Max is in a haze for a long time after she rips up the photograph. As she stands on the cliff near the lighthouse, Chloe holds her until her legs give out and she collapses onto the soaked ground in a mess of tears. The rain continues to pour and the wind swirls faster and faster.
"Come on," Chloe finally chokes out, sounding on the verge of crying herself. "We need to get to safety. I'm not letting either of us die in this storm."
Chloe grabs Max's hand and pulls her to her feet before dragging her toward the lighthouse. I'm sorry, Max thinks numbly, to no one in particular.
"Don't be sorry," Chloe says. It barely registers with Max that she didn't speak her words aloud. Maybe she did - she's not sure what's real right now.
They get inside the lighthouse and it's like they've stepped into a vacuum. It's so quiet that Max almost turns around and runs back out into the storm. She knows she caused it and she hates it, but at least it's loud enough that she can't hear herself think too much. Only the pressure from Chloe's hand on hers keeps her grounded enough to stay.
Her head is pounding with the weight of the choice she's made. Chloe thought she was selfish? Max just sent the proverbial trolley careening toward Arcadia Bay to save one girl. All because that one girl is her best friend, her confidante, her soulmate. Because she's already watched that girl die too many times and can't bear it again. Because that girl feels more like home than Arcadia Bay ever has or ever could. Max's decision was as much for herself as it was for Chloe.
She barely sleeps that night, curled up on the hard floor with only Chloe for warmth and her wet jacket for a pillow. Besides, the nightmares she's sure to face are somehow worse than her reality. She instead forces herself to focus on the steady beat of Chloe's heart.
Over the next several days or weeks (time is meaningless anymore) Max has vague senses of walking through the rubble of Arcadia Bay, sleeping fitfully in Chloe's truck, eating meals where they can. Blurry faces float through her mind, occasionally sharpening into recognizable features. Sometimes it's Rachel, other times Joyce or William. Sometimes it's even her own face, which Max finds particularly strange.
Her conversations with Chloe are rather muted too. Chloe seems almost scared to talk to her in her current state, and Max is trying to block out as much of the real world as possible. But then one day, when they're sitting in a diner, a clear shout breaks through her mental fog.
Please come back to me, Max.
Max is so startled her head jerks up and turns to Chloe. A look of surprise crosses Chloe's face, immediately replaced by concern. She reaches across the table to take Max's hand.
"Are you okay?" she asks.
"Didn't you just say something to me?" Max says.
Chloe shakes her head. "It's like you read my mind though. I was getting so worried about you and wishing you would talk to me, and then you responded."
Something clicks in Max's brain at Chloe's words, and suddenly she's more alert than she's been in a while. Everything makes sense now. Why it seems like she and Chloe have been able to communicate without speaking. Why she's been thinking so much about the people who were most important to Chloe.
"Think of a number between one and a thousand," she says.
Chloe furrows her brow at the sudden change of subject. "Uh...okay."
"Now say the number on the count of three. One...two…" Right as Max says "three," a number flashes into her mind, and she blurts out "One hundred and forty-three!" at the same time as Chloe.
Chloe's eyes go wide. "How did you...Do it again!" she says.
Max guesses Chloe's number a few more times, then tries guessing words. She's right every time and by the end, Chloe is practically bouncing in her seat. "Holy shit, Max!" she exclaims, softly so she doesn't attract attention. "You actually can read my mind!"
"I think you can read mine, too," Max says. "The day of the sto - uh, the day we were at the lighthouse, you answered me when I didn't say anything out loud." She still can't bring herself to talk about the storm directly.
Chloe doesn't seem to catch how Max corrected herself. "No way! I didn't even realize. How do you think this happened?"
"I first noticed it at the lighthouse, so maybe the storm triggered it somehow?" Max makes herself say the word this time. "I still don't fully understand where my time-traveling abilities came from, so all of this is a mystery to me."
Chloe grins. "This is so cool! Now I have a superpower too, and I get to share it with you." She scans the sparse diner. "Do you think we can read other people's minds, or just each other's?"
"I don't know about this, Chloe. We saw how dangerous my time-travel powers are. And don't you think it's just a little creepy that we can hear each other's thoughts?"
Chloe turns back to Max with a shrug, evidently unsuccessful in reading anyone else's mind. "I owe you my life. And you're my best friend. I don't need to keep any secrets from you." Her smile fades as she senses that Max doesn't share her enthusiasm. "I don't want to make you uncomfortable though. Like I said, I didn't even realize we had mind-linked. So I'm sure I could easily ignore your thoughts if you want me to."
Max hesitates for a moment before shaking her head. She'll need to get used to this, but her mind has been such a wreck lately that if Chloe is able to make any sense of it, that might actually be helpful. "No, it's fine," she says. "If anyone could read my thoughts, I'm glad it's you."
