A/N: Its been a while since I've updated this. Sorry to anyone who was waiting for an update; I had to deal with life for a bit and subsequently lost my motivation/time to write. Rest assured though I do plan on finishing this one in the near future and still hope to start that second fic which I mentioned in chapter 3. Anyway, hope you enjoy this chapter, I'd been looking forward to writing it since day 1.
Max climbed nervously into the front seat of the truck. She hadn't driven a car since her Dad had taught her how almost a year ago, and she certainly wasn't licensed to drive now. As it was, Chloe was in to fit state to get behind a set of handlebars, let alone a steering wheel. The poor girl was barely managing to stand on her own two feet as she pulled open the passenger-side door, a cigarette in her left hand to get the taste of vomit out of her mouth. Max tried not to look at the town as they drove down the path leading from the hospital.
After a few minutes of silence, Chloe opened her eyes and said "Hey, Max, can we take a detour?" She gave directions, and as Max turned down a familiar street, she realised where they were headed.
Chloe's house was in shambles. And that was putting it lightly. The roofing and much of the outside walls had all been stripped away, and only the framing remained. The wood was bleached white from the sand and rain which gave the house a dead, eerie look. It almost looks like a whale skeleton… Max's sense of irony had always been keen.
The passenger door beside Max flew open and before she could stop her, Chloe was running. In a second, she had dashed inside the house toward the stairs.
"Chloe, stop!" Max was right behind her, leaving the car abandoned against the sidewalk. No sooner had she reached the bottom of the stairs that her footing failed her, sending her flying headlong toward the rotted wood. As she tried to steady herself, Max's vision went blurry and then completely black.
She wasn't there anymore, she could feel it. Max knew she was no longer on the steps at Chloe's house. When she opened her eyes, she couldn't see. Well, that is to say, all she could see was red. A deep, murky red. It didn't take long for her to realise she was completely submerged in water, and that she had no idea in which direction she could find air. Instinctively she opened her mouth to scream, but her lungs instantly filled with water and her hands went ice cold. There was a rushing in her ears, and she was awake again. Back on the stairs, back in Chloe's house. Back in reality.
She took a moment to breathe, but before she could consider what had just happened, Max remembered her friend and called for her as she carefully climbed the rickety stairs.
Max found Chloe in what was left of her old bedroom. The girl had never kept her room particularly tidy, but this was something else. The floor was littered with clothes, boxes, electronics, and bed sheets; all waterlogged and in various states of ruin. Chloe sat crumpled in a heap in front of an empty box. Her blue head was thrown back in silent anguish while her knees rested on the floorboards. Her hands lay defeated at her side. Max recognised the box as the one in which Chloe had kept Rachel's things. Gingerly, Max approached her friend and put an arm around her shoulders pulling her into a tight embrace. Quickly, Chloe's shaking turned to uncontrollable, quiet sobbing as she leaned her head into Max's chest.
"Chloe…" said Max, trying to find the right words. "I'm sure it's-"
"Max, don't bother." Chloe cut in, "Just stop. It's gone. It's all fucking gone and I can't fix it."
"Chloe, this isn't your f-"
"Not my what? Not my fault? Of course it's my fault! Why else would this be happening?" Chloe was now in hysterics, "Shit like this doesn't just happen to people for no reason, Max. It just…" And now Chloe's tears were too heavy for words to sneak through. Max sat there trying to console her friend for what could have been minutes or hours. Hearing thunder in the distance, Max looked up through the roofing to see the sky darkening with ominous clouds.
"Chloe," she whispered to her friend "There's a storm coming. It looks like it's gonna rain. We should go."
"You go." Chloe sniffed, wiping away tears, "Go wait by the car. I'll be down in a minute. Just need to grab some things."
The car sat skewed with one wheel propped on the sidewalk. The dashboard blinked with light, asking Max to close the two front doors. It took a few minutes for Chloe to meet her there, but as she left the house, she was carrying two bundles of items.
"I found a few photos of Joyce" said Chloe, "From when she was younger. Before Dad died."
"Are those Rachel's clothes?" Max motioned to the bag of flannel t-shirts and black jeans.
"Some. I just grabbed whatever was dry."
Max went for the left-hand door. "No, its fine." Called Chloe, "I'll drive, its fine. Besides, you almost killed us three times on the way over here." She added with a sly wink.
The girls were mostly silent until they reached the on-ramp to the I-5. At that point, Chloe noted that it was getting dark and that maybe they should find a motel instead of risk driving in the night and rain. Max took a quick look at the inky black clouds ahead of them and agreed.
"Do you know anywhere safe around here?" she asked.
"I know a few places just before Portland." Chloe replied. Max gave her a quizzical look.
"What?" the older girl toyed indignantly, "I fought with David a lot. A few times I pulled the old 'running away' card and I had to find some place to stay." This made Max chuckle. "That said," Chloe went on "They're still an hour or two from here, so feel free to get some beauty sleep, I won't mind"
"No, no it's fine" Max said, she hadn't realised she was slumped against the window. "I don't mind keeping you company" though truth be told, Max was very tired and longed for a warm, dry bed. Nevertheless, she was adamant to stay awake.
Max woke up nearly two hours later as Chloe opened the car door from the outside, dripping wet.
"Oh, hey!" She yelled over the hammering rain and rushing wind, "Sleeping Beauty is awake! And to think, I was about to give you true-love's first kiss!" She threw a small key into Max's lap. "I had to park over the road, so we'll have to brave the weather to get to our room, but don't worry." She held up a tatty black object, "Reception gave me an umbrella!"
