Chapter 4: Escapade to the Forest
The buzzing of Max's phone slowly brought the brunette back from dreamland. Her arm, still half-asleep, groggily slithered towards the phone, knocking it off of the end table. "Stupid arm," Max thought to herself as she reached down to pick up the phone. It was 9:30 in the morning, but Max wasn't concerned about that since classes didn't start until tomorrow. The caller was Vanessa, Max quickly answered it.
"Hey, Mom," Max began, her voice not fully awake.
"Hello, Maxie!" Vanessa chirped, obviously more awake than Max. "Did you get settled in?"
"Yeah, Chloe and William helped me get my stuff into my dorm," Max confirmed. "Sorry that I didn't call yesterday, I was exhausted."
"No worries Maxine," Vanessa replied. How're William and Joyce?"
"They're great, Joyce is still working at Two Whales, and William still teaches at Bayside."
"That's good to hear. Anyway, have a good day Maxine, I don't want to hold you back from greatness."
"Bye, Mom," Max said, hanging up the phone. She slowly got out of her bed, the orange sunlight providing a natural light in Max's room. "Oh shit, Chloe probably bombarded my phone with a million and one texts while I was asleep," Max thought as she raised the screen of her phone and opened the messages app. As expected, there were ten messages waiting to be seen from Chloe, ranging from tame to borderline freak out. Thankfully, according to the second-to-last, Dana had stopped Chloe before she went on a rampage. Then there was the final text message:
Chlo - Hey, Max! If you wanna go to Two Whales tomorrow hit me up! (10:40 PM)
"So, Two Whales... Should've seen that coming," Max thought as she began texting Chloe.
Max - Heck yeah, I'm down for Two Whales! :D (9:36 AM)
She didn't reply immediately, so Max figured that she was sleeping. Max changed out of her sleepwear into her normal outfit, blue jeans with a pink Jane Doe T-shirt and a gray hoodie, with her messenger bag at her side. After a quick check on her plant, Lisa, she was out the door and in the hall of the second floor of the dormitories. Despite being a day before classes began, there were still more students in the hall then Max would've expected. Max could swear she heard violin music coming from Kate's room, the door was left slightly ajar.
When Kate had finished playing, Max softly rattled on the door.
"Come in!" Kate called from inside. Max entered the room, which earned her a heartfelt smile from Kate. "Good morning, Max!"
"Hey, Kate," Max greeted. Kate's room was kept tidy and reminded Max a lot of her old room from when she used to live in Arcadia. "How is your morning?"
"Not bad, all things considered," Kate replied gleefully, placing the violin and bow back into the case. "I heard that Chloe was about ready to uproot the dormitory from its foundations yesterday." Max giggled at the thought.
"Yeah, that was probably my bad," Max said scratching the back of her neck. "Thank dog that Dana stopped her." Kate gave Max an inquisitive look at Max's statement but continued the conversation nonetheless.
"So, what brings you to my humble closet of a room, Max?" Kate asked resting her chin in her palm.
"Well we didn't really get a chance to talk a whole lo-" Max was cut off by her own squeal of joy when she noticed a bunny sitting in a cage placed near Kate's desk. Max cupped her hands over her mouth, trying not to disturb anyone still sleeping. Kate chuckled at the small a smile spread across her face.
"I see you've noticed Alice," she said, getting up from the couch and walking over to the bunny's cage, with Max following close behind. Kate carefully took the rabbit from the cage and cradled it in her arms. "You can hold her if you want."
"Calm down, Max. Don't crush Kate's rabbit," Max thought as she tried to contain her excitement. Kate placed the bunny in Max's arms, which mirrored how Kate held Alice. Max carefully held Alice with one arm while using her free hand to pet her, which caused Alice to melt in Max's arms and squint her eyes. "She's so fucking cute, Chloe would probably go full-on bear mama on this thing."
