"What do we want?" Dana screamed into the megaphone, one fist in the air and her legs firmly planted, a power stance. She was up on a makeshift stage, standing alone, wearing a green singlet with cutesy polar bears on it and the words 'What About Us?' printed above. The light caught her hair, which was untied, making it gleam. Around her the summer day was beautiful, a vibrant colour palette of vivid greens and earthy browns. She looked young, strong, independant. Like she could change the world with the power of her conviction. The rest of the crowd thought so too.
"Climate action!" They screamed back, Max among them. As Max chanted, she also snapped a few pictures, making sure to capture several of Dana. Mentally, she was yelling in excitement - these photos were going to turn out beautifully, and she just knew this environmental rally would be a good place to base her project on. The rally captured the essence of youth so well, especially with Dana as its centrepiece.
And of course Dana would be the one to organise this protest, Max thought, affectionately. Blackwell had been like this for maybe a week or so. This whole spark in environmental awareness was originally triggered by some rich old bastard, surprisingly not connected to the Prescotts. He was in the news because he was trying to arrange for an oil rig to be built somewhere in the ocean near Arcadia Bay.
When Dana heard about this, it was basically all over for the poor guy - it seemed like overnight to Max that Blackwell had been transformed into some kind of Greenpeace outpost. There were people walking around in shirts advertising slogans for saving the planet; educational posters put up about fossil fuels; mass emails being sent out asking to sign the official petition. It had amassed over two hundred signatures so far, and as far as Max knew, was still going strong. She was the forty-seventh signature.
"Mad Max! Fancy seeing you here!" Max turned around, and came face to face with Warren. He wore a 'Save Our Planet, We Only Have One' shirt and a shit-eating grin. His chest was moving as he breathed in a slight pant, like he'd just been running.
"Hey Warren," Max smiled, slightly awkwardly. The boy in front of her smelled of sweat, and more than slightly of desperation.
"Hey, uh, are you staying for the overnight protest?" Warren asked, and Max could hear the hope in his tone. He ran a hand through his hair, curly brown locks momentarily closing around his fingers. "If you are, I've got a space in my tent."
Shit. In the excitement of trying to photograph the whole event, Max had forgotten about the planned group campout that was happening tonight. They were all going to set up a couple of tents, give a few speeches, roast some marshmallows, and generally, from what Max could detect, use the whole event as an excuse to hang out and get wasted. She hadn't been planning on going, especially since Kate was going to be staying in too. How could getting wasted help save the planet?
"Oh, I'm sorry!" Max replied, a little relieved that she didn't have to lie. "I wasn't really planning on going." She watched as the expression on Warren's face turned into one of rejection. Ouch. I'm sorry, Warren. "I mean, I could go, I think I have a tent somewhere, but… I guess I just don't see the point. The Vortex Club is just going to hijack it as usual." Jesus, way to make it worse, Caulfield.
"Yeah, that's okay then," Warren mumbled, brown eyes downcast and shoulders slightly slumped. "If you change your mind, you have my number, I guess."
"I do. Sorry, Warren." Max watched as he faded off into the crowd. She felt bad about turning him down, but at the same time knew she had to. It wouldn't be fair to lead him on.
She got the absurd desire to snap a photo of him as he left, a hunched and almost lifeless figure in the middle of all the livelihood, but refrained. That wouldn't be fair either.
Max wandered around the front of her school, snapping the occasional picture and generally losing herself in the crowd. A few local businesses had obviously seised on the opportunity, and stands selling things like hot dogs and 'organic lemonade' dotted the sides of the courtyard. Capitalism at its finest, Max thought, though she couldn't complain… those were some good hotdogs.
Max also didn't fail to notice the litter left behind too. Although there were bins around the school, they really weren't designed to hold as much crap as what Blackwell was currently producing. Max took a few pictures of one as she walked past it, a stinking, carefully stacked trash fortress built up all around it long after it overflowed. The irony of the situation was not lost on her. At least the squirrels were happy.
As the day progressed into night, the population of Blackwell only seemed to wake up more. Dana finished her speech and was immediately followed by a few girls coming up and singing Michael Jackson's Earth Song, who were followed by a few more passionate speakers, followed by Principal Wells condoning the event, thanking Sean Prescott for funding everything, and wishing everyone luck.
