages.
Max already knows who they're from.
Mom: How are Mark Jefferson's classes, hun? I'm so proud of you for getting into that fancy school! Brush shoulders with the offspring of anyone influential yet? Enjoying yourself so far? xxxx
"What's not to enjoy?" Max grumbles, swiping the message out of sight.
Chloe's name sits next to the three remaining bolded envelope icons. Max chews the inside of her lip.
Chloe: Wot up? Y you ghosting? Message me or I'll think you've been bitten n turned into a plastic, in which case there's no hope for u n we can't be friends no mo'.
Max eases into a smirk, amused by the next to life-like voice that always plays in her head whenever she reads Chloe's texts.
Chloe: Still no message huh? U act like I can't drive the hour n a half it'll take me to get to Blackwell, n drag u for ignoring me. Message when u get outta prison. I mean class ;)
Chloe: Ur not gonna believe this! I still haven't heard from u! Crazy right? This NEVER happens! This is SO out of the ordinary I think I'm gonna have to call the cops to report u missing.
The sarcasm is palpable. Still Max almost drops her phone fumbling to dial her best friend's number, drumming an antsy foot against the wall whilst it rings.
If anyone knows Chloe, perhaps better than anyone, it's Max. Calling the police and wasting their time simply to get Max's attention isn't out of the realm of possibilities...
"Oh, well how thoughtful of you to grace me with a phone call."
Max's lips slant into a contrite crooked smile. She groans. "I'm sorry?"
"Sorry's accidentally dropping my snow globe. Not ignoring my calls and messages for, like, a century."
Suitably shamed, Max nods at her bed sheets, picking at the fabric. She doesn't have an explanation other than the fact that sometimes she just needs to be inside of her own head, dealing with things her own way. In her own space. And as much as she loves Chloe, the blue-haired rebel's personality isn't always conducive to introspection.
"So? What's the story down there in plasticsville?" Chloe urges, like the least Max can do is download her on the latest happenings.
"No story, other than I'm apparently invisible."
"It's the mom jeans fo' sho," Chloe snickers, to which Max grins but says nothing. "Hey – are you actually bothered?"
"Not really? I mean, you know I'm not all that big on people. It's just... weird. It's like that episode of Black Mirror – you know, the one where you can block people in real life and all you see is this impersonal grey silhouette instead of a person? Even the staff are standoffish."
"Even my step-ass?"
Max shrugs a shoulder. "Even David, yeah."
"I'm not surprised. He's hella temperamental. More recently 'cause mom hasn't been giving him any. Says she won't again unless he gets the foul stink that is his man mayo checked out by a doctor."
Max's eyes pop wide, her entire frame tensing. "Chloe," she groans, sagging into a facepalm.
"What? Let's not act like I didn't find that video on your phone."
Aaand it gets worse.
"Oh! Oh fff! I'm gonna, yeah, I'm gonna come," Chloe whines. Her breath pours into Max's ear in heavy, ragged, all too realistic pants then.
Max doesn't know where to put her face. Her flaming, and no doubt red, face.
"Come on, you know it's all good Max. Hey, at least you have stellar taste in porn. I'm still impressed! That was one steamy vid. I –"
"Can we talk about something else – anything else?"
"She doesn't wanna talk about her porn stash ladies and gents. What are you gonna do?" Chloe pantomimes. "Anyway, fuck David. Fuck 'em all. Take it as a compliment that they look straight through you! They're all fucking insane and we're the only normal ones. Haven't I always told you that? I'd be worried if they loved you."
"Uh, thanks Chloe."
"Any time, Maximus! So... did you, uh, did you see Rachel yet?"
Ah. The enigmatic Rachel Amber. The only 'plastic,' to ever make a positive impression on Chloe.
Max comes into a knowing smirk. "No."
"Oh."
"Yeah."
Chloe clears her throat. "...Okay."
"Alrighty then."
"Oh come on, Max!" Chloe finally growls.
Max is happy to oblige.
