March 19, 2014
Caulfield Home
Seattle, Washington
"My imprisonment has come to an end! Free at last!" Chloe shouts up at the sky, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath. "The sweet smell of the breeze. The warmth of the sun. I'd nearly forgotten what they felt like."
"It's been four days, Clo," I laugh, watching her begin to dance around in the sunlight. "Stop being so dramatic."
"Well, it felt like four years. You wouldn't even let me outside!"
"You were sick!"
She's been like this since we were kids. She always hated staying in bed, no matter how sick she got. I actually got chicken pox because she had them when she snuck out of the house to come see me. It had actually been really sweet. And I bet if she did the same thing now, I'd end up calling it romantic.
"Pfft! Barely!"
"A hundred-and-one degree fever isn't 'barely' sick," I point out. And that's not even talking about the cough she had. It was the first time since October that we've slept separately, but even across the hall that wet hacking sound had kept me awake. I'd wanted to take her to the hospital after the second night, but she'd refused. She kept saying it was a waste of money for something that would just get better on its own.
And it had, slowly. The coughing had eased, her fever had gone down, and today I'd finally let her outside for the first time since we'd gotten back from our trip to Vancouver.
That's right. As I'd predicted, Chloe had come away from her birthday with more than just a hangover.
It'd been somewhere around one-thirty in the morning when she's somehow learned about the existence of a twenty-four-hour bakery only a ten minute walk (or fifteen minute slightly-drunken shamble) from the very bar we were in. It'd immediately become her greatest birthday wish to go there, even after I pointed out that her birthday had technically been over for two hours, and she demanded we go on a quest for fritters.
I might have been able to talk her out of it (okay, probably not, but a girl can dream) if everyone else hadn't immediately latched onto the idea. Before I knew it, there were a dozen of us weaving our way through downtown Vancouver, and even I can admit that by the time we got there I was jonesing pretty hard for a danish.
Did anything happen on the way there? Nope.
Did anything happen while we were there? Or while we were all sitting on the chairs outside, happily noshing on late-night baked goods? Nope and nope.
It was on the way back, as we were walking past some banking building, that Chloe told me that she wanted to go for a swim. By which I mean, she yelled 'splish splash, Max!' and jumped (thankfully, fully clothed) into the fountain in front of the building.
But guess what? It turns out that splashing around in a fountain in the middle of a foreign city at two in the morning turned out to be a pretty bad idea. At least, that's how the passing police officers had felt.
Lucky for us, once they got Chloe (who thankfully decided not to act like a brat) out of the fountain, they were surprisingly chill about it. They didn't even ask to see our IDs, which was good considering the only one I had on me was a fake and I'm not badass enough for prison. They just asked where we were staying, and Jesse (who'd gone from drunk to sober in the blink of an eye) told them she was leading us on a pub crawl, and that we were headed back to the hostel when 'the blue-haired birthday girl here decided to go full mermaid'. Then she promised to get us back safe, and the cops had just let us go.
Canada is awesome.
But while we'd avoided being sent to Canadian prison (which probably has polar bears or something) having to walk back soaked to the skin had left my poor Chloe with the mother of all colds. She'd been coughing like crazy by the time we got to the border, and by the time we got home she was sweating and shivering. Yet she's actually upset that I made her spend the last few days in bed.
I swear, if I didn't love her so much...
The sound of her coughing pulls me from my thoughts. She's standing in the middle of the front yard, bent over at the waist, and looking like she's trying to cough up a lung. I'm on my feet in a second and at her side a half-second after that, murmuring softly as I rub circles on her back. The coughing fit ends a moment later and she slowly straightens up.
"Oh, man. That fucking sucked." She spits a disgustingly yellow wad of phlegm into the grass. "I quit smoking months ago. What the fuck?"
I gently move her toward the door. "I think it's time to go back inside."
"I think you're right. Bleh."
"You know, I feel like there's a lesson to be learned here."
"No, I don't think there is."
"You sure? Not even "don't walk around at night, in March, while dripping wet?"
"Nope." She gives me a serious look as I lead her into the house. "I splish-splashed on my birthday, Max, and I'd do it again."
"Then you'll probably get sick again."
"Don't care. This is my hill to die on, babe."
"It probably will be." Judging by the dirty look she gives me, I don't think I said that as quietly as I meant to. "Just get to bed and I'll bring you some soup. Try not to splish-splash on the way."
"No promises."
Chloe: so i had a messed up fever dream last week
Chloe: we were all out in the woods
Chloe: and we found this evil rock in a cave
Kristen: Hold up. How evil are we talking here?
Chloe: like 8/10
Kristen: Damn, son.
Max: Yeah, that's pretty evil.
Chloe: right so it starts mind controlling nando
Chloe: trying to make him evil too
Fernando: What? Why me?
Chloe: cus ur a dude
Fernando: Geez. Kinda sexist, Clo.
Kristen: She's not sexist.
Kristen: The evil rock is sexist.
Max: Because it's evil.