After that it was mostly music, though at one memorable point an unusually emotional (and definitely wasted) Victoria Chase took the stage and proclaimed her love for penguins. "I just… like… they're so small, fucking pan-pan-pan-ga-wins, uh... penguins, and it's just… ummwhatthefuck… beautiful… thank you…" She was then escorted off the stage by an equally amused and pissed off looking Taylor, amid many boos and cheers. Victoria looked so sad when she was up there, her normally perfect blonde hair falling in her face and the way she held her arm with her hand, defensively, like a small child.
Max wondered where Nathan was, but didn't ponder it for long.
The firework displays started going off at around ten o'clock. They sat on a hill and watched, many of them wrapped in light blankets fitting two or three people together. Max sat with Stella and Alyssa. It had started off as it mostly being Vortex Club members drinking - of course they had a VIP 8-person tent set up stocked full of the stuff - but as the night progressed on and visions became blurrier, everyone was apparently welcome. Max wasn't sure how they got the fireworks, which were, as far as she could tell, illegal in Oregon. The Prescotts once again clearly spared no expense funding the event, and anyway, what stupid cop would try to stop it?
"Are you enjoying this?" Stella asked at one point, suddenly. She didn't make eye contact, just kept staring out at the fireworks, which reflected dully in her glasses. She had a way of throwing conversational scraps out into the wind, free to be answered by anyone who bothered to listen. Someone was playing a guitar in the background, a calm, diluted tune Max didn't recognise but appreciated nonetheless. The night smelled of vanilla and gunpowder. It was a moment that seemed frozen in time, an eternal little snapshot in which, right then, everything was peaceful and damn near perfect.
"Yeah, this is great," Max smiled. "Thank God for oil rigs."
Stella and Alyssa both laughed. "No," Alyssa shook her head, "Thank God for Dana, I think."
"That's so true," Max agreed. "She put crazy amounts of effort into this. We should write her a card or something."
"Are you guys staying for the campout?" Stella asked again, irreverent to the conversation as always. She was smiling, though, so that was something.
The guitar tune changed in the background to one Max recognised, a song from Syd Matters, and Max froze. Syd Matters always made her think of Chloe, which was sad. Hell, more than sad, damn-near devastating, come to think. Her and Rachel had left for Los Angeles a few weeks ago, and although there had been Skype calls and text conversations, it still really wasn't the same.
Max winced as a whole wave of emotions rolled over her. Was the wound really so raw? Chloe would have thought this whole save-the-planet rally was bullshit, probably. Or just used it as an opportunity to score free booze like everyone else. Though that was if she even would have bothered to come. Chloe and Rachel seemed absolutely inseparable, just like her and Max had been when they were younger. That really hurt. It was a deep, persistent ache that made Max want to bash her head against a wall. Sometimes she wished she could just go back in time and-
"Okay, everyone ignore me, that's cool," Stella snorted, unoffended.
"Sorry, I got… lost in my head," Max rubbed her face, hard. Maybe she did want a drink. "What did you say?"
"Campout. Are you staying for it? Do you want to?"
"Uh…" Shit. If she went back now she'd probably just spend the whole time moping about Chloe, who was the last person she wanted to be thinking about right now. There was an art to not thinking she hadn't mastered yet. She really did need to work on that. She wanted to keep watching the fireworks, be engulfed in them, live forever in that moment on the hillside where, at least for a moment, everything was simple. Too bad that moment had been and gone. Her response was an impulse, blurted out without thinking. "Yeah, I'm staying."
"Do you have a tent? Could I mooch a place?" Stella was looking directly at her now, hopeful.
"Yeah! It's in my dorm, if you guys want to come get it with me." Max stood up, and Stella stood too.
"I'm staying in tonight, guys," Alyssa told them mournfully. "I've got shit to contemplate."
"I know how you feel." Max touched the other girl's head, briefly. "Have a good night, Alyssa."
As Max and Stella walked off, Alyssa mumbled "No, you really don't know," but both girls pretended not to hear.
Setting up the tent had been fun. Fumbled readings of instructions in Chinese, Max having to run back to her dorm because they forgot the rain-proof cover, someone lighting one of those coloured smoke bombs right next to the tent so it smelled of gunpowder. They joked that it had knocked a few solid minutes off their lifespans, though to be fair, it was probably true.
Stella was normally a serious person, but as the night went on and she fed more into the party fever, things got more joking and downright ridiculous. Max could feel it too. At some point there was someone who kept saying "moist", intentionally or not, Max didn't know, but it created a monster. Whenever there was a gap in conversation, which Max and Stella drifted around from group to group with, someone would just yell "MOIST!" at the top of their lungs. At the time, Max thought it was just about the funniest thing in the world.