"I haven't had any mutual classes with her, but I've only been here three days so maybe that'll change. If there's something you want me to tell her –"
"No!" Chloe shrieks. Max listens to her draw in a composing breath and release it. "Just, she's the only one you can trust down there. I sent her a text asking her to look out for you."
"She's doing a fantastic job," comes Max's dry quip.
"Yeah well, she didn't respond. Kinda like you ignoring me all decade!"
"I guess you just have that effect on women," Max teases, hoping that her best friend is in a place with this where she can appreciate the humor.
The small mirthful hum that plays in her ear tells her that Chloe is.
"Sassy Max will always be my number one wifey."
"Oh she's the only Max. All other incarnations are just masks I wear to get me through each day unharmed."
Their laughter winds together, rising up before fluttering to a natural end.
"Seriously though, I've sorta learned that it's a thing to let people think you're more reserved than you are. When they think they have more resolve than you, that their voice is more significant, they reveal themselves. It's, I don't know, interesting to watch."
"Hella true. But I couldn't be reserved if I tried? I only have one setting, sweet cheeks, and that's bull in a China shop."
"And there's nothing wrong with that my dear."
"I'm gonna get her back, Max," Chloe promises, suddenly quiet and vulnerable, and nothing like the bull that she's just tagged herself as. "I'm gonna get Rachel back."
"I have no doubt that you will," Max tells her. She lets the soft reassurance sit between them for a moment, and then: "Are you sure you don't want me to do some meddling – talk to her, speed things up?"
"No way! She thinks I fucked that girl! She thinks I'd do that to her!" Chloe barks, and it sounds accusatory, but Max knows it's not about them. "I'm as pissed at her as she is at me 'cause I never did anything to make her think I was some shady player, you know? She doesn't trust me. I don't know why and it pisses me off!"
Max knows why. Chloe is, well... Chloe. Impulsive, passionate, flirtatious, dangerous. Desirable. She has this quality about her. This unattainability that, of course, just makes girls want to tame her, even if just for one night. She's magnetic enough to attract beautiful girls in droves, arrogant enough to know it, and smooth enough to capitalize, which is an understandable concern for anyone dating her. Stripped to the bones though, Chloe is as loyal as they come.
But Rachel, apparently, doesn't know that.
"Listen, I'm gonna go," Chloe says, recovered from her outburst, at least on the surface. "I got some potent Purple Haze here. It's giving me seduction eyes, begging to be smoked, and since I have no one to blaze it with..." she trails playfully.
Max smiles, remembering all the times that she's gotten high with her best friend. Hours upon hours spent in their hazy cocoon of smoke contemplating the universe and picking apart the human psyche. Taking pictures, jamming to music, and dissolving into fits of giggles over absolutely nothing.
"Enjoy it Chloe."
"Booya! I'm out."
And with that, silence rushes back in around Max.
She sits up and puts her cellphone on her pillow, leaning back against the wall that shoulders her bed. The guitar across the room catches her awareness. She absently taps her knee.
It's been a while since –
"Hello?"
Max's fingers still about her denim-clad kneecap. She looks to her door, daring it to rumble with another soft knock, to sound with another hesitant –
"Hello?"
Yep. This is definitely happening. Someone is knocking, chasing the silence into the shadows.
Max scoots forward and stands, crossing the small distance until she's twisting the door handle down and opening the door just enough to see the entirety of her visitor – an unassuming kind-faced girl with mouse-blonde hair, who's pressing her fingertips together like she isn't sure what to do with her hands.
With a tilt of the head, Max realizes that she recognizes her.
"Hi," the girl says through a smile that favors a grimace. She begins to thumb the wooden cross that rests at her sternum, her other hand falling to her side. "You're new here, right?"
"Guilty as charged," Max says, friendly with it.
"I'm Kate." The girl swallows. So hard that the subsequent, "Marsh," hits the air hoarse. "I sit just ahead of you in Mr. Jefferson's class, and" – She hesitantly juts her thumb over her shoulder – "I-I room just a couple doors down."
