Chapter Six

Victoria's POV

After dropping Max off at work, I drove to my parent's house on the outskirts of the city. They had decided to have the meeting there since my parents would be the ones paying for the lawyer. I really wasn't sure why they had decided to do that, but I wasn't going to question it a whole lot if it meant that Max got the help she needed.

There were two cars parked next to my parents' cars, but I didn't recognize them. I figured that they probably belonged to the lawyer and someone else they needed to come to the meeting. I got out of my car and walked up the corral driveway to the large double doors that I remembered all too well. This had been the house I grew up in, so coming back as the adult I was now felt strange. Like I was suddenly a mismatched piece of furniture or a stain on the white tile floor.

I hesitated in front of the huge, dark wooden doors, wondering if I should knock. I mean, I had lived here for most of my life, so it's not like I really had to knock. But if I didn't, my parents might see it as me thinking that I was more important than I really was. If I did knock, they might see it as me going soft, becoming weak after years of hardening my resolve. I took a deep breath, deciding that it was far more advantageous to show strength than it was to show weakness when it came to my parents. Turning the silver doorknob, I swung the door open, doing my best to look more comfortable than I felt. When I walked over the threshold, I felt myself becoming that little ten year old girl with braces and big, thick glasses, my long hair messy and awful looking.

As hard as it might be to believe, I hadn't always been as put together I was now. I was that kid at school who no one really paid attention to unless they wanted to pick on me. It had been a long time since I'd felt this way. I felt small, the sound of my footsteps echoing through the long entry hallway as I stepped to a beat that I'd decided sounded confident, but not overly so. Part of me hated coming back here because I knew that it wasn't the sort of place I considered my home. I hadn't really considered anywhere I'd lived to be my home. Well, at least not in the sense that it made me feel safe or welcome, because it didn't. This castle of a house had never felt safe to me. Truthfully, I hadn't felt like I had a home until I went to Blackwell, but that was nothing compared to what I felt now that I had Max to wake up to everyday. If she were here, maybe I wouldn't being hiding the fact that I was shaking or pushing down all the anxieties that I'd felt since I was young.

"Victoria, is that you?" Mom's voice called from the livingroom.

"Yes, it's me," I called back, walking towards the room and standing in the doorway, waiting to be invited in.

"You've met Mr. and Mrs. Caulfield, haven't you?" Mom asked, my eyes widening as I turned my head to see Max's parents sitting on one of the couches, smiling weakly at me. I cleared my throat, smiling back at them as genuinely as I could.

"Yes, we met at graduation," I said, walking over to shake their hands, but Mr. Caulfield got to his feet and pulled me into a tight bearhug before I could react. It made me smile, though, and I hugged him back, begging my tense shoulders to loosen a fraction as not to seem rude.

"It's great to see you again, Victoria," Mr. Caulfield said, letting go of me and smiling down at me. "How have things been at the Chasefield house?" I quirked an eyebrow at him, looking to Mrs. Caulfield who laughed, shaking her head.

"It's his new name for the two of you," she explained. "He thought it was cute."

"Because it is," Mr. Caulfield said boldly, his voice even more booming against the hard, white walls. "Plus, it's easier than saying the Chase and Caulfield residence." I laughed softly, blushing a little. It sounded like a ship name Max would give to characters in the shows and movies we watched.

"Oh, well I don't mind it," I replied as graciously as I could without bursting out laughing at the confused look on my mom's face. "Things have been going quite well, we've pretty much settled in already."

"It probably wasn't hard to adjust since you two have already lived in a dorm together for a year," Mrs. Caulfield commented as Mr. Caulfield sat back down on the couch. He really was a monster of a man. I could hear the sound of creaking wood from the couch as he shifted.

"Her guitar playing and endless indie music doesn't bother you too much, I hope," Mr. Caulfield added as he smiled up at me. I laughed, shaking my head.

"It's actually kind of nice," I replied, and it wasn't a lie. Max's music was a lot more calming than mine was. Plus, we hadn't really had a chance to play much music at home yet. We hadn't even used the TV in the livingroom yet since we had one in our room.

"I had just been telling Mr. and Mrs. Caulfield about the situation Max is in," my mom interjected, bringing the mood back down to an even lower level than I was used to in this house.

"Right," I muttered, looking between the Caulfields. "I'm really sorry that Max had to get pulled back into this. She doesn't deserve that."

"Which is why we've offered to pay for her lawyer," my mom added, resulting in a very shocked looking Caulfield couple. They looked to each other and then back to my mom, Mrs. Caulfield holding Mr. Caulfield's hand tight as she spoke.

"That's really not necessary," she replied. "Isn't there a way that we can just get her out of the trial all together? Why do they need to her in it to begin with?" There was a pause. I knew the reason. So did my mom. But neither one of us wanted to tell these people that their daughter was a murder suspect. My mom sighed, her features falling from their normal disconnected hardness to a soft frown, one that I hadn't seen her wear in a long time.

