AN: This ended up being more words than planned, so I'm going to split it into two parts. Also thanks to those who actually took the time to read this.Im still really new to writing fan fiction, and I appreciate all feedback good and bad It helps give direction. Sorry for any grammar issues, I promise to get better I'm horrible with English.
Chapter 2
The alarm in Max's room is deafening as it goes off. It is on a pulsate setting and sends out a burst of sound every few seconds. Max is buried under the covers and reaches her arm out to from under the blanket to pull it under to her. Max is laying on her side and holds the alarm in front of her face. She barely opens her eyes as she sees the red outlines of the numbers. Turning the alarm off she places it back where it was. She holds her head as she comes out from under the blanket.
"umhmmmm," Max moans, "my head hurts so much." She looks around still a little bit dazed from waking up. The room seems to be spinning and not entirely centered. "Where am I?"
Max slowly realizes her location as everything comes into focus. See looks back at the alarm and then to the wall.
"I missed my first class of the day. Way to go Max, now how are we going to get the attendance award. Setting up for failure already." Max angrily says to herself. She turns her body but keeps her head on the pillow. The fuzzy feeling in her head turns into a pounding. Only thing she is thinking is what happened last night. Max begins to focus, remembering going to Rachel's house but that was the extent she could muster. She closes her eyes and feels a vibration on the bed. Confusion jolts her eyes open. She spreads her hands over the bed and brushes her fingers against her phone, which is under the pillow. Taking it out she looks at the screen. The screen tells her of missed calls and texts.
"It must be an emergency or something. I never have this many notifications." Max says internally. She opens the phone and opens her text messages. The first ones that pop up are from Warren. Max reads them through squinted eyes.
Warren: Hey mad Max want to catch a movie this weekend?
Warren: As friends obviously.
Warren: Maybe we can talk if that is ok?
Warren: Guess that means no? Busy?
Max sighs from reading the messages. When scrolling through a voicemail notification pops up. She accidentally presses the button and jumps to her voicemail.
"4 new voicemail. First message." The phone chirps. Over the phone a soft deep voice comes over it. "Hey Max, Its Warren. Sorry to blow up your phone but was thinking about you lately. I took your advice with Brooke. We went to the drive -in, It was cool and all but just hard talking to her. Not like you at all. Most of the time we just talk about me because she wants to and when trying to talk about her, its about her drone. Its like she's trying to force herself to talk about it so she seems interested in what I like..."
Max hits the erase button on the phone.
"Message erased. Next new voicemail." The phones states in its robotic tone.
Warren's voice came over the phone once again, "Its me again. Sorry I just wanted to say one more thing. I wanted you to know that I miss you and want things to work out between us, if you just want to be friends we can. Whatever you want. I...I..."The message trails off and the cuts off.
"Do I responded to this or no, no I can't'Max says to herself. Warren really liked her but Max doesn't understand how. Yes they were close but did she really put out those intentions at first. All she knew is that he sounded desperate over the phone. She thinks that she should call him back sooner or later, more later than sooner. She continues to look through her texts. Everyone that's popping up says Warren and they are all about this weekend or if she is busy. She clicks on one
Warren: I love you!
'Can't deal with this right now' She shakes her head and scrolls down further. He may need Rachel's help when it comes to his dating life, more than she does. She thinks to herself as she continues to scroll until a random number pops up.
458-555-2689: Save my number hippie.
Max is completely confused. She doesn't recognize the number at all. A few seconds pass before she figures who it might be. She smiles.
"I'm not that much of a hippie...am I?" She thinks. Max thinks about last night to try to remember as much as she can again. A few images stand out but nothing to important. She couldn't remember giving her number out and closed her phone
"I gotta call Rachel." Max places her phone back on the pillow as she rolls out of bed. Walking over to her mirror, Max rubs her head and runs fingers through her hair to get her hair out of her face. She looks into the mirror.
"Gross, I look like shit. The zombies face is so not a good look anymore. I should probably start wearing makeup to cover up these bags and actually listen to Rachel about that whole make up thing.", she says to herself. She starts to pull at her eye lids, pulling them down to show the veins under her eyes. Rubbing her eyes, Max blinks to get the crust out of her eyes. Walking towards the door, she grabs her toilettes and heads down the hall to freshen up. The hallway seems longer than she remembers but that's probably because of the headache. The smell of alcohol and sweat oozes from her skin, or as she would call it regret.
