Chloe crashed into bed. "I love you," she muttered, pulling close and putting a hand on Max's waist.
"Love you too," said Max. Chloe was asleep in moments; she always fell asleep first. Max lay contentedly, her eyes closed, thinking about those three little words, a day-to-day regularity. It hadn't always been that way. She'd first wanted to say it, surprising herself, on her last day in Arcadia Bay. But she hadn't.
With time, her memory of that last day together had grown hazy. The sadness of her looming departure overlaid with the long melancholy of William's death. The hours spent looking through old photos, drawings, notes; each memory a fresh sting. Chloe's eyes had been steely, moist with tears but hard, an expression Max had never seen while William was alive.
And then there was goodbye. As they hugged, their last hug, the words came unbidden to Max's tongue. I love you. She bit them back. Best friends loved each other, but they didn't say it. Just a reaction to such an intense time; she'd get over it, get over losing William, get over losing Chloe, get over losing her hometown. Her mother had assured her of this.
It was true, mostly. But there was always something missing in Seattle, and Max couldn't quite put her finger on what it was. Until three years later, stomach full of butterflies, she watched Chloe step out of the dilapidated pickup truck, older, taller, hair shorter and highlighted blue, a cautious smile on her face.
Max ran to her, put her arms around her, but was greeted by a defensive stiffness. Three years of absence were standing right there, between them, holding them apart. "Chloe," Max pleaded, pulling her friend closer, burying her head in her shoulder, "please." She felt Chloe hug her, tentatively, and there were those words again, trying to come out. I love you. She didn't let them out, wouldn't embarrass herself by saying something stupidly emo in this moment. She just held on, felt Chloe's new, more grown-up body against her own. As Max was about to let go, Chloe finally relaxed, softened, wrapped her up more deeply. "Max," she said quietly, lifting one hand and stroking Max's hair, before finally pulling away, her eyes questioning.
In that instant, all of Max's anxiety fell away. Chloe was only visiting for the weekend, but their long separation was over.
"Come on," she said, taking Chloe's hand, "I'll show you around."
The weekend visit, of course, had never ended. Soon enough they were dating, if that's what you called it, and were happier than they'd been in years. But a great deal went unsaid. Max worried that the day would come when Chloe would walk out the door.
Saturday. Yawning, Max lazily climbed out of bed, careful not to disturb Chloe, and opened the curtain.
Snow. Dense, wet, but snow nonetheless, falling softly under a grey sky, lightly dusting the trees outside before melting away. In Arcadia Bay, snow had been mythical. It was never cold enough for long; every once in a while a light sheet would fall in the night, only to disappear at sunrise. Here in Seattle, it was a little more common, if short-lived.
She lifted her instant camera to the window, snapped a photo of blurrily falling snowflakes. Chloe stirred at the noise, rolled over. "Sup, Max?"
"It's snowing, look."
Chloe bolted from the bed, suddenly wide awake. "For real?! Awesome!" She joined Max at the window. "I'm gonna make a snow man!"
"No you're not. It's not sticking. Not cold enough."
"Damn. Maybe tomorrow?"
"Actually, probably not. We don't really get enough, here."
"Oh."
Max glanced at Chloe. She was visibly disappointed, staring longingly out the window at the falling flakes. "Didn't know you were so into snow," Max said.
Chloe shrugged. "I've never even seen it, up close. Just on TV and stuff."
"Yeah, me either until I came here. We could drive up into the mountains a little ways. There'll be tons of snow up there."
"What, like a road trip?"
"No, an hour, tops."
Chloe's eyes widened. "I really want to play in the snow. Can we go? Today?"
"Sure! Does your truck have four-wheel drive?"
"As it happens, it does."
They drove east on Highway 90, soon climbing into the foothills of the Cascades. Before long, the wet snowfall lightened into the real stuff, light and slow-falling, and banks of plowed snow appeared at the edge of the road. On either side, the ground was covered in a fresh, white blanket, and the tall, dense firs were draped in bright fronds. Chloe ducked her head, looked up out of the windshield. "Holy shit, Max. This looks like a postcard."
Max smiled. "Sure does."
They stopped in the small parking lot of a trailhead, and climbed out of the truck. Chloe immediately jogged toward the trees, calling behind her. "Come on, Max!" She ran onto a bank of snow at the edge of the lot, not realizing the depth, sunk in past her knees and toppled over, yelping in protest before face-planting in the bank.
