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How did we end up like this? That should have been the first question on my mind as Max's lips crushed against mine. Lying there, on the sand, with Max on top of me was like a secret dream come true. But when did I start to dream of this? My feelings towards Max have always been strong, but in a different way.

My line of thought gets interrupted as Max bites down softly on my neck. Damn, where'd she learn any of this? I can feel her leg rubbing against mine, her hands massaging mine as she continues to lower her bites. My moans would surely draw attention if it wasn't so late in the evening.

"Enjoying yourself Chloe?" A question echoes from a short distance away. I turn my head to look at the source of the familiar voice. No… No, no, no… Rachel?

"You're supposed to be dead." My words are a statement more than a question. Rachel smiles her beautiful smile, directing it at me. Max doesn't see or acknowledge Rachel in anyway. As Max's hand lowers to my bikini bottom, I shut my eyes as the pleasure gets even more intense.

But when I open my eyes, Max is gone. What the hell? I'm standing on the very same cliff where I saw Rachel for the last time. I can see the town in the distance as well as the beach, but my eyes can't find Max. Wait, my eyes? In disbelief I bring my hands to my face and find both of my eyes to be intact.

"Chloe…" Now I hear Max's voice, but can't pinpoint the location.

"Chloe."

"CHLOE!"

XXXXX

Chloe shoots up from Max's bed as Max just barely avoids her, having been leaning just above her. Chloe looks about the room in a blurry haze, figuring out where she is and why. Seeing Max standing next to her makes her remember.

"Whoa Chloe, you scared the crap out of me." Max complains in a still slightly spooked tone.

"I… I'm sorry Max. Just had a weird dream about… Well anyway, what time is it?" Chloe decided to avoid talking about the dream, at least for the time being. Max looked at her bizarrely, but checked the time from her phone nonetheless.

"Almost 4pm. I assume you slept quite a while?" Max teases in a sly tone.

"Oh yeah, the whole freaking day apparently. We need to rectify that. You're free for the rest of the day, right?" Chloe questioned and Max nodded.

"Good, so here's the deal. We deliver this package I got." Chloe started as she picked up the package Nathan gave to her from the desk.

"Then, we head for the beach. I spied that you have bought yourself a bikini. You shouldn't let it catch dust in your wardrobe." Chloe joked and Max chuckled in response.

"Sounds good to me. Just… who are we delivering this package to?" Max asked in a slightly concerned tone, which Chloe caught well enough.

"Oh, just to some Mexican druglord that is wanted in twelve states and has the backing of the single most powerful PMC in the country."

Silence.

"Chloe…"

"All right, all right, I'm just fucking with you. Judging by the address, it's some rich, old dude who lives in a cozy estate. Nothing troubling." Chloe chuckled at Max's distress, but even more so after Max gave her the cute pouty face.

"Fine, then let's get going. But I swear to God Chloe, I will be very mad at you if this guy smells like old diapers and wears flip-flops." Max warned Chloe in her "serious" tone, but Chloe just burst out laughing.

"Oh man, THAT would be something to see. Oh, now I have this disgusting mental image burned to my vision. Thanks a bunch Max." Chloe visibly shook a little at the thought and it was Max's turn to have a laugh at her friend's expense.

"You're very welcome. Now, I'll just pack my bikini and we can be on our way. That reminds me, shouldn't we drop by your house to get you some swimwear?" Max inquired as she delved into her wardrobe and placed her bikini in her pack.

"Nah, I have my bikini in my car, amongst a million other things that may come in handy once in a thousand years." Chloe stated as she opened the door to the hallway.

"Oh, so that's why there were so many containers on the backseat space." Max came to the realization and Chloe chuckled at her friend.

The girls then left the room and made their way through the dorm and the yard all the way to the parking lot without running into anyone who could have wanted to chat with them. As they climbed into the car, Chloe pulled out her cigarettes.

"You mind if I smoke while I drive?" Chloe asked as she maneuvered the car out of the parking lot and onto the road.

"It's your car, do as you wish." Max answered courteously and Chloe happily lit her cigarette. As the smoke trailed out through the window, Chloe turned her attention towards Max.

"Hey Max, you mind if I ask you something personal?" Chloe tried to sound as calm as she could, but she was rather nervous about the possible coming conversation.

"Why would I mind?" Max asked cheekily and Chloe chuckled heartily in response.

"Fair enough. So, do you have someone special in your life, like a boyfriend or something?" Chloe tried to inquire in a vague manner, but didn't really succeed.

"I suppose not, if you don't count yourself, that is." Max answered mostly like Chloe expected.

"I'm special, huh?" Chloe teased, hoping to elicit a more substantial answer from Max.

"Yeah, we should have been inseparable, but then I screwed it up."

Chloe could hear the masked sadness in Max's voice. This wasn't at all what she wanted to hear Max say. Sure, Chloe was upset for a long time, and maybe even today that Max left her back then, but she came back in the end.

"I… want to talk about that dream I had. Just sort of need to get it off my chest, if that's okay." Chloe decided to clarify why she had been spooked back then. Their conversation had died down anyway, so it made sense to her to continue from this.

