To both Victoria and Kate's credit, neither of them commented on the prominent bruising under Max's eyes, although there was a definite nervous energy from the moment Max greeted them at the front door. They had migrated up to Max and Chloe's room quickly, tea being passed around happily for three-quarters of the room.
"I still don't get how you can stand that stuff," Chloe muttered, glaring at the cups as though they were doing her harm. She was sitting cross-legged on the floor, after having been unceremoniously pushed off of Max's lap. She wasn't actually sure if she was more upset about the leaf water, or the fact that her girlfriend was being selfish and hogging the desk chair.
Kate giggled, tilting her cup a little towards Chloe. She and Victoria had sat down on the bed, Victoria's free hand resting behind Kate in an oddly possessive manner. "You really just need to try it a little at a time. Eventually, you'll get used to it."
Chloe snorted, shaking her head. "No thanks, I'm good."
"More for us, then," Max joked, although the smile pulling at the corners of her mouth didn't make it to her eyes. Chloe had been noticing many half-smiles since their fight earlier in the week. She had asked Max about it, who brushed her off, saying she was just nervous for the final week of school.
It didn't take much to guess what was really on her mind.
"-Chloe, are you listening?" Max had started playing with the collar of Chloe's flannel, frowning down at her.
"Huh? What?"
Victoria cleared her throat, eyes darting between Max and Chloe. "I was saying, we found a place in New York already. Well, my dad did," she added, shrugging. "It's got a spare bedroom, if you want in."
Chloe hesitated for a moment, glancing up at Max, who gave a little shrug. "I mean, it's probably beyond our budget-"
"Pfff, you wouldn't be paying rent," Victoria retorted, starting to smirk. "My dad bought out the whole building. We're not paying, either."
"I...we'll think about it," Max said quietly, fingers moving to play with Chloe's hair. Chloe let her head fall back so she was looking at the ceiling, resting her head against Max's knee.
Chloe kept her eyes on the ceiling as mostly Kate and Max continued chatting - about what, Chloe wouldn't be able to recall. She let the sound of conversation drone out, more focused on the slim fingers running lazily through her hair, day dreaming about whatever future awaited them in New York, far away from stupid high school shi-
"Chloe, wanna join me for a smoke break?" Victoria's voice snapped her out of her reverie, and Chloe lowered her gaze to see Victoria's sharp eyes studying her. Her stomach churned uncomfortably, knowing very well what Victoria wanted - to talk. Reluctantly, Chloe nodded, although she didn't move to get up.
Victoria started making her way her feet, but before she could vacate the bed, Kate had an arm around her waist. Victoria made a disgruntled noise as Kate pulled her back onto the bed, eyes shooting disappointed daggers at Victoria. "Vic, you promised-"
"It's the first one this week, okay?" Chloe thought she saw Victoria's eyes drift to Max and back to Kate quickly, glad that Max was still more focused on playing with Chloe's hair than the couple on the bed. Jesus fuck, I really don't want to talk about this.
Kate watched her girlfriend for a moment before sighing, letting her arm drop. "Fine. Chloe, please make sure she only has the one," she added firmly.
Chloe groaned as she got up from the floor, nodding towards Kate without meeting her gaze. "Yeah, sure," she mumbled before giving Max a peck on the side of her head. Victoria had already made it to the door, and Chloe had to speed walk to catch up, finally side-by-side once they got to the front door.
They weren't even out of the driveway before Victoria was turning to look at her, eyes wild. "What the hell happened to Max?"
Chloe stuck her hands into her pockets, grimacing. Wasting no time, I see. "Asshole at school," she muttered, shaking her head.
"And is that asshole still breathing?" Victoria asked harshly.
"Unfortunately, yes." Victoria had an expectant look on her face, and Chloe groaned quietly, pulling one hand out of its pocket to mess with her hair. "I wanted to kick his ass, believe me."
It took her a moment to realize Victoria had stopped walking, watching her with a rather shocked expression. "'Wanted'? As in, past tense?"
Chloe turned around, slowly walking backwards as Victoria started to move again. "Well, I still want to. I just want to make my girlfriend happy more than I want to kick his ass."
Victoria was quiet for a moment as she pulled out a cigarette, rolling the lighter around in her hand. Chloe thought she might have actually been trying to convince herself not to light it. Kate's definitely a good influence on her. "What's his name?" she asked conversationally, eyes focused on the lighter as they leisurely strolled down the sidewalk.