As Max gets into the bathroom, she hears two voices chatting on the other side of the door. She vaguely hears what they are saying but she recognized the girls from their voice. Opening the door she sees the two girls at the sinks. Both are putting on make up and both stare at Max as she walks in and then back to applying.
"Can you believe that some people are so inconsiderate," The first girl with the blonde pixie cut says to the second.
"I know, right! " The other, taller blonde girl, responds. Max tries to ignore the two and try to get by them with any altercation.
"Completely inconsiderate! Right Maxine?" The blonde girl with the Pixie cut asks.
Max stops at the mention of her own name. "I guess," she nervously starts, "Victoria."
"Its always the losers that want to be the nuisance." Victoria says before turning around to look at Max. "Your annoying ass kept me awake all night."
Max is slightly confused, "I don't know what you are talking about and you know my name is Max never Maxine."
"Still don't care what your name is. Just next time you keep me awake there will be consequences." Victoria states.
"I still don't know what your even talking about anyway." Max responds
Victoria's face changes as she rolls her eyes, "Whatever, maybe you should just go ask that criminal bitch friend of yours." Victoria and the other girl leave the room and heads down the hall. They were the last two Max wanted to see. She just wanted to see Rachel and get to the bottom of what happened last night.
The shower water was warm against Max's skin. The steam and the flow of the droplets really relaxed her, letting her clear her mind. The fogginess and hazy feeling slowly dissipates. She gets out the shower and walks back to her room. Now, the hallway was back to normal and didn't feel like the labyrinth it started off as. She opens the door and throws her towel on the bed before walking to the closet to pull out clothes.
"Time to put together your everyday outfit , Max." Max looks through the closet and slowly rules out the ideas. Sliding the hangers she gets to one of her plain t-shirts and hoodie. She then grabs a pair of jeans and throws it all on. Throwing the hoodie on over her head. She grabs her phone and sits on the bed. Unlocking her phone, she clicks on Rachel's phone number. The phone rings twice before a voice comes over the phone.
"Hello," the voice is soft but rushed.
"Hey Rachel, its Max. Did I wake you?" Max's voice is shaky with concern.
"Oh no, not at all. Just kind of...Frank move. No I can talk. What's up?" Max instantly feels bad for probably interrupting what Rachel was doing. She starts second guessing asking if she should even ask her any of the questions she has.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to wake you up. I'll talk to you later."
"Max, just say it. I'm not busy at all." The rustling of sheets and clothes can be heard over the phone. "I actually been meaning to call you but I was just kind of busy."
The sound of Rachel's words makes the gears in Max's head to turn. "Why did Rachel want to call me. Oh no! Did I do something stupid?", Max thinks to herself.
"So last night was fun right? I remember having fun and that everyone else was having fun. Then it becomes hazy at points but long story short, I remember Justin leaving with a bloody nose." Rachel's voice shifts volumes through the sentence. Max stayed silence trying to comprehend the sentence.
"Hello? Max? Still there?" Rachel asks.
"Yeah, yeah. I'm here." Max responds. Max thinks about as much as she could remember from earlier but doesn't remember anything about Justin's nose. "Do you remember how did that happen at all?"
"From what Frank said Chloe punched him." Rachel's voice trails off from moving the phone from her face. "Hey Frank, rollover. Chloe punched Justin right?" Over the phone Frank's voice can be heard. Its muffled but still recognizable. "Yeah, he said she punched him. I remember yelling at him for bleeding on the carpet but that's basically it."
Max holds in a giggle and pulls her lips under her teeth. Justin being hurt was amusing Max but the image of Rachel's anger kept Max giggling. "Oh wait, do you know how I got back in to my dorm last night by chance?", Max asks.
"Not a clue. I'm still here at my parent's house with Frank. Plus I was in no shape to even turn on a car last night." Rachel jokes. The events of last night are still in the air to Max. Rachel didn't remember much and neither did she. "Oh before I forget to tell you, Chloe told me to tell you to call her. You guys really seemed to hit if off last night. She said you have her number."