"What were you dreaming about then?" Max questioned curiously.

"About someone I knew for a while. I think you need some of the background for it to make sense." Chloe chose to skip the part about Max, at least for the time being.

"We have plenty of time." Max pointed out. Chloe sighed deeply.

"I had a good friend for a while, when you were absent. She was the most wonderful girl I've ever met. Smart, beautiful and not full of herself like most would be in her shoes. We were inseparable and I… I loved her. Thinking back on it now, it may have been just some stupid, young infatuation, but when we were together, it was real. We were supposed to run away together, but she couldn't do it in the end."

"What happened to her?" Max questioned when Chloe stopped talking.

"She… I don't honestly know. I suppose she just… slipped… out of clumsiness." Chloe's voice sounded tired. She tossed the cigarette out the window before closing it.

"She's dead?" Max carefully asked after a brief silence.

"Yeah. We were supposed to meet on the cliff near the beach, you know the one, right? When I got there, she seemed out of it, even at a distance. When I called her name, she just… fell off the cliff and into the rocks below."

"Jesus Chloe… I'm so sorry." Max said sincerely, her voice showing signs of shock.

"I tried to find out from the police if she had been intoxicated, drugged or anything of the sort. They wouldn't tell me one way or the other. I was so angry. I wanted to know why, why it happened. I blamed her for a long time; maybe I still do. I remember picking up my phone one day after that. I nearly called you, just to have someone special again. But I didn't. I figured you were happy with your new life and friends."

"Chloe… I've already said this, but I felt really bad about leaving you, especially so soon after William died. But I was just a kid back then. I couldn't influence the decisions my parents made." Max sounded more defensive than she would have liked. Chloe reached for Max's hand with her own and Max allowed her to bind their fingers together.

"You've already done more than enough to redeem yourself by just coming back."

Those words warmed Max's heart. She squeezed Chloe's hand a little tighter as they were nearly halfway to their first destination already.

"I didn't quite yet finish my story. So, after my friend died, the reality seemed much more… desperate, I guess is the word I'm looking for. The debts I and my mother had suddenly seemed insurmountable and I started to hate myself because of it. I became reckless… well, even more reckless and some bad shit happened, including a car crash I can't recall."

"You wanted to die?" Max pitched in, her tone a mix of sadness and fear.

"No, that thought never really entered my mind. The recklessness came because I had nobody smart to guide me. Well, not like I'm dumb or anything like that, but I often see only a single solution. My friend was different. We complemented each other well, so to speak."

"That sounds familiar." Max said in a more happy tone.

"It should. So, in the dream, my friend interrupted me and someone else on the beach. At first I was shocked to see her alive, but too… distracted to really delve into it. But then after closing and opening my eyes, I'm on that cliff again. Yes, the one overshadowing the beach. Max, I hadn't dreamt about my friend for a long time." Chloe finished, her voice sounding a little scared and definitely tired.

"And that's why you're spooked about it?" Max deduced and Chloe slightly nodded.

"But there's more to it than that. I... needed someone to fill your place when you left. But I didn't understand for a long time what that place was exactly. We were best friends, inseparable and so on. But when my new friend became all that too… it didn't feel the same. Not until I realized that I loved her."

Silence.

Max stared silently through the windshield, her mind trying to process everything that Chloe had just said. She hadn't expected anything like this when Chloe had asked to just talk to her. Maybe she hadn't either, because she had been silent too, focusing on her driving.

Luckily for the both of them, they arrived at their first destination; a nice looking estate where Chloe was supposed to deliver the package. Chloe parked a respectable distance away from the yard and exited the car with the package. Max followed suit and they walked the short distance to the front door. After ringing the intercom, it didn't take more than a few seconds for someone to answer.

"Package from Sean Prescott." Chloe simply stated and soon a small box slipped out from the wall directly under the intercom. Chloe placed the package there and the box slipped back in.

"I think we're done. Let's get out of here Max." Chloe ordered as they left the estate and walked back to their car. When Chloe began to drive towards their next destination, Max finally decided to speak.

"Chloe, about what you said… about love. What kind of love were you talking about?" Max tried to sound as casual as she could. She didn't expect Chloe to chuckle at her question, however.

"There are many kinds of love?" Chloe teased and Max slightly blushed.

"Yeah…? The kind that you have towards your parents, for example. Then there's the kind where you want to do steamy stuff all the time and so on. And my favorite kind, which involves bullwhips and ice cream."

The look on Chloe's face was priceless when Max uttered out that last sentence. The girls burst out laughing and Chloe had to stop on the side of the road for a while.

"Damn Max, that was a good one. But honestly, I'd rather finish this conversation on the beach." Chloe said between her fits of laughter.

"Oh, so it's come down to that already?" Max continued her streak and Chloe gently punched her in the arm for that.

"You're so terrible Max. And that's why I love you."

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End notes: I decided to separate the beach part from this chapter because I felt it wouldn't really fit into this one, in a sense. Expect it soon-ish (hopefully) and sorry for not getting up to that 3000 word cap! :s