Max, her camera already raised in anticipation of the moment, laughed as she snapped the photo.
Chloe struggled up, brushing snow from her face and hair and clothes. "I'm ok! Don't worry about me! I'll be just fine!"
"Is it everything you dreamed?"
"So far!" Chloe grabbed a handful of snow and hurled it at Max, but it broke up in mid-flight, peppering her with a few icy fragments. "Ah, damn."
Reaching the edge of the lot, Max picked up her own handful, packed it neatly, and returned fire, smacking Chloe audibly in the chest with an explosion of snow.
"No fair!" Chloe complained. "You've had more practice!" She took another handful, carefully packed it, and was hit in the shoulder by another snowball. "Hey!" She threw again, and Max dodged, laughing, tagging Chloe with another of her own, ducking quickly for more snow. Her dad had taught her it was really about volume, the faster you could fabricate and lob ordinance, the more unstoppable you were in a snowball fight.
Realizing she was outmatched, Chloe gave up and charged Max, knocking her onto her back in the snow bank and then perching above her. She held a crude snowball up in a gloved hand, above Max's face. "Mercy?" she asked.
"Mercy!" Max replied. The standard exchange, when they had wrestled as kids. Chloe, bigger, had almost always won. Max didn't mind at all.
"No mercy!" Chloe yelled, dropping her snowball lightly on Max's head, grinning. Max stared up at her with an exaggerated frown, until Chloe reached down to brush the snow from Max's hat, and offered her hand. "Jeez, you give me those eyes, I'm hopeless… come on, let's make a snow man."
Making a good snow man was actually pretty difficult. They ended up with a stack of three grey, misshapen lumps, on which Chloe drew a wide-mouthed, terrified looking face. When it was done, she cocked her head, looking at it. "Well that's pretty lame."
"It's your first one."
"It might be my last. At least I can say I've done it. I want to check out more of this postcard scenery but… that snow's pretty deep."
"That's why I brought snowshoes."
"No shit?" Chloe had been so excited to get going that she hadn't noticed Max chucking snowshoes into the back of the truck. Max retrieved them, helped Chloe clip hers over her boots, put on her own pair.
"Walk like this," Max said, demonstrating by slogging up and over the snowbank Chloe had collapsed into.
Chloe followed, first looking down at her feet, then striding forward with confidence. "Sweet!" she enthused, making tracks across the virgin snow. The trail wasn't visible, so they made their best guesses, following a series of gaps between the tree trunks. Rounding a hill, they found themselves in a small clearing, the noise from the road completely blocked by the terrain.
"Stop a second," Max said. Chloe crunched up next to her and stopped. It was still snowing heavily, and after living in the city, the forest seemed impossibly silent. The only sound was the soft patter of flakes on their jackets, and the occasional thump of a bigger chunk falling from a tree. They craned their necks to look up at 100-plus foot trees surrounding them, and Max noticed fresh hoof prints in the snow. Following them with her eyes, she saw a doe standing just outside the clearing, watching them, head up, ears erect. She pointed wordlessly. After a moment it turned and they watched it hop away, and Chloe resumed looking up at the white-shrouded trees.
"This is… more awesome than I thought it would be."
Max just smiled, looking around. It was all too big to capture on film.
"Max," Chloe spoke again. "I love you."
Max felt her heart thump in her chest. I love you, Chloe. The words caught in her throat. "Wowser," she said. Lame.
After an awkward pause, Chloe started off again. "Ok, well, on with the hike," she said.
"Chloe, wait."
Chloe stopped, awkwardly turned around on the big snowshoes.
With effort, Max forced it out. "You know I love you, dork. I'm just not used to talking about it. I want to be with you forever. I guess maybe I always have… even if I didn't know it."
Chloe lifted her head, looking thoughtful. "I'm looking forward to it, you know? Getting a place of our own, making a life together. Doing stuff like this, whenever we want. I wonder what it'll be like."
"It'll be great," Max said. "As long as we're together, the rest is just details." Chloe was right, though, it was fun to think about the future. Together. She started off again, lost in thought, absently following the tracks of the doe between the trees.
She'd tried to say it every day since then.