Chapter One: Max and Chloe Meet, Again

This story goes back to the beginning, after the story had been played out. Max had confronted Chloe and the tornado at the lighthouse, and after a brief last moment, Chloe convinced Max to sacrifice her life for the sake of Arcadia Bay. And so Max uses the photo of the blue butterfly in the girl's bathroom and transcends to the scene of Chloe's murder. She has full knowledge of the consequences of her time travel, and intends on letting destiny take the life of her best friend.

Here I am again, in the loop of a nightmare. I was already in tears again from seeing her for the last time at the lighthouse, knowing what I had to do to save this town. It was the hardest decision to make because I knew that I would have to shred the photo and never again return to this moment. I gazed at it, thinking to myself how the only image I will have from here will be a memory. I would never be able to look at a blue butterfly without thinking Chloe.

As I was choking on my sobs, I heard Nathan Prescott walk through the door and I tried to muffle my sounds. Crouched in the corner by the bucket on the floor, I watched the butterfly float towards the mirrors above the sink as I listened to Nathan ramble frantically to himself.

"It's cool, Nathan… don't stress…" he said to his reflection. Reliving this moment was hard knowing he was carrying a gun. "Don't be scared…" he said, breathing loudly. "You own this school. If I wanted to, I could blow it up." And a heavy sigh, he tapped the porcelain sink with both hands and said, "You're the boss."

Chloe walks in, and Nathan recovers his composure. "So, what do you want?" he asked irritably.

Chloe proceeded to push the doors of the toilet stalls. "I hope you checked the perimeter, as my step-ass would say. Now, let's talk bidness."

As their conversation was becoming more intense, I couldn't take my eyes off the photo. I couldn't bear the thought of destroying Chloe, the blue butterfly. I couldn't contain my hyperventilating, but they were arguing so loudly they wouldn't be able to hear me.

Nathan was screaming. "Don't EVER tell me what to do. I'm so SICK of people trying to control me!"

At that point, my judgment became clouded. I couldn't let her die. I couldn't let Joyce lose her husband and then her daughter. I couldn't lose her because I loved her. There had to be another way around this cyclic nightmare, maybe a way to save everyone… and then, I couldn't believe what I had decided to do.

As Nathan backed Chloe against the wall, I reenacted that moment as I had done before to save her life. I broke the glass of the fire alarm and set it off. Only this time, instead of waiting for Nathan and Chloe to leave before me, I stepped out of the shadows and caught a glimpse of Chloe, still alive.

"Max?!" Chloe exclaimed. She didn't smile, but she was astonished.

I pretended not to recognize her immediately. "Chloe?!"

"You two freaks know each other?!" Nathan yelled, concealing his gun and preparing to bolt. He wouldn't want anyone catching him in the girl's bathroom with two girls, especially Chloe and me. Nathan pointed at Chloe, and then he pointed at me. He narrowed his eyes. "I'm on to you." And with that, he was out the door, meshing with the evacuating crowd.

"Max, I can't believe it's you," Chloe said. The alarm was still blaring, and I knew we needed to leave before Principal Wells showed up.

"We can't talk here, we have to go," I said, cracking open the door. The crowd was thinning as everyone was making their way out to the front lawn. We would be more conspicuous if we didn't act quickly.

"Well, we can't evacuate with them. I got expelled from here, so they'd probably pin this on me. Wouldn't go well for me at home," Chloe said pensively. "Follow me," she said, taking my hand. The last of the crowd was headed outside, and we were able to successfully run toward the empty hallway before David Madsen and Principal Wells reached the bathroom door.

"Over here!" I said to Chloe, passing her to take the lead, still holding her hand. We hid narrowly behind a set of lockers while David was making sure the last of the students were outside. Then, we turned another corner and ran to the exit door of the back building. It was closer to the parking lot, and it was most likely vacant.

We hyperventilated once we were outside. We could hear the commotion on the front lawn of the school building. "Listen Max, I have my truck here. Let's fucking blow this place. Then we can talk about what just fucking happened." I couldn't tell if she was pissed off at me or Nathan. She pointed to the beige pick-up parked audaciously in two handicapped spots. How considerate of her.

"Okay, but I can't be off campus too long."

"Oh, you haven't changed," she said, sneaking the perimeter of the parking lot, leading me to her truck undetected. Except we weren't undetected.

We turned the corner towards the parking lot. "Samuel!" I exclaimed, as the maintenance worker stood up. I could have easily tripped over him. Chloe kept walking, but I had to stop.

He had been feeding the squirrels. "Why hello, young Max." If I didn't know any better, I would think that his general demeanor was very creepy. And a lot of girls think so, especially when they see him doing maintenance around the girl's dorm room. But after taking the time to feed some squirrels with him, I realized that he was completely harmless, just a little off in the head.

"Hi, Samuel," I said. I looked around nervously. I knew Samuel probably wouldn't tell anyone, but I had to cover my tracks anyway. There was a moment of silence when he glanced at the gathered crowd in the distant front lawn, but it was only silence between us. The alarm was still blaring. "You're not going to tell anyone what I'm doing, are you?"

