Thanks so much for the reviews and alerts! It means a lot to me.
xx
The only thing I hated about being in a silent room would have to be the emphasized ability to hear every little shift anyone makes. Normally, pin-drop silence was a thing I would marry if I could. Because it felt so good to be in it, but today my star-crossed sweetheart highlighted the majorly minute squeaking of my diligent blue marker across the inner page of the empty scrapbook I hunched over in Mr. Canlen's class.
I should've felt joy and excitement, and I did feel joy and excitement when I was working on it outside on the girl's dorm lawn after finally finishing homework. Until Stella spotted me on her way out and here I am, ninja-doodling in Scholarship Club. Although technically I'm coloring in a pirate.
A Chloe pirate with blue hair and an eyepatch and a little pirate hat and a happy devilish grin on her face because she pointed a curvy sword at pirate Max, looking small and wary and standing at the edge of a plank that jutted out of the side of a ship, looking over her shoulder at pirate Chloe while a group of sharks circled under her in the water. Dark, but Chloe liked dark, least I hoped she still did. And it fit my feelings. Hopefully she'll get a good laugh out of it. Groveling through pictures, a Max Caulfield revolutionary achievement.
She might enjoy making me walk the plank in real life. She'd get a real kick out of it for sure. If she let me see her, once she made up her mind and called me. Chloe looked on the edge of something when we were together. Staring at two different roads going in separate directions. And debate was in her eyes. And they looked heavy too. Heavy and dark and seething. And hurt. Like on the edge of giving up. Saying 'fuck the world!' like she said.
Maybe I wouldn't see her. And maybe the fateful phone-call I awaited from her would bare grim news.
But the idea still came to me a few days ago and it hadn't flown out since and even if she decided she didn't want to see me again I wanted to go through with it. And whether it commemorated the rekindling of our friendship or the bitter goodbye of it I wanted to make her the scrapbook. And I zoomed back to the General Store-despite the scathing awkwardness still saturated in the walls-and bought the cheapest one I could get, along with markers and paste and little foam letters and shapes and other stuff so I could get to work.
The outside was black, and I kept it that way because decorating on the outside made me feel naked. Especially knowing it'd be the first thing Chloe saw when she set her eyes on it. But I did manage to doodle a simple smiley face with a 'Hey' underneath it. Because I'm not cool enough to think up any clever one-liners that wouldn't automatically revert into something dorky the minute it left my pen.
The inside was crazy though, full of all kinds of colors and drawings and doodles I went a little late into the night doing whenever I wasn't surfing the net for pictures to print. Which I found and was jumping in my shoes to cut out and paste later. But I wanted to finish the pirate drawing first, it'd be the first thing she saw when she opened it. I was sort of glad I didn't have her number, because if I cracked and sent her sneak peaks before it was done I'd probably kick myself later.
"Max."
I cringed and my marker skidded to a stop. I blinked up at the slightly pointed voice and gave Mr. Canlen an apologetic look before capping the marker and reluctantly pushing the open scrapbook to the side. The mess of markers spilled all in it rolled with the movement and I had to catch them and put them back in their little box while Mr. Canlen's stare pressed on every move I made. He didn't look mad though, which was great. But having to put my little project to a halt felt horrible. But I packed everything up anyway and tried to keep from huffing.
Why Stella loved coming here after school all the time, I could sort of understand. Because even though we sat at computers clicking away for three hours at least the classroom was really... spirited. But I suppose it's supposed to be, for an AVID class.
If you're going to spend four years with the same group of students with the end goal of getting them all into college you'd need all the college spirit you can throw at them. And this class threw at them. If Mrs Davies' class was an art class this one would be the college paraphernalia equivalent of it.
Pennant flags up the wahzoo from colleges I hadn't even heard of. I heard of Yale and Princeton and UCLA and USC of course but the others I hadn't seen until stepping foot in here.
It even smelled excited in here. Whatever air freshener Mr. Canlen used had me ready to apply to Harvard and bury my face in law books.
'Hit me with another volume brah!'
But I guess college students downed beers and not books. Or both I guess, I don't know. Even if I did get into college I probably still wouldn't know. Social norms were never my specialty.
