Prologue: Quantum Mechanics states that there are an infinite number of worlds. This is boring, and you have likely heard it before. Something more interesting that you might have not heard is that on one of those worlds, Max Caulfield never met Chloe Price before leaving Arcadia Bay. Let me tell you the story of what happened when she came back.
Chapter 2: Waffles!
Saturday, September 14th, 2013
The world slowly came into focus as I opened my eyes. I pulled myself up into a sitting position, blearily rubbing my eyes as I looked over at my alarm clock. It was 10:00. I could have gone back to sleep, but I was basically awake so there wasn't much point. I got up, and realized that I was still dressed in my clothes from yesterday. I stripped them down to my underwear and threw the dirty clothes in my hamper. As I did so, I realized my hand was clenched around a piece of paper. I put it down on my bedside table and grabbed my toiletry bag.
I left my room and walked to the showers. Very few people were out and about, as those who were inclined to sleep in, like Victoria and Alyssa, were still sleeping, and the early birds like Brooke and Kate were already outside, doing whatever they did on a sleepy day like this.
I reach the showers and open the door, stepping inside. Walking over to the sinks, I splash some cold water on my face. That seems to do the trick, and I finally feel fully awake. I brush my teeth, and step into the showers, turning on the water. I use some shampoo and start washing my hair, running my fingers through it.
As is my tradition while in the shower, I mull over the thoughts of the previous day in my head. They're kind of blurry, but I go through them as best I can. I went to class, we learned about Diane Arbus (kind of weird, but I don't know what to make of half of what we learn in class.) I got out of class, I was talking with Kate, and I saw Chloe in the courtyard. We talked, she kissed me. Wait what? Okay, going over my memories, yeah, Chloe kissed my cheek. It was kind of awesome. After that things get kind of hazy. I sat down on a bench for a few hours, and Warren helped me back to my dorm. Then Kate gave me some NyQuil and I went to sleep.
I finished up my shower, and headed back to my room, getting dressed. I threw on a white t-shirt with butterfly decals and some jeans. I stretched and yawned, taking in the sleepy atmosphere of this Saturday. It was relatively temperate for the middle of July, and the skies were cloudy. Just as I had finished looking out the window, and as I was thinking about going outside to take some pictures, there was a quiet knocking at my door. I opened the door, and I saw Kate standing there. She looked at me concernedly, which was sweet.
"Hullo Max. I thought I'd come along and check on you. You were pretty out of it last night. I had to help you to bed."
"Oh hi Kate. Come on in, I'll explain myself, and try to properly thank you for yesterday." I ushered her into the room, and cleaned off my bed so she could sit down. I then plopped down next to her as she spoke.
"No need to thank me Max, I was just being neighborly." She hesitated, as if she was unsure what exactly to say next, or perhaps whether she should say it. "I would like an explanation though. I was worried, you know."
I almost laughed at her expression. "Kate, an explanation is the least I owe you after yesterday. I told her the whole story about what had happened after I left her, and her concerned expression softened somewhat.
"Well it sounds like she really likes you. I'm going to go out to town and get some breakfast. Do you want to come with me?" Kate was beaming at me, and I figured I would have gone with her, until something occurred to me.
"Kate, why haven't you had breakfast yet? Don't you get up early?" It was odd, usually Kate got up around 7 or 8, you could tell from the violin playing that emerged from her room each morn.
"Um, well I wasn't very hungry when I got up, and I had homework to do, which I just finished now." I squinted at her. I couldn't tell if she was telling the truth, and she looked uneasy. I shrugged it off though. Kate would never lie, she was probably just worried I wasn't going to get breakfast with her.
"Well that makes sense. Sure, I'll get breakfast. Does the Two Whales sound good to you?"
Kate laughed, an innocent, clear sound that reverberated against the empty space of my room.
"Max, anyone who's been in this town for over a month knows to go to the Two Whales for breakfast. Of course that's where we're going." I grinned and practically leapt off my bed. It had been so long since I'd been to the Two Whales, though my family had gone there all the time when I was little.