Surprisingly, the ancient umbrella held up, and both Max and Chloe were mostly dry by the time they reached the door with "14" nailed to it.
"Come on," Chloe opened the door, "Let's get inside where it's warm."
"Hold on a sec," said Max, taking out her phone "I need to text Kate to make sur-" Just then a car whizzed by, spraying Max with rain water and splattering her body with mud.
"Oh shit!" said Chloe and Max together, though a hint of laughter came from the motel-room door. "Ah crap!" sighed Max, "My phone is ruined."
"Don't worry about it." Said Chloe, still laughing a little. "Come inside Poseidon, there's another car coming!"
Max managed to get behind a closed door before she got soaked again. She looked around the small, yet cosy room. "Just the one bed?" She gave Chloe a funny, sideways look.
"Yeah…" Sighed Chloe in a faux-disappointed tone, "This is all they had left."
"Shut up, you did this on purpose!"
"I have no idea what you're talking about" but Chloe couldn't suppress her cheeky smile. "Anyway, give me your phone; I'll start drying it out. You go have a shower; you look like Andy Dufresne at the end of Shawshank Redemption. Oh and take these," she tossed her a handful of Rachel's clothes. "You'll want something dry"
"You know that's not how the movie ends, right?" Said Max, sorting through her new clothes.
"Huh?"
"Shawshank redemption. It ends with Andy finally meeting up with Red on that beach in Mexico."
"I know." Huffed Chloe, taking the back off of Max's phone and placing the battery on the counter, "I usually forget about that part though. It ends too perfectly for my taste."
"You're such a pessimist" chuckled Max as she went into the bathroom. She couldn't hear Chloe's reply once she'd closed the door, but she was sure it was witty and left no room for a sufficient comeback.
She shower was warm and refreshing, and Max let her mind wander back to earlier in the day. What was that? She thought. Did I pass out? No, that can't have been all. She didn't want to admit it to herself, but she knew it was true; it was another vision. Just like before the tornado. Shit! I thought I'd fixed this! Ugh but what could it mean? I couldn't even see anything! How is a vision of endless redness supposed to warn me of anything?
The cold tile nipped at her feet as she stepped out of the shower. Max looked in the mirror and saw that while she looked a lot healthier than when she had woken up a few days ago, dark circles still cradles her sunken eyes.
Steam flooded the bedroom as Max opened the bathroom door and walked, dressed in Rachel's clothes, toward the bed, which suddenly looked very inviting.
"Holy shit…" Max turned to see a very stunned look on Chloe's face, which made it clear that the words had slipped out of her mouth. Quickly though, she diffused the awkward situation by blurting "You're definitely ready for the mosh-pit now, shaka-brah!" Max blushed and sat down on the bed next to Chloe. The two girls sat like this in silence for a while until Max turned and whispered "Chloe I'm so, so sorry about Joyce."
Chloe's brow furrowed as she looked back at her. "God, I wish you'd stop saying that!" There was pain in her cracked voice. "None of this is your fault, Max! You could never have stopped that tornado; it was always coming. Every day I see you moping around like all this pain and devastation exists because of you. Its eating you up inside and it kills me to see you hurting like that!" She shuffled closer to Max, placing a comforting hand on her left knee. "I care about you so much that it hurts to see you so broken and defeated by all this; that's not the Max I know. I care about you so much because I love you! I love you and I wish I could have been there for you…" Chloe's face was now very close to Max's, their noses inches away from touching.
And then they were kissing.
Max had kissed Chloe once before; in her bedroom not a week earlier. It lasted for less than a second, but in that fraction of time, Max had never felt more alive and excited. In that instant, she had felt thousands of volts of electricity flowing through her lips all the way down to her toes. She thought about that kiss all the time. But this kiss… This kiss was something else. It felt to Max now as though the entire universe had shrunk down and existed only as a singularity on the exact point that their lips were touching. Every ounce of energy that had ever existed danced between Max's fingers as she reached for Chloe's hair. Her senses went in to overdrive, and Max was suddenly acutely aware of everything that was going on. Chloe's heavy breathing, the girl's grip on her knee tightening, the dim lamp in the corner, and the now distant drumming of rain against the black windows. But most vivid of all, Max could feel the way their noses brushed against each other, and the way Chloe's lips transitioned from tough and dry on the outside to soft and wet just behind. That was something which Max noticed as well; everything was wet. Too wet…
All at once, Max was aware of the fact that Chloe was shaking uncontrollably and tears were streaming down her face. Max reluctantly pulled away and noticed that Chloe's knuckles were white as they gripped Rachel's flannel shirt that Max had put on. Chloe didn't let go as she tried to speak between sobs.
"I loved her, Max." She said quietly. "I loved Rachel more than anything and I can't believe I let her go." She let go of Max's shirt and put her hands in her lap. "I'm sorry. Seeing you in her clothes just now, I just… Max, I'm so sorry."
Max's heart was beating faster than ever, and a lump the size of a boulder was rising quickly in her stomach as she stammered "Chloe, I lov-"
"Max, no." Chloe interrupted, her eyes screwed shut with tears soaking her face. "I… I'm sorry I just… I can't. I'm sorry."
Not much else was said. Not long after, Chloe got under the covers and went to sleep. After some silent crying herself, Max followed suit. The nights had started to get colder over the last few weeks yet both girls slept shivering inches from each other's warmth, neither of them brave enough to move closer to the other.