Max hummed to herself as she placed away the last plate into the cabinet of her newly acquired home. After days of mulling over the various homes in Arcadia Bay, the couple had finally found a lovely cottage by the seaside much to Max's delight. Her love of the placement of the home was only attributed because of the millions of photo opportunities that arose for her there. She was excited to get photos of the sea life, mainly the pods of whales, the many people who were enjoying themselves there, and pictures of her son, once he got older of course. Otherwise Max really had no intent of doing much else outside of photography. Besides that, the house was gorgeous. It was a white, wooden, and cozy four bedroom cottage located a few feet from the beach. It came with a private boardwalk, a deck overlooking the beach, a large living room, three bathrooms, and one guest bedroom. The best thing about the cottage was the fact that it already came furnished with lovely and expensive furniture. There were flat screens in every room, two massage chairs in the living room, a hot tub, a washer and dryer, an entertainment system, and much more. She was surprised that their new home was already furnished considering that they bought it instead of renting. From what she knew, newly purchased homes came empty not including kitchen counters, sinks, a furnace, and things of that manner. When asked, Mark simply replied that it was a gift from the Academy. Max found that hard to believe the school would supply them with furniture when he didn't even live on campus. As a matter of fact, it was a waste of the students' tuition and the school's donations to pay for all of this, but she wasn't going to complain especially since a lot of it was much nicer than their things. It was a shame she wouldn't be able to fully enjoy it. All Blackwell students were required to live on campus and could stay at their homes during holidays or on the weekends. Luckily she was free to do whatever she wanted after classes as long as she returned at curfew. It felt good going back to school after nearly a year to continue her education. Hopefully Chloe would still be attending so they'd be seeing each other everyday. She had been hoping to see Chloe during her visitation at Blackwell and looking for a new house, but with the busy schedule Mark had them on, she didn't have time to stop by.

"Once I get everything set up here and at Blackwell," she told kept telling herself. "I will go see Chloe."

A simple visit was taking much longer than Max thought. She kept putting it off ever since she got back. With school arriving so suddenly, she felt as if she'd have to put it off once more. Max felt as if she was always purposely putting it off out of fear of how badly Chloe would react while another part of her felt like she had a genuine excuse not to speak to her childhood best friend at the moment. Between putting away their things, caring for her son, and getting ready to head back to school, Max hadn't had time to go to the Price household. Hopefully that would change once she saw Chloe at school. It'd be nice to have a friend at a new school to make her feel less awkward. She had been assigned to a sort of "school buddy" by the principal to help with her life at Blackwell for a few weeks until she got settled in. She had briefly met Kate and she appeared to be nice, so if they became good friends it'd be yet another ally at her new school.

Once Max had placed away the last of the dishes, now it was time to take the car for a drive to go shopping for more clothes for herself. Somehow her luggage had gone missing minus the two bags that she had on her. It didn't bother her having less clothes since she often confined herself to the house caring for their now 4 month old while getting the house just the way she wanted and putting away their things. She was extremely picky about the way the house was set up, much to her husband's annoyance. He thought everything was just fine the way it was, yet she was never satisfied. After a while, she finally got it the way she intended it to be. Now she could focus on much more important matters, like her own photography. That and gathering up what she wanted to take to Blackwell for her. It would be strange to leave behind Matthew considering she was so used to sleeping with him by her bedside. It would be weird not to hear him or even be near him once at Blackwell. Mark had hired a nanny, Mrs. Avery, a sweet elderly woman with two grand-kids of her own to care for little Matty. With their son taken care of, there wasn't much else to do but shop her dorm room. So far she only had a framed photo of her son and another of her parents and herself back when she was 14 years old at a water park. She had thought of taking her wedding photo with her but was still thinking it over. She really didn't want to take any pictures of him out of worrying that someone might think he might be showing favoritism towards her since they were together. At the same time, students weren't suppose to have any romantic and/or sexual relationships with their teachers. To her knowledge, the principal didn't know they were married though Max wouldn't be surprised if the man knew already but didn't care given who she was married to. Still it'd be better to just hide it until she graduated.

"I better get going before the stores close," Max said to herself as she glanced down at her watch. She walked over to Matthew's baby swing where the now 4 month old was swinging his little chubby legs while beating his rattle against the table, an activity he was all too fond of. "Come on, Matty. You're going on a trip with mommy."

The child only stared at her with his big brown eyes as he cooed in response. Max gently ran her fingers through her son's short, soft, and curly black hair. It was starting to grow out a lot longer, which meant sooner or later she'd give it a trim if it got too long. Max went upstairs to the entrance of the basement and knocked before opening up the door slightly. "Yeah?" Mark yelled back from his workstation in the attic.

