Chapter 2: Slice of life.

MAX:

There were so many people… too many people. I sat in the passenger seat of the car, clutching my bag with a clammy, white-knuckled hand.

To Chloe's suggestion, I didn't put my hair in a ponytail. She bluntly and straightforwardly told me that my hair looks cute when it's down. It was easy for me to listen to her suggestion, since I didn't really like how it looked when it was up. Plus, it meant I wouldn't have to mess around with hair ties or pin back my bangs.

I mumbled, devoid of emotion, staring at the dusty black glove-compartment, "I don't want to go, mom."

Mom held my other clammy hand, "You'll be fine, honey. You're gonna have a good day and you'll make a lot of friends."

I sighed and gently pulled out of our handhold, "Making friends isn't what I'm worried about right now."

"Oh, don't say that!" She gave me a playful, gentle backhanded slap on the shoulder, "Watch, people are going to flock to you like chickens."

"I'd kinda rather they didn't… though, it'd be hilarious if they literally flocked to me like chickens. You know...clucking and stuff." Annnnd… cue the mental image of people with chicken heads, aggressively clucking while surrounding me in a circle.

My head lolled forward as I held in laughter, Mom chuckled too, "What's funny?"

As my giggling came to its decrescendo, I said, "Just… the chicken thing."

I glanced over at the dashboard clock, clearing my throat, "I should probably go, I'm going to be late."

"Alright Maxine, have a good day. Love you." She planted a motherly kiss on my cheek, smelling of lilac perfume.

'Maxine… ech.'

A soft sigh escaped me, "Love you too, mom."

I opened the car door and stepped out, shutting it and slinging my bag around my shoulder. A lot of kids of various heights walked all around me as my mom drove off. Idle chatter filled the warm air as I looked up at my gigantic new school. High school, my first year of it. I was fresh meat in the water, surrounded by sharks. The giant structure stood over me ominously, like the clouds of an incoming storm.

'Okay, Max. You. Can. Do. This. Remember what Chloe said: Chin up high and smile.'

As I walked towards the front entrance, I held my chin up, smiling was going to be difficult though. I really didn't want to be there, and I wasn't ready to go back to school yet. There were already a few people glancing up at me, but I couldn't really make out what their facial expressions meant.

More than likely, I was going to be shutting everyone out. Chloe was already on my mind, if only we could've gone to school together.

Yeah… that would've been nice, if only I'd gotten into Blackwell like she did.

'Someday… I'm going to walk through those doors and-' my train of thought derailed when I ran into the glass doors of the lobby, bumping my forehead. I yelped in surprise, and my face went hot as I looked around, hoping nobody had seen it. 'Smooth, Max...really smooth. It's only been two frickin' minutes and you've already embarrassed yourself.'

As far as I could tell, nobody had seen it. I let out a gigantic sigh of relief, massaging my forehead with my knuckles.

I pulled those glass doors open and stepped in, cool air blowing into my face. It looked even bigger on the inside. The gigantic 30 foot tall lobby opened up into several hallways to the north, east, and west. People were packed in there like sardines, going every which way, the murmurs of their conversations filled the room. It reminded me of some of the crowded subway stations I'd seen in movies, or the bustling streets of New York City...also seen in movies.

Class was starting soon, so I pulled my schedule sheet out of my pocket and unfolded it. 'Huh, PE first period? Great, I'm gonna have to go around school all sweaty.'

'Now...where is PE?'

I looked around at the many hallways that surrounded me, overwhelmed by the activity. Other students walked past me as I stood there, almost shoving their way through. At least they were apologizing for it, I guess. This average built girl that seemed to be in a hurry made me stumble when she shoulder checked me, causing my bag to slide off onto the floor.

She placed her hands over her mouth, wide eyed, "Ohmygod, I am so sorry…"

I rubbed my shoulder and re-slung my bag around it. She'd checked me kinda hard, "It's okay." This girl went on her way after profusely apologizing some more, passing other people and glancing back at me as she walked.

For some reason, her appearance stuck in my mind. Not necessarily tall, but taller than I was, wearing a red skirt with flowers on it and a darker red shirt. I dunno, maybe it was her long brown hair - or her eyes, also this very deep shade of brown. Or...maybe it was her lightly freckled cheeks - Anyways… I just had this weird feeling I'd be seeing her around.

