"Why are you so quiet?" Max says. There's a hint of suspicion in the upward flick of her eyebrows.
"I'm not. I don't know," Chloe says quickly, and glances back down at her paper, trying to hide the blank white space that she's left empty in favor of staring at Max from her spot on the floor beside her bed.
Max dangles her arm over the side of her bed, trailing her fingers down to ruffle Chloe's hair. "What are you thinking about?" Her eyes are tinged red from so long poring over her science textbook, and her lips part in a long yawn. Her hand flutters back to the bed, and she taps her fingers against the mattress to the beat of the music filtering through the room.
Chloe can't remember what song she put on when she got up a few minutes ago. Max is humming it under her breath. "Uh… this drawing."
"Why are you blushing like that?" Max squints at her. She blows her bangs out of her eyes in a puff of breath. "What are you drawing?"
"I'm not blushing," Chloe mutters, even though she's probably been blushing since she walked through the door into Max's dorm room well over an hour ago to hang out and study. Not much studying has happened on her part.
The song ends, and there's a stomach-twistingly long beat of silence. It's like all the air has been sucked out of the room.
Then Max's voice fills the space, syllables diffusing the silence. "I seriously need help. Or a break. And my notebook."
"How have you been doing science notes this whole time without a notebook?" Chloe asks, grateful for the change of subject. She flips her sketchbook closed, drumming her fingers on the cover.
"Uh… I think I've read the same paragraph fifty times," Max mumbles sheepishly, ducking her head. "I left my notebook in the lab."
"Let's go get it. Break and notebook. Two birds with one stone." Chloe drops her pencil on the floor, watching it bounce once on its eraser before falling flat.
Max swings her legs over the side of her bed. Her dirty shoelaces trail onto the floor, her scuffed-up grey Converse that she just can't get rid of squeaking as she stands up.
Chloe follows her out of the dorm room and down the hall.
Max is too tired to chat, yawning every other step, and Chloe has too many words stuck in her throat to force any casual sentences out around them, so they walk in silence. Chloe pauses in front of the bulletin board in the courtyard, her gaze drifting across the various posters.
Book club in the library, photography contest (she nudges Max's shoulder), Vortex Club party (gag).
Prom.
Her heart does something funny in her chest.
(She and Max used to joke about it. "There is no way anyone could get me into a dress," she'd say, and Max would reply with a snarky comment about never wanting to dance with a boy.
"So," she'd add, "I guess we'd just have to go together," and Chloe's chest would swell with that feeling she couldn't quite put a name to yet.)
"Chloe?"
"Yeah?"
"Are you coming?"
"Yeah." She follows Max quietly to the science lab, where she retrieves a blue notebook from a table in the back. Chloe hovers at the door.
Max glances over her shoulder. "Got it." She walks slowly across the room, sneakers squeaking on the floor. She slides her arm through Chloe's. "Back to studying hell?" she asks, a note of dread in her voice.
"Come on. I'll help you."
Max leans against her, resting her head on Chloe's shoulder.
Chloe closes her eyes for a moment, taking in the feeling of Max's weight against her side. Sometimes it strikes her at the strangest moments how much she missed her, even when she tries to forget the nights in her room with the light from her phone washing over her face, opening and closing the messages app.
Max squeezes her arm.
She's here now. Chloe takes her hand.
"You can't just be like, 'Hey, Max, wanna go to prom with me?' without doing something at least sort of special, you know?" Rachel says, taking the opportunity to practice her Chloe impression.
It's not entirely inaccurate.
"I do not sound like that." Not that Chloe would admit it.
Rachel presses her pen against the corner of her lips, raising her eyebrows.
"Fine," Chloe groans. "Ugh. Fine." She sighs and falls back onto Rachel's assorted collection of colorful pillows.
Rachel scribbles something on the back of her hand, swinging her legs back and forth over the edge of her desk. "You are so disgustingly in love with her."
"She's only been back for, like..." Chloe trails off. Sometimes it feels like she never left.
Rachel taps her pen absently against her wrist.
This girl ditches you for five years and you take her back in five minutes?