Leaving the room, I grabbed my grey sweatshirt as well as my bag, donning them as I left. Me and Kate walked down the hallway, but instead of making to leave, Kate headed down the hallway and knocked on the door of a room I didn't recognize.
"Kate, what are you doing? I thought we were going." Kate placed her finger to her lip in a "quiet" motion and I stopped talking, though I was still very confused. A few seconds later the door opened and a tall blonde girl stood there, wearing red and black flannel over a plain black t-shirt, along with jeans. She was beautiful, in the same way you might find a waterfall or sculpture beautiful. She was undeniably good-looking, even if you couldn't quite put your finger on what made her so alluring.
"Hi Kate. Is this your friend?" She turned to look at me, and I could feel her examining me, looking me up and down. I was oddly at ease with this, even though this much prettier girl was sizing me up. She stuck out her hand towards me and introduced herself.
"Hi, I'm Rachel, Rachel Amber. And you are?"
I took her hand and shook it, feeling a little awkward. "I'm Max Caulfield. I'm new here, if you were wondering why you hadn't seen me around before." I had said that so many times in the last week that it rattled of my tongue easily. As she heard my name something changed in her expression, but I wrote it off as me being paranoid, like I had been a few minutes ago with Kate. There was something about her name that I couldn't quite put my finger on, but I wrote that off too.
The girl nodded her head and stepped past me out into the hallway. "So you guys ready to go to breakfast?" I nodded reflexively and looked towards Kate, who was watching the exchange with a bemused expression. I raised my eyebrow, but she simply nodded in response to Rachel's question.
"Everything will be fine, Max." Kate's words assured me, even if I had no idea what was going on. I decided to go back to looking forward to breakfast. If Kate trusted this girl than that was good enough for me.
We exited the girl's dorms and headed over to the parking lot. Rachel and Kate made small talk as we walked, which I mostly tuned out, looking around. Due to the weather, very few people were out, and an odd smell hung in the air. Not bad per se, just there. It reminded me of wet dirt, in a good sort of way. Weird. I was interrupted from my musings as we reached the parking lot. Kate stopped in front of a beat-up looking pick-up truck, and looked at Rachel quizzically.
"It's fine Kate, she's letting me borrow it while my car is in the shop." Rachel responded to Kate's expression, which seemed to relax her somewhat. They didn't elaborate as to who "she" was, and I decided not to prod. We all piled into the car, and Rachel pulled out a set of keys with a small figurine of a panda on them. I was in the backseat, and sat down, after moving a beanie which had been left on the seat. Rachel started the car after about a minute of coaxing and sputtering, and then we were off.
I stared out the window as the car rattled along the road, occasionally sputtering and coughing as we drove. The forest alongside the road from Blackwell to town was very peaceful, and looked amazing in today's pale sunlight. I was debating on whether or not I could get a good shot from inside the car when Kate poked me in the shoulder from the front seat, getting my attention.
"Sorry, what?" I turned towards her, turning my attention away from the window.
"Rachel asked you a question Max." Kate sounded a bit stern, but I didn't really mind.
"Sorry Kate, I was out of it. The scenery is so nice here." Kate's expression softened somewhat, and Rachel spoke.
"Why did you come to Arcadia Bay, Max?" I thought about her question somewhat, before responding, though I wasn't sure about the answer myself.
"Well I grew up here and well, lived here until about 5 years ago, when I moved to Seattle. I came back because I have a lot of good memories of the town, and also because of the photography program here. Mr. Jefferson is a genius." I realized that I was gushing somewhat, and tamped down on it.
Rachel didn't seem to notice my fangirling, and merely responded casually.
"Yeah, Mark takes a lot of good pictures. He knows a ton about photography, too." I was stunned. She called Mark? She went on though, asking me another question.
"So do you have anyone special for you waiting back in Seattle? Boyfriend? Girlfriend?"
"I never dated anyone in Seattle. It took me a while to figure out I didn't like boys. There were a few girls I thought were cute, but I was still kind of trying to figure out my sexuality, and so were they, for the most part." What was I doing? Here I was, pouring out my heart to a girl I had met not 10 minutes ago, a total stranger. But it didn't feel that way. Somehow, this girl managed to feel familiar to me. It seemed like I had known this girl for years.