Max thrums with the need to soothe the girl's obvious nerves, to let her know that she needn't be nervous about talking to her – that she's just Max. So she projects a kind smile, opens her door a crack wider, and consciously softens her voice when she says, "well it's nice to meet you, Kate. I'm Max. It's so thoughtful that you'd come and say hi."
"Oh, it's really nothing," Kate rushes out, another pained smile flitting through her expression.
It doesn't go unnoticed.
"You're the first student to talk to me, which, it's kinda strange but not really at all shocking."
Kate looks off, awkwardly clears her throat. "Right."
Max frowns and they both just stand there.
"So uh, Kate, other than saying hi what brings you to my humble residence?"
Kate's thumb halts its glide along her cross pendant. She releases the religious symbol altogether, eyes suddenly downcast, shoulders wooden. "Um, you're new and don't know anyone, and we thought it'd be a nice gesture to invite you to have lunch with us."
An uneasy tension forms in Max's chest. "We?" She briefly pokes her head around the doorframe to survey the corridor that forms their dorm floor.
There isn't a soul around but Kate and herself, which leaves the question, "who's, uh, who's we?"
Kate sucks in a breath, subtly rolls her shoulders back in an attempt at self-composure, and lifts her head. Their eyes meet. Her lips bend around another shaky smile that does little to quell Max's growing unease. "The Vortex Club members."
"Vortex Club? I'm, uh, not sure I understand."
And Max doesn't. Not really. She's seen countless different posters boasting the Vortex Club's hypnotic prowess all over campus, but she hasn't paid them enough mind to know what the Vortex Club actually is. She regrets that now, because the members of said club have summoned her, and she has no idea whether that's good or bad.
But if Kate's demeanor is any indication –
"Look, Kate, thanks for the invite. But I'm not really much of a people person." That sounds awful even to Max's ears. She groans, gently chuckling, "could you sound any more like a serial killer, Max? No but, I just wanna hang out in my room today. So maybe some other time."
Like once I've had a chance to look into this Vortex Club and its members.
Kate's not taking the polite decline well. Her face says so. It's blanched, the ghostly skin between her eyebrows knitting in frown. She takes her hand to the back of her neck and rubs.
Max can almost feel her mind racing a million miles a minute.
"Um, Kate? Is everything okay?"
The rubbing stops sharp. "Just... p-please? Come and have lunch with us," she begs, more so with haunting eyes than a desperate tone, and for the first time Max registers the tired almost bloodshot quality that webs the white of Kate's otherwise kind eyes.
Something is wrong.
That much is clear.
The invitation to lunch with the Vortex Club has to be some sort of setup, Max rationalizes. A lure to a prank. Hazing for the new girl. She's seen Mean Girls and other movies like it. To be bumped all the way up from being invisible to an invitation to eat with Blackwell's most advertised club?
Max can just see herself; strolling along only for a bucket of paint to splatter her, even spotting her tongue for extra points. Cue the catty snickers, recording cell phones, and camera flashes. Followed by the torrent of taunts that are sure to haunt her on social media forever.
"I'm sorry, Kate, but –"
An electronic bleep sounds. Kate flinches but stuffs a shaky hand into her pocket to retrieve the phone. The screen's stark light bludgeons her vision.
And the message...
Queen V: WTF is taking so long? Bet you wouldn't keep Jesus waiting like this, all the Bible humping you do. Move it Mary Magdalene! Or I drop the video today!
The reality of Victoria's threat reaches Kate's bone marrow, and every other part of her that's supposed to be sacred. Her body's not used to sharing space with a fear like this, so it trembles, stomach twisting in preparation to purge what it understands to be poison.
"Are you, Kate, are you –"
Max's lips glob shut at the abrupt movement that sees Kate snap her head up.
Pained blue eyes press her.
She presses back with a worried stare and reaches for the girl's shoulder, stopping short when Kate flinches away. "Hey, you can talk to me. What's going on?"