The walls were filled with photos of his former students, bright and jovial. And Mr. Canlen pinned up college sweaters and his desk had tiny little pencils with college names on it and a football and a volleyball that said UCLA and USC on it respectively. His windows were huge and looked out into the grass like all the other classes did except his had little strings across them with flags hanging end to end. And I think he had a class time capsule project pushed up in the corner. I think this because it was decorated in glitter and painted over with galaxies and universes and a moon and some rockets and a big clock at the top.
The whiteboard in the front had Go! Fight! Win! permanently scrawled across the top. Which I could only tell because the marker looked a little faded and it was a different color from the rest of the writing. Run an eraser on that and it'd look exactly the same unless you sprayed it with some cleaner.
I made a note to myself to ask if I could take photos later when the class was empty and I could run around without disturbing anyone. But part of me also didn't want to take pictures. Because why would I want another reminder of the daunting shadow at the end of the year that made little thoughts come up that had me wanting to go to sleep somewhere and not wake up until it was over?
Maybe photos weren't the best idea. Class didn't seem so exciting anymore.
I dropped my eyes from the hyped up walls and they fell upon the corner of my computer screen. Tipped with a little blue plastic graduation cap taped to it. It had a mustache too. Photo this one Max, it's begging you.
"Psst." after a flash and a hum and a warm sheet sliding out my camera I looked at Stella, who had her screen open to the list of links I should've had mine open to. I was open to a google article titled 'Parlor Hygiene' curved at the top in old English letters and the rest of it was peppered with pictures of tattoo needles and hygienic gloves and tattoo artists giving tattoos wearing a bunch of crazy stuff for sanitation. As someone who wouldn't touch a needle in my life it still relieved me a little that parlors followed such meticulous rules on sanitation. "Which ones are you applying for?"
I tabbed back to the page I was supposed to be on and shot through all the grants listed there. The amounts didn't matter. Every stinking dollar counted if I was planning on living on campus.
My stomach dropped.
I looked back at Stella.
"All of them." some of them had requirements I definitely couldn't apply for. I obviously wouldn't be getting a grant for something in the counseling field if I'm going in for photography. But a lot of stuff had whacky requirements I could probably scrounge into my belt. "Whatever I can get my grubby hands on."
Muffled cackles cracked beside me and Mr. Canlen in the corner looked up from his desk behind his thing glasses and shushed. Stella ducked under her computer and sealed her lips together the best she could.
"Agreed friend, agreed."
"From there I'm still not sure but right now I just want to study the hell out of college. Definitely major in physics but I might minor in photography so I'll have a class that won't feel so pressured."
I hated talking about the future. At least right now I did, since College was still in it. But after being dragged into another of Stella's club meetings-which I didn't have too much of an aversion to this time because those grants could potentially save me some ramen dinner nights and days without food-and that meeting being very college focused she fired off on where she wanted to go after high school. And I fired off blanks and busted engines in my brain.
With a side of upset stomach and clammy hands.
Stella's piston mouth was a relief. As it always was for me because I preferred not to talk. But alone time with Kate was even better because we could go hours without talking. It was the best.
Stella went on about majors and minors and studies on the side and I just nodded. The future made me queasy. And I liked just focusing on the moment and making sure everything was perfect, right now. Because worrying about the future messed up breathing in the now and took me in limbos that didn't feel like they had a bottom. It could've been a lame philosophy, but I made a rule for myself that if I made the Now matter, the Future would be just fine.
And remembering it quelled the teany pocket of anxiety forming in my gut.
"You're still coming to the Job Fair on Friday right? Kate and I are definitely in, to Brooke's eternal chagrin."
"Yea I'm in. Sounds kind of exciting."
"Heck yea it is!" Stella cheered and someone inside the library shushed us when we stopped just outside. Stella shrunk a little, bashful, but the excitement didn't leave her eyes all the way. "Brooke says Newberg's looking for some people to help out with the Drive-In."
"Do they not have their own group of angsty adolescents furiously avoiding home to hire?"
"They do actually, but their adolescents avoid home by going to the Drive-In. And the ones they do hire always steal everything and sneak off to watch and don't really work so I guess that's where we come in."
"As long as I can get some good pictures out of it, I don't really mind." plus working at a Drive-In sounded so freaking cool.
Finishing homework early turned out to be a great decision because after dropping Stella off at the library it freed up the rest of my day to hit the town and snap some shots before curfew.