Max is at a lose of words. Her heart is pounding and the stomach felt like it was turning but not in the way from when she woke up. "You think," Max voice fluctuates with each word. She clears her throat and tries again. "You think so? Wouldn't it be weird if I do that. I mean we barely know each other."
"Last night says other wise. Well I gotta go. Me and Frank have plans today. Call me later if you need me." Rachel says before hanging up. Max didn't have any time to respond to Rachel and slowly puts her phone down. Her heart is throbbing that it feels like its coming out of her chest. "Call her?", she thinks to herself. Max looks around her room and at the alarm clock.
"I should probably be productive since I missed class." Max thinks to herself. She grabs her books and camera and decides to head outside to help her concentrate.
The weather outside was warm. The sun was high in the sky and a faint breeze could be felt every once in a while. Max takes a seat at the bench out side of the girls dorm. She straddles the bench and lays her books in front of her. Max opens the closest book to her. She reads the first 2 sentences, then looks up to see the rest of the campus. Monitoring her surroundings, Max noticed a girl sitting under a tree reading a magazine. The girl lowers the magazine and Max recognizes it to be Taylor. Max rolls her eyes and continues her view around the campus. Looking around she saw Logan and Zach throwing a football to each other. Max always wondered why they always played catch in front of the girls dorm. The only idea she had was because it would get the girls attention or for them to see the girls as they came out the front door. On the other side of the boys playing catch, Max sees Kate as she is sitting with her back turned looking out to the scenery . Max could always recognize Kate because she was the only one at school with a constant bun and dressed just as plain as Max and today was no difference. She had on a cardigan over a white shirt with a long knee length skirt. Max watched as the wind blew and the leaves swayed from the breeze.
"This would make a perfect shot!", Max thinks as she picks up the camera and points it at Kate. "Kate looks amazing in this light." Max takes the picture, "Wonder how she is." Max gets up, grabs her books, and goes to talk to Kate.
"Hey Kate," Max says as she approaches Kate from behind. Kate turned to the sound of her name. Seeing who it came from, Kate smiles. Her cross pendent glistened in the sun light as she turned.
"Max!" Kate replies.
"How are you doing?' Max asks as she gets closer. Kate was one of the people Max couldn't understand. She was like a locked book or an impassable walk, never showing her emotions often. Her poker face was on par with professional poker players.
"I'm okay, you missed class today. Everything alright?" Max is startled by the question. She nearly forget they were in the same class together.
Max's face scrunches, "Yeah, I over slept."
"There goes the attendance award for this year," Kate jokes. "You can borrow my notes if you need them but you honestly didn't miss much. Just a lot of nothing"
Max's eyes brighten at the sound of notes, "Thank you so much! That would be awesome! I owe you one."
Kate smiles before looking at her watch, "Hey, I have to go. Just swing passed my room later to pick them up and no owing its pro bono." Kate picks up her stuff from the table. "Call me later." Kate gets up and waves as she leaves Max at the bench. Kate walks back to the front door of the dorms. Max sighs as she leaves, "She really seemed off. I hope she is okay", Max thinks. Max's phone starts to vibrate in her pocket. She grabs for it while watching Kate walk inside.
"Hello," Max says into the phone.
"What's up, Hippie? Good to hear your alive, didn't expect it after last night." the voice over the phone says. Max's heart stops and a cold feeling rushes over her entire body. Max stays entire still and silent as she recognizes Chloe's voice.
"Hello? I know your still there I can hear you breathing," Chloe remarks. Max's brain finally restarts for her to respond.
"Hi...ummmm...hi," Max stumbles, "I'm fine. Nothing much. How about you?"
"Ehhh," Chloe scoffs, "Nothing much here too. How'd you wake up?"
Max sighs, "Bad..ish. I'm not use to Rachel's types of partying. Was I that bad last night?"
Chloe laughs, "Not as bad as most people I know. You were manageable at least. Extremely agreeable actually. Dealing with drunks isn't hard, I'm use to it. Plus I didn't have anything close to what you guys had." Max flashes back to the night and remembers Chloe not really drinking anything besides water most of the night. Chloe obviously knew how the night went and Max wanted to know.
"What happened last night?" Max asks.
Chloe laughs again, "I was waiting for you to ask that but as keeper of this forbidden info a payment must be given. My knowledge of the unknown comes with a price"
Max thinks about what that could entail, "What?"