"Please Max. It's nothing sinister. I-It's just, the president of the Vortex Club. She..." Kate's throat bobs and she winces as though she's swallowed broken glass. "As the president she wants to fulfil her duties, make sure you're feeling included here at Blackwell. Nothing more or less. I promise."
Max trusts few. But for some reason she trusts Kate not to lead her to the gallows.
Maybe she's a fool.
She guesses she's about to find out.
"Okay, uh... lead the way."
Kate's smile may flutter small but it's big in relief.
"I mean, who wears cashmere with leather like that? And those boots. Oh my God, those boots were a drop-down-fall-out mess!"
"God, Vic, do you really have to be such a viper all the time? You seriously need to get laid."
Victoria's apparel-related disgust falls away to an upbeat smile that holds bad intentions. Her eyes find the Tupperware tub resting on the grass by Imogen's shin.
Lightly seasoned carrot and celery sticks.
Barely any of it touched.
"Well it looks like your rabbit food intake quota's been filled for the day." She shrugs her wrist out before herself with distinct Chase poise, a glance at her watch. "Oh and look! It's purge o'clock! Wouldn't want your stomach to miss its appointment with the nearest toilet bowl. Would we now Imy?"
Imogen freezes, and Taylor and Courtney snicker between small bites of the pasta they're sharing.
"Hey, come on Victoria," Hayden sighs.
She doesn't spare him a glance, keeps pinning Imogen with her Stepford smile until the thin girl snatches up her belongings, stands, and then storms off.
Zachary's churning jaw slows around the block of chocolate he's just tossed into his mouth, and unease takes his palm to the back of his neck, where he kneads. "Um, that wasn't cool V."
"Really? 'Cause I could swear I'm the one who decides what's cool and what's not around here."
"But –"
"Imogen," Victoria interrupts with a patronizing pat to Zachary's knee, "hasn't eaten a calorie in days. I don't see why I should reap the backlash. She's hashtag hangry, and I am nobody's hashtag punch bag."
Laughing, Courtney shoots her a hi-five. "Girl, you better pour that good hot tea."
"Sip sip slurp," Taylor cosigns cattily. "She snapped at me yesterday over nothing and I was just like, someone get this slut a McChicken Sandwich, Jesus."
"Um, V-Vic... Victoria?"
Ugh! There's only one loser at Blackwell who stutters my name so pathetically.
"Certainly took your sweet time. I thought you'd gotten lost," Victoria complains, glaring up at Kate over her shoulder.
And that's when she sees Max.
Stood behind Kate looking like she'd rather be anywhere else.
Their eyes latch.
"...Max," she murmurs, heart galloping.
Taylor's suspicious gaze bounces between them. "You guys know each other?"
The question reminds Victoria that other people are a thing, and she snaps back into gear, petting down the swooping side bang to her stylish blonde pixie cut as she abandons her seat on the grass to stand tall. She gestures toward Max. "Guys, um, this is Max. Blackwell's newest student."
A chorus of chill what ups and dubious heys sound.
"Hey," Max responds around a quick thin smile.
Victoria twists to look at her. They're face to face now, tension mounting as she searches Max's eyes for anything that might guide her through this ambush. But there's no life float there.
She swallows hard and buries her apprehension, because she's a Chase and crumbling in public is unacceptable.
Putting a hand to her hip, Victoria slips into character. "Such a small world, right Max?" she chuckles girlishly. "I've been absent the last few days due to family matters and didn't get a chance to review your file myself, otherwise I would have known that you were the newbie. No harm done. Come," she chimes. "Lemme show you around campus."
Max hesitates.
Then she remembers that she has questions.
Questions that only Victoria can answer.
It turns out Victoria's room is directly opposite Max's.
221: Don't wait for opportunity. Create it.
Inside's a neat affair of exquisite furnishings, pretty things, and unlikely anime figurines.
But it works.
And it works well.
The door swings shut under Victoria's firm shove.