I flickered my eyes around the lobby, seeing a large blue banner hanging from the ceiling over the northernmost hall, plainly reading 'COUGAR COUNTRY' in bold white text. My mind immediately formed a mental image of a bunch of attractive middle aged women frollicking around in the countryside, pollen in the air around them. I blinked it away, laughing to myself and probably looking like a total lunatic.

For as long as I could remember, I'd always been able to pull daydreams outta thin air like that. It was starting to happen more and more frequently, like my fantasy world was trying its hardest to pull me into it. I fully embraced it, just letting it happen to the detriment of my school work.

There was this other student walking around that seemed friendly enough, but he looked much older than me. A taller guy, chubby-ish but muscular with a slightly dark complexion. Short brown hair sat atop his head, with his hands in the pockets of his dark green cargo pants, wearing a black jacket.

'Shit, should I ask him where it is? I don't want to look like a total newbie.' I furrowed my brows at myself in confusion, 'Wait, I am a 'newbie' though.'

Apparently, he hadn't noticed that I was kinda just staring at him. What almost sounded like Chloe's voice in my mind told me, 'Chin up, Max. Go ask him where the gym is. Oh, and smile.'

I took a deep breath and approached, dwarfed by him in height, "Hey, I was uh...just wondering where PE is."

He spoke with a slight foreign accent, its origin untraceable. "Uh," he pointed down one particular hallway ahead of us, pulling a hand out of his pocket, "At the end of that hall is the gym."

A slight smile appeared on my face, "Thank you."

When I turned around to walk away, he said something else, "Hey, what's your name?"

'Shit, Max. Look at what you did, now he wants to talk to you. Don't say something stupid.'

Pivoting on my heel and facing him again, I blurted, "Max...my name is Max."

He grinned, not appearing to be put-off, "Sweet name, I'm Fernando."

I involuntary gulped, "Well, nice to meet you, Fernando."

His hazel colored eyes blinked, straightening his face, "You a freshman?"

"Yeah, and you?"

"A junior, but I moved here last year."

I scratched my forehead, "Cool, where from?"

"Texas… Austin specifically."

My eyes widened a little, "Wow, Texas? What are you doing all the way up here?"

"I moved in with my aunt and uncle, my parents…" Fernando slouched.

I picked at the skin on my arm, darting my eyes away from him.

He cleared his throat and de-slouched, likely sensing my discomfort, "So, where are you from?"

We made eye contact again, I quit digging into my skin, "Arcadia Bay, Oregon."

His head tilted, "I can't say I've heard of it."

I chuckled, "Yeah, most people haven't. It's a little fishing town on the coast."

He reciprocated with his own little chuckle, "I like little fishing towns. There's this place called Port Aransas in…" His eyes went wide, "Oh shit, you're about to be late! I'm really sorry."

The color probably drained from my face, "What? Oh no…"

I looked around, seeing an emptier lobby, "Uh, which hallway was it again?"

He pointed ahead of us, quieting his voice as he frowned, "That one. Sorry, I didn't mean to hold you back."

I smiled again, "It's alright. See you later, Fernando."

And so did he, "See ya, Max."

The bell rang right as I jogged through those doors. Thankfully, nobody seemed to notice. That familiar 'gym floor' smell hit my nose.

The coach was standing at the center of the basketball court. A younger white guy, couldn't have been older than thirty. He wasn't tall, but he was built like an ex-jarhead. I mean, this dude had muscles on top of his muscles. He started to bark out roll call with a husky voice. All the other students lined up against the padded gym wall, and I joined them. It was just your typical basketball court, baskets on either side. On the side opposite of us, there were metal bleachers.

"Barker."

A male voice replied, "Yo."

"Boltz."

A male voice, "Here."

"Cabot."

A female voice, "Here."

Muscle man paused and looked around the room, not seeing me, "Caulfield?"

I was fairly intimidated by this guy, with no idea whether or not he was nice. I couldn't say anything, since I was too nervous. He just looked so...angry.

"Caulfield?"

I squeaked out, "H-here..."

He scratched a check onto the clip-boarded sheet of paper he held, I heard a few snickers from the other kids. My cheeks went hot with embarrassment as he continued roll.

I let out a burst of air through my nose, 'Second time I've done something embarrassing today…'

Turns out that he was, in fact, an ex-marine. Had the emblem tattooed on one of his calves. Holy shit though, he was a total teddy bear. I talked to him a little bit and he told me he was actually a huge nerd for instant cameras, after I'd mentioned mine.

I also overheard (not from him) that he was in Fallujah in 2004. So, that warranted some mad respect.

Yet at the end of gym class, I no longer felt intimidated by him. Don't judge a book by its cover, they say.