(The next time she mentioned Max was to say, "You're totally into her… What's her sign?")
"Come on, she's not going to say no." Rachel's fingernails are the next victim of her black pen. She chips off old nail polish as she goes.
"Okay, Rach. If you say so."
She'll say yes. If science nerd doesn't ask her first.
Or she'll say no and be totally weirded out and never talk to you again.
Chloe takes a deep breath and laughs at herself. It's just Max. This is the same girl she used to play nerdy board games and build pillow forts with.
But then, it's Max. Ever since Max came back she's felt like a thirteen-year-old again, with sweaty palms, red cheeks, that giddy head-over-heels rush of feelings that accompanies every heartbeat.
Chloe clutches the flowers behind her back. They're already half-wilted from the time spent in her stuffy truck with its broken AC, but it's the best she's got.
Sunlight dances on the water. She stands in the shadow of the lighthouse and waits.
Memories are practically bleeding out of the earth here, ghosts of Xs marking imaginary buried treasure.
"Chloe?" Her name echoes from behind the veil of trees.
"Hey! Up here!" she calls back, straightening up. She kicks at the dirt.
Max emerges from the trees a moment later, brushing her hair out of her face. There's a slightly bewildered expression on her face, and her cheeks are tinged pink.
God.
Max shoots her a confused grin as she approaches, clutching the strap of her messenger bag. "Hi." Her smile brightens as she reaches the lighthouse.
Chloe looks down. The words that she practiced an embarrassing number of times in front of her bathroom mirror are suddenly so far out of reach that they may as well be at the bottom of the bay. Max has some sort of supernatural talent for taking every thought in her brain and shaking it out of place.
She gazes at her expectantly.
"So." Chloe tugs at the bottom of her shirt with one hand. "I'm… I'm happy you're back, Max," she mumbles.
Max tilts her head to the side, looking out at the water. "Me, too. Thanks for… for forgiving me for being such a shitty friend. You took me back like I never left."
In a heartbeat.
"I… really care about you." Chloe ducks her head. Out of the corner of her eye, she can see the slight smirk playing at the corner of Max's mouth.
Her heart is beating so fast Max can probably hear it pounding.
"Not to ruin the moment, but what are we doing up here?"
Chloe presses the bundle of flowers into Max's hands before she has the chance to take a breath, their fingers locking around the stems. "I was just wondering," she begins, and the rest of the words come out in a jumbled rush, "if you wanted to, you know, go to prom together."
Max's lips part in an open-mouthed grin. "You brought me all the way up here to ask me? With flowers and everything? That's… so sweet. And the answer is yes, of course."
Chloe lets out a long breath. There's a furious blush spreading across her face. "Really? I mean, uh, yeah, cool."
Max laughs, and Chloe could live in it forever. "Why were you so nervous?" She tightens her grip on Chloe's hand. "I'm going to tease you about it forever."
"I… I don't know. I figure there are probably Blackwell boys all over you, and-"
"Hey, I thought we agreed, no dancing with boys under any circumstances."
Chloe grins. "Right."
"Look." Max jerks her chin at the horizon. The sun splashes gentle colors across her face. "Perfect timing. Golden Hour."
Chloe smiles like it's the funniest little coincidence in the world.
(The last thing in her search history is, "what time does the sun set?").
The lights spill over Max's face and gleam off the silver necklace resting below her throat. Chloe wraps her arms around her waist. They're both breathless and dizzy from laughter and dancing.
It doesn't matter now that for the past week she's been a stuttering, blushing mess around her, it doesn't matter that there have been days she thought she'd never see her again or that it took her all that time to realize what the butterflies thumping in her chest were trying to tell her.
Because, you know, it's Max.
Max laughs, arms flung around Chloe's neck, and pulls her closer as the music slows.
Chloe can see all the little freckles that dot her face like tiny stars. Then she leans down and presses their lips together like it's the easiest thing in the world, even though her heart is about to beat out of her chest, and she can't remember the last time they were this close, and everything between them is sweet and thick and suffocating, in the best sort of way.
Max giggles lightly when they pull apart, resting her hand on the side of Chloe's face. "Chloe? You're blushing again."