"A favor, Hippie. You owe me." Chloe responds dryly.
"I mean what do I owe you?", Max asks.
"Ohhhh, Well since I did take you to your dorm last night and for telling you about last night. You owe me...", Chloe trails off, "You owe me an assbuster breakfast at Two Whales."
"Sold!", Max exclaims. Her voice breaks with an electric excitement in her tone
"Meet me there in 20 and I'll spill my guts," Chloe giggles
The diner wasn't that far from campus. It was a small town type diner appearance, red leather booths along one side of the building and the counter top on the other. The smoke from the kitchen sent a light fog through the dinning room. Max walked in and looked around, not that crowded entirely. She looks down at her watch seeing that the 20 minute time limit Chloe gave over the phone hasn't entire passed yet. Looking around a little more she sees out the corner of her eye an empty booth in the back corner by the jukebox. Taking a seat memories start to flood over her thoughts. The past and present start to mesh together as the thoughts of the last time she was there with Warren. It was an awkward date where the two sat and Warren scribbled some science jargon only he understood. Max laughed before looking out the window. It was a day that she felt was never right, that never should have been the way it was. Closing her eyes, the passed disappeared and what was felt was the thought of blue. Electric blue, a vibrant blue that sent a calming and chill feeling through her body. Max places her hand under her head to hold it up, so she couldn't lose her thought path. She gives a little smirk as the blue starts to form a slim figure. Max starts to lose her breath as the figure evens out and its eyes looks back at her. Max's heart speeds up as the blue coloring falls off the figure like silk.
"If you focus that hard about me, people would start talking don't you think Maxi-pad?," a familiar voice comes echoing over the thoughts. Max opens her eyes to see Chloe standing over her. The only thing Max could think was, "Hope she didn't realize that I was doing just that!"
Chloe sits down and slides into the booth. "Sorry I'm late but technically I'm on time. You were early so, take it you wanted a good spot or you really don't remember last night."
Max smiles, she opens her mouth but as she was about to speak an older women approaches the table. She is dressed in a in a blue shirt with the Two Whales logo on it, a black skirt, a white apron, and a note pad in hand ready. The older woman gives a stern look to Chloe, not even noticing Max sitting at the table also.
"Here for another free meal?", the older woman snarkly states.
"If you're offering then yes but this time I'll leave a tip." Chloe retorts crossing her arms and cocking her head to the side.
Rage over comes older woman's face. She points a pen at Chloe, "Don't think because you are at your little friend's house doesn't mean I don't know whats going on." The older woman regains her composure and takes a breath. "When are you going to learn to be more responsible?"
"Come on, do you really have to do a lecture today, especially in front of my new friend." Chloe starts to use nod in Max's direction. The older women looks over to finally see Max sitting there.
The older woman gives a soft smile, "And what's your name?"
Max reaches out a shaky hand, "Hi, I'm Max."
"It's s nice to meet you," the older woman grabs Max hand and shakes it, "I'm Joyce Price, Chloe's mother. Sorry you had to sit through that. Anything I can get you?"
"I'll have a bacon omelet please." Max says.
Joyce looks back at Chloe, "Let me guess, usual?"
Chloe nods and gives a half smile but fully sarcastic. Joyce pours the two of them a cup of coffee then walks off. Chloe watches as her mom walks away then rolls her eyes. Looking back at Max, Chloe sighs.
"Well now that that is finally over, lets get into the dirty details." Chloe states. Max takes a sip of her coffee.
"Is it always like that between you two?," Max asks then mentally trying to figure out why she even asked that question to begin with.
Trying to hide her embarrassment, Chloe answers, "This is tame honestly. Just wait until you meet the step douche because that's when the real sparks fly."
Max holds on to her cup not knowing what to say to Chloe. Joyce comes back to the table placing the plates of food on the table in front of each girl.
"Thank you Mrs. Price, this looks amazing," Max says eyeing her plate being placed in front of her.
"Please Max, you can just call me Joyce," Joyce give a soft smile that gives the same warmth as a blanket as she talks, "So Max, how do you know my daughter?"
Chloe glares at her mother than to Max, who looks up from her food to answer. "I met Chloe last night at Rachel's house actually."