CHLOE:

The tide brought sea foam upon my feet as they sloshed through the water, sinking into the damp sand as my footprints washed away with the ebbing waves. A breeze blew my hair around, whipping me in the face and causing me to wince.

'Okay, that's annoying.'

I paused for a moment and tossed my hair into a ponytail, looking down at the granules of sand that speckled my feet. A wave came in and washed them clean. I swivelled my body to face the horizon, the sun stood high in the sky, warm rays of light reflected off the calm ocean.

'Damn, if only Max were here. She'd be taking loads of pictures right now.' I kicked at the sand, sending some flying in wet clumps.

The sloshing of wet footsteps became audible, I looked to see a sweat-soaked man jogging with his dog, a German Shepherd.

He waved and said, "How's it going?" as he jogged past me.

As he trotted away, growing smaller and smaller, I couldn't help but stare at his dog. It reminded me of Bongo for some reason, my recently deceased cat. 'They say that dogs are man's best friend, but they can't be as good a friend as Max is to me, right?'

I continued to watch them as they disappeared around a large rock, jamming my hands into the pockets of the grey hoodie I wore.

My attention shot back towards the rolling sea ahead of me, 'I'm not sure I'm ready for another pet quite yet. Losing Bongo sucked ass, who knew I'd cry so hard over a cat? The only time I've cried harder was…'

Dad's name blew through my mind as fresh pangs of loss shot me in the chest.

'No no no, not right now. Please, not right now.' I took in a deep shaky breath, and strained my eyes to hold in the tears. I won that battle.

I let out a sigh of relief, 'Shit, that was way too close…'

Damn, and just when I thought I'd gotten better - here I go again, having ya know… feelings and shit. Feelings I wish I could bury… ugh, six feet under. Shit. I needed to read one of those self help books, because what I was doing was not helping.

I stood there in pseudo-catatonia, until my mind flickered back to life like a rebooted computer, 'Dogs… dog, running dude.'

Lightbulb, 'Hmm, I guess if I ever got another pet, I'd want it to be a dog. Shit, maybe I do need another animal.'

I envisioned the possibilities, 'A Chihuahua? No. A Pomeranian? No. A Pitbull? Hell yes, a badass carnivore who'll always protect me. What would I even name it?'

More waves crashed into my feet, wetting the cuffs of my un-rolled up jeans, 'What if I named it Max? Huh, would she think I'm weird? I mean, if she got a pet and named it Chloe, I might be weirded out.'

A bug landed on my face and I swatted it away, 'No… actually, I wouldn't be weirded out, I'd be flattered. Okay then, Max it is… I'd just have to convince my mom to buy me a ferocious Pitbull. Piece of cake. Max, my four legged guardian, fighting alongside my two legged friend by the same name… fuck yes.'

I sighed through my nose, 'Well, mom's probably wondering where I am. I guess I should go back?'

But then I remembered there was this record store I wanted to check out, not far from where I was. I was in the mood for some more 'rebellious' music.

I walked back over to my shoes, which sat beside a rickety old bench that looked like it'd give you splinters if you sat on it. They were just plain old slip on shoes, the same black ones I'd worn to the funeral.

I yanked a piece of crinkled paper out of one of my jean pockets. It was a printed off map of how to get to this record store, which couldn't have been more than a few blocks from my house.

After poring it over, I knew more or less how to get there without the map, so I stuffed it back into my pocket. I slipped on those shoes after scraping my feet of sand, not quite getting all of it, and started walking in the direction of the store.

After about a minute of walking, I had to stop and do a better job of getting the gross wet sand off of my feet. I could only take so much gross crunching and grinding in my shoes.

Ten minutes is about how long I walked after that, and I'd made it to a street crossing; there stood the record store. I darted across the street through the stopped cars, and peered into its large glass window, seeing rows upon rows of cd's and vinyl records.

'Jackpot.'

I swung the door open and swaggered in, scanning the room for cameras.

'Bingo, no cameras that I can see.'

There were a few other people in there, the owner sat behind his counter, burning incense. This guy looked like a hippie straight out of the 70's, probably stoned out of his mind too. He was even complete with the tie-dye shirt and long greasy hair. I turned off to my right when I entered, stopping at a rack that must've had a hundred cd's. I looked through it, 'Okay, what here is rebellious? Nope...this is all country music.'

