is Short

Tuesday¸ October 15

Max woke up without ever having realized she was falling asleep. The light that was pouring through Chloe's window was the hazy golden hue of sunrise, not the stark whiteness of an afternoon. She propped herself up on her elbows, shielding her eyes, as her mind slowly worked itself into wakefulness.

A graffiti drawing of Chloe's head with the words "Everybody lies, no exceptions," greeted her from across the room. Good morning, Max thought back at it wryly.

With sudden clarity, Max realized she was wearing Chloe's skull tank-top, leather jacket, and bullet necklace. She sat bolt upright at the end of the bed, her foot nudging a shoebox full of photos and trinkets that hadn't been there the previous day.

Another nightmare? Or dream…

She ran a hand over her forehead. Put her palms to her cheeks and wiped groggily at her eyes. A satisfying yawn escaped her as she stretched, content.

It all felt very real. The sunlight was warm- the air still cool- the sheets soft. The smell of cigarette smoke, which by now had dug stubbornly into the walls of the room, was sharp. But she couldn't remember at all when she changed clothes or collected the items at her feet. The last thing she could even remember was entering Chloe's room, and lying down as Joyce left.

She picked up the shoebox and inspected its contents one by one. Great photos of Chloe, with blue hair even. Together with Rachel. Or alone, taking selfies.

That's my girl, Max thought, smiling.

She stood and set the box down on the bed carefully. Her stomach rumbled. She was hungry. She actually had an appetite. It was turning out to be a good morning.

You're welcome, said that voice in her head again, which she ignored.

As she made her way out of the room and down the stairs, she took off Chloe's necklace and wrapped it around her wrist, the bullets dangling freely and brushing against her fingers every now and then.

It was only upon entering the dining room that she realized she wasn't alone. Joyce was looking at her from the kitchen, while her parents were staring from the dining table.

Max's eyes widened and her cheeks burned as she realized she was still wearing Chloe's clothes.

Now would be a good time for the floor to open up and swallow her whole.

"Well…" Joyce broke the silence with a bittersweet smile, "I know it's surprising, but those clothes actually suit you." The older woman gestured Max toward the table. As soon as she was seated, her mother pulled her into a sideways hug from the seat next to her. Max surprised herself by sinking into it.

"Joyce called us about you wanting to spend the night," her mother said. "We figured it'd be good for you. But maybe you should tell us next time." Max only nodded in response.

"Oh, it was lovely having her here," Joyce pitched in, setting plates in front of each of them. Bacon and eggs. "We had a funny time exchanging Chloe stories. Didn't we Max?"

Max smiled. "Y-yeah."

Her dad butted in. "Joyce, you really didn't have to cook for us, with everything-"

"Don't be ridiculous. Heaven knows this will do me some good. Now, dig in."

They all set to eating. Her parents and Joyce made small talk, but Max was focused on getting food into her stomach as quickly as possible. After days of hardly having any appetite, Joyce's cooking tasted like heaven. Her mom rubbed her back, obviously happy to see her daughter chowing down with so much gusto. It made Max feel like a kid again.

"David?" Joyce was saying in response to a question. "Oh he's… you know. I'm actually not sure where he is today."

The school had fired David as head of security. Max found that out by scanning news articles on her phone sometime during the last few days. It wouldn't be surprising if Joyce and David were on rocky terms (understatement of the year) after what had happened in the school bathroom.

Max wasn't sure how to feel about that, especially after all the crap she put David through (or didn't put him through- it was a different reality, after all), and after the man had done such a poor but heartfelt job of comforting Joyce during the funeral. Max decided to not think about it.

The rest of the breakfast was more subdued, with Max's parents carefully toeing around the topic of Chloe, and the fact that Joyce was home by herself. They offered to visit often, and Joyce seemed to like the idea, ruffling Max's hair in approval. It would really be a win-win all around. Max was… glad, even.

As far as she was concerned, breakfast was over too soon, but she followed her dad to the car without any complaint. Her mom lingered near the house to speak more with Joyce.

Max's dad turned to her as she closed the car door. "Maxine… I have some news."

Little alarms started wailing in Max's head, but she looked up at him without a word- though she felt that her eyebrows had shot up.

"Now, listen," he went on. "Your mom and I… We've been doing our best to take care of you. You know that, right? It's not much, but…" He shook his head, looking away briefly with a pained expression. "Can you imagine what it was like for us, when we heard about what happened at Blackwell?"

