Max couldn't sleep after that. She was too afraid that the images and the lifetimes would come rushing to throw her back into the storm. Chloe was out like a light, though, so Max slipped out of bed as quietly as possible and crept down the stairs.
This had become Max's new normal. Nightmares. Wake up. Go downstairs. This particular morning was, at least, comforting.
The kitchen light emitted a soft glow from around the corner and the soft squick squick of wheels met her ears. She rounded the corner, rubbing her sleepy eyes. The microwaved blinked a proud 5:30 A.M., and the fridge light illuminated Joyce wheeling around the kitchen as quietly as she could. Max smiled sadly and lightly patted her own face. Quick measure to test consciousness. Awake. Right.
"Morning, Joyce."
The fridge door closed after a moment and Joyce's tired face met Max's with a genuine smile. "Good morning, Max." She paused for a comfortable second. "It seems you wake up earlier and earlier."
Max leaned against the doorway sheepishly and started to speak, but Joyce interrupted before she could say anything.
"You don't have to tell me anything you don't want to, but I have a feeling that you might need someone to just be around and not have to answer questions. I get questions every day about my legs even though I've already told the whole story."
Joyce had been in the Two Whales when most of it was destroyed. The little diner had become something of a refuge from the storm, though it might not have been the sturdiest building on the block. When a boat, thrown by the wind, had crashed through the wall of the diner, Joyce had moved faster than anyone would have believed possible. She threw Max's classmate and friend Warren to the side, out of the way of the worst danger, and shielded a man and his dog with her body. The debris had pinned and crushed Joyce's legs, confining her to a wheelchair for an indefinite amount of time, and though Warren had hardly escaped unscathed himself, everyone agreed that her quick thinking had saved lives. The doctors said that eventually she would be able to walk with a cane, if she was lucky, but until then, she had to manage in a wheelchair.
"At least you'll be Buff Mom before this is all over."
Joyce rolled her eyes but smiled. "Well, right now I'm just Joyce." Her voice grew slightly more serious. "Max, without your optimism, I don't know where I would be. Chloe doesn't know what to say, but I know she's trying. I think you've been a great influence on us all." She winked. "Just like I said you would be."
Max idly pushed a strand of hair from her blushing face and didn't say anything back. Her stomach felt tight and so did her throat. Emotions were weird.
"Enough of that mess, I suppose. Do you feel like helping me with breakfast or do you just want to have some time to yourself? I don't mind either way."
That tightness in her throat eased slightly. Her stomach clenched at the thought of food, but she nodded. "I would be honored to help."
The two were quiet for a time before Joyce softly asked Max about grabbing some bacon off a too-high shelf in the fridge, and she helped without a word. Joyce began chopping chives to put in the omelettes, while Max's hand beat the batter. The batter. The swirling batter. Viscous. Drowning. Rewind. Rewind. Rewind. Her vision grew spotty and dark on the edges. Her breath hitched. Her mind became cloudy. Her head. Was her nose bleeding? Rewind. It hurt. Rewind. Rewind. She had to stop-
A sharp cry from Joyce forced her back into reality. A reality where cold sweat beaded on her skin. The large Tupperware bowl she had been mixing the batter in lay overturned on the floor. The wooden spoon dug splinters into her hand. Joyce had wheeled back slightly, one wheel dragging the batter backward in a stripe, and her face looked more than a little concerned.
"I-" Max started. Her throat was too dry for words.
"Max, honey, this is the second bowl of pancake batter you've dropped, and you're white as a sheet. I can't help you clean it up, but… You obviously have something that's eating at you." Her eyebrows scrunched up and her mouth turned down. "What's wrong?"
"I just... " Max paused for a long second. Batter wasn't threatening. It wasn't the storm. It wasn't that endless coil of rewinding, of unspooling time that wrapped around her throat in her sleep. It was just batter. That was all. "I haven't been sleeping well. Not since the storm. Sometimes, I just... fall asleep on my feet."
She wished her voice were more confident. She could tell Joyce bought her explanation about as much as she bought every other lie Max and Chloe fed her, which is to say she didn't. Thankfully, it seemed Joyce had enough sense to know that sometimes, things were better left unsaid.