He chuckled. "Oh, I'm just here doing maintenance." He didn't seem to notice Chloe, who lingered behind the first car in the lot. "We can keep secrets," he motioned to his squirrels.

With that, I caught up with Chloe and we were able to make it to her truck. The audible crunch of leaves on pavement carried our steps.

"What a nutjob," Chloe said. I didn't say anything, mainly because I didn't have to heart to talk badly about Samuel. I guess I knew what it was like, to be misunderstood.

Instead, I got into her truck. "Keep your head down," Chloe told me as she pulled out of the parking lot and drove in front of the school building, where the entire student body was congregated. "Shit! I think he saw my truck," Chloe cursed. When I knew we were off of school property, I lifted my head from hiding.

"Who is he?" I asked.

Chloe rolled her window down to smoke a cigarette. "My step-douche. This will definitely not go over well at home…"

We didn't speak for a minute. I kept planning things, like when to tell Chloe the truth, how she will react, and what to do to prove my powers. My phone buzzed in my pocket. It was Warren.

Warren: Yo Max! Where you at! The whole school is out here but I can't find you…

I decided not to respond. I'd be back at school in a couple hours, at most. I'd explain everything to him. And I'd make sure to get his flash drive.

Warren: Helloooo?

I shut my phone and felt it buzz one more time. Warren had a bad habit of overtexting. It always annoyed me.

"So," Chloe began after an awkward silence. "You wanna tell me what you were doing in there?" The cigarette seemed to mellow her out a little bit. "I checked the stalls when I walked in."

"Well," I said, trying to plan my words carefully. Chloe was driving towards the lighthouse, the place that will always carry significant meaning to me. I couldn't let this story play out again like it did. I had to find a way to change destiny, to save everyone.

"Well?" Chloe said. "We haven't seen each other in five years and you have no words for me?"

"I don't know what was happening." Lie. "But I knew you were in trouble. I just happened to be there, so I did what I had to do."

"You pulled the alarm?" Chloe asked? I nodded, looking down at my lap. "Wow, Max. You 'just happened to be there' at a pretty convenient time for me." She littered the cigarette butt out the window, but kept the window down. "Almost suspiciously convenient." The wind from the winding road poured in, and the bare sunlight illuminated her. She kept her eyes on the road. Her eyes are so… blue. It really goes well with her hair.

"Suspiciously? I had nothing to do with Nathan, if that's what you mean."

She laughed sharply. "Yeah, I don't see you hanging around the likes of him. You're a decent human being." She messed with the radio for a bit, then gave up. "I'm not driving too far, just to the lighthouse. We have a fuck ton to catch up on," Chloe said, turning into the parking lot for the scenic lighthouse path. "And I'll pretend that you didn't call or text when you bailed for Seattle. I mean, it was kind of lame, but I won't make a big deal out of it today. Especially after today."

"Yeah, it's been a weird day," I said as Chloe parked badly. The truck crossed into the next spot. Instead of correcting it, she got out and slammed the door. Looking back at me through the windshield, she yelled, "Come on!" and pulled another cigarette from her pack.

She lit it when I caught up to her, and I tried to keep up as she walked briskly uphill towards the bench outside the lighthouse. The sun was high in the sky, midday, and the birds were loud. I thought about how the birds started to die as the climate shifted, before the tornado.

Chloe kept walking like she had a mission and an ultimatum, but to my knowledge there was nowhere we needed to be. Except away from Blackwell for a little while, until things calmed down. When we reached the bench, she sat down. "I just needed to get far away from there," she said, taking a drag and ashing on a daffodil. "Fuck this town and the people in it. Especially Nathan Prescott."

I figured now was as good of a time for the truth as ever. These white lies will only go so far before thoroughly breaking her trust. And time meant something different now, and I'd rather have her on my level sooner rather than a little too late.

"I need to tell you something," I said. She looked at me intently. "And I need you to listen carefully, because it's not going to make sense at first. You'll probably think it's crazy."

"Now I'm really intrigued," she said, propping her feet on the bench and leaning on her knees. "Tell me your secrets," she persuaded, both diabolically and seductively. Dr. Chloe is checking my psyche.

I couldn't help but laugh, though it was nervous laughter. I didn't know what to feel about Chloe, after everything I had seen. We had kissed and she doesn't know it. We had been in a swimming pool together, had taken a picture in her bed, and had talked jokingly about eloping together. And she doesn't know any of it. Not in this timeline. I needed to be careful with everything I said, and I needed to stay consistent with this situation. Chloe and I were not that close right now. My five years of absence and neglect are still very fresh on her mind.

"I knew Nathan was going to shoot you," I began. "I knew it, he was going to shoot you in the stomach. And you would die unless I did something like pull that alarm."

"Wait, what?"

"Chloe, I have this secret, this power."

"Are you psychic or some shit?"

"No, Chloe, listen. I have been traveling through time and space, to alternate realities. I know things right now that could help people, and stop bad things from happening."

Chloe laughed. "I knew those psychedelics were making their way around Blackwell. You have to be careful with that shit."

