In their bedroom, Max closed the door lightly as Chloe flopped on the bed, the musty brown sheet jumping with force.
Max sat at the provided motel-esque chair, which looked to be straight from the 70's.
"I never heard that new song you were working on," Chloe said, closing her eyes.
"Oh yeah!" Max said excitedly. Chloe was her biggest fan, if she were to have a fan base. Although, Chloe was the only one who'd heard any of her songs in years.
"Play for me, Jeeves!" Chloe joked, making a conductor motion with her arm.
Max smiled, picking up her guitar, which was a new/old beat up acoustic from the pawn shop. Taking the pick from the strings, she started plucking the individual notes in a complex pattern—one she'd mastered after years of practice since she started playing freshman year.
The genre of her song had a folk indie sound to it. She hummed a melody she had in mind in a light voice. After a moment of the intro, she hammered on the power chords and major chords she'd come up with—verse, chorus, verse—but the bridge was a breakdown that alternated between complex chords and it had a really pick-me-up vibe to it before the final chorus repeated twice and slowed to a stop.
Chloe shook her crossed leg over her knee and threw her hands up in celebration at the end.
"Yeah! Max, that was so good. You wrote that?"
Max smiled. "Yup!"
"I can't wait for you to play at an open mic some time. And you better do it! I want to be in the front, center-stage, singing along!"
Max put her guitar back by the table and laid next to Chloe.
"You're so supportive. I don't know where I'd be without you."
School on Monday was awkward at the start. Usually Max met with Warren before the bell rang, but this day, he was talking to Brooke in an unusual spot. Chloe was always there, but she had her own group of friends who had more in common with her than Max was used to attempting to discuss. She hid by herself before the bell finally rang and pretended to be busy looking through her collection of photos.
It was hard making friends, so she usually just stuck to the ones she already had, as was usual. Also, the rumors of what had happened back in Arcadia Bay with Mr. Jefferson being a rumored pedophile and rapist created unfounded controversy among immature peers.
Max picked up a school paper from a stand in the hallway before class and the one headline she noticed was 'New Jefferson Leads related to Child Photos.'
'It makes me sick that everyone buys into this bull crap.
At lunch, Warren was nowhere to be found and Alyssa was with her own group of friends Max had no clue how to approach. They always seemed enraptured with their talking and their cell phones. Max was much more shy after everything that went down at school.
Chloe jumped onto the bench next to Max. "Hey girl!"
"Hey Chloe," Max said.
"Why so glum?"
"Oh, I don't know. Just thinking I guess."
"Is it about your boy toy?" Chloe teased.
"I guess, because I have no idea where he is."
Chloe twisted her face in disgust. "Euch!" she exclaimed. "I hope you don't like him."
"Don't worry."
Finally, she spotted him. He was walking next to Brooke, coming from around the corner of the building. Brooke looked at her phone, but flirtatiously flipped her hair as Warren talked about something engagingly, hand motions and all.
"I guess he got some new poontang!" Chloe laughed and chewed a piece of gum.
Max could feel the urge to choke back tears, as she felt major indicators that Chloe and she could be happy together. Forever. In love.
After everything that happened, why did she have to make this so hard!?
"It's okay. You'll always have me."
Chloe suddenly put her arms around Max's shoulders and gave her a wet kiss on the lips, jokingly. She laughed.
"Stop it, lesbians!" a passing acquaintance of Max's joked with them.
"See, even the students ship us!" Chloe said.
Max was in shock. She finally, after a moments' hesitation joked back, putting the back of her hand to her forehead damsel-in-distress style and saying "Whew!" short of breath. It came out like a squeak.
"I know you've been waiting for that one again, baby dyke." Chloe laughed. She knew Max had to have bicurious tendencies; she just wasn't ready. From her viewpoint, she couldn't push something that needed to happen naturally, if that. But it was getting harder and harder to refrain from just grabbing her friend by the shoulders and saying, "Kiss me, you fool!"
That night, Max's dream was bad. Not only was Chloe on the train tracks about to be run over by a train, but it derailed and hurtled through space, creating that all too familiar vortex full of train spokes, rubble, and sparks. The space around it just looked so vast and daunting. All the voices she'd heard over the week from Hell repeated like racing thoughts over a loud speaker.
Max woke with a start, beads of sweat on her forehead, gasping for air. Chloe got up with her, immediately wrapping her arms around her as she did almost every night, give or take a few.
"Shh, shh… it's okay," she coaxed, petting Max's hair.
Max sobbed quietly. "It was so scary…"
"Shhhh…" Chloe calmed her, as Max's heart slowed its pulse.
"That was bad… I don't want to lose you… It was so real, like it always was…"
Chloe hugged her tight and eventually got her to lay down with her. She held her arms as they were wrapped around herself. Max sniffled until she finally spoke. "I know they're just dreams. But they can stand out so much, like they're my reality for that moment. It's not fair. All I wanted was to be with you."
She sniffled again. She held Chloe's hand as she turned to see Chloe's face. In the moonlight coming through the ratty old shutters, Chloe's eyes looked half-opened back at Max's.
"Max, I… I love you." She at last spoke, with an unbreaking staring gaze, full of fear and hope.
"I'm so sorry—"
Max didn't let her finish before she interrupted with a kiss. Before long, they were battling for enough pressure to force the other down onto the bed, forcing with each kiss for one another's lips to part, licking one another's lips. Chloe topped and straddled Max quickly, throwing off her own shirt into the dark. What little moonlight there was lit her soft skin. Max's face grew hot with fear. This is what it felt like to be tied up in The Dark Room, by Mr. Jefferson.
Her bra, she unhooked with one hand. Max's was off already and Chloe lifted her shirt gently, grazing her belly, trailing her finger tips up to her chest, which was heaving with exasperated breaths, followed by lips leaving a trail of kisses up her stomach.
Beads of sweat broke out on Max's forehead.
"Chloe," she whispered.
It was finally happening. Max couldn't believe it. After all that she'd been through, this was finally happening and it was unbelievable, but she was so filled with fear.
Chloe lay on her side and kissed Max more, caressing her chest and holding her legs between her own.