"Fuck, Fed Way feels so far!" I groaned real damn hard just to put on a show for Max. Well, I really kinda wanted to wake her up before she had a nightmare. I'll be honest, it really scared the shit out of me when it happened in the woods. I've had nightmares about my dad, and I've had a bunch about Rachel, but I know it's different for Max. She'd been there, felt it, rewound fucking time, and lived it again and again until it all lined up right and David beat the shit out of him. It was kinda funny though-not the situation-but I wish I could have bonded with my stepdad by taking turns stomping on the fucker's neck. I think David would have actually been proud of me. I knew he was proud of my knowledge of cars. Now I regret not working on his with him. We might have made a good team. It was too late now, but his ring was around my finger, and I got to take a piece of him with me. William will always be in my blood, but David is now holding my hand along the way.

Max's eyes fluttered open. "How're you not tired? You really do have to teach me to drive manual so we could take turns."

I was tired. Really fucking tired. We were more than halfway there, and I wanted to get her to Ryan and Vanessa as soon as possible. She told me how hard her folks cried when they heard her voice, and I was not going to be the reason to delay them from seeing their daughter, especially since I had to say sorry for not asking their permission to propose to Max. Not a lot of things made me nervous, but Max brought in a whole world of fear into my life. It wasn't a bad fear, it was just, well, it was just that I could never handle losing her again. I could feel somewhere that Rachel was proud of me for loving Max this way. I had always tried not to talk about Max with her, but I was always thinking about Max, dreaming about her. Once I learned how to drive I would just sit in the truck thinking about driving up to Seattle and telling Max how I felt, but I wanted to forget her like she forgot me. Rachel accidentally read my notebook and saw some of the things I was writing about Max. She didn't get angry at me which is really just a testament to how well Rachel and I worked together. Rachel just wanted me to work through how I felt. I mean, she even said we could take a trip to Victoria and stop in Seattle just so I could get how I felt off my chest. There's a part of me that knows Rachel wasn't jealous. She just knew that Max was my 'one.' Rachel was love at first sight, but Max, well, Max was a partner I thought I would've had for life. Rachel was kind enough not to tear that away from me. She just wanted me to grieve.

I knew Max could travel through time, but sometimes I thought I could feel the dead. It was a silly thought, but there was a part of me that could sense Rachel's blessing. I knew she would've laughed and kicked me for not just going for what I knew was right. Max wouldn't have known how to react if it all had happened for real. It was so fucking bittersweet to think about her. One of us would have left the other. That was something I had always feared, but I think that was because Rachel was all that I had left in my life. I was sure that down the line that's what she'd have figured out. Even running away to LA wouldn't have rid Max from my mind. Maybe that's how it would've been for Rachel thinking of Frank. They were together now, somewhere smoking some mad herb. I just knew it, like I knew David and dad and mom were together somewhere. I didn't know how they'd work that weird ass trio thing out, but I knew mom and dad were having a great time getting David flustered. Death is so damn weird.

"Being tired is for old punks with knees that hurt from skanking and moshing. I'm still young and spry," I laughed. "Dude just imagine some clean dry clothes and warm blankets," I held up a Slim Jim wrapper, "and maybe something better than this."

Max gave me a half awake smile, "I told my parental units that I had some actually exciting news."

I raised an eyebrow and smiled out of the corner of my mouth. "Oh? Did you meet someone cute in the gas station?"

"Shut up," Max giggled. I was so glad she giggled. She was one of the few people I could be my dumbass self around. Jefferson and Nathan almost took that away from me. They had done it once already.

I burst out laughing. "Well, you do have a cute butt. I can't blame your gas station beaux for sweeping you off your feet."

Max got quiet. "Chloe, that's not funny..." she trailed off.

I snapped out of my teasing. "Shit, I'm sorry. I just-fuck, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to…"

It was Max's turn to laugh then. "You're not the only one who can mess around." She crossed her arms in a playful smugness.

"Dude, I fucking love you."

"I know. I love you too. I wish I had shown it after I moved." She looked actually sad this time, putting her head in her hands, staring at the floor. She had such a slight figure that it looked like her body just couldn't hold it up anymore. "I wasn't even a whole day away from you, and I still-" Her shoulders gave that familiar shake. I hated seeing her cry.