I was already pretty excited by the time I caught the bus. The sun raced me again while I ventured across Arcadia Bay looking for things I could take photos of. It was small but a lot of the landmarks were spread apart and after spending the three hours with Stella after class I had a handful of time to journey before curfew came around and it felt like a mini mission: get as many Chloe pics as I could before nightfall.
It was sort of invigorating searching for things that reminded me of her. Felt like I was on an adventure. Scouring the Bay brought me a bunch of blue-themed photos among others. Crushed cigarettes on the sidewalk, a cat licking himself (went for something a little silly), a weed leaf sticker I saw peeling on the back bumper of a rickety red sedan. That one was admittedly kind of cool and I took multiple shots of that one in multiples angles. I took photos of graffiti and any clever doodles I found on buildings. I couldn't find any tattoo related things in town (because we didn't have anyone who actually did tattoos as a profession) so I had to get creative with that one.
After debating whether or not I had the time I went to the beach and took pictures there. My favorite being the sunset. But the seagulls and the sand and the sea-salted cars in the lot were awesome too.
At a certain point I got fuzzy all over and a warm tickle started in my chest that got stronger every time. I kept at it for a while and the sun dipping under the horizon tugged me out of my happy photography high and a little part of me nudged me to stay a little longer. Because nighttime photos would be amazing but curfew hung on me and the reasonable part of my mind reminded me that my instamatic wouldn't catch crap at night and reluctantly I made my way back.
The beach was a stretch away from school and I wasn't supposed to venture too far but the thrill got to me and I couldn't bring myself to feel sorry. I stood at the bus stop with a bag full of pictures and it felt too good to feel guilty about. Even if I did get back after curfew, today was pretty successful. And on top of all the magazines I had to scour through for more photos and the definite surfing I'd be doing online, I couldn't wait to start putting everything together.
I got back just before security started doing their rounds. Which I only knew because the other kids rushing to the dorms kept cursing about it in hushed tones every time they shoved past me. Some girls were still in the hallway when I got up to my floor and after grabbing a quick shower and padding back into my room I locked my door and yanked my photo bag off the floor and sat in my couch fully ready to dive in to the pot of gold I brought home.
Taking photos didn't always bring on euphoria but the really good ones did. Like if I took a really great angle or the lighting was exquisite or if the colors balanced really well or I captured something how I wanted to. Sometimes it'd be just because of how happy I was when I took it or if I was somewhere really freaking cool, which happened a lot in Seattle because it's such a beautiful city especially at night when the buildings lit up and the cars became stars in the street.
That was one of the few times I borrowed my dad's digital camera because even as beautifully lit as Seattle was at night my little analog couldn't deal and I got mostly blurs and floating orbs that looked like glowing dust. Warren said it was 'still pretty rad if you look at it long enough' and I kind of agreed but it was poop compared to what it really looked like. A titanium city, so pretty.
The scrapbook was for Chloe but looking at the photos did bring up a bit of pride and satisfaction because the angles were pretty darn great and the way I used the shadows weren't too bad. Setting out while the sun went down turned out to be really good for my project because I found myself feeling really good about the photos I piled into the 'In' side of the empty space on my couch. The rest I could just add to my wall, which got me super excited all over again because dude, more to add to my collection!
I couldn't wait until I saved enough money to buy a beautiful analog beast that can actually take some night time shots. My polaroid fought and fell bravely on the nighttime battlefield, but his valiant efforts will always be appreciated. I'd just have to save patiently, which would hopefully be a little easier and faster when Friday rolls in and I grab up that Drive-In job.
Half way through cutting up the pictures I printed off the internet and positioning them in the thick blank pages of Chloe's scrapbook I wondered how long it would take for her to reach out to me. I didn't mind waiting as long as I had to. Knowing that I at least knew she was contemplating and working through some things instead of just hating me relentlessly. It felt good not to have her number because it put everything in her hands. It was definitely the guilt talking but giving everything to Chloe felt like the justified thing to do. Because the decision belonged to her. Although truthfully I really wanted to run to her house and tell her….. I don't know. Anything really.
Which would most likely go horribly wrong because every time I got excited about things and then actually confronted those things I turned into a puddle of smudge and noises and I'm pretty sure there are people in the world that genuinely believe I have a mental disability from having witnessed those encounters. Except Chloe, despite witnessing probably the worst a few days ago. But maybe she did, I definitely couldn't blame her.