"No, listen!" I felt my body tense, the frustration of not being able to explain to her my power to turn back time. There had to be something I could say to make her believe me. "You know about Chaos Theory, right?"

"Why yes, to an extent. I mean, I'm not exactly a science geek, but I know some things." I remembered the alternate timeline when I had saved William from the car accident when Chloe and I were thirteen. She had been paralyzed completely after her own car accident, and William and Joyce were struggling to take care of her. She longed for the freedom she has in this timeline, but when she had a lot of time on her hands in the remodeled garage, she researched science. When she couldn't walk railroad tracks and drink beer at the junkyard, she actually was a science geek.

"Chaos Theory," I continued, still not know too much about it even after I had seen it happen. It was so hard to talk about this phenomenon. "Crazy things have already started happening, and it begun with you and Nathan in the bathroom. That was where I first learned that I could manipulate time. I've seen you two there on many occasions, but it was always the same situation. I have watched you die, and I have pulled the alarm already before."

She had stopped interrupting me. She was trying to figure everything out, keeping an open mind.

"I have had visions, of a tornado coming to destroy Arcadia Bay, right over there," I said, pointing out to the bay and the town nestled by the shore. "And I have seen it happen, and you were there."

"Max," she said, touching my arm. "None of this makes any sense. I've already had the weirdest and most confusing day, and I don't need anything else fucking with me right now." I saw her pull out a cigarette, but when she took the first drag I realized it was a joint instead.

Just like at Two Whales, I had to convince her again. "Empty your pockets," I said.

"What, you going to try and rob me now?" she laughed, knowing that hypothetically my efforts would be pointless against her height and muscle mass. "You know I got nothing."

"I'm going to prove to you that I can reverse time. Just go along with it."

She shook her head, but reached into her pockets. "Alright, Max. I'll let you bullshit me one more time."

Her left pocket had her truck keys with the keychain, but that didn't matter since she knew I'd seen them. It was the sixty-three cents, the red lighter, and the 10:32am parking ticket that would convince her. It wasn't quite what she had in her pockets when I blew her mind at Two Whales.

While studying the pile in her lap, she started to get annoyed. "Okay, so what is this all about?"

I lifted my hand forward, as I had done the first time I saved her life. I felt the blood rushing to my head as I saw the world around me rewind, watching the things go back into her pockets, waiting for the right moment to rejoin the timeline.

Here it is.

"I've already had the weirdest and most confusing day, and I don't need anything else fucking with me right now."

"Look," I began, with direct eye contact. "If I can reverse time, then I could have made you empty your pockets before reversing time again. So in that case, I can tell you exactly what you have in your pockets."

Chloe looked at me critically, as if I were a magician and she was trying to figure out my secrets. "Go for it."

"You have…" I began, recollecting what I saw. "Your car keys with the panda bear keychain,"

"Wait a minute!" she interrupted. "You saw me put them in my pockets."

"And you also have sixty-three cents, a red lighter, and a parking ticket issued at 10:32 in the morning." I said with confidence.

Chloe emptied her pockets, and looked at me with astonishment. "There's gotta be some kind of trick. There is no way." I sat next to her, trying to think of another way to convince her. There was a breeze, and some acorns fell from an overhanging tree, one that popped Chloe on the knee. And then I went back in time, calling what she had in her pockets. And at the moment where she needed just a little more convincing, I said, "An acorn is about to hit your knee." I grabbed her leg and told her to be still as the breeze returned. Like clockwork, we both anticipated the audible pop against her kneecap, and she covered her mouth in her hands.

"Jesus fucking Christ!" Chloe yelled, scaring away the birds in the treetops. "No fucking way!" she got up quickly from the bench, grabbed my hands and pulled me up with her. "We gotta put these powers to the test."

"We're not shooting a gun in the junkyard," I said.

She stared at me in a way someone would if you had read their mind verbatim. "How did you…" she began, then shook her head. "Because the powers. Duh."

"I can't stick around and play with time anyways because you have to get me back to Blackwell." I said, checking the clock on my phone. There were a couple more brand new texts from Warren, but I didn't worry about it. I walked behind Chloe as she pranced down the hill with so much new energy that it wasn't like her at all.

"Tomorrow!" she said, tapping the hood of her truck before hopping behind the wheel. "Tomorrow, meet me at Two Whales. I bet Mom will die when she sees you again."

I knew it was a matter of time before I'd see Joyce again. I agreed to breakfast as she drove back onto the road that led to the scene of most of my nightmares. When we got to the parking lot, we didn't hug. She simply told me she'd text me when she woke up in the morning, and I told her I'd meet her there. It was so hard not to grab onto her, to tell her I loved her, but I knew at the point in our reunion that it would be way too much. However, it may not be enough for my reunion with Warren. I had some explaining to do.

I heard the truck engine roar out towards the road, and I saw Chloe give the campus the finger before racing towards the Pacific sunset.

Okay, now that's taken care of. I have to go find Warren.

I put my headphones on and walked to Syd Matters' "To All of You" until I reached the girl's dormitory. I had to get the flash drive and then sift through the texts from my anxious admirer. Let the nightmare begin again.