Author's Notes:
Well, Farewell was a pretty sweet mindfuck again, which I tried to handle by writing this very short One-Shot in a few hours.
I always asked myself why Max broke contact with Chloe, despite the fact that they were best friends. I know, there are probably thousands of stories out there, trying to explain this. Maybe mine isn't even that unique. But still...enjoy!
Dear Chloe
It was March 11, 2010; a Wednesday. For other people it was a normal day like any other Wednesday, but not for Max Caulfield. For Max this date has always been special. A date she'd never forget. It was her best friend's birthday and all she wanted to do for the last days was to write her a simple letter.
But somehow the 14-year-old girl wasn't able to do so; like she never had been able to write her one simple message or one short e-mail, for the last one and a half years.
The problem wasn't that she was too lazy or didn't know what to say. The problem was Chloe's answers. Every time Chloe answered her, she felt a sting in her heart. Every time it was another meltdown. Every time it was literally torture for her.
She never wanted to leaver her, especially not after William died. Her parents dragged her to Seattle. Separated her from her best and only friend. Put 250 Miles between them.
Right before she'd left, Chloe had told her that everything would be fine; that Max would do okay, but this was as far away from the truth as possible. Max wasn't doing okay. She missed Chloe. She missed her so much that her parents had to drag her to a psychiatrist.
You have to move on! Find new friends! Distract yourself! These were the common words everyone had told her. Nothing helped. But one comment hit her hard, even made her despair: Break contact! Leave her behind! Think about yourself!
From the first moment on Max had heard these words, she defied them. Tried to forget them. But right now, while she was sitting over that letter, drenching the still white paper with her tears, she made one final decision.
Max took her phone and gazed one last time at the messages she'd written with Chloe. It weren't much, still they made her cry again. She marked them and hit the delete-button. Then she opened her contacts.
"I'm so sorry!", the young girl whispered as she selected Chloe's number and confirmed its deletion, too.
Next, Max turned on her computer. Right on the desktop, which's background picture showed her and Chloe as kids, she had a shortcut to a folder that contained every single picture she'd ever taken of Chloe. Accompanied by a constant sobbing, a flood of tears flowed down her cheeks as she selected the whole folder. Max had to cover her red-cried eyes as the filling loading bar showed the deletion progress. A few moments later, she looked at the screen again. The background picture was gone, as well as the folder.
Sadness had now completely taken over the young girl. She just felt dull; empty. She wasn't even able to cry anymore.
Like in trance Max took off any picture from the walls that showed Chloe and threw them into the trashcan. Her old diaries followed.
Last but not least, she opened a drawer from her desk and took out a pile of written sheets of paper. Letters. A lot of them. Everyone of them written under tears. Everyone containing and expressing Max's deep feelings for Chloe. None of them sent. They joined the other stuff in the bin, as well as the failed birthday-letter.
With the filled can in her arms, Max headed downstairs into the living room, kneeled down and opened the glassy door of the fireplace.
Her hands were shacking as she put every piece of memory; every bit that once meant so much to her; onto the remains of the last warming fire that had burned in there.
With a loud hissing sound the match was ignited. The bright flame reflected by the still wet skin of Max's freckled cheeks. An airwave almost blew off the tiny flame, like it wanted to stop Max in her doings, and for a slight moment she hesitated, but eventually let the flame jump on the paper.
She closed the door again and watched how the once so small flame turned into a big, wild fire, devouring every piece of paper it could find.
Her gaze dropped as Max finally realized what she'd just done. How severe the consequences of her decision were. But once more she wasn't able to shed tears. She just stared to the ground and almost gasped as her sight caught a photo, laying on the floor right in front of her. It showed her and Chloe dressed as pirates. The young girl looked at it with a soft smile, picked it up and pressed it close on her chest. A big wave of warm and positive emotions was rushing through her entire body. "I will always love you!", she whispered softly, while the flames had now burned almost everything, except one little piece of paper. The remnant of the birthday letter Max had planned to write. On it were only two words. The only two words Max had ever written on this paper: Dear Chloe.