"Matthew and I are going shopping," she called up. "You need anything?"

"No, I'm fine. The keys are on the table."

Just as Max grabbed the car keys, she heard a knock on the door. She wasn't expecting any company and, to her knowledge, neither was Mark. It could be the delivery man as Mark expected a new photography light to be brought here. Peering out of the whole in the door, she found a teenage boy about 18 or so with slicked back brown hair standing there texting on his cellphone. He was wearing a red letter-men jacket with a blue button up shirt underneath, blue jeans, and blue sneakers. Max didn't recognize who he was but opened the door anyways just to see what he wanted.

"Hello?" she politely greeted him after opening the door.

"Is Mr. Jefferson home?" He asked, his eyes glancing over the younger woman in front of him; a hint of curiosity was in his eyes as he looked her over.

"I'll get him. Come in," Max stepped aside to allow the teenager entrance. She gestured to the living room as she headed to the stairs. "Make yourself comfortable. I'll be right back. What was your name?"

"It's Nathan."

Once to the attic door, she poked her head inside. Mark was flipping through a photo album, muttering to himself about how the camera angles were all wrong and "he's getting sloppy". Max could only guess that he was thumbing through one of his students' art portfolio, something she was used to. When he wasn't around, she'd find herself flipping through them herself. Once he heard his wife enter, he closed the album to turn his attention to her. "Someone called Nathan's at the door looking for you."

"Are you serious?" he sighed rubbing his forehead. "How'd he...I'll be down in a second."

"Who is he? Is he a student?"

"In a way," he shrugged. "I guess you can say that he's my privately taught student though that's due to change at any moment."

"I see. I'd better get going," she kissed his cheek before darting off to the car.

A few hours later, Max came back after picking up some clothes as well as a couple of boxes of nursing pads for herself. Much to her embarrassment, her breasts tended to leak every now and then and she couldn't have that happening at High School of all places. Just as she was unbuckling Matthew in his car-seat, she heard yelling coming from inside of the house. To be honest, it scared her to hear it since she rarely ever heard him raise his voice. Part of her wanted to head inside and investigate the fuss but the other part of her wanted to get as far from it as possible. The argument was mostly incomprehensible, with her only being able to understand only a few words at a time. She quickly made up her mind to come in when she heard glass shattering.

"I won't have you fucking this up for me again," she heard Mark yell. "You wait for me, not the other way around! I swear to god, if you do this again..."

"You'll what? We're in this together. If I go down, so will you!"

"Is everything alright in here?" Max came into the house with a worried expression on her face. Both men froze at the presence of the woman, Mark appearing to be surprised to see her while Nathan's face was red with anger while wearing a menacing expression.

"Everything is fine," he said in a much too calm voice given what she just heard. "Why do you ask?"

Nathan glared at Mark before brushing past Max and going out the door, slamming it in the process. She raised a brow at the man. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah sure. It's nothing. Where's the baby?"

"In the car. I heard all the yelling and got worried. Are you...?" He ignored her as he headed outside much to Max's irritation. There was a lot more going on than what she knew; he just refused to tell her. She came up behind him. "Don't just ignore me."

"I wasn't. You know you shouldn't leave the baby by himself in a car."

"I know, but..." Again he ignored her and went back inside.

The brunette was bothered that the man refused to talk about the situation. That conversation back there ended in nothing being "fine." People just didn't throw vases or yell at each other for no reason or at least her husband didn't. Instead she found what had broken, which was vase from Spain that her uncle had sent her as a house warming gift. It was a pity since it was pretty plus it was from a family member she didn't see too often, especially not right now. She sighed as she went for the dust pan and broom to sweep up the mess. The thought of gluing it together had crossed her mind a few times while making sure she got every bit up but there were far too many small pieces to place together. Max was interested in knowing what argument they were having when she came back. Mark passed it off as nothing more than Nathan throwing a tantrum but he never clarified why, just that Nathan tended to have a nasty temper.

"Nasty temper or not, he's too old to be throwing crap," she muttered to herself, shaking her head. Besides, she could barely believe that. She remembered Nathan's word's clear as day. Were her husband and his student dealing in something illegal? Why else would he say that? She hoped she had just misheard or simply misunderstood what they said. Mark wasn't providing her with any answers other than "It's nothing you should worry about." The thing is that she had every right to worry and him hiding everything just made her worry all the more. It better be nothing.

*I remember BtS's bonus episode saying that Max knew Chloe went to Blackwell, yet I faintly remember Chloe having to tell Max she attended but got kicked out. Unless I'm remembering that wrong, it appears that's yet another inconsistency between LiS and BtS. This is to be expected since there's already enough inconsistencies within this game. I'll be using a little of the non-retconned information provided by BtS but not all of it.