"She likes you," Kate said, smiling again at Max. "Though I'm not surprised, you seem to be good with animals." Max's love for animals began with Bongo, Chloe's pet cat. Bongo loved Max, mainly because she was much calmer than Chloe, who was more jumpy and energetic than Max. A vibration from Max's pocket prompted her to give Alice back to Kate and pull out her phone to see the new messages.
Chlo - Great! I'll be there soon (9:40 AM)
Chlo - OMFG NO EMOJI! (9:40 AM)
"Let me guess, it's Chloe," Kate said with a smirk, Max simply nodded. "Well, have a good day, Max. I'm sure she has something planned."
"You have a good day too, Kate!" Max left Kate's room and continued down the stairs to the second entrance of the Prescott Dorms, which was just a quick flight of stairs away. As Max exited the dorms, the cool morning air filled her lungs. the courtyard had few people in it, there were two jocks who were passing a football back and forth, a group of students situated near a tree, and a man who Max assumed was a custodian. She kept walking down the path towards the quad. Max went over to the statue situated in front of the main building and sat down on the edge of the fountain. Max found this particular spot rather calm and serene, mainly because of the statue, which Max felt shielded her from negative energy.
Suddenly, Max heard something behind her. Looking behind her and up, she saw that a hawk had landed on the hand of the statue. Max got up from her spot on the fountain, the hawk's gaze was directed at Max as if it were pondering why she was idling there. Max pulled out her camera, steadied herself and took a picture. Oddly enough, the hawk didn't flinch when she took the photo. Max grabbed the Polaroid, waved it in the air for a few seconds and stashed the camera and the picture in her messenger bag. "Thank you for the photo op, bird of prey," Max thought to herself as the hawk flew away. Another noise drew her attention away from the statue and towards the road in front of the quad; the noise came from Chloe's mini-SUV, which was parked at the curb.
"Come on, slowpoke!" Chloe shouted. Max jogged over to the car and opened the passenger side door, closing the door behind her and clicking her seatbelt into the buckle. Chloe pulled away from the curb and set off onto the road. "So, how was your morning?"
"Kate let me hold her bunny," Max beamed.
"Alice? Yeah, she's the second cutest thing on Earth," Chloe commented, which earned her an inquisitive glare from Max. "Second only to me, that is." Max snickered at that statement.
"Hey, Chloe?" Max began. "I gotta tell you something that has been bugging me."
"Go ahead, Max, I'm listening," Chloe replied, keeping her eyes focused on the road.
"Dana said that Victoria was talking about me," Max could see that Chloe was getting charged up, her gaze more intense, her knuckles turning white from her grip on the steering wheel. Thankfully, Chloe began to take deep breaths in an attempt to calm down.
"She's nothing to worry about, Max," Chloe finally said. "She's all bark and no bite. She'll just try to find a way under your skin, but your skin is so thick it would probably stop a bullet, so don't worry about her."
"I'm nowhere near as strong as you, Chloe-"
"That's bullshit, Max," Chloe interrupted, sounding appalled by what Max had said. "You went through so many challenges to get here Max, and you stayed strong throughout all of it." The car went silent for several minutes as Chloe made the turn onto Arcadia Bay Avenue. It stayed silent until they pulled up into the Two Whales parking lot. "Let's go, matey! Breakfast is dead ahead!"
"Aye aye, cap'n!" Max replied while saluting. Chloe and Max got out of the car and made their way into the diner. Unbeknownst to them was the hawk from earlier, which was waiting patiently on the roof of a nearby building.
After breakfast, the duo decided to go to the Lighthouse to sightsee, but also for Max to take pictures (as if that wasn't obvious enough). It was close to noon when they arrived at the Arcadia Bay Lighthouse Trail, the cool breeze of September made the trees sway. Chloe was further ahead than Max, who was taking photos of almost everything she passed. A tall fir tree with numerous branches, two squirrels chasing each other up and around the base of a tree, and a blue jay chirping on a metal fence. "Whoa, Caulfield, calm down. You keep this up and you'll run out of film," Max thought to herself.