Max was offered alcohol several times, and at first she said no, but eventually she gave in and had a few. Chloe traced around the edges of her thoughts from time to time, but as was the beautiful nature of parties, there was always something new that happened to keep her from thinking too much. Starting to feel sad? Look, Hayden just took a shot of vodka out of a shoe! What's that, bad thoughts coming back? Nathan's going around with a sharpie, giving 'MOIST' tramp stamps to anyone who asks (and several people who didn't ask).
Hey, there's Nathan, Max suddenly registered. Where the hell was Victoria? She thought they were inseperab- oh. Walking - or rather, stumbling - with Nathan was a tall redhead Max didn't recognise, with long slender fingers and legs. She wore a short skirt and carried ridiculously high heeled shoes in one hand. Max deducted that the girl was probably Nathan's girlfriend. Subtle body language hints such as the way Nathan kept sticking his hand up the back of her skirt and the way they kept making out tipped Max off. Also, Juliet told her.
"ARE THEY DATING?" Max yelled, though she didn't realise she was yelling. She'd had a lot to drink by this point. Everyone around her was yelling anyway, trying to talk over the techno music playing from the speaker in the VIP tent, or trying to talk over each other, or trying to just make as much noise as possible in general. Like noise control was gonna do shit.
Three different people, the loudest of which was Juliet, shouted different variations of "YES!" in reply. Someone yelled "MOIST!" and everyone laughed again.
That got Max thinking a bit though, in her disorientated, scrambled state. If Nathan had ditched Victoria for his new girlfriend, then that would explain Victoria's early intoxication and the unusually raw penguin proclamation. Normally Victoria was carved from a piece of marble, flawless and cold, like a shop mannequin. Posed for the public eye. What was that quote from The Handmaid's Tale? "My self is a thing one must compose, as one composes a speech. What I must present is a made thing, not something born." That was how Max saw her. But now Nathan was gone, and the marble was beginning to crack.
Max wondered where she was, without really caring about the answer. No, in a way she did. Victoria's situation mirrored her own with Chloe perfectly. They had both been abandoned.
Shit. Now she was thinking of Chloe again.
Max stood up and wandered away from the group, groaning a bit as her head spun. She didn't have a watch, and it didn't occur to her to check her phone, so she had no idea what time it was. Late. She wondered where Stella was, but correctly assumed she'd had enough of the partying and went to bed. To the tent or back to her dorm? Max had no idea. Her eyes felt like they weren't properly connected to her head, like a nerve had short-circuited. Reality was blurred and jumpy. She could feel the beginnings of a headache coming on, and suddenly realised that she needed to throw up very much.
She fell onto her knees and heaved up on to the grass, not really sure where on campus she was, or really caring. At one point she thought maybe she'd spend the rest of her life on that one patch of grass, knuckles sliding into the slightly damp earth, eyes constantly re-directed back to two strands of grass which intersected and appeared conjoined but weren't. There was some form of light source to her right. She kept thinking over and over, Oh god, this isn't fun, but that didn't really help.
When she was sure it was all over, completely sure this time, she moved over a bit, flopped on her back, and thought of Chloe some more. She wasn't entirely aware she was crying until a rude and slightly disjointed voice interrupted her.
"You're not crying, are you?" An exasperated sigh. " And there I was thinking you couldn't get any more pathetic."
Max squinted to see who was making fun of her. She looked to her right, to the light source, and saw a feminine figure sitting on some steps. Was that the front of the girls' dorms? Who the hell was that?
"Go away," Max choked. All she could think of was Chloe and Rachel. What were they doing right now? She had no idea, and couldn't really think either. Sleeping, maybe. Unaware of her existence. God, it was getting cold now.
"Looks like this is one of the rare moments where you don't want to take a selfie, hm?" The voice was almost mournful, though there was no venom behind the words. It sounded like she wanted to talk but just didn't have anything positive to say. Her speech was quite slow, determined to speak clearly. "You do look like shit right now, no offence."
Max focussed further, and saw the glint of blonde hair, golden bracelets, smeared makeup on a white, expensive looking sweater. Victoria Chase in her defeated form, Max realised.
"How long were you war-uh… watching me?" Max managed barely, closing her eyes to talk. She wrapped her arms around herself, shivering now. She'd stopped crying.