"Look, I should've gone to you and grabbed you and kissed you. You're not the only one to blame for it. I stopped trying. Sure, I was hurt, but dude, I lived without you so I could grow with you. I...I didn't want you to see me the way I was. I might have really lost you for good. You'd have." It was my turn to cry. "Do ya think Vanessa and Ryan will let us sleep in the same bed? I really need it."

Max started crying harder when she saw me start to cry, "I need it too. I just want to feel safe again, and I don't think I ever will without you."

By then I was ugly crying. "Ms. Caulfield, you're making it really hard to drive." I was so glad nobody was in the lane next to us. We looked like damn fools.

Federal Way isn't a bad place to live. It used to be kinda like Seattle's hood, but really that's just normies who are scared of people of color. Yeah, there's a lot of drugs and homeless people, the occasional migration of crust punks wafting through, but it's where Max's parents were able to afford a house without, as Max would say, a hella long commute. Driving into town, it was definitely the kinda place where I could find some job. I was more worried about Max. She went to Blackwell because of the opportunities it was supposed to bring, but really nothing good happened to her. I'm really fucking glad she came back. I get to marry the person I've dreamt about pretty much my whole life. It's weird though because, well, I guess I wouldn't have minded because I would've probably been dead. I became less and less interested in living with Rachel gone, owing Frank mad money, and things at home going to shit. It's not like I had any friends, and I had no drive or connections to ever leave Arcadia with any sense. I could barely hack it before I met Rachel, and she made such an impact that I couldn't go on without her. It's not like I had Max then. She was pretty much out of my life until getting a scholarship for Blackwell. Now she was a few weeks into her senior year of high school with so much pain and hurt in her. She just had her head resting against the window and stared blankly out the front window.

"Hey." I ran my hand over her thigh before downshifting at a red light. "I know you can't tell your folks about everything, but you don't have to tell them anything alone. You're not alone, and you won't have to be ever again." I picked her hand up and kissed it before getting into gear and making the last turn off SW 356th St. We had gone by the Sound, and it was a pretty neighborhood. It was way nicer than most neighborhoods in Arcadia Bay, and it was normcore as fuck. "Should I dress like Bowie after he started managing Iggie? Get some Chelsea boots and beige sweaters?"

Max gave a breathy laugh. "Thanks."

"For what?"

She put her hand on my thigh as I pulled up into her parents' driveway. Ryan and Vanessa gave pretty great directions, so we barely had to stop once we got into the city, but if I didn't have the address, I would've been at a loss with all the identical homes on the street. Max's baby blues stared straight into mine. "Thanks for being everything I need right now. Hella helpful," she gave a long pause, "and hella dorky."

"Gotta keep the crew's spirits up. Plus, I'm pretty fucking nervous for, you know..." I ran my finger over what was now Max's ring.

She interlaced her fingers with mine. "They'll definitely be surprised, but I know they won't be upset or shocked that it's with you. They've always loved you, and they were actually pretty upset with me for falling out of your life." She gave me a wide smile. "I won't do that ever again."

"To be fair you can't either." I clicked the bullets on my necklace together and gave her a goofy glare.

"I love you so much, Chloe."

"I love you too, Ms. Maxine." I leaned over and gave her a deep long kiss before looking up and seeing Vanessa and Ryan watching us by the front door. "Um, Max. Your, um, mom and dad."

Max whipped her head around after burning a deep red in her cheeks. "Oh God." She gave them an awkward wave. She turned back to me. "Come out to parents. Check."

"I'll tell them about the next event on the docket." We got out of the truck, and I grabbed the duffel with the cash in it. I stayed back as Max ran to her parents, and I could hear them all crying together. I leaned against my truck and just watched. Max looked back at me and waved me over. God, she looked happy. Something in me felt hollow like I walked into a room that had just been bleached and breathed in lingering fumes. God, the three of them looked so happy, and when I got close enough to see the tears in their eyes, they came up to embrace me.

