Under hazy methane clouds, I stand before an ocean of blood and ichor that flows beyond the stream of time. A solitary figure appears on the horizon. The hull of a canoe comes to rest against the rocky shore. The vessel's caretaker is a gaunt assemblage of flesh and bones held together by frayed tendons and sinews. It wears a faded red lumberjack's shirt and pair of stonewashed leggings so shredded they no longer resemble clothing.
I sit down across from Rachel. She starts rowing.
"Don't touch me," she rasps. I curl the fingers of my outstretched hand inward and let them fall onto my leg. "The heat of your flesh would sear me."
Silence hangs over us for an eternity until we reach the window of my bedroom. Water threatens to flood in as I open it. Inside, Max sleeps peacefully.
"She's back," says Dad. "I knew she'd find her way back."
Rachel hides her face as she rows her vessel back the way we came. Flaxen hair hangs over gaunt cheekbones like brittle straw. A sudden gust of wind breaks off blond, ashen fragments and spreads them over the water's surface.
"That's not how this ends," I say.
I open my eyes. Max fumbles with her camera, angling it toward her face. I take a moment to collect myself, then sit up and put my head right behind hers.
"Photo bomb!" I say.
Click.
"Photo hog," she says.
"You know you love it when I drop bombs on you. Admit it."
"Depends on what kind of bombs." She air dries the photo. "Those bombs we dropped on Blackwell last night? Yeah, I did enjoy that."
"You should take a chlorine bath at least once a year. Your hair looks so cute when it's soaked in chemicals."
"You're one to talk. Your roots are even coming back in."
Max holds up the picture of us in both hands.
"I wish we could hang out all morning like we used to," she says.
"We can," I say. "Just skip your tests and your homework and all the parts where you have to care about things. Worked for me."
"I work better with a plan and a schedule. Did you and Rachel have a lot of sleepovers?"
"As often as possible. We got to choose between Rachel's dad riding her ass about homework and step-commando wanting us up at the ass-crack of dawn. She reminded me of you when you used to fake sleep so we wouldn't have to get up so early on Saturday morning, except she was still actually sleeping. That girl could doze like no other."
"I can see why you hung out with her. Maybe she would have fought over both of us."
"You wish. She wouldn't need to fight, anyways. You're a photographer and she wanted to be a model."
Max rubs the side of her nose.
"We should do laundry," she says.
"Like responsible adults? Yeah, right. See if you can find something suitable in my fashion hole. Rachel left a whole bunch of her outfits here. She's about your size."
"But not quite my style."
Max gets up off the bed and walks toward my closet.
"Max, you don't have a style. At least give it a try. You can always throw on your pool-scented t-shirt and jeans if it doesn't work out."
"I don't know. I guess it would be cool to try on her clothes, just to see if they fit."
I jump up off the mattress.
"Seriously, you need to stop second-guessing yourself. Be bold. Be fearless. Let your inner punk rock girl out. You can afford to take chances. For example, I dare you to kiss me."
Max's eyes go wide. Her face doesn't go pale, she doesn't take a step back, and her eyebrows are definitely not frowning.
"What?" she says.
"Kiss me," I say. "I double dare you to kiss me right now."
Time slows. Max reaches out. Her hand goes onto my shoulder, she gains an inch as she goes up onto the balls of her feet, her thin lips meet mine. I take a step back so I don't freak out.
"Damn, Max. You're more hardcore than I thought. Now I can text your friend Warren and tell him he doesn't stand a chance."
I sit back down on my bed and look for my medicine in my blue tray. I press my shaking legs together.
"You are such a dork," Max says.
"You better not take that kiss back."
I find a joint and my lighter. Max finds one of Rachel's red flannel shirts, a white t-shirt, and a pair of shredded, dark blue jeans. When she returns from the bathroom, she looks like a miniature version of Rachel, if Rachel wore dark hair short and walked around with a book bag.
"Lookin' sick, Max. A couple tats, some piercings, and we'll make a thrasher out of you yet."
"Ready for the mosh pit, shaka brah."
That sends me over the edge. It's time for Max to eat breakfast.
"Maybe not. You should go downstairs and say hi to Mom. Free breakfast! I need to…" I take my joint out of my mouth and hold it up in the air. "…wake and bake."
"I promise not to tell."