Max grabs her utensils and cuts off a piece of the omelet. Joyce turns to catch a glimpse of Chloe and folds her arms, "Uh huh, well hopefully you can be a good influence on my daughter." Joyce looks Max up and down. "You don't look like the usual little girls Chloe brings around here."
Max slightly chokes on the piece she just took and looks at Joyce with a shocked look upon her face. Joyce smiles, "Hopefully you can rub off on this one."
Out from the other side of the booth, "Hello, I'm Chloe. I'm your daughter, nice to meet you. Surprisingly I exist in this plain of existence and I'm still here too." Chloe is slightly pissed because of the other two not paying attention to their surroundings. "Isn't there other people you have to serve?"
Joyce turns to Chloe with rage in her eyes. "Eat your food and stop with this attitude Chloe " Joyce turns back to Max, who is sipping her coffee trying to be invisible. "It was nice to meet you sweetie. Hope to see you again."
Max smiles as Joyce walks away. Chloe looks down at her food and disgust creeps over her face. Max is eating and watches as Chloe entire demeanor changes. Chloe stops picking at her food.
"Hey, you okay?" Max asks.
"Sure I'm awesome "Chloe pauses and looks back at her mom working, "Let's get out of here before my mom picks another fight"Chloe stands and starts walking to the door. Max hastily grabs her stuff and place some money on the table. Max looks up and sees Chloe already walking through the door, after taking the last few bites from her plate rushes out the door.
Max rushed out the door and sees Chloe pulling up to her in a truck. Chloe rolls down the window, "Get in."
Max struggles with the door before it opens, "Where we going?" Max clothes the door and Max starts to drive off.
"Somewhere quiet probably, I got a few ideas in mind," Chloe remarks as she speeds up the old rusted truck. "You did want to know about last night still right? About us? Like all of us."
Max nods as the car makes its way down the roads. Max gets a warm feeling that overtakes her at the sound of Chloe saying "us". "What happened last night? Hope I didn't look like an idiot last night!" Max thinks.
Chloe pulls the truck over a few miles away from the beach, near the lighthouse. The wind off the water was cold to the touch. It was a gentle harsh breeze. The two get out the truck and walk up the trail ahead of them. The view from the lighthouse over the water was always a magical view to Max. She use to come up here to take pictures a long time ago when she was first getting into photography. Max stops and grabs at the camera in her bag. She takes a picture of the view of the sun reflecting off the water. Chloe stops not hearing the second set of foot steps behind her, turning around she sees Max snapping pictures.
"Come on slow poke!" Chloe yells to Max. Max turns to the origin of the sound, camera still in her face. She lowers it as she sees Chloe motioning to her. "Hang on!" Max takes one more of Chloe stands in the distance before running up to her.
Max makes it to the top of the trail after Chloe. Chloe is straddling down on the bench with her arms folded. Chloe looked scene and relaxed looking towards the water. The cliff behind Chloe looked like a hand trying to reach over the water when Max made it to the top. "Feeling any better?" Max asked.
"Have a seat Pete," Chloe responds patting the seat in front, looking towards the water. Max sits down looking at Chloe as she watched the water. The way the wind was gently blowing against Chloe's hair, cause Max to be stuck in pure awe.
Chloe turns to Max with a confused look on her face, "You okay?"
Max jumps out of her skin, "Yeah, I'm fine. Just waiting."
Chloe smirks, "Don't worry Maximus, its not that bad. You were for a lack of better terms, entertaining." Chloe begins to chuckle as she sees the worry over Max's face. Chloe's chuckling begins to die down as the worry on Max's face doesn't seem to disappear. "First off, what do you remember? I don't want to repeat stuff you already know."
Max sighs and falls back on her seat. "What do I remember?", Max asks internally thinking back as far as she could possibly to coherent flowing moments in her memory. "I remember the movie. Frank being there and Justin because Rachel set me up with him. Oh! Rachel picking me up too. Then the snacks and you."
Chloe scrunches her lips and listens to the broken sections Max is bringing up. "I guess I have to explain more than I thought." Chloe sighs and puts her hands together, "Well I'll start from the beginning. Lets me see." Chloe starts to think about last night and slowly figuring out how she wanted to explain it.