"The Prescott family has suffered a lot of bad press for Nathan's actions," she began, wringing her hands together in her lap. "So they've decided to help Nathan out of the mess he's made by having their lawyers target the only witness."

"They think Max had something to do with what he did to Chloe?" Mr. Caulfield asked, holding his wife's hand as she held back tears. "That's bullshit! Max and Chloe were best friends, she would never hurt someone she cared about. Hell, Max wouldn't hurt anyone."

"I know," my mom said, the softness in her tone catching me slightly off guard. She was being surprisingly gentle with this whole thing and I couldn't figure out why. "Which is why my husband and I have decided to do everything we can to help your daughter through this. We've found her an excellent lawyer and we have a private investigator looking into every detail we pick up and every scrap of evidence the Prescotts try to use against her." My mom leaned forward, keeping Mrs. Caulfield's eyes locked with hers. "Your daughter is going to be just fine. We won't let the Prescotts win this one." The quiet ferocity in her tone made me shiver a little, sending goosebumps up and down my arms. My mom's anger wasn't like mine or my dad's. It was less like a storm and more like a snake or a spider. In a storm, you could see the clouds in the distance, gauge how much time you had to get away. But when you pissed off a snake, you usually had no idea it had even existed until it was biting you, every drop of venom killing you slowly from the inside out.

"Thank you," Mr. Caulfield said, his eyes glimmering with tears. "We really can't thank you enough." My mom smiled a bit then, even her eyes looked happy in a way. I froze as her gaze met mine, the gentle smile becoming a more knowing expression.

"Well, she's obviously one of Victoria's close friends," she replied, looking over to the Caulfields again. "Any close friend of Victoria's is practically family to us."

I was so shocked that I couldn't even say that this whole things sounded weirdly out of character for my mom to say. It made me nervous and suspicious, but I didn't have time to voice any of my thoughts on the subject because the lawyer and my dad walked in. We all moved into the lounge because there was a big coffee table there that the lawyer could put papers on. We started the meeting and I could've sworn that the whole thing went on for days. It wasn't so much that it was boring, it was just that there was so much information to remember. I had to take notes on it all so that I wouldn't forget.

It wasn't until my phone started ringing that I remembered the I was supposed to pick up Max. I stepped into the hall and explained to her why I was late. I felt so bad that I couldn't leave to pick her up. Well, mostly because I knew that if I left to pick her up, I'd have to bring her back here for the rest of the meeting and I knew for a fact that she really wouldn't want that. I was kind of surprised when she said that she could get dropped off here, but I told her that her being here might not be such a good idea. Mostly because I didn't want her to get overwhelmed by everything. I decided that her and I would just go over it tomorrow and try to relax tonight. She had the day off work and I didn't have class until that night, so we could go over it when we'd spent some time together and try to ignore what few responsibilities we had.

So I went back to the meeting and it went on for another few hours. It wasn't really over until about four in the afternoon because we'd decided to have lunch and that had taken some time as well.

"Victoria," my mom called after me as I walked out the door. I stopped, turning to see as she made her way over to me, a single wrinkle in the middle of her forehead giving away her nervousness as she got close. "I wanted to ask if you and Maxine would like to go out to brunch this saturday. It would be just the three of us since your father is going away on business, but I thought that it might be a good idea for us to become better acquainted with your friend." I felt my brow furrow as I looked over my mom's features. She looked strangely sincere. Not fully, obviously, because she was holding something back, but she still looked like she actually wanted to talk to Max.

"Why?" I asked, unable to stop myself. I'd been holding that question in all day and it was driving me crazy. Why were my parents suddenly so interested in Max? Mom let out an exasperated sigh, rolling her eyes a little. I felt a shiver go through me when I realized that I did the same exact thing to Max almost every single day. Did it make her feel like I wasn't taking her seriously?

"Well, you two are living together, so you must be close," she said, acting like it was an obvious and satisfying answer, which it wasn't. I kept silent, watching her carefully for a moment. Finally, she let out a sigh and I could practically see the way her guard dropped a fraction. "I just want to be sure that Max is a good influence on you. She seems very… Free spirited." My mom looked strangely dejected in that moment and it made me feel sick to my stomach. I wanted to ask her when she started caring who was a good or bad influence on me, but I stopped myself, taking a deep breath.

"Fine," I finally said. "But please don't call her Maxine, she hates that." My mom stood up tall again, a fraction of a satisfied smirk on her face and she nodded, looking almost down her nose at me, which wasn't as easy as it had been when I was young.

"Good, we'll sort out the details tomorrow," she said. I waved my hand at her dismissively as I turned to get in my car. I was too tired to care much at that point.

Overall, I was relieved when I was allowed to go home, but I was also scared because, now that the meeting was over, this whole thing was really happening. Max was going to have to go to court and fight for others to believe that she had nothing to do with Chloe's death. Even though I knew pretty well that she didn't even believe her own innocence. She had been the one to decide to let Chloe die in order to save Arcadia and all the people in it when she could've just let us all die.

