The funerals wouldn't last long; there weren't many folx left to grieve. I didn't even get to bury what was left of my mom and stepdad alongside my father who died before the storm. The hurricane hadn't lasted long, the flood hadn't either. Max blamed herself, but I held her and carried her down the lighthouse trail, taking breaks only to catch my breath and to kiss her, to reassure her that we might not be the only ones left. We were the captain and first mate who abandoned ship. It hurt living through the storm, seeing our small town ravaged. I now know it's not hubris that keeps captains on their vessel; it's not facing living through the wreck even as it sinks.

She didn't want to know after we found what was left of my family. It looked like there was an explosion, and based on what I could find, I don't think they suffered long. I found their hands where the walk-in was, my stepdad's ring fit me, and I knew my mom's would fit Max. Dad was buried with his wedding band. Mom said he never took it off, and he'd hate it if it was taken. I always hated David when he married my mom. It's not hard to be petty when you're fourteen, but it took until a few weeks ago for me to even appreciate him. My dad was a ridiculously free spirit, not some new-agey nonsense, but like a man who's purpose in life was to be a father. My mom worked at The Two Whales when he'd have mad munchies and get chicken fried steak. After a while she realized it wasn't just the food. I remembered him being handsome, and he was in all of our pictures. I'm sure they're gone now. Somewhere they're together with those photos in some other timeline, but here I was with my mom's hand in mine. I'm goth as fuck and like Cradle of Filth, but even holding her hand was a lot for me. Her palm was rough, but it always had been.

Max was the reason I was alive, and I had lost so much even before the storm that I knew the pain would subside. I wasn't sure if she believed it for herself. Max was the reason I didn't kill myself, something I had planned to do a week before, something I forgot when she came back to Arcadia Bay from Seattle. It had been five years since I had heard from her or even seen her; it had been five years since my dad died. I don't really like talking about how he died, but Max and Rachel were really the only ones I confided in. Well, just Max now. Rachel went missing about a year ago, but we found her buried in the junkyard. Everyone in town just gave up looking, but when Max moved back to go to Blackwell for high school, she helped me look. It hurts too much to recount our Hardy Boys investigation. Books like that and shows like Scooby Doo are fun because it all works out in the end. The villains were never your teacher or classmate. The villains never accidentally killed the popular girl who dated girls like me, the dropout, burnout, punk rock, dyed-hair, masc bitch. The villains never buried the bodies near the couple's hangout to spite the victim's girlfriend. Yet, I've always wondered what happens to the protagonists after they solve the mystery.

Adrenaline let me carry her on my back until we found what was left of the pharmacy and grocery near the edge of town. The grocery store looked like the macrocosm of someone's wild bender with housewares shattered everywhere and boxes of food ripped open. We filled canvas bags with what we could, some cans of soup, some water, a few plastic bottles of liquor and cans of beer. I dug through to look for filled prescriptions of Xanax and Oxy. I didn't feel like I was there, and I don't even know why I tried to find things like that. I didn't sell drugs, and I'm not a fan of anything stronger than Molly. I guess a part of me wished that Frank was there to sell them to. I guess a part of me wanted to pat Pompidou on the head.

I convinced Max to help me break open the smashed ATMs that barely survived at the bank. I spent a lot of time on some .onion forums about less than legal engineering. It wasn't hard to guide her, and the second set of hands were more than helpful. It was just nice to see her busy. I loved Max so much, and seeing her like this felt like someone was standing on my chest, to see her blame herself for our survival among the bodies of my family and friends. The town was small and even smaller now. What was left of the buildings made a scant forest of steel and concrete. We had been prepared for hurricanes, but not the size of what came, nothing could have survived it.

She had moved to Seattle because of her parents' work, and we spent the day playing pirates in the forest before she left. We were dorks, but we had known each other for as long as I could remember, and it didn't matter how embarrassing we were. I knew I loved her then. I was fourteen, and even before puberty I knew there was a part of me that liked Max as more than a friend. It was somewhere between spin-the-bottle and sleepovers when she'd fall asleep with her head in my lap that I dreamt of kissing her and more. When my dad died she started to slip away, and after she moved she stopped texting back. She didn't answer emails, didn't return calls. I thought I'd never forgive her. I lost my dad, lost her, and I started to lose myself in weed and booze. I never stopped loving her though. Even my second love, Rachel, didn't fully remove Max from my thoughts. Even when Rachel went missing Max was still in mind. When I saw her in Blackwell's parking lot and Warren was getting the shit beaten out of him by Nathan Prescott, my first instinct was to protect her.

