Chiaroscuro. The interplay of light and dark. The manipulation of shadows and contrast. Max had learned how to master these elements in her photography. She had been light once . . . and she had known the darkness. But what happened when there was nothing but grey? Grey was boring and consuming. Monotonous and unchanging. It was an endless no-man's land between the powerful aspects of light and dark. Max was grey.
Her life was unchanging, and she was so lost in this state of death, that she didn't know how to get out. So, Max Caulfield sat alone on an expensive piece of furniture in her high-end apartment in San Francisco. The lights were off, and as it was night outside, the only flickering through the drawn blinds were from the skyscrapers and streetlights in the distance. Chiaroscuro. Max was silent as she sat on her couch, staring at the same spot on the coffee table for hours. She was numb . . . grey . . . exactly what she had been for the past three years since Arcadia Bay.
The sudden ringing of the phone did not startle her. Her eyes were glazed . . . a discarded needle sitting atop the coffee table. Heroin had long since been pumping through her veins, and it kept her in its seductive embrace as it had for the past two years. The ringing stopped, and her old-school answering machine turned on. Chloe's voice came from the machine.
"Max . . . it's me. Look, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to say those things to you." She paused. "You know I love you. I'm just so . . . fucked up! Come back to me, baby. Let me make it right." The message ended there. Max still did not move, save to blink and flick her gaze from the table up to the ceiling instead. Chloe. Of course. As if their blood wasn't toxic enough, Chloe had always ensure their relationship was doubly so. Drugs and fights. Max was tired of it all. As she rested back against her sofa, her thoughts traveled back to the fight that had taken place earlier that night.
"Will you stop? I didn't steal your fucking heroin!" Chloe shouted as they stumbled out of a nightclub and into an alley.
"Bullshit, Chloe," Max stomped out after her. "I found a used needle in the trash. I had just taken out the trash! And I know you're fucking out. Because you're such a junkie, you can't make your stash last longer than a week," she grunted.
"That's great. Go ahead. Blame it all on fucking me. You do with everything else. Always my fault. Ever since Arcadia Bay, I've always been the fuck up," Chloe threw her arms out in exasperation, swaying from the alley to the street. Max followed after her, livid.
"That's because you are a fuck up, Chloe," she spat. "You don't work. You just sit at home, listening to shit music and get high. I get that because I've become a famous photographer and make a shit ton of money, you feel like you don't need to work, but it's healthy, Chloe. You're not my Stepford wife."
"You know what? Stop," Chloe turned back, rounding on Max. "This isn't about me staying at home, and you know it. It's always the same fucking thing. You feel guilty about Arcadia Bay. That we . . . destroyed an entire fucking town, so I could live. Newsflash, Max. They're dead. They've been dead for three years. My mom, everyone! All we have is each other. And we have to stick together, because we're so fucked up, no one else will want us!"
Max stopped then, crossing her arms over her chest. This was so getting old. It was the same fucking thing every time. Either that or a fight about how Max wasn't like Rachel enough. A day didn't go by where Chloe didn't mention Rachel in some capacity. "You're right," she said finally. "They are dead. And I do feel guilty about it. But we didn't destroy it, Chloe. I did. Me alone. It was my decision. Those deaths are on my hands." Her blood-covered hands. "And you're wrong . . . we don't have to stick together." Chloe, though as high as Max, sobered a little and looked at her closely. "I'm breaking up with you, Chloe. For good. I can't keep looking at you. All I see is their faces. We had a good year, but I think that's all we were meant to have. Stay with your other friends tonight. I'm sure they have some heroin you can mooch off. I'm done." With that, Max walked past her. Chloe was gaping after her, calling after her.
And so, Max had come home and shot up some cocaine, and now here she rested, staring listlessly at the ceiling. She loathed herself. She loathed Chloe. She loathed this world and life. She had her fame, of course. Her photos were featured in numerous magazines across the world. She had more money than she knew what to do with. But her spirit . . . her creative muse . . . it was broken. There was nothing but the grey.
She should have let Chloe die in that bathroom. She should have saved the town. All those lives lost, so a junkie could live. The worst of it was her power had vanished once the town had been destroyed. She couldn't go back even if she wanted to. Max sighed heavily, making the first sound since she had arrived. Curling up on the sofa, she held herself. She wasn't going to forgive Chloe. They were finished. They only served to be cancerous tumors in each other's lives.
As they had every night before, the faces of those she had killed trekked through her vision in a parade of horror and rage. They weren't real, she knew this, but her imagination was so vivid, they appeared to her so realistically, she thought she might be able to reach out and touch them. Or that they might reach out and tear her apart with their bare hands. One-by-one, they came, their faces pale, eye sockets dark and empty. Joyce screamed at her for turning Chloe into a druggie. David screamed at her for killing Joyce. Warren quietly asked her why she killed him when all he wanted was a chance. Kate sobbed about not wanting to die after all, and how Max had betrayed her. Each one came, stabbing Max in the heart and making her soul weep.
When she could take no more, Max let the tears fall and buried her face in a pillow. The agony and torment she suffered was too much. Her breathing became erratic as she sobbed, her shoulders shaking. Then she felt a change. A strange calm over washed her, though it didn't feel exactly like it was her own. Her crying stopped, though she still sniffled now and then. Then, she heard him, his voice stringing such a cord in her that she reacted immediately and shot up. "Max Caulfield."
Max looked up through her puffy eyes and saw him as clearly as she saw the others. "Mr. Jefferson," she breathed. He was dressed in his usual outfit of choice. Blue jeans rolled at the bottoms, white button up shirt with a black jacket over it . . . hair stylized in a messy fashion . . . and those modern, hipster glasses carefully placed on the bridge of his nose, black and white.
He smiled at her, unmoving in her dark living room. "Ready for your lesson?"