"Let's not find out. Oh, and when I get downstairs, I'm going to start a fight with Mom. Pretend you're uncomfortable and have to go to the bathroom, then sneak into the garage and get the dirt on Deputy Dickhead."
"Wakey, wakey! Eggs and bakey!"
"That's your cue. And don't feel bad when I come downstairs and start acting catty. It's just for show."
"Got it."
I count of ten, prop my joint up against the lip of my ash tray, then sprint into the bathroom. I don't know where she got that "shaka brah" shit from. Must be a movie she watched. It doesn't matter. Her lips were only on mine for half a second, but that's all I need to set a new world record. After I finish the best joint I've ever smoked, I throw on my clothes and head downstairs. Mom and Max are shoulder to shoulder over an old photo album. I mess up my hair and put on my best David face.
"Are you two having a bonding session over how fucked up I am?"
"It's cool, Chloe," says Max. "I got it."
"You got what? Oh…really?"
"Really. Let's eat."
Breakfast tastes a lot better when you're not surrounded by assholes. I'm just finishing up and Max is at the sink washing her plate over Mom's objections when the front door opens to the sound of clomping boots.
"Breakfast," says David.
Max and I stare at each other.
"David, you're back," says Mom. "Are you all right? You look exhausted."
"I need to take a nap after writing up vandalism reports all night."
Max joins me in the dining room. I stand and prepare for the showdown. Might as well get it over with.
"What happened?" Mom asks.
"Some shit-ass punks broke into the main building and possibly the swimming hall as well. If we had those security cameras in place, we'd know exactly who was responsible."
Boots drop onto the foyer floor. David appears in the living room.
"Is that your Rachel Amber Halloween costume?" he says to Max. "Very funny. You must be remembering what I told you the last time I saw you. Don't think I don't recognize you."
"You know more about Rachel Amber than I do," Max says. "You know more about everyone than I do because you spy on them. First with photos and now with surveillance cameras."
"Those cameras should have been approved by the school's administration," says David. "It's for the safety of students while they're on campus."
"But they weren't, so you're using your own cameras, instead. You're harassing and accusing students, David. When you do that, they feel unsafe. I saw you bullying Kate Marsh when she was going through hell. And then when she went to tell Mr. Jefferson about it, he didn't believe her. Maybe when I was in the Principal's office I should have pointed the finger at you, but then I realized that no matter who I point the finger at, you're there to make sure it comes back to bite me in the ass. That's why students don't trust you. You don't show them the respect you want them to show you."
"You done, Max?" says David. "You bring pot into my house and you want to lecture me on respect? I think the reason you're conflicted about all this is because you don't understand what respect is. I was in the service and—"
"I respect your service," says Max. "I do not respect the way you treat other people."
"Do you hear me interrupting you before you're done talking?" says David.
"Do you see me following Kate and Rachel around on campus, taking photos of them, and storing it away as 'evidence'?"
"So you went into my personal files," says David. "I should have known Chloe would get you to do her dirty work for you."
"Why on earth would you need to keep 'files' on students at Blackwell, David?" says Mom.
"I can explain it to you later," says David.
"Why don't you explain it to me now?"
"Because it'll be easier without these two jumping all over my ass about it. They don't understand that sometimes you need to get your hands dirty to clean up the place."
Mom crosses her arms.
"We're talking about children who are still in high school."
"Adults," says David, looking straight at me.
"Teenage adults. And if this is what your work entails, I will not have you bringing it into this house."
"I saw it, Joyce," says Max. "The monitors for your house's surveillance cameras are in the cupboards in the garage. You can see for yourself."
"David?" says Mom.
He says nothing.
"Thank you, Max," Mom says. "I don't need to see the monitors, the cameras, or the files. In fact, I don't want to see them. I want all of those cameras out of this house along with anything else having to do with your so-called 'investigations.' You have until tomorrow morning. And when I get home from work this evening, you make yourself invisible."
"No good deed goes unpunished," David grumbles. "I don't want to see or hear you again, Max. You've hurt this family enough."
My head is in the clouds when Max joins me out in my truck.
"You totally stood up to David," I say. "And it was even better than last time."
"Are you in a good mood?"
"Hell yes!"
I peel out of the driveway and head off down the road. I don't even care where we're going.
"Good, because I have some heavy news."
"Hit me."
Max takes a breath.