Chloe scoffed, shaking her head as she continued to walk backwards. "I am not telling you that." Victoria looked up at her with a bemused expression, cigarette dangling from her mouth. "I'm serious! You'll work your rich person claws into him, and Max will never let me hear the end of it."
"I'm not going to do anything. Yet." Victoria had finally decided to light the cigarette, and was already sighing in relief before it was even lit. "This dick messed with her before?" she asked, smoke curling from her mouth.
Chloe swallowed hard, sticking her hands back into her pockets as she spun back around, facing away from Victoria. "Yeah," she muttered, shoulder slouching further.
She could feel green eyes burning into the back of her head. "And this is the first you're bringing this up to us?" Victoria asked, a tone somewhere between haughty and betrayed in her voice.
Oh shit. She had never thought to mention any of this to Victoria - between her concerns with Max and lack of one-on-one time, there hadn't been a good time for the two of them to really talk. Subconsciously, she assumed Max might have told Kate, although she should have known better. If Max was hiding it from even Chloe, why would she talk about it with anyone else?
"It's not exactly something you just text about, you know?" Chloe reached up to scratch the back of her neck, wincing slightly at the thought of the look surely on Victoria's face. "I, uh, I told Steph, but-"
Victoria grabbed her shoulder, trying to get Chloe to turn and face her. Chloe defiantly shrugged her off, focusing on the moving sidewalk beneath her instead. "It's not going to get better, you know that. I know that," Victoria said quietly, a surprising softness to her voice.
Chloe stopped walking, trying to sink her hands deeper into her pockets as she slouched further. "Vic, I can't."
"Bullshit." Victoria was still staring back at her, crossing her arms. "Give me his name, and he'll be gone."
"No." Chloe thought she sounded like a pouting child, arguing with a parent.
Victoria studied her for a moment, lips pursed, before shrugging. Her whole stance relaxed as a thoughtful look spread over her face. "I'll just ask Steph, then. Bet she'll like me a lot better if I-"
"What the hell is wrong with you?" Chloe blurted, pulling her hands out of her pockets to gesture wildly. Once out of her pockets, her hands had quickly turned to fists, something that Victoria's squinting eyes certainly noticed.
Victoria frowned, taking a long drag from her cigarette before pulling it away from her lips. "What?"
"Why are you doing this?"
Victoria was oddly quiet for a moment, staring at her cigarette as if it was going to answer on her behalf. A strange shadow was crossing her face as she frowned. "If I can make things better for Max, I want to at least say I tried," she finally said, looking up at Chloe. "I was shitty to her once. If I can stop someone else from doing it, well..." Victoria trailed off with a little shrug.
"You can't just...fix this type of stuff, Vic," Chloe said quietly, watching smoke curl from the lit cigarette. "Believe me, if I could kick his ass and make sure he doesn't fuck with her again, I would have done it already. He's suspended next week, she'll only have to deal with him the last week of school."
Victoria took another drag, an exasperated smoke-filled sigh escaping her mouth. "So tell her to skip the last week."
"I've already tried. She still has tests." Chloe turned again, continuing to walk further away from the Caulfields' house. She could still hear Victoria following her, just a few steps behind. "I wish I could just...shove her into a bubble so no one can get at her, you know?"
"Yeah, I get it." She heard Victoria take a few more deep breaths, exhaling with a relieved sound each time. "You seriously won't give me his name?" she asked again.
"I'm serious, Vic." Victoria sighed, and Chloe looked over her shoulder to catch Victoria typing something on her phone. "What are you doing?"
Her eyes darted up from her phone for a minute, chewing on her cigarette in thought. "Nothing," she finally said, eyes flicking back down to the screen.
She had stepped forward and grabbed at Victoria's arm, yanking it around as if trying to get her to drop her phone. Through the panic clouding her vision, she could just barely make out Steph's profile picture on the screen. "Bullshit, you're not!"
Victoria looked calmly down at the hand around her forearm, then back up at Chloe's panicked expression. "Chloe, I will give you three seconds to rethink what you're doing," Victoria responded.
Chloe let go immediately, gasping - she felt like she had just run the emotional equivalent of a marathon. "Sorry," she mumbled, staring down at the ground. "Just...please don't make it worse for her. Please." Her eyes were stinging uncomfortably, and she turned her head away so Victoria couldn't see her face. The last thing she had planned for the day was a mini-breakdown.
