A/N: so when i saw that max had an iep (individual education plan), i thought about how i almost got one bc of my chronic illness, juvenile arthritis specifically, and then i started thinking about max having arthritis and saw some similarities between us, and then realized that i could really do this? feel free to talk to me about this if you have questions. this has been very cathartic to write, as i've never seen or written a character with the same illness as me.
also max and chloe are super gay
(also: if you have already solidified headcanons about why max had an iep, i am not trying to invalidate those in any way. all of them are important. please talk to me about them too if you would like!)
And it's funny how I imagined
That I would be that person now
-Amanda Palmer
On Saturdays, Chloe would skateboard at the back of the rec center. There were no actual ramps, just wooden slats propped up on cement blocks to mimic them. A collection of skid-marked metal benches formed something like a fence, or a barrier, keeping the world out and the skaters in, mindful of the playground next door and the tall, tall trees.
There's a picture somewhere in a cardboard box in Max's Seattle attic: Chloe's right knee skinned, twin bruises along her left calf from a nasty brush with a bench, light blue converse shoes that can't be safe for this, vibrant light shadowing her body at that golden hour. Her wheat hair caught by the wind, and always, an impish grin for the camera.
Max's camera was new to her. Her parents picked it up from a thrift store last Friday. Outside the frame, Max is rubbing her thumb along the camera's side, furrowing a brow for that perfect shot, and her stomach is thrumming with it.
The rest of Chloe's skater friends are boys. She always has skater friends that are boys. She bumps their fists and won't laugh at any of their dumb jokes. Max doesn't know how to talk to them. So she doesn't.
She never skates with them; her joints protest, especially in snappy fall weather, and she feels like a let-go balloon whenever she's on something moving like that. The ground is steady, sturdy, tangible, and so she sits on a bench with her feet on the cement, watching, waiting for a picture.
One of the boys dropped next to her after that shot. "Sweet camera," he says and looks like he wants to ask to hold it. She holds it a bit tighter.
"Thanks." She says, quickly. "Nice moves."
He laughs and it's swallowed up by the big tree branches. "I just fell!"
Heat rises up her neck and across her forehead. "Oh. Well. It was a very graceful fall."
He smiles, corner of his lip turning up. "Thanks, Max." She burns brighter and wonders if this is what it's supposed to feel like. She swings her legs and they graze the cement with a soft crunch. Finally, they reach. Her doctors said she might not have even hit five feet.
She's about to say something, something to prevent an awkward silence, something to prove that she can maybe talk to maybe cute boys, something–
"Max! Dude I better see that shot later, how fucking rad was that flip?"
Chloe kicks up her skateboard, that impish grin turned full and wide and now the sunset is here, and it's on her face and in her hair, and she's radiating warmth and energy and maybe if the weather were cold and grey, she'd still be a sunset. Max smiles and picks up her camera.
She sticks her tongue out. That picture used to be on Max's Seattle wall.
The boy jumps up and fist bumps her. She laughs, and Max's cheeks burn again. Chloe can talk to guys so easily. Girls started calling Chloe a slut for hanging out with the skater guys until it became obvious that a fist bump was the extent of any physical contact. Then they called her something else.
The word is still harsh in Max's ears, crude and cruel, and she clings to her camera, digs her feet into the earth. She wants to punch them in the face sometimes. No one would be expecting it. Everyone's treated her like glass, or an alien, or a glass alien, ever since she got her diagnosis.
The boy's name is Joey. Chloe punches him in the arm and tells him to try turning left more, dipshit, and then he's back on the board and away from them.
She swings down next to Max and sighs. "I'm beat. You coming over tonight?"
Max puts away her camera, as gently as possible. "Totally. I'm ready for five hours of Power Rangers and Teen Titans." She gives Chloe her most serious face, which probably just looks like a grimace. "I was born ready."
Chloe laughs. "Alright, dork. Let's skip this joint."
Max starts to leave, nestling her camera strap around her shoulder, but Chloe is still sitting on the bench, one knee propped up, staring at Max, then staring at the board.
"Are you sure that you're cool with just like, hanging out here?" She asks, voice scratchy and a bit soft.
Max furrows a brow. She holds out a hand, and Chloe only takes it after looking at it, watching fingers that don't quite match each other. She digs her heels into the cement and and gently pulls her up. Chloe's hand is sweaty, but warm as the rest of her.
She smiles. "Totally. Someone's got to be the camera-girl right? Otherwise all these rad moves would go unseen, and then Tony Hawk would come up with it and no one would know that it's an Arcadia Bay original."
Her lips shift into a grin, but the creases in her eyelids don't soften. "Yeah, that asshole." She lets go of her hand. "C'mon, Camera-Girl. Let's go."
Chloe loves Tony Hawk, but that's beside the point.
Max is eighteen and her Blackwell wall has only one picture of Chloe, at the top, hair still wheat, an ephemeral sunset in the background.
She can stretch her legs out and her feet will still reach the ground. The cement blocks with their wooden slats haven't moved an inch. Dusk caps the trees, and the air is cold, crisp, and thick. Her hands are shoved in her jacket pockets to prevent stiffness.
And the world might end in two days.
Chloe drops the skateboard with a crack and makes a sharp turn around cement, the bullets on her chest sway with the movement. She's about to fall and then catches herself with a quick jump off. "Fuck, I'm rusty." She turns and gives a hint of that impish grin. "Bad time for a rewind?"
Max laughs, and the trees catch it. "Probably."
Chloe's face softens in the new night, and it's a contrast to the sunlight angles across her cheeks as she lies on her bed, Friday's impending storm behind Max's eyelids, the one she can't help but associate with Chloe and gunshots, Max's hand reaching out. She reaches behind and rubs her neck, giving her a look like Max had just said hello after a long day. Or a long year. Or a long four years. She steps forward and kicks her skateboard with her.
"Your joints aren't assholes anymore, right?"
Max blinks. "Right. Sort of. Most days."
She holds out both hands. "I won't let you fall, Super Max."
She was the only one that still asked after the diagnosis instead of assuming that she couldn't. Max loved that, loved that fiercely.
Max stands, takes Chloe's hands and steps onto the board.
Chloe's grip immediately locks, and she can see muscles with sinew; she follows them up to Chloe's face, now close and level. She can see her flushed cheeks even in the low light. Her hands reach further to hold Max's wrists. She does the same, and they're that much closer, just warm breath between them and she wonders. Is this how it's supposed to feel like.
She doesn't think that really matters anymore. Not when tomorrow and yesterday and today are all possible in one moment, and this one in particular isn't captured on film.
She can't go back. She can't rewind.
There's a finality, and she thinks kissing probably requires breathing, so she steps off the skateboard and comes back to the ground.