They decide to stay in a motel that night instead of Chloe's truck. Max is looking forward to actually having a shower and a bed, plus maybe there will be a laundry room so they can have fresh clothes.
For a while, it seems like their mind-link will be a benefit. Max is able to silently warn Chloe about the seedy guy staring at her the entire time she's at the check-in desk (and remind her not to flip him off as she walks by him). And when Max lies that she doesn't want anything from the vending machine, Chloe still brings her a bag of kettle chips and a Kit-Kat for them to split.
But when Max goes to sleep that night, breathing easier than she has for a while, suddenly...
She's sitting in a shadowy room, where she can just make out enough detail to know that it's the dark room. Dozens of faces, both familiar and unfamiliar, drift in and out of the shadows.
Why did you kill us, Max? they whisper.
"No!" she shouts. She tries desperately to scramble to her feet and back away, but she quickly hits the wall. "I didn't - it's not like that - you don't understand."
What else is there to understand? You could've saved us, but now we're all dead thanks to you.
"I tried. I tried so hard to save everybody. I did everything I could." Max's eyes dart frantically around the room, looking for any escape.
It wasn't enough, was it? The voices grow increasingly louder. Max presses her hands to her ears to no avail. You were never going to fix everything, and you were delusional to ever think you could. But you at least had the power to do something, and you chose not to. And you have to live with that forever.
The word forever echoes over and over until Max wakes with a cry. Before she can even regain her sense of her surroundings, a thought enters her mind unbidden.
Maybe I should've sacrificed Chloe.
Immediately, Max claps a useless hand to her mouth. She feels blood dripping from her nose, but it's the least of her worries. Sure enough, Chloe is sitting on the edge of the bed, staring out the window and obviously avoiding eye contact with Max.
"Chloe…" Max starts.
"It's okay, Max. You don't have to explain, or apologize, or whatever you were going to say. You're right. You should've gone back and let me die. And I never should've forced you to make the decision by yourself. I should've pushed harder for you to let me go."
"I couldn't have done it, no matter what you said." Max takes a deep breath. "Chloe, one time I experienced an alternate timeline where you were slowly dying, and you asked me to help you end your life on your own terms. And I couldn't do it. So there's no way I could've done it this time either." She knows she's rushing through the story and leaving out a lot of detail, but that's a conversation for another day. Chloe might find out on her own anyway, if Max thinks about it too much.
"What - why didn't you ever tell me that?" Chloe is looking Max in the eyes now.
"I undid it right away. And what good would it have done to tell you?"
Chloe immediately turns away again to bury her face in her hands. "I just hate seeing what all this has done to you, and it's my fault. If I wasn't here, maybe you could've moved on."
"There was no possible good outcome to this. Yes, of course I'm hurting. More than I can tell you. And even though you aren't showing it as much, I know you are too. This grieving process is going to be hell. But if I had lost you instead, especially if I had to erase all your memories of that week… That would've destroyed me."
"Well, now that I know you've saved me in multiple timelines - and who knows how many other timelines you haven't told me about - I can't help thinking that you're only delaying destiny. Maybe I'm meant to die no matter what, and the more you try to stop that, the more death and destruction will follow you."
"You can't think that, Chloe!" Max says forcefully. "If your destiny was to die, then why was I in the school bathroom at the exact right moment with the exact right power to save you? I refuse to believe that destiny could be that cruel, and if it is, then I refuse to accept it."
With a sob, Chloe flings her arms around Max and pulls her in tight. Part of Max wishes they could stay here, maybe forever, where reality can't touch them. Where the spirits of the past are powerless against her. But eventually she has to say something, and she wants to say it out loud, not passively in her mind.
"Look," Max says, pulling away slightly so her eyes meet Chloe's. "It's becoming increasingly clear that our superpowers are also curses, and since we have no known way to get rid of them, we have to learn to live with them. That means we need to communicate, be honest, and trust each other. And we have to remember that we'll be dealing with a lot of strong emotions for a long time, so we're probably going to say and think more things that we don't mean. We just have to work through those times, because all we have right now is each other, and we can't lose that."
"Max, always the voice of reason," Chloe says with a small smile. "We'll get through this. And listen, I'm going to find some way to repay you for everything you've done for me. I know I don't deserve any of it yet, but I will."
Max shakes her head. "Trying to make things right is what got us into this mess in the first place. I don't need you to earn anything. I just need you to be here with me."
"You know I always will," Chloe says.
Max leans back against Chloe so she can feel her steady breaths. The deep, even rhythm calms her own rapidly beating heart. Because she doesn't need to be able to hear Chloe's thoughts. All she needs to know is that Chloe is alive.