The realization hit me like a ton of bricks as I got into my car. I sat back in my seat, letting out a shaky breath as I realized that, in a way, Max had given up her best friend, the woman she was in love with, so that people like me and Nathan and Courtney and Taylor and all of those people that might not have even noticed her could live. In the timeline she'd described to me, Jefferson had killed me. He had taken Nathan and I hostage and killed us both.

I wondered why Max had given Chloe up to save people who, as far as she knew, hated her. I knew that she hadn't given Chloe up for just me, she'd done it to save hundreds of lives while only sacrificing one. The kicker was that the one person she'd sacrificed hadn't been some random person that she'd never met. The person she'd sacrificed was her best friend.

I sped home, holding back the tears I felt stinging my eyes. It took far too much patience for me not to just run every red light and pass the slow ass truck that decided to take surface streets for a day. When I finally got back to the apartment, I parked my car and practically ran inside. When I closed the front door behind me, I was hit by the sound of soft guitar music and a voice I could've sworn was Max's singing. She was sitting on the couch in the living room, her strumming and singing stopped as she looked up at me and smiled.

"Hey, how was the meeting?" She asked, setting her guitar to the side. I felt my chest clench so tightly that it hurt, my ability to hold back my tears failing as I watched her. Max was just so damn beautiful. She looked so outwardly calm, her silver eyes watching me carefully as her lips were tugged up into a sweet smile. Her features fell when she saw the look on my face, getting to her feet to walk over to me. But before she could take a step, I walked over to where she was, cupping her cheeks in my hands and pulling her into a kiss that made my knees weak and set my entire being on fire. It felt so good that it hurt, but it gave me the ability to keep kissing her until my lungs burned. I felt her go almost limp against me, kissing me back as she pulled my closer by my hips. I was panting when I pulled away and Max looked like she was going to pass out.

"What was that for?" She breathed, moving her hand up to wipe a tear off of my cheek. Her features went from a sleepy sort of shocked arousal to concern. "What's the matter?"

"I'm just so lucky to have you around," I whispered, pulling her into a tight embrace. She chuckled against me, kissing my neck and pressing the side of her face to my shoulder.

"Was the meeting really that bad?" She asked softly and I felt guilt hit me like a ton of bricks. I rubbed up and down her back, kissing the top of her head.

"No," I replied. "It was just long. I just missed you so much and I really don't want you to have to go through all this stupid, political bullshit." She laughed, pulling away to look up into my eyes.

"Don't worry," she said with a surprisingly calm smile on her face. "It'll be just fine. Plus, I have you and that's so much more than I could ever deserve." I tensed a little at her words. Did she really believe that?

"Max, you can't really believe that," I said softly, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear. "You deserve every single bit of happiness that life has to give. And if I'm one of the things that makes you happy, than I'm the lucky one. The luckiest girl in the whole wide world." She smiled up at me, but her eyes looked almost pained, ancient. Sometimes I wondered what her abilities did to her soul. Did it make her mind age faster?

"You're so cheesy," she teased, running her fingers up my sides in a way that covered me in goosebumps. Then I felt her fingers start to gently tickle my sides, making me giggle uncontrollably as I fell onto the couch in an attempt to escape.

"Max, stop!" I laughed, my eyes screwed shut as they filled with tears and it got harder to catch my breath. She finally stopped, but only because she was kissing my entire face.

"But you're so adorable," she teased, looking into my eyes with a sweet smile that made my heart race a little. I huffed in amusement, fidgeting underneath her.

"I am not adorable," I protested weakly, reaching up and gently tangling my fingers in her soft hair.

"I beg to differ," she replied, a silly grin on her face. I rolled my eyes, unable to stop myself from smiling despite myself.

"You must be blinded by love, Caulfield," I said softly, pulling her in for a long, lazy kiss. She smiled against my lips and I sighed blissfully. This was what I was fighting for now. Max, the woman I trusted more than anyone else, my family. I had to make sure that she was ok and that she made it through this. She was strong, stronger than anyone I'd ever known, so I knew that she'd be ok, but no one could take on the world alone.

"You're one to talk, four eyes," she whispered when she pulled away, smirking down at me. I laughed softly, shaking my head.

"Shut up and help me find that wine I talked about earlier," I said, shoving her up and off of me a little. She giggled and followed me into the kitchen.

We spent the rest of that night drinking wine and cuddling on the couch with the TV on in the background. We had dinner eventually, but not until after had gotten sufficiently tipsy. We ended up just ordering pizza so that nothing got set on fire. It was a good night, surprisingly relaxing, even. It was well past midnight before we went to bed that night, but that was ok. It was nice to just spend time together for a little while without having to worry what we'd have to do the next day.

But when I woke up the next morning with a hangover and a text from an anonymous number, I realized that I might not get a chance to have a night like that with Max for awhile.

"Tell your girlfriend to meet me for coffee today at noon. You should come along too, we have some business to discuss."