"A while. I can't sleep. Taylor forced me back to my room after my, uh… penguin announcement." Max had never heard a voice as bitter as Victoria's currently was. "She made me drink water, have some cah… ugh…. crackers, shit like that. But she's gone now, and apparently the only person who wants to talk to me is some wasted hipster. Who won't even remember this conversation, thank god. Fuck." Victoria buried her face in her hands but didn't cry. Max could see her fingers moving gently, rubbing at her scalp, trying to offer comfort. She was shivering too.
"Are you sad because… I forgot his name… uhh…"
"Nathan. Yes. Don't talk to me about it." The night was cold, but Victoria's voice was colder.
Max rolled over, slowly, on to her elbows, and then crawled towards the other girl. She managed to sit on the stairs next to her without falling, and then wrapped her arms around Victoria. It seemed like the right thing to do, especially in her alcohol-riddled mind. Victoria stiffened when Max touched her, but then slowly relaxed.
"You better not remember any of this," she muttered under her breath. Up close her hazel eyes were definitely slightly unfocused, and less sharp and judging than Max had ever seen them.
"Your eyes are very pretty and I like them a lot," Max told her, matter-of-factly. Victoria just stared at her after that, blankly. "I don't even remem-em-ber five minutes ago," Max slurred when she remembered what Victoria had said before, smiling a little even though she still felt really bad. Victoria laughed unexpectedly, an actual real-sounding laugh, unfiltered and unrestrained. It turned into tears about five seconds in, and suddenly she was shaking uncontrollably, head in her hands, fingernails digging hard into her scalp. Her breath kept hitching. "Fuck," she kept muttering, "I really fucked up."
"No no no no," Max tried to hug her tighter, but the way Victoria was shaking Max thought maybe the other girl would never stop. She was feeling slightly more alert from the utter strangeness of the situation, but she definitely wasn't sober by any means.
"Does everyone in this school hate me?" Victoria's question came suddenly, muffled behind her hands and still wracked by sobs. It took Max a while to figure out what she'd asked.
"You can come across… as a bitch, like a real bitch… bitch… but I don't think you are a bitch." Victoria apparently had no answer to this. Shit. "I mean, I don't hate you. I know how you feel, because Chloe fucked off to… uh. A city, I can't remember… and Rachel, she went too, so I do think they were together. So I got la-uhh… left behind. As well." Max Caulfield, master wordsmith. She promised herself then that she would never drink again. Victoria was trying to keep her crying under control, and it was sort of working, but she was still shaking like a leaf in a tornado. "LOS ANGELES!" Max shouted, when she remembered the city. "Los Angeles," she said again, quieter.
There was a moment that passed between them as Victoria gathered herself, and Max closed her eyes and tried not to think. The night was really cold, unusually so, and they were both unconsciously huddled against each other. Max's head was against Victoria's shoulder. It should have been the strangest thing in the world, Max sitting with and even leaning against the girl who had been and still was her bitter rival at school.
The girl who had spread rumours about her. The girl who filmed other girls drunk at parties and laughed at them.
But... this wasn't the same girl. This was the raw, unprotected version of that girl, unmasked by alcohol and loneliness and the certainty that there would be nobody who would know the exchange had been passed, including Max. The shaking person with ruined makeup and messy hair Max was sitting with now was a different world away from THE Victoria Chase, queen bee of Blackwell, her enemy. The person she was sitting with now was just Victoria, a person like Max.
"You're just a person like me," Max told her out loud, thinking it would be useful for her to know that.
A pause. And then, "Thank you." Another pause. "Okay, you need to get to bed before you pass out on me."
"Are we in front of the dorms?"
"Yes." Victoria got to her feet, slowly, still shaking a little.
She offered Max a hand up without saying anything, helped her to her feet, and then led her inside. When they got to Max's room, she sat Max on her bed, helped get her shoes off, took her jersey off, and then tucked her into bed.
The last memory Max had of the night was a mournful-looking Victoria towering over her, hair hanging in front of makeup-smeared eyes, mouth slightly open as she breathed. "I will be seriously fucking pissed off if you remember any part of tonight," she told Max, a strange expression on her face. Max wanted nothing more in that moment than to photograph her.
"Do I get a goodnight kiss?" Max asked, smiling dopily.
"Not tonight," Victoria replied, the ghost of a smile on her lips. She then walked out, turning Max's light off as she left.
Max was asleep before she even heard the door close.