Now it's just the two of them. And the garishly dressed elephant that they're both hesitant to address.
Something about the immaculately made bed feels too intimate, so Max zips her hoodie to her chin and sits on the sofa.
Slightly breathless, Victoria rounds on her. "Max, what are you doing here?"
On the coffee table, amidst multiple magazines and other trinkets, rests a Hasselblad X1D. It caught Max's eye the second she entered the room.
She nods at the expensive camera, answers, "mostly taking pictures. Or trying to."
Confusion reduces Victoria's eyes to squints before she shakes her head. "No, I mean what are you doing here at Blackwell Academy?"
Although it sounds like one, it's not a dig. They both know it's almost unheard of for Aurora Creek teens to attend schools like this one.
Still Max can't help but feel offense. "Scholarship, believe it or not."
Victoria sighs raggedly. "Come on Max, that's not how I meant it." She pauses. "Wait, scholarships don't allow mid-course enrollment except in the event of exceptional circumstances."
"I guess someone thought I was exceptional."
Victoria agrees with someone. Max is pretty fucking exceptional.
But she isn't about to say that.
Instead she glances at her Hasselblad. Max said she was here mostly taking pictures... which has to mean –
"You're taking Mark Jefferson's photography class."
"I am."
Great. One more person I have to worry about upstaging if I want to win the Everyday Heroes contest.
The moment Victoria thinks it she tells herself she ain't shit, because the uncomfortable history she has with Max, coupled with the current atmosphere between them, should be eclipsing the bullshit pressure that she's putting on herself to win the promotional picture showcase spot at San Francisco's upscale Zietgiest Gallery.
Get it the fuck together dumbass.
"I take Jefferson's class too. He's unbelievably amazing and I'm down to bear his children whenever he wants. "
Max dips her head into a slow nod and leaves her contribution at that.
Victoria sighs.
"I... didn't know you were into photography."
"Love it," Max says with the enthusiasm of a dead plant.
"At the carnival you didn't mention –" Victoria stops sharp, cursing her lips for running ahead of her frantic thoughts.
For verbalizing that word. Carnival.
She hugs her own midsection and casts a distant look towards the printer on her desk.
Max sees the tilt-a-whirl's whizzing lights echo in her faraway gaze, that hypnotic fire unfurling from the mouths of bare-chested performers. Cotton candy is heavy in Victoria's nostrils.
Max knows because it's heavy in her own.
"What really happened that night?" she asks, barely above a rasp.
Victoria clicks her tongue as if inconvenienced, and she is. She was expecting an interesting lunch wherein she would, subtly of course, brief the new girl on how things worked at Blackwell. On who was running things.
Her.
But here she is, scared and nervous and frantic inside... and maybe a little on the outside too.
"Victoria," Max presses. "I need to know."
Victoria needs to know things too, abruptly asks, "did you go to the cops?"
"Maybe I will," Max strong-arms, though her tone is distinctly harmless, which only lends the threat more bite.
Victoria can't help but smirk, begrudging respect twinkling in her eye. "God, you're already gorgeous; you had to be savvy too? Because that's totally fair on the rest of us." She stares at Max for a long moment, torturing herself with the attraction she feels. And when she can't take anymore: "Ugh. Where's an ounce of weed, a good OVA, and a free Saturday night when you need it?"
The fact that Victoria hasn't doubled down on the story she gave Max the morning after the carnival is unsettling.
It's ammunition though, and Max is going to use it.
"I asked what happened. Why aren't you doubling down on what you already told me if what you told me is what happened?"
"No, you asked me what really happened, which implies you don't believe what I already told you," Victoria snaps.
"Why would I believe you? We met one time before today."
That's true, Victoria reluctantly supposes. But she's still affronted. Even if Max is right to disbelieve the story she gave her.
"I want you to say what happened. From start to finish for the people in the back," Max requests, soft and reasonable for the sake of lubricating Victoria's lips.