There was a long moment where Victoria didn't say anything, then her foot was grinding into the ground, and an arm was slowly going around Chloe's shoulders. There was an almost awkwardness to the one-armed hug, as if Victoria wasn't sure if it was a good idea or not.
It didn't matter. Almost as soon as Victoria's arm made contact, Chloe found herself throwing both arms around Victoria, almost clinging to her as tears managed to find their way out from behind her eyelids. Numerous waves of emotion Chloe hadn't realize she had been bottling rushed to leave her all at once, all the frustration and helplessness and utter fear at not being able to help Max.
It took her a few minutes to calm down and be able to breathe normally again. In that time, Victoria had managed to get both arms around her, making little shhhing noises as she slowly rubbed Chloe's back with one hand. Chloe momentarily pondered how many vehicles may have driven past them during that time, wondering what the hell was happening on the sidewalk. Wouldn't they fucking love to know.
Chloe was the one to pull away, although Victoria kept one arm firmly around her shoulders. She wiped her face quickly with her flannel sleeve, embarrassed. "Sorry," she muttered, sniffing a few times.
"Nothing to be sorry for," Victoria responded quietly, voice unusually soft. "I get it, I do. She doesn't deserve any of this."
Chloe rubbed at her face again, nodding her head in agreement before gesturing to the ground out cigarette on the ground. "I won't say anything if you want another one," she joked, aware her voice was still wavering.
Victoria groaned, finally retracting her arm as she stared longingly at the smoldering remains. "Kate would know. I don't know if she's counting each pack or what, but she always knows."
"You probably just look guilty as hell," Chloe suggested, rubbing her nose again as she sniffed loudly.
Victoria had gone back to studying her, chewing her lip. "You okay?"
Chloe nodded, stuffing her hands back into her pockets as she focused on the sidewalk. "Yeah, sorry. Just...it's a lot, you know?"
"It's not good to bottle emotions up like that," Victoria remarked quietly, a teasing tone slipping into her voice as she knocked Chloe's arm with her elbow.
"You're one to talk."
Victoria laughed nervously, shaking her head. "Yeah, you're right." The little bit of a smirk on her face melted as she pulled her phone back out, shaking it in Chloe's direction. "You trust me, right?"
Chloe took a deep breath before nodding, letting that air gradually slip out of her mouth. "Yeah."
"Okay." Victoria put her arm back around Chloe's shoulders as they headed back to the Caulfields' house. It was a comforting gesture, a gentle promise that everything was going to be alright, even if Chloe wasn't a hundred percent onboard with whatever evil plan Victoria had cooking.
As they walked up the driveway and reached the front porch, Chloe cleared her throat, shrugging slightly to knock off Victoria's arm. "Thanks, Vic."
Victoria paused, hand on the door handle as she turned to give Chloe a questioning look. "For what?"
Chloe shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other, bobbing her head back towards the street. "For, you know..."
A little smile started spreading across Victoria's face as she shrugged, turning the door handle. "It's what friends do, right?" There was a warm, content tone to her voice, as if she felt that she had done a very good deed.
They could hear giggling coming from Max's room as they headed up the stairs. Chloe let out a sigh of relief as she got closer, glad sounds of joy and not despair were permeating through the closed door. She rapped on it twice before slowly opening the door, trying to work up a relatively happy look on her face. "You better not be naked in there!"
The door opened to reveal Max with a wide smile on her face, now sitting on the bed and smacking her feet together absent-mindedly. Kate was sitting next to her, a guilty little smile on her own face - it took Chloe a moment to realize Kate was wearing clothes clearly stolen from Max's closet. Seeing Kate in jeans and a hoodie was rather unnerving, although Kate herself seemed very comfortable.
"Just seeing how close in size we really are," Kate explained, smiling as she saw Chloe and Victoria's surprised expressions. Her eyes grew more serious as she studied Victoria for a second before nodding. "Thanks for getting her to stick to just one, Chloe."
"Holy shit, you weren't kidding," Chloe muttered under her breath. Victoria responded with a strangled noise that might have been a stifled laugh. Chloe had to bite back her own chuckle at Victoria's expression - evidentially, Kate's sudden clothing change was doing a number on her.
"Are we still going to get dinner?" Max asked, still smiling. "Victoria, I know you were interested in that Mexican place around the corner."
Victoria seemed to have finally regained her ability to speak, nodding as she finally took her eyes off of Kate. "It looks like a dive, but I'm willing to try it."
"Vicky, you realize that not every restaurant is a 'dive' just because the waiters wear jeans, right?"
"Shut it, Price."