But it's all the more reason to go to Chloe and stutter at her some more. She was used to my weirdness anyway. And I really wanted to see her. But that could've been the miles of cushion separating us right now. Like meeting a role model after however long of freaking over them. But I might be the only person who'd turn into a frantic and awkward mess who couldn't carry a conversation if it was strapped to my back with duct tape if I ever met a role model. I hated when I did that though. It frustrated the crap out of me. But if I went over to Chloe's house right now, it's exactly what I would do.
And she wasn't exactly the happiest to see me.
It'd been almost a week since Chloe brought me to the park and when she dropped me off she handed me her phone to save my number.
"For when I figure out if I wanna punch you or not."
I shot her an unconvincing smile, least I thought it was unconvincing because she stared at it for a bit and then her eyes flickered and she shook her head and shooed me out of her truck more pissed than she normally looked.
Just as my stomach began to sink at the memory my phone rang in my photo bag and it took some rummaging to get it out. An unsaved number flashed at me when I did and my heart exploded.
The coward in me-which was most of me to be honest-yearned to stare at it until my voicemail stepped in or throw it across the room or stick it in a metal bin and crawl under my bed until it stopped making noise. Or shit, toss it out my window because who the frig needs phones nowadays anyway. Email was much easier to avoid.
I might have been on the literal last ring by the time I swallowed my guts and said fuck it and my greeting was a stupid stutter and it didn't even matter if Chloe wanted to punch me or not because I could just do it for her.
I cleared my throat and tried again, "I mean, yes. Hi."
It was damn good I didn't say 'Howdy' because if that fell out of my lips I would've kicked myself real hard.
"You never answered my question."
Her voice was a lot gruffer on the phone and it felt like an engine was growling at me and I wasn't sure if I prefered that in my ear or having to witness the whole lightshow of her expressions in person.
But it was a good prospect to distract myself with instead of actually contemplating what she said to me.
"What question?"
"Quit the bullshit. You know the question."
I sighed, hands all clammy and heart palpitating.
"Because I…" my head fell into my hand, I crushed my eyes shut. "I left because.."
"Save the stutters for later Max. I have to know."
It wasn't as bad as facing her in person, but the silence in between was more commanding than when I was with her. Because if I waited too long she could hang up. But I doubted she would do that. Why'd I doubt that she would do that?
"I left because I couldn't handle it."
It felt so much worse to say out loud. Like a pathetic little pebble in the face of a huge expectant audience. But I didn't have a golden trinket, or a valiant hero's story. Just a dusty little pebble, so pathetic and small that the audience couldn't even see it. And I was ashamed to even say it. And Chloe went silent for forever and I wanted to fall into a hole.
"All I understood was moving and Seattle and boxes and a bunch of car rides to this place I never seen that had these buildings that were so shiny I couldn't think. And mom filling out papers for this school that I apparently would be attending and an empty room that's gunna be mine and a shitload of classrooms filled with faces that just stared at me. And going to bed in sheets that smelled like home in a room that smelled like wood which was jarring because home smelled like vanilla. And the nights were colder and it rained way more and the streets were so noisy and filled with buildings I didn't recognize that were so huge I had to crane my neck to catch the top of it."
I took a breath, rubbing against my temples harder than I should've because none of it justified anything but it was all I could give her.
"Home was popcorn on Fridays and bacon in the mornings and seeing you everyday and the smell of vanilla in my bedsheets or bubblegum in yours. That was all I could comprehend. And then William died and we couldn't even come to his funeral and I wanted to tell you how scared I was and ask you why I lived in this weird unfamiliar world that didn't have you in it. But you had way more to deal with than I did that I shouldn't bother you with how I felt because it wouldn't help you at all. And the times that I did talk to you you talked about William, and how sad you were. And I didn't want to deal with it. So I ran away. I sucked and I ran away."
And I dropped her on her face and left her alone when she really shouldn't have been alone. It didn't matter how confusing everything was and how much I couldn't understand because Chloe needed me and she searched for me and reached out to me and I disappeared. I fucked up.
"I fucked up." I said, simply and truthfully and it was the only thing that mattered out of the whole mess of words I just threw at her. "I just fucked up. Real bad. And you deserved more than what I gave you and I should've been there for you. I'm sorry. And you don't have to forgive me. I'm just sorry."
xx