I turned 180 degrees to face the rack directly behind me. 'Gospel music, ew. They have to be sectioned off somehow, lets see…'

I peered around the room, and spotted a white sign bearing the words 'METAL' that hung from the ceiling. 'Hey, metal's rebellious! I'll go there.'

A guy stood in the way as I tried to get to the metal section, "Excuse me."

"Oh, sorry," he said, letting me go past him. He smelled strongly of cigarettes and beer, wearing a black shirt that said 'SLAYER' on it in a jagged red font. That name was oddly familiar, like I'd seen it before.

I now stood before a large collection of metal cd's, not seeming to be organized in any way. I pulled out dusty cd after dusty cd, reading them.

'Slugfuck...Shit Bath...Death… Woah, they aren't playing around with these band names.'

I kept thumbing through them, 'I can't even read this one… Equine Evisceration? Huh, what about this one… shit, this one's hard to read too.'

I squinted at it, barely making out the words on the gore soaked album cover, 'Baby…...Strangler… Brutal?' The album cover wasn't very pleasant to look at, that's for sure.

After I put Baby Strangler back, out came another cd. 'Oh shit, Slayer!' I glanced back over at the Slayer shirt guy, seeing he was still there. And now my attention was back on the cd, reading it, 'Hell Awaits… that's badass. Yep, I'm taking it.'

I looked over both of my shoulders and stuffed the cd into my hoodie pocket, fitting in there snugly. 'Huh, you can't really see that I have anything in there, good. It's a good thing these pockets are huge.'

'Damn, am I really doing this?' Nervous footstep after nervous footstep brought me to the shop door. My hand barely touched the handle, when a male voice barked from behind me, "Hey! You need to pay for that!"

That hippie totally sounded like a snarling dog, I could hear him come out from behind his counter… kennel.

My stomach flipped upside down and I froze for a second, "Get your thieving ass over here right now, girly!"

'Girly? Who the fuck says that?' I shoved open that door and darted into the street. Traffic was apparently moving, and my 'thieving ass' nearly got flattened by a massive lifted truck. The driver, er… over-compensator, held in his blaring truck horn for a good few seconds. I got clear just in time as he yelled something out of his open window, but I didn't understand it.

I ran and ran and ran, lungs burning from exertion. The world passed by me in a blur as I covered ground. One block… two blocks… three blocks… and I felt like I was about to drop dead. I kept going, needing to cover that final block home. Finally, my house came into view. I sprinted the last stretch, and the sound of my now bare feet slapping on the smooth concrete surface of the driveway sent a wave of panic through me. I wheezed and spluttered, bending over with my hands on my knees. My heart pounded so hard and fast, that it felt like it was going to explode out of my chest, 'My shoes… where the fuck are my shoes? Not good. How am I going to explain that to mom?'

I felt for the cd in my pocket, 'You better be worth it, Slayer.'

After catching my breath, I went around to the side of the half-painted house, seeing my bedroom window was still open. I stood atop a trashcan and climbed onto the roof and into my room, gripping the coarse surface of the roofing with my feet. Adrenaline still surged through my body, leaving me shaky. My heart continued to thud in my chest.

'Jesus H. Christ. I think I almost died back there.' I slowed down my breathing and smirked to myself, 'Good lookin' out, Jesus.' But then I remembered I didn't believe in Jesus, so I thanked the flying spaghetti monster instead.

My hands fumbled, pulling the cd out of my pocket and peeling off the plastic wrapping. I went over to my stereo system, pulling the disc out. 'Well, Hell Awaits.' Uh, it wasn't my stereo system, but Dad's. I'd put in my room earlier that day, in anticipation of getting a cd. He… probably wouldn't have approved of me stealing, but it's not like he was there to stop it from happening.

The stereo made a whirring noise as it accepted the cd, and the music started to play. I adjusted the volume, not hearing anything at first. But a faint sound eventually could be heard, so I left it alone and plopped onto my bed.

It quietly faded into an intro, sounding like someone speaking backwards. After give-or-take a minute, the drums and distorted guitars kicked in, slowly building into a groovy beat. 'Huh. Okay, I can dig this.' The music sped up after a bit, turning into a thrashy portion. It was fairly different than the stuff I'd normally listened to: Indie music like Bright eyes and Syd Matters. There was something about the pure aggression of this Slayer album that made me start to nod my head with the rhythm. I listened to all forty minutes of it, enjoying all of those minutes.

After getting up and ejecting the cd, I put it back in its case. Then, I slid it under my bed, 'Damn. I think Slayer has a new fan.'

Slayer was worth it.

(A/N: Thoughts so far?)