"Listen, I know this might be difficult for you to believe, but when I went through David's laptop, I found pictures of Rachel and Frank…being more than friends."
My foot hits the accelerator.
"Bullshit," I say. "I should have known last night and this morning were too good to be true."
"Chloe, slow down," says Max.
"There's no way she could have been trawling the gutter with that shit bag. Maybe she posed for him in exchange for…her habit. Maybe."
"Why don't we check out what Frank has in his RV?"
Where the mill used to be? He's there, sometimes. The beach? Too early in the morning. The junkyard? Maybe. What does he do right about now?
"Breakfast," I say. I crank the wheel to the right. "Two Whales."
"We just ate."
"Not us. Frank."
Five minutes later we're at the Two Whales. Sure as shit, Frank's RV is shitty-parked in the tar-paved wasteland next to the diner. Frank's greasy mane is parked in the diner booth closest to the window, too hammered to notice anything but his breakfast. I hop out of my truck and walk with Max straight to the porta-potty door that serves as the entrance to Frank's mobile shit-house.
"We have to be casual ninjas here," says Max.
I jiggle the door handle. Locked. A dog barks inside.
"Wait here," Max says.
She disappears into the restaurant.
I know they keep the food waste in the bins out back and that they're always really fucking nasty. I figure that's the sort of thing Frank's dog would be into. I actually climb over the fence and snatch the first thing I see: a leftover bone from a Texas-sized steak. Max is waiting for me when I return.
"Ready?" she says.
"We haven't even come up with a plan."
"I know how you think. Three, two, one…"
I hold the bone out in front of Shithead and toss it all the way to the fence. Frank's dog can't decide whether to piss himself, shit himself, or do both while slobbering all over his dumpster delight.
"Chloe."
Max pulls me inside Frank's ass-mobile. It looks like the inside of a dive bar if said dive bar were also a hotel room with dirty laundry and pizza boxes all over the place. Who doesn't use their sink for empty beer bottles?
"Gross," says Max.
"He's really let this place go," I say. "And I thought my room was a shithole."
"You're not a creepy drug dealer."
"Frank has issues, but he's not creepy. There's no way Rachel would have let him perv out on her."
I sit down in the driver's seat behind a windshield-sized sun cover. This would be a quiet place to hang if it didn't smell like stale beer and man-ass.
"Maybe she was just trying to score a ride after her wheels got taken away," I say. "If she were desperate enough."
"We could tear down the highway in this thing," says Max. "And you'd probably want me to kiss you again. Anyways, let's find clues about Rachel before Frank or his dog come back."
"All right. You scout the area while I check his laptop for info."
I sit down at his dining room table or whatever the hell he calls this thing and start going through his files. I drum my finger against the mouse pad as I wait for his web browser to actually connect to something.
"Crappy internet in here," I say. "Must take him days to download porn."
"Gross," Max calls.
"Tell me about it."
I click through his browser history. Dogs, dogs, meat, beans, dogs, how to start a web business? You're shitting me. Max puts a small, leather-bound journal down in front of me. I guess time flies when you're browsing random bullshit. Max opens the journal. What the fuck is this picture of Rachel with Frank's dog? Now you have really got to be motherfucking shitting me. Rachel wearing too much makeup sitting behind the wheel of Frank's RV out on the open road. Rachel thrashing to music in nothing but a red bra and black lace underwear. A warning to Frank written on a blank auto repair estimate form. A love letter written to "Frankie B." Rachel posing for a picture with Frank who stands behind her with his arms around her.
I don't even want to have eyes right now. Blowtorch them out of my fucking skull. I am not seeing this shit.
"I can't believe she was banging Frank," I say. "Rachel straight up lied to my face. Why would she do that to me?"
"Because she knew how you would react," says Max.
"Then she wasn't much of a girlfriend, huh? Just another person who loves me and leaves me. Why does everybody in my life let me down? My dad dies, you bail on me for five years, Mom gets attached at the hip to step-fucker…and now Rachel, of all people, betrays me."
"Chloe, Rachel is missing. She didn't betray you."
"Right, she wasn't fucking Frank while I sat at home smoking cigarettes waiting for her to finish 'networking' at the latest 'Vortex Club party'. Fuck this shit. Fuck everybody!"
