au; Max is one of Jefferson's victims.
She doesn't make it.
It's not fair. It's not fair, it's not fair, it's not fair.
"What's not fair?"
Nathan doesn't know what he's drinking. He doesn't care. Whatever it is, it burns and leaves a bitter taste to his tongue. It's enough.
He hates alcohol. It's the smell of scotch that makes Victoria wrinkle her nose the morning he shows up to school with makeup on his face. Logan used to laugh at the flesh-toned tint that had accidentally rubbed off onto his sleeve one day—Victoria had then pulled Nathan aside and taught him to dab at the concealer with a sponge to blend it better.
The bruises were practically invisible. Other days, he would just stay in his dorm.
"What's not fair?" she says again.
Nathan stares at her, eyes hooded and hazy. He can't tell if it's the booze or the lack of sleep, but everything is either too dark or too bright. There's an incandescent flourish demarcating the edge to Max's form against the dim lighting. She's sitting on the floor of his dorm room, cross-legged. Alert.
"You should really slow down, Nathan. Your casket will probably hold a warning label for intoxication."
"That makes one of us. And I'll be cremated when I die, not buried."
Max sighs, shaking her head. "Where's Victoria?"
Nathan slams his glass down and leans forward, pressing his forehead against the carpet and closing his eyes. His nose squashes with the compression.
"Mourning, probably," he says. "I don't fucking know." He lifts his head, slowly, tone softening somewhat.
"…Max?" He looks up.
"I'm here."
"Oh."
He grabs the glass and pours himself some more liquor. The smell is revolting. It'll cling to his breath and hair and skin for a good portion of tomorrow.
Assuming there is a tomorrow. Drinking himself to death doesn't seem like such a bad idea.
"Nathan," Max says. She's leaning in front of him now, suddenly reaching forward to tug at the glass in his hand. Her fingers curl around his own, gently. He can't feel them. "Stop."
Nathan blinks.
"You promised," she says. "Please."
He could take one draft, just one more. Maybe even a couple more. A hundred more. There's no one around to stop him anymore, after all. Not her. He could drink, or dump it down the sink. Right now.
Instead, he tosses his drink at her, withholding the glass in his hand as pellucid brown liquid seeps, quite literally, through her and into the carpet. She doesn't yelp or protest, because there aren't any clothes to ruin, nor any skin to lick it off of. Max watches the liquor bleed through his flooring. She tucks her lower lip, smiling sadly. The light to her outline falters.
"You," he croaks, raising a hand to her face. He cups her cheek and she takes his hand in her own, closing her eyes.
If he can feel anything, it's a divide, a frangible metonymy for the warmth of her skin and the firmness in her fingers. He can sense neither. Just a blank gap, a pathetic substitute for the one thing he'd only ever wanted.
"You're not real." And, just because it hurts: "Are you?"
Max smiles. "Not if you don't want me to be." Her image flickers briefly, and just like that, she's gone.
He's hollow, broken.