"Maybe we could turn on the tv for some background noise." The words were intended as a question but came out as a statement of fact instead. Max looked up somewhat apologetically as she began cleaning up the pancake mess. She heard the quiet squeak of Joyce's wheelchair and a click. Muttering from the television filled the silence and gave comforting white noise to settle Max's nerves. That was, until the six o'clock news came on.
Max's blood ran cold at the first sentences out of the pleasantly bland newscaster's mouth, and she froze.
"Welcome to channel four, eyewitness news. We have a real killer of a story this morning, as local former Blackwell teacher and photographer Mark Jefferson's trial opens with a bang. Already, the case has proven more fascinating by the day, as more evidence continues to pour in. We go now to video, and we warn you that the following contains content that could be disturbing for some-"
Sweat sprang from her forehead as her too-tight stomach clenched further. Already on her hands and knees, she wretched, a sticky, batter covered towel in her left hand. You could be my masterpiece. No. He was far away and couldn't hurt anyone right now. Maybe never again. God, she hoped never again. Her face felt too hot for the cold sweat pouring from her forehead. Hot, stinging tears fell. There was something there she dimly remembered but couldn't fully grasp. It just ripped her apart inside instead.
"Max!" Joyce's distressed voice called for what could only be the billionth time. She started yelling for Chloe louder than Max had ever heard her yell. And she'd heard Joyce raise her voice more than once. Her vision started to focus again and her mind felt a little clearer.
The cold tile pressed against her cheek, cooling her feverish skin. She weakly pushed herself up. "It's okay, Joyce. I'm okay. I think I'm sick." More excuses. Always with the excuses. WHY DIDN'T YOU TAKE THE SHOT. No. She sat up, the towel still in her hand, which was now covered in sticky crud. "Joyce, it's okay." Her voice sounded sure even to her own ears, but Joyce still didn't buy it. To be fair, how could she? She'd practically just collapsed into a pool of her own vomit, right in front of her.
"Maxine, you are obviously not okay. Get the rest of this cleaned up and go get a shower. You look worse than you did when you came downstairs. And please." She paused, calculating her words before speaking. It looked like she had plenty of practice dancing around things with Chloe, and it almost hurt Max's heart that Joyce would feel the need to be so careful with her. Joyce's face showed saddened resignation. "Wake Chloe. I have to leave soon if I want to catch the bus, and I don't want to leave you to fend for yourself if you're this sick."
A stiff wind howled outside, rattling the plastic over the busted out windows. Most of the funds had gone into Joyce's medical expenses instead of the storm shattered window panes. Max could almost hear the howls of the animals in the screaming wind from that day.
At a loss for words, Max just nodded and went about cleaning up the rest of the mess. Joyce wheeled by and lightly rubbed Max's upper back in a very maternal gesture. She'd turned off the TV.
"Come by the diner if you want. I'll make you a proper breakfast there. Besides, it's one of the only things that's been built back most of the way. They even widened the kitchen so I could get around." She offered a smile, concern still touching her eyes. Max had heard all about the new Two Whales, but frankly, she appreciated the effort Joyce was making.
"I would never miss out on your waffles, Joyce." Max offered her own wry smile in return, sopping up the final bit of the mess.
Joyce nodded in satisfaction and managed to get out the door and down the newly added, improvised wheelchair ramp. Max watched her go and looked back down at her left hand, which still held the would be delicious breakfast wrapped in a cotton ruination. Great going, Max. Bad dreams and two episodes. All before seven. This has to be a new record.
She sat there a second, looking around and identifying everything by saying the names out loud.
"Santa jar. Refrigerator. Counter. Garland. Mistletoe." She felt the corners of her mouth twitch up. "Cabinets. Chairs. Tile." The list went on for another minute. Sometimes it helped to ground her. When she was sure that she wouldn't slip back into some state of unreality, she scurried and cleaned up the rest of the failed breakfast mess. Maybe she could fix dinner tonight - to make up for the worry she caused. She hated making people worry. It had gotten to the point where she didn't want to talk to anyone or express anything for fear that something would slip. For fear that she would slip. Reality seemed so fragile.
She tossed the towel out, wearily climbed the stairs, and flopped onto the bed, waking Chloe almost the instant her ass hit the mattress.
"What?" Sleep riddled and slurred. Cute.