I stand up, push my way past Max, and go straight for Frank's storage closet. I rummage through it,—fuck your beans, asshole—grab every bag my arms can carry, and blow out the front door. I toss it all into my truck's cab, then slam the door shut so hard that Frank's shit-head dog lets out a yelp from over by the fence where he's still gnawing on that fucking bone I gave him. That little fucker is lucky he's not in my path, otherwise I'd football kick him between the billboards on the other side of the street. I toss the keys to Frank's RV onto the roof of the building next door.
"Chloe!" says Max. "He'll know someone was in his RV."
"I don't fucking care."
Frank's dog growls again. Fuck you, dog. I grab the bone while it's still in his mouth and pull on it so hard he goes skittering across the pavement on all four paws. I rip it out of his mouth.
"You want this shit, asshole?"
I wind my arm back behind me and aim for the street.
"Chloe!" says Max. "Don't!"
Frank's dog with a tire mark on the side of its body as it lies in the street, lifeless. A crowd of people gathered around. Drivers stopping in the middle of the street and opening their doors to witness the spectacle. Frank with his face in his hands, teary-eyed, being interviewed by police officers and news reporters and Juliet Watson for the Blackwell Totem. Nathan and Max standing over the corpse with their cameras. Click, click, click, click, click.
"I'll give all you fuckers something to stare at."
I throw the bone out into the street. I don't even bother to watch.
"Holy shit, Chloe!"
I get into my truck, slam the door shut, and crank the engine as hard as I can. Max is barely inside before I take off straight back into the street. An oncoming car slams on its brakes. Another pulls to an abrupt stop behind me. I floor it.
"Chloe," says Max. "Calm down. You almost killed an innocent animal! You can't keep blaming others for everything that goes wrong in your life. It's not fair."
"Rachel was banging that pig. Rachel is missing. Dad never did anything wrong in his life. Dad is dead. Puppy dog dreams about bones all day. Puppy dog gets creamed by a semi. Life is bullshit. There's no connection between how awesome someone is and how much life completely fucking shits all over them. What fucking part of this is supposed to make sense?"
"Chloe…"
"Is this shit supposed to be my fault? People are dead and missing and I'm the one to blame? Fuck that."
"Is this supposed to be Rachel's fault?"
"She was letting that drunk-ass shit-scraper blow his load inside her!"
"Ugh…"
"Right? That's how fucking gross that shit is! Bitch straight up lied to my face about it, too. That's the worst thing. Everyone pretends they care until they don't." I grip the steering wheel with my hands until my knuckles go white. "Even you."
"You take that back right now, Chloe Price."
"Fine. I'm just tired of being punished for no reason. What the fuck have I done to deserve this?"
"It's not about deserving, Chloe. Things happen that you have no control over. You can't blame yourself for that."
"If I had just told Dad to take the bus or stay home or called a cab for Mom…"
"You can't go back in time and do that," Max says.
"Mom blames herself, too. All she wanted was a ride home. She tells me sometimes, 'I should have walked or asked one of the waitresses for a ride.' She once launched into some bullshit about giving a trucker a ride in exchange for a ride."
"She was that messed up about it?"
"Yeah."
"Just like you are right now. You're saying things you don't actually believe."
"Understanding that doesn't make me feel any better."
I've been driving so fast that we're already at Blackwell. I don't know what else to say. I don't have anything else to say. The universe needs to dissolve itself into nothingness so I never have to do or say or think anything ever again.
"There's nothing worse than waiting for your father to come home and he never does," I say. "You don't have to live with that."
"I was there when it happened, Chloe," says Max.
"I wish that made me feel better. But ever since that day, my life has been dipped in shit."
"We can change that. We can make things right. Since I've been back, you've changed my life for the better. That has to count for something."
"Counting doesn't mean shit. My life is an oven with no temperature control—everything comes out burned and covered in black shit no matter how awesome it was when it entered. I don't want you to be a part of that."
"Chloe," says Max. She puts her hand on my arm. I tense up at her touch. "I need you with me. I need to be a part of whatever shit is going on in your life, no matter how shitty. Rachel needs you, too."
"I'd like to believe that. I'd like to believe in something after all that's happened, just to make me feel better. But…I don't."
I stare out the windshield, holding back my tears. I don't want Max to see me cry. She slides out of the truck. As soon as she closes the door, I take off.
No matter how fast I sail, I'll never be able to escape the ocean of grief inside me.