"Come on, slowpoke! You're taking forever!" Chloe shouted.
"Be up there in a few minutes!" Max called back, making her way up the trail again. The Lighthouse Trail was the most well-known place in Arcadia, and one of Max's favorite places to go. The first time she went there was when she was 4, sat on Ryan's shoulders as she watched the sun sink into the horizon. Since then, she's held the place as sacred and has made the trek up the trail to the lighthouse hundreds of times. Max walked slowly, taking everything in as she walked, holding her instant camera in both hands. The path curled around boulders and large trees, up to the familiar sight of the lighthouse, where Chloe was waiting. Walking towards the bench, she took a seat next to Chloe, who had one leg resting on her knee with her hands resting her head.
"This year is gonna be awesome!" Chloe said with a wide smirk growing across her face once more. "You don't know how happy I am knowing that you're going to be at Blackwell now!"
"Damn right, so long as I don't pull a Holden Caulfield," Max joked.
"Oh please, you couldn't be rebellious if you tried," Chloe stated plainly. "Remember when you tried to talk back to Joyce and she-"
"-Threatened to deny me extra servings and I started bawling my eyes out," Max sighed at the reminder of that memory, meanwhile Chloe was crying from laughter. "Hey, that was your idea!"
"It wasn't my fault that you went through with it!" Chloe retorted, still out of breath from laughing. "How has Seattle been treating my best friend?"
"Eric was busy most of the Summer with work, but we did manage to go to Mount Rainier again," Max said, looking out towards the ocean. The memories of Max's first trip to Rainier were the best of Max's life after Ryan's death. It was there that she felt happy for the first time in two years.
"Shit!" Chloe exclaimed, who was looking at her phone. "Crap, I completely spaced out."
"Whats wrong, Che?" Max asked puzzled.
"I was supposed to help Dad with something at twelve," Chloe said, resting her forehead in her palm. "Fuck, I'm such a tool."
"Then let's go! I can help you out," Max says grabbing Chloe's hand and hastily pulling her to her feet.
"Race you to the car!" Chloe said, shaking from Max's grasp and running down the path. That was until she heard a loud thud behind her. Chloe stopped dead in her tracks and turned her head to face the source of the noise, only to see Max lying on her back.
"Max!" Chloe called, running to the brunette. "Max, are you okay?!"
"I'm fine, Chloe, just a bit shook up," Max replied calmly, but her answer did little to calm Chloe down. Her eyes had widened in shock, a hand placed over her mouth. "Chloe, whats wrong?"
"Max, your camera," Chloe said with a trembling voice, pointing towards Max's bag.
In the dirt was Max's camera, broken and bent, with a shattered lens. Max's eyes widened in shock, then horror. She picked up the yellow camera, her hands trembling at the sight before her.
"No, no no! This has to be some sick dream right?" Max could feel her eyes sting as fresh tears began to glide down her cheeks. Chloe pulled Max into an embrace, letting the smaller girl cry into her shoulder. "No, this can't be real!" Max was clutching onto Chloe's shirt like her life depended on it.
"I'm sorry, Max, I'm so sorry," Chloe said, stroking Max's hair as the brunette continued to weep.
And watching from a branch was the hawk, who bowed its head, saddened by the scene.
AN: Okay I have quite a bit to explain. Firstly, I am sorry for the long wait, procrastination is a nasty habit of mine and writers blocks were frequent when I was writing. Secondly, I know well that I haven't introduced Nate or Vic aside from them being mentioned by others, it's mostly because I've been lazy and haven't introduced them yet, but I will.
Also, I'd like to thank everyone who has left reviews and read my story, thank you guys so much for the kind words. I haven't written fanfiction in a while, but since I started this, I wasn't anticipating this much support, and I can't stress how much that means to me.
I hope you enjoyed this chapter, my friends! Peace out!