"Joyce got to see me do that thing where I leave the real world and go off to brain-hell." Max sighed and looked down at her frizzy haired angel. The circles under her eyes were darker than usual. "It was embarrassing, but I guess I needed to know what happened." She paused and frowned slightly. "How did you sleep through Joyce's yelling, anyway?"
Chloe stayed quiet for a minute. "Is it… you know. Him?" She didn't need to say names.
Max nodded. Chloe didn't answer the second prompt. Max figured that Chloe, of all people, was used to a substantial amount of yelling in the house.
"Jesus, Max, I'm so sorry. You need a fucking break." She rubbed at her eyes and yawned while stretching. There was something particularly feline about the movement. It made Max smile. A genuine smile.
"I ruined breakfast this morning, so Joyce told us to go to the Whales for food." Guilt washed over her again. "And, uh, I need a favor from my private investigator in arms."
Chloe, who had closed her eyes with her arms over her head, opened one eye and smirked. "Private investigator?"
Max blushed and felt her face flush - but this time, not from feeling sick. "Y-yeah. I need you to look into Jefferson's trial."
Chloe features dropped all amusement. "Consider it done. Go get a shower. You look like hell. I'll have everything there is to know when you get out."
Max nodded, gathered some clothes from the back of the desk chair and closet. Chloe had donated all of Rachel's clothes from her house after the storm to help those who lost everything, so Max moved her own wardrobe into the house, considering that she lived there now and commuted to Blackwell.
She ambled to the bathroom and looked at herself in the mirror. Puffy red spots under her eyes. Reddened nose. Streaks down her face where the tears had been. Wowser, indeed. She tore her eyes away from her reflected image and looked down.
"Hello, Mr. Toothbrush. Say hello to morning breath."
She scrubbed her body as vigorously as she scrubbed her teeth, using water that was probably too hot. Her skin itched from the heat and her stuffy face felt a little lighter from the steam. The exhaustion in her eyes remained, but the rest of her body felt a little less… defiled. A little more her own. She shut off the water and dressed quickly, wet skin sticking to clothes in weird places and making it nearly impossible to comfortably fit in her jeans on the first try. She walked back to Chloe's - hers and Chloe's (their? Chloe and hers ?) - room while still toweling off her hair.
"So what do you have for me?" She didn't even look up. If she needed answers, Chloe would get them just like Max would for Chloe.
"First. Who's awesome?"
"Uh. Me." Max smiled which came more naturally to her after the shower than it had before.
"Okay, fair. You are Super Max, but this time, I was talking about me. Brace yourself. Are you ready?" Such an offhand question but it was loaded with as much concern as Chloe ever explicitly showed.
Max nodded, sitting in the desk chair and steeling her emotions as well as her body. She felt the ghost of clinical fingers touch her face. She shuddered unpleasantly, the cold numbness returning to her extremities. She needed to know.
"I'll make this as painless as possible." Chloe gingerly touched Max's knee. They were never far apart from each other. They moved fluidly and were almost always touching somewhere. A touch on the shoulder. Arms brushing together. Fingers intertwined.
"Okay. Here goes." Chloe took a breath and hesitated. "Jefferson is looking at more than one life sentence and maybe the death penalty, and it's come to light that he had a hand in Kate's uh… yeah. Anyway, everything points at Jefferson. The Prescotts are having a hell of a time defending themselves with Nathan being a murdered murderer. Serves the fucker right." She paused, composing herself again. "The Prescotts are pushing for a more severe punishment for Jefferson, claiming that they brainwashed Nathan blah, blah, blah. They're the ones pushing for the death penalty. He's getting a piece of the blame that would rest solely on Nathan for Rachel's murder. Nathan is considered an accomplice to Jefferson, and I swear to god if you could sentence a dead man, they would have. Jefferson is being charged with so much shit including murder, sexual assault, and a number of other unsavory things."
Max laughed an ugly snort of a laugh. It still wasn't enough for her. If she could have seen David shoot him a thousand times, she would have. If she could watch him bleed over and over, she would. She felt that ghost of a painfully tight grip on her shoulders and the dead man's needle pinch on her neck.
"You know, when I was in the room. The Dark Room. I told Jefferson to eat shit and die."
Chloe smiled and rubbed Max's thigh comfortingly, seeing the darkness in Max's eyes. "You, Max, are a badass. Now, let's go get breakfast and make out. Some tongue'll do you good."