Chloe: exactly
Chloe: anyway to save him from it we all had to kick him in the junk as hard as we could
Kristen: What?! No!
Chloe: it was the only way
Kristen: Don't listen to her, man!
Max: We'd never do that to you!
Fernando: To save me from an evil mind-controlling rock? You damn well better!
March 26, 2014
Shorecrest High School
Seattle, Washington
"What do you guys know about Victoria Chase?"
"Gah!" Kristen usually isn't what you'd call a stealthy person, so it boggles my mind that she can sneak up on me so easily. I usually jump sky high when she does, but since I'm sitting down I only jump high enough to hit my knee on the underside of the table. Fernando and Chloe immediately start laughing at my suffering. Jerks, both of them. "I swear, Kris. One of these days I'm going to put a bell on you."
"Good luck with that. So, what do you guys know about Victoria Chase? You both went to school with her, right?"
"Yeah, but...
"She's about my height, blonde and a total bitch," Chloe interrupts, I turn to glare at her and she just shrugs. "What? She is."
"That's super helpful, Chloe. Thanks."
"Anytime."
"What are you doing here, by the way?"
"Great to see you, too."
Kris rolls her eyes. "What I meant was, shouldn't you be at work? Turning wrenches and stuff?"
"Shop's closed for the day. One of the other guys knocked over a big drum of used oil, so he gets to clean it up while the rest of us get the afternoon off."
Fernando loudly swallows a mouthful of fries. "So you decided to be that weirdo in their twenties who hangs out around the high school ogling the teenage girls."
"Alright, smart guy. First of all, I'm only here to ogle one teenage girl." She throws her arm around my shoulders. "Second, I..."
Kristen loudly raps her knuckles on the tabletop. "Can we focus, please? Victoria Chase? What do you know about her?"
"Not a lot, honestly," I confess. "We didn't exactly hang out. Why do you ask?"
Grinning, Kristen leans in like she's about to share some deep, dark secret. I'm not the only one who unconsciously leans in too. "Okay. You guys remember how I told you about that friend of my brother's who's all hot for me for some reason?"
"Not really." Fernando shrugs, popping a couple more fries into his mouth. "I probably tuned it out, but that definitely sounds like something you'd say."
"Har har," Kristen drawls. "So anyway, he's studying journalism at UW and interning at the Seattle Times this semester. I guess he thought he could impress me with some 'super secret eyes-only footage' that the paper had, but that they weren't allowed to publish until...er..."
"Until what?"
"Okay, look." She sighs. "I know you guys don't like talking about you-know-who's trial..."
"That's right, Kris." I scowl, hoping she'll take a hint. "We don't."
"But!" she continues. "I got to watch a video of Victoria Chase on the witness stand and holy crap!"
Chloe and I share a glance. "Is that a good holy crap, or a bad holy crap?"
"Definitely a good holy crap. She was sitting there like a marble statue someone specifically sculpted to look like it thought it was better than everyone else in the room."
"That does sound like her." Chloe's hand darts out to steal one of Fernando's fries, but he's quicker than her and slides them out of reach. "But I'm assuming that's not the holy crap part."
"Damned right it isn't! First, her and the state prosecutor laid out a testimony so rock-solid that it looked like what's-his-nuts was gonna piss himself.
"Then when that prick's punk-ass attorney goes after her during the cross-examination, she pretty much tore the defense's case apart piece by piece. Totally mind-fucked Mr. Jerk-Off in the process. It was so savage!" she cackles. "Like watching someone's hope get tossed into a woodchipper."
"Alright," Chloe nods. "That does sound pretty sick."
"Nice use of imagery, too," Fernando comments. Having finished off his french fries, he's moved on to a fountain soda that's probably bigger than what they should be serving in a public school cafeteria.
"Fucking badass, is what it was. I totally wanna be like her when I grow up."
"You're the same age."
"You know what I mean. Anyway, could one of you guys give me her number?"
That's unexpected.
"I don't have her number, Kris. It was on the phone I lost." I'm lying. I had everything on my old phone backed up online, including all my contacts. I just don't think giving Victoria's phone number to Kristen would work out well for either of them. "Sorry."
"Also, possibly important side note?" Chloe adds. "You're straight, dude."
Kristen blinks, then smirks and waggles her eyebrows at her. "How dare you assume I conform to your narrow view of sexual orientation."
"Are you really going to try the whole 'look how nonconformist I am' thing on the orphaned punk rock lesbian?"
"Fine, whatever. It's not a sex thing."
"I'd say it's some kind of thing."
"Do you have her number or not?"
"Nope. Sorry."
She looks away with an annoyed huff, then grabs the drink out of Fernando's hand, ignoring his protests. "Gotta get that number."
Chloe: and there i am
Chloe: hanging around with a bunch of high schoolers
Nando: Technically those GED courses make you a high schooler, too.
Chloe: what
Chloe: how dare u
Nando: Unless you asked me to tutor you on American History for shits and giggles?
Chloe: maybe i did
Chloe: im a fucking enigma, man
Nando: Sure.
Nando: An enigma that goes to high school.