"It's what I already told you. We were chilling at the carnival, then you started acting weird," Victoria explains. "I couldn't find your obnoxious blue-haired friend, and you were starting to get loud. Everyone was gawking. So I drove us back to one of my apartments and you slept it off. End of."
Except it's not.
"Nathan – I think his name was. Your friend," Max recalls, and Victoria's eyes narrow. "He handed us beers."
"Lots of people did. So?"
Max chooses to ignore Victoria's attitude. She's onto something here and she isn't about to let herself be sidetracked. "No, he's the only person I took a beer from. Well, from Chloe too. But he was the only stranger."
"What are you insinuating?"
"You know already, Victoria."
"No I don't. Why don't you say it," Victoria goads, raised to come out swinging whenever backed into a corner.
"Okay. I will. That beer was either already spiked, or you spiked it when we left Nathan to go sit in the alcohol tent."
"Oh really? I spiked your drink?" Victoria scoffs off of a humorless laugh. "There were plenty of people walking by us Max! Any one of them could've slipped you something!"
"Your friend. Nathan. He seemed. Seems," Max amends, because that kind of crazy doesn't go away overnight, "a little impulsive. Unstable. And the way he looked at me. Through me." She shudders.
"You got up from our table to buy that crying kid cotton candy, and then you went off to help find his parents. It must've happened then."
"With you sitting there?"
"It wasn't like I was sat guarding your beer, Max. I texted back and forth with friends, like: yeah, Aurora Creek is Arcadia Bay's Bronx, but this carnival's lit. You shoulda came. And once that was done I got roped into a convo with some of the other people in the tent. It only takes a second."
Max sighs, tired of being made to chase her own tail. She rubs a palm over her face, resets her energy levels, and when she comes out from behind her hand she's ready to try again. "Just now I said maybe I'll go to the cops, and you seemed to think that was savvy of me."
"Savvy of you to threaten it to get me talking, yeah. I didn't think you had that kind of streak in you. You were so nice and reserved at the carnival. Like this pretty jewelry box I wanted to unlock." Victoria rolls her eyes at herself. "I just, I was impressed, hence the God; as well as sweet and beautiful, she's shrewd and will totally cut a bitch."
"Please Victoria. I need to know if something bad happened to me that night. I'm tired of wondering."
No. No. No. Don't look at me like that!
"I – nothing bad happened to you, Max. I promise."
It's the truth.
Victoria just wishes it was that simple.
"Did Nathan drug me?"
The leap's too big. Victoria can't reconcile her compassion with the lie she wants to tell quickly enough. So she freezes, saying nothing as her knuckles whiten around her grip on the edge of the cabinet that she's taken to leaning into.
Max rubs at her face again, this time with both palms and more rigor. "Wow," she mutters. "The silence says it all."
"It isn't what you think."
"Really Victoria? Why else do sleazy entitled rich kids drug girls?"
"He –"
"Was it even random? Or was it calculated? 'cause I can totally see your friend thinking, oh hey let me go to Aurora Creek and traumatize girls down there; the police won't take their word against mine."
"Jesus, just listen to me for a – just. Just listen!"
"I am."
Victoria steadies herself on a slow nasal intake of breath. "He wasn't trying to rape you. Like I would've allowed that to go down. He was just – he knew that I, that I... that I liked you and knows that I'm... fucking useless with girls."
"And drugging me was his solution?"
"I didn't know how to talk to you without embarrassing myself, and you were super quiet. I was freaking," Victoria rushes out.
Kinda like now.
"Are you seriously taking up for him?"
"No, but I know him! In his own warped way he was just trying to..." Victoria sighs, realizing that nothing she says will reach Max's ears fondly.
"I can't believe there are people who think being a good wingman means drugging the target. Wow."
Only entitled rich folks.
"It's not like you came to any harm."
An incredulous gust of breath puffs past Max lips. "I didn't know that. I still don't, Victoria. I only remember bits and pieces, and I only have your word that nothing happened."
