"H-hey there Chloe. It's Max…uh…I brought you some coffee. It's your favorite…" she reached out to brush some snow lightly off the top of the ice cold headstone and placed the coffee cup down atop it, standing back to take a sip of her own, her breath steaming in the cold winter air, "It's chilly out today so I thought you could use some company. So um…the Two Whales is doing well! Joyce and I are hanging out a lot more y'know. I might even apply for a job there soon just so I can have some extra cash. She reminds me of all the good times we had together too; Like when we used to play pirates and you would slap me in the ass with your wooden sword and yell, 'I FOUND THE BOOTY, CAPN!'."
Max laughed, then sighed sadly, "I uh…I'm thinking about naming a meal at the diner after our pirate games. I've narrowed it down to a few ideas and I'm pretty sure you'd like them all." Max paused for a few seconds, looking at Chloe's name that had been etched carefully into the stone. She played with her cup of coffee in her hands, running her thumb along the edges of the cap, "I really miss you." She whispered, "Nothing's the same without you here. I mean, I swear, everything has sort of lost its magic around this town. I can't even enjoy the sunsets anymore w-without thinking about…"
"…Anyway…" she shook her head, "David is doing well. He's left his job at Blackwell and gone onto working at an army general store. I think it's been good for him. It gives him a lot of time to talk to people like himself. David and I don't talk as much as I'd like so I've set up a lunch with him for this weekend with Joyce. Also, Kate came to visit Blackwell the other day and I…asked her out to dinner." Max smiled gently, "She said yeah, and ever since then we've been hanging out a lot more. I wish you could be with us too. I want to show her your secret junkyard hideaway but it has too many memories of bottle shooting and…F-frank." She went silent, then began again, her voice shaking, "The town has been rebuilt…it looks even better than it did before. I-it's totally cool." She trailed off again, looking at the coffee cup on the headstone before her.
"I never really got to tell you how I feel, did I?" she lowered her head, "It's sad. I came back to Blackwell too ashamed to even say hello, but now I've lost you and I couldn't even say goodbye. You never even knew I was here did you? You can't even yell at me for being late or using emoji's or…" tears began to stream down her cheeks, "I know that rewinding time fucked up our world, but I wish I could rewind again just so I can see you one more time. Just ONE more time. Hear your voice. Hear you say h-hella." She giggled, her voice cracking in her grief, "The shit you had been through in every timeline was so horrible and I…wish I could've said sorry more. I wish we could've gone to a movie or on a walk or SOMETHING. I know we spent time at the pool and that's truly my last good memory of you before everything went to shit. And I don't even know if it's truly my fault anymore. I don't know what gave me those powers but I know that they condemned you, and I helped it along. Even if I didn't know I-" she stopped, her hands shaking, "I'm sorry. I'm just so sorry. Chloe I'm sorry for everything. I know you would tell me not to blame myself, but I do and I always will."
She lifted a hand to cover her mouth as her knees shock with cold and sorrow. The somewhat small headstone that read, "Chloe Price" over it wasn't fitting for a girl like her. Max thought that she should have had more than a sad, quiet little burial in the cemetery outside the town. Max always thought that she deserved more than this. She deserved so much more. She deserved life. She deserved love. Not to lie in a dark hole in the ground due to the mistakes of others...and reckless mistakes that she made herself.
"You deserve more." Max whimpered, "You deserve better, Chloe. You didn't deserve this cruel sort of….finality. You NEVER were a straightforward person, always throwing your plans to the wind. You were free. But this…" she shivered again, "This is not where you belong. And I'm sorry I put you there. I know you would be telling me over and over that it's okay and you don't blame me…I-in this timeline though, you wouldn't know what your other selves have gone through. Even if you could hear me, you most likely would call me crazy. Crazy in this timeline, SuperMax in another." She laughed sadly and lowered her head, "C-Chloe I never got to tell you how much I love you. I'll always love you. You were my best friend and you…" She sighed, "You changed my life."
The coffee had gone cold and snowflakes had begun to drift from the grey sky above, resting on Max's hair and scarf and jacket. Hot tears continued to stream down her face, replaced by new tears that bloomed from her eyes.
"Chloe…I saw so much." She shuddered, leaning forward hugging herself in the biting cold, "I've been through so much. I've seen you die so many times. I've even fulfilled your wish to die in an alternate timeline. I've been through so much…with you." Wind began to whip around her, kicking up snow, "And I'm not sure if my life will ever, ever be bright and happy again. You brought me so much joy. You brought me so much happiness, Chloe. I don't know why I ever left you here in Arcadia Bay. I don't know why I ever left you. This town sucks, but you were the most beautiful thing to come out of it."
All at once, the wind ceased and Max stood in the stillness of the graveyard. Her eyes were locked on the tombstone below. A horrible sadness washed over her. She didn't want to remember the horrible things that happened to Chloe and her together. She tried her best to remember the good things, because according to her: why would you dwell on the sadness if you're trying to move on? She couldn't help but think about it every now and again. Sometimes, she remembered by choice, sometimes she remembered in bouts of depression, and sometimes, she had vivid, horrible dreams in which she relived everything in terrifying reality. She could hear the shutter click of Mr. Jefferson's camera and the sharp, hard bindings against her wrists, the dark coolness of the bunker along with her acute fear of death and the tray of drugs and needles placed on the other side of the room, feeling the panic and her reactiveness slow as her idol, her photography teacher, pulled the trigger to his gun and Chloe fell with a clean, precise bullet wound to her head on top of her beloved Rachel's grave, smelling the clean, plastic antiseptic smell in Chloe's room as she lay there, paralyzed…
Chloe was always meant to die. In every timeline, she was as good as dead. Although Max knew that Chloe had never suffered what she suffered with her during the week of the Vortex in that timeline, all the other Chloe's did, either dying by accident or by bullet…
A flutter of movement caught her eye suddenly and Max looked down to see a butterfly; a blue butterfly, resting on the cup of freezing cold coffee atop her lost friend's gravestone. It looked startling against the whiteness of the ground. Bright blue against blank, snow covered earth. Max suddenly felt everything washing away in an odd wave of comfort and realization…
"I know you're gone and everything…" Max sighed, lifting a hand to wipe the tears away slowly, "I didn't mean to get all s-sentimental and heartbroken and stuff." She watched the butterfly for a few more seconds in silence, its fragile wings moving ever so slightly in the wind, "Coming by helps me think. It helps me talk the whole thing out. I can't tell anyone what I've been through. I can only tell you."
The butterfly's wings looked warm somehow and Max wanted to reach out and touch it, but she refrained, wanting to look at the beautiful miracle for a bit longer. She had an urge to pull out her camera. However, her Polaroid that was always kept safely tucked away in her bag in case of sudden inspiration was left untouched. She felt it better to experience this herself and forget or remember as she would. It was a picture of a blue butterfly that started everything…wasn't it?
"I've gone through a couple journal trying to write my feelings out but nothing beats coming to talk to the girl I experienced hell and back with…I'll leave you for now."
She found herself talking to the butterfly now instead of the tombstone…as if it were really, truly Chloe. She didn't know if it was some kind of cheesy hope or if it was a sign that everything was going to be okay, but she felt that the butterfly had either been sent or it was some kind of odd…reincarnate? No. Max shook her head and laughed at the idea. It was silly to think something like that. She was too old for fairy tales.
She slowly turned and began to walk away, the sound of her boots making light crunching noises in the snow. She slowly stopped about halfway to her car, then turned and looked over her shoulder…
The coffee cup was gone, along with the butterfly.
…Maybe, if she could rewind time, magic truly did exist in places where she couldn't, and never would understand.