Ryan squeezed my shoulder. "Chloe, it's so good to see you. Oh my God, you've gotten tall."

"Yeah it's been a while Ry-"

Before I could finish Vanessa straight up bear hugged me, "Oh Chloe, I'm so sorry. I've missed you and," she started sobbing, "Joyce."

"I know she missed you too. You too, Ryan. I've missed," I started crying, "I've missed both of you so much too." Then Ryan started crying, and then all three of us just stood in the driveway crying together while Max looked at us rubbing her toe in the ground, looking awkwardly happy.

Both of her parents pulled away and started ushering me towards the house. Vanessa wiped the tears from her face. "Come, come. Go take a shower. We have some clothes set out for you in Max's room and we'll clear out the home office this week for you to stay in." I scratched the back of my head and smiled awkwardly. She looked at my hand. Then she looked at Max's hand. She elbowed Ryan in his ribs and motioned with her head, and then he looked at Max's hand and my hand.

Ryan spoke first. "I..." he stumbled over his words, "I guess there's more good news? Did you two..." Vanessa elbowed him harder in the ribs. "Hun. I don't think we have to clear out the office," he gave me a huge smile from ear to ear.

"Ryan!" Vanessa gave him another jab in his side.

"You two go clean up. Vanessa made meatloaf and mashed potatoes. We figured you two'd want something hearty." Max and I kicked off our shoes and put them on a rack by the front door. She took my hand and led me to her room down the hall. I heard Vanessa muttering something to Ryan. Max's dad was not known for being good at whispering and I paused to hear from around the corner, "Oh, it's Chloe. What'd you expect when we sent her back to Blackwell." There was more quiet muttering. "Well I think she looks cool, and I'm happy for both of them...Yeah I know you are too…" Max grabbed my arm and pulled me down the hallway. Ryan and Vanessa had good taste. They raised an artist, and there were photos that Max had taken on the walls and some pictures of Max when she was a kid. It felt like a tac in my chest seeing them because I was in so many of them. Max had walked down this hallway countless times for years and never called me or wrote me back. If it weren't for everything we'd been through since she had come back, I would've been really upset. I mean, I was still upset, but I knew she loved me and that five years was a blip in the however many more we had ahead of us. We needed that time apart. We needed to become young adults on our own. Then I walked into her room. It had drawings we made when we were kids on the walls, my letters, pictures my dad took of us. "Max...I…" I walked up to one and ran my finger along it. My mom must've taken it. It was me, Max, and William by a campfire. I must've been ten or eleven, and Max and I had a blanket over our shoulders holding toasted marshmallows up. My dad and I had ones burnt to a crisp and we had our tongues sticking out while Max's was a perfect toasty golden. Next to the picture was a letter pinned to the wall written by Max.

Hey Chloe. I've been a jerk and a coward

Hey Chloe!

I've been scared of writing to you. I miss you. I miss you a lot. I don't know what to say I didn't know what to say after William died, and I've been a coward. It's not just that though. I'm worried you moved on, and that scares me because I've been thinking about how and I really love you. I don't know how you'll take that. I'm not sure what I mean by that. I'm just so scared because I'm sure you hate me. I waited too long and I think I might've lost you. It's my fault. I'm so sorry, and I don't expect you to write back. I just really want to tell you something, but I don't know how to. I don't know how to tell myself.

Love,

Max

I looked back at her with the water in my eyes distorting her face. "Max...So you too?"

She gave me a hug and rested her head on my shoulder. "Yeah. William had died, and you were sending me so much stuff, and I was so bad getting back to you because I didn't know how to comfort you through writing. And...yeah there was the other stuff too that I just couldn't say out loud or in writing. When we broke into the pool at Blackwell and the kiss...I knew what it was." She held me tighter around my waist and we just stood there in silence. All I could hear was the thumping in my chest, her soft breathing, and a ticking clock on her nightstand. "I've loved you so much, Chloe, for so long. That's why when you gave me Joyce's ring...I didn't have to think twice about it. I didn't want anyone else. Even when Warren started flirting with me, I, I-"

"Max. It's okay now. We'll get better together, but that's the thing. It'll be together from now on."