"And my word's good. I drove us back to my apartment, sent that Chloe girl you were with at the carnival a parting text from your phone, and then I took good care of you."
How good?
It's not the first time the disturbing thought that Victoria might've taken advantage of her whilst she was out of it crosses Max's mind.
"You were sort of..." She pauses, takes a deep breath, and considers her words. "At the carnival your nervous chatty energy made it kind of obvious that you might like me, and while I was nice I wasn't... responsive the way you might've wanted?"
Victoria reads the accusation right away. "Fuck you Max."
"Did you?"
"Fuck. You. Do I look like I go around getting friends to drug girls who clearly aren't interested so that they'll drop their panties for me?"
Max's blank stare feels like an elbow to the stomach.
"Hello? I asked you a question! What, because I have money that automatically means I live by Satan's moral code?"
"I remember us kissing."
Fuck!
Victoria thrusts her hands to her hips and puffs a frustrated breath up at the ceiling because, yeah, this is really happening. Max actually thinks she had her drugged so that she could take advantage of her, and now she's looking at that stupid fucking kiss through that lens.
Great.
"Victoria," Max prods. "We kissed. I didn't remember right away. It came back to me days later but I wasn't sure if it was real."
Victoria blows out a hard sharp breath. "Look, you were all giggly okay? Giggling into my neck and smushing your nose against mine, and your God damn hand was on my thigh and..."
"What?"
"You kissed me and... for a second I... I kissed back."
"...Okay."
Victoria looks away. Mumbles, "not my finest moment."
"The next morning you told me nothing happened, but that wasn't true. We kissed."
"Because nothing did happen. Not really. I shut the kiss down, made you drink water, laid you down on the sofa, and then went to the bathroom to confront Nathan on the phone. So quit looking at me like I'm some predator who doesn't know how to check her libido in fucked up situations!" There's a hard edge to Victoria's voice now.
A hard edge that Max might understand, but doesn't appreciate.
"So," she asserts with some attitude, "you went to the bathroom to confront Nathan, but how'd you just automatically know he was the one who drugged me?"
"Nathan always has the good shit. It wasn't hard to work out. I also had like this mini meltdown, told him I was struggling to talk to you - that you could literally have anybody you wanted, and that I didn't even know if you were into girls, much less me. His response was that you needed to loosen up, so there was that. And I said confront. I wasn't a-hundred-percent until he admitted it. Then I proceeded to chew him a new asshole over the phone."
"If things went no further than a kiss, if you stopped it, why'd you lie about the kiss happening?"
"Gee, I don't know Max. Maybe 'cause I felt shitty about kissing back at all. Gee, maybe 'cause you were spooked as hell the next morning and I didn't wanna give you more reasons, on top of your already spotty memory, to think you'd been taken advantage of."
"Hmm."
"Hmm? What does that even mean, Max?"
"Jeez, Victoria, you don't have to have such an attitude about me not knowing what to think of all this. It's a lot."
Victoria has the grace to feel like shit.
After a few quiet moments she covers the distance and sits beside Max, mindful about keeping a few inches between them.
"Max, you're nauseatingly stunning," she says, and it hits the air almost bitterly, like she's jealous and over being ruthlessly confronted by Max's effortless beauty. She rolls her eyes. "And I suppose I was a little thirsty that night. But, damn, the thirst wasn't so serious that I'd sexually assault you. I'm not always nice but I'm not evil."
"I don't think you're evil," Max tells her.
Relief, a dangerous shade of sublime, floods Victoria. She's screwed now that Max is attending Blackwell, and she knows it.
She thinks about pressing her face into her hands and groaning. Her crush-related teen angst will have to wait though.
"Are you reporting Nathan to the cops?"
"That depends on Nathan."
Victoria frowns. "What? What do you mean?"
"I wanna talk to him."
"What for?"
"I can't be the only girl he's done this to."
Despite the warning, there is no actual rape in this story, but as you saw there are mentions of the word/concept, which might be triggering for some.