But he immediately seemed to regret those words. Max started to say something but he cut her off. "Obviously it's not anything compared to- Well. The point is, we're not sure what we're doing. It's hard to keep you company and give you space at the same time, but we had a long talk about it," he said as he looked at Max's mom through the car window. "And if we're being really upfront, I just don't think we're helping all that much here."

"Dad-"

"No, let me finish. You're a great daughter, you know. We love you. Really."

By this point Max was gnawing at her lower lip, her eyes watery, dreading where this conversation was going. Please don't let this ruin the morning, she pleaded inwardly, please don't let them take me to Seattle.

"I love you guys too…"

"And we do want you to be happy. We want a lot of things, like to bring you back home, but you being happy is the main thing. And Seattle- after the other night, well… The point is…" He sighed heavily. "The point is that Blackwell is opening again on Thursday, on probation, and we think you'd be happier going back to class."

If Max had been holding something, she would've dropped it. As it is she fell back against the car seat with her mouth open, unable to control her expression.

Her dad's mouth pulled into a lopsided smile, showing through his thick beard. "Figure we got that right, huh? Okay, okay… don't get all excited. This is just a trial run, and long term we might decide to put you somewhere else. But you're eighteen now, and we know how much you'd hate to stop studying photography, and Blackwell's one of the-"

"Thank you," Max butted in, unable to control herself. "I swear, you won't regret this. I just- I just don't wanna be away from Arcadia right now, and-"

"Maxine," her dad said, gently. "We get it. Don't worry." He glanced out the window again as Max's mom started walking toward the car. "Uh, that said, your mom's not that hot on the idea, so maybe be careful what you say," he hurriedly added, finishing just as Max's mom pulled open the car door and settled into her seat.

Max's parents exchanged a look of understanding, and her mom turned to look at her with a sigh, while her dad pulled onto the road.

Max tried to meet her worried look with a smile. Then she reached forward in her seat to wrap her arms around her mother's shoulders from behind.

"Thanks mom… Seriously. I…" Max said, trailing off, unable to find the right words.

Her mom gripped her hands and turned to look out the car's front window.

"Just… be careful Maxine. Just be careful."

By the looks of her hotel room closet, she and her family had moved out a ton of her stuff from the Blackwell dorm. There were at least two roller bags stuffed with her assorted books and other junk. Some of the larger, more expensive items, like her hi-fi and her guitar, had been left behind- she assumed for pick-up later on. Overall it appeared that the original plan had really been to leave Blackwell for good.

The daring of her parents to let her go back wasn't lost on Max. It must've taken a lot of trust and optimism- and one hell of a long conversation- to reach that conclusion. But they did, and not for the first time Max marveled at how supportive her parents were.

Fortunately, since she had hardly even unpacked, there wasn't much repacking to do. After a rather subdued dinner (Max's good mood faded throughout the day, and she settled into an insistent quiet later on) she finally sat at her room's desk and laid her journal out in front of her.

She'd take it one step at a time. Maybe read one entry per day, or… or maybe today she could just… take a quick look around. Part of her still believed that knowing what happened during that one week, what actually happened in this timeline, wasn't all that important.

She opened the journal from the wrong end, flipping through empty pages until she reached the latest entry, dated October 14.

…

Wait.

October 14 was Monday. Yesterday.

The day she went to Chloe's room after visiting the psychiatrist. When she fell asleep on Chloe's bed.

She never wrote on her journal that day.

She felt a prickling sensation climb up her arms and neck, goosebumps forming on her skin. Her gaze fell to a random paragraph:

That brought back so many memories. I never knew Chloe liked the lighthouse that much. Joyce was so proud.

She snapped the journal shut, staring, agape. Who could write that? The handwriting was unmistakably her own. But she'd never even opened her journal since the funeral- she'd never written-

She'd fallen asleep that day. She'd woken up in Chloe's clothes.

You're welcome, a voice had said. Max's voice. You did the right thing, it said, on a different day.

Joyce served them breakfast and said they'd had a funny time exchanging stories about Chloe.

And Max had agreed.

"W-what-"

Max bit her lip, stood and backed away from the desk, clutched her head, fingers digging through her hair. Panic and fear worked their way up her legs and spine, a light, unpleasant feeling.

Calm down, the voice whispered.
Quiet.
Shh.