We trekked inland, mostly in silence, through some toppled trees to the junkyard that had survived, and my truck had been mostly protected by foliage and mounds of steel. We shoved the cash and pills behind the seats, took off our clothes and laid them out on the bed of the truck hoping they would become as dry as they could considering everything. It was fucking freezing being naked at night, but I always had some emergency clothes in the car for spontaneous truck bed camping after getting drunk in the woods with Laura. It was really only enough for one: a wool lined bomber and a pair of black skinny jeans and socks. I really hoped our clothes would dry somewhat in the morning, and it wasn't until we were naked in the car that she started actually talking.

"Chloe, everyone who died. It's my fault. How are you keeping it together? I mean Joyce and David," she choked into silence.

I unscrewed the top of a bottle of Seagram's Whiskey, "You know any parent would give their life for their kid. Even step-douche, er, David would. Warren would've helped you til the end. Look, you've seen everyone you knew in town die at least once. This is just those realities collapsing on each other. Losing dad, seeing Rachel decomposing in a shallow grave, those things. They. They kinda prepared me a bit."

I could almost feel her staring into nothingness, "Yeah. I guess Warren would've. I guess. I watched as Kate fell from the roof. And. I saw Victoria overdose on whatever Mr. Jefferson was giving us, and, well, I guess everything in the darkroom," she trailed off.

"It's why you're Super Max. I'm just happy you have your parents to welcome you home. I'll try and get us there before the National Guard gets here. I don't want us to get caught up in the media circus. Focus on that, your parents and the rest of your family. I know mom and dad and David would want that for you. Plus the rapist teacher at Blackwell and his richboy Prescott lackey. Hell, the Prescotts in general. They were wiped out. My family would've wanted that. Fuck, Frank and his pup would've wanted that. The whole damn town was dying before you even got here. Don't feel sorry for yourself, and you better not feel fuckin sorry for me. I'm Captain fuckin Chloe of the Noir Angel."

For the first time in the past day and a half Max gave a slight laugh, "That username is so embarrassing. I made it in middle school."

"Yeah, you've always been a hip dork. The town gave us gifts in the wreck. It's like Rachel and my folks want us to move on."

"How much do you think is there?" Max asked while she leaned against me in between my legs, the back of her head resting on my breasts. She took a swig out of the Seagrams bottle and placed it on the dash.

I picked it up to gulp some down, "I counted at least ten grand in bills and about two grand in pills, that is, if we sell them." I pulled up the wool blankets that covered part of the seats to preserve what was left of the cracking leather. We couldn't care less about the rough pilling on our bare skin, it was mostly dry and warm.

"That's more than enough to get us to my parents," she sighed, her muscles relaxing.

I kissed the top of her head, "Yeah, it can get us through to start a life together."

"My parents will let us live with them until you get back on your feet."

"Dude our feet. I mean, if your parents would give me permission. I know you care about shit like that." My face began to warm up from the buzz and embarrassment.

"They'd let us live together. I'm sure," she took another sip.

"Little hipster, I don't think you get what I mean," I said while lighting a cigarette, "dude just wait," I jokingly pushed her forward and stuck my hand in my boot next to the bench seat where I hid the rings when we undressed. I pulled the blanket up again, "you better say yes." After a long drag I took her hand off my thigh and slipped my mom's ring on her. It took her a moment to register what had just happened. "It's okay dude, you don't have to say yes, but I've wanted to do this since we were kids. When you came back, well, I knew it would happen eventually. Even my mom knew. Even when we were looking for Rachel I knew. If Rachel was still alive she'd have known it also. I'm not letting you disappear again even if you try." Max 's shoulders shook, so I ran my fingers through her hair.

I figured she was thinking about when we found Rachel's body not far from where we were parked. We spent the week looking for her. Max was a good sport and did literally everything in her power to help me. She bent time and space, dove into polaroids from the past. She let Arcadia get swallowed by a storm. All of it just for me.

She turned around keeping the blanket around us, our bare breasts pressed against each other. "Chloe," she paused to place her head in the crook of my neck and shoulder, "of course. I saw you shot twice, crushed by a train, I even killed you in a freakin hospital bed when you asked me to. Your dumb ass kept dying, and I had to keep going back and telling you how not to." She picked her head up and bumped and pressed her forehead against mine, "the last thing I wrote in my diary right before the storm was about my feelings for you. I couldn't get it out of my mind, when, when you dared me to kiss you."

She was right. She had seen me die over and over again, and I could only comfort her and let her know I was alive this time. When she first spent the night in my room, I could barely sleep wondering how I would fuck things up with her or with myself. I had never really been connected to reality, but Max's duty and selflessness, well, I felt her in me all the good and all the bad, and I wanted to make it all worth her while.

We laid down the best we could on the bench seat in my truck, "Well Mad Max, not only are you coming out to your parents, but you're going to have to explain getting engaged."

I felt her softly scoff and sleepily say, "That seems to be a shared duty Captain Chloe."

I pulled her as close as I could and closed my eyes, "We'll set sail in the morning, First Mate Max."