She nodded her head appreciatively, like she understood what was going through my head. Maybe she did, I don't think I was that hard to read.
"How about Arcadia Bay? Have you met any pretty girls here?"
I could see her eyes in the rearview mirror, and she winked at me. I blushed and attempted to open my mouth, but then shut it again. After several more attempts to speak, Rachel laughed and opened her mouth to talk once more.
"No, I get it girl, if you don't want to talk about it, that's fine."
She was still chuckling, and I could hear a faint laughing from the seat in front of me that I assumed was Kate, but it cut off pretty quickly.
After a few minutes, we all calmed down, and the beat up truck pulled up in-front of a diner with an equally beat up sign on top of the roof. We headed in and sat down at a booth. Well, me and Kate did. Rachel walked up to the counter and started talking to the waitress. I looked quizzically at Kate. "Okay, spill it." She had a small smile on her face, and she started to talk.
"Well Rachel said she was going to drive into town and get breakfast. So I asked if I could come along. She said yes, and then asked if I wanted to invite anyone else. I figured you wouldn't have been to the Two Whales since you just got to Arcadia Bay a week ago, so I invited you along." She said all this in one breath, and took in a large gulp of air after she finished.
"Why's she talking to the waitress so much? Does she know her?" Kate furrowed her brow, and responded slowly, like she was unsure of what she was saying.
"I think she's friends with her daughter, or related or something. I never asked, and it could just be that Rachel is friendly with her like she is with everyone." I felt like the more I found out about Rachel Amber, the less I knew.
She came back and slid into the booth beside Kate. The waitress was a few steps behind her, and when she reached our table, I looked her up and down. She was the exact same as I remembered. The same uniform, the same face, the same hairstyle. I squinted, and read the name on her tag. It read Joyce, in a simple plain font. She reached our table, and squinted at me.
"Is that, no, is that Max Caulfield? Back from Seattle?" I was surprised she remembered me, and took a few moments to respond.
"Yeah, that's me. I can't believe you remember me, Joyce." She laughed, and poked me in the stomach.
"Are you kidding me? You and your parents came into this diner once a week for almost 10 years. The only reason I didn't recognize you the second you came in is that you're all grown up now!" Now I laughed.
"You haven't changed a bit Joyce."
"I'll take that as a compliment Max, although I don't think I could say the same for you. You've grown up so much…" She trailed off, but seemed to catch herself. "So what can I get you and your friends?"
I spoke almost the instant she asked the question. I had been thinking about this for a good chunk of the ride over.
"Belgian waffles!" I practically shouted. Rachel raised her eyebrows at me, a ghost of a smile on her face, and Kate started laughing.
"Alright then Max, Belgian waffles for you, like you've had every time you've come into this diner. Why did I even ask?" Joyce said resignedly, though she was smiling as well.
"Pancakes and a chocolate milk, please." Rachel added, and Kate ordered eggs benedict once she had finished laughing. Joyce left, and I tapped my fingers against the table, eagerly awaiting food. Kate got up to use the washroom, and then it was just me and Rachel sitting at the table.
Rachel looked at me, and I swear I saw that same glint in her eye I had seen this morning.
"So Max, you seem nice. I'd love to be friends, but I'm really busy. Do you mind if we exchange phone numbers, that way we can keep in touch for sure?" Oh that was nice. I handed over my phone, and she typed away at it for a minute before handing it back. I looked over her contact information, and then pocketed my phone. Rachel opened her mouth as if to speak, and then stopped for a minute, looking thoughtful. Finally she spoke once more.
"So earlier when we were in the car, you blushed when I asked if you had met any cute girls in Arcadia Bay. I didn't go any further, because Kate was there, and you know how she gets…" She trailed off, and I spoke to fill the silence.
"Yeah I guess I know what you mean. I was just surprised when you mentioned it earlier. There was this one girl from yesterday, she was sooo pretty, I swear I was stunned just talking to her, and then she kissed me on the cheek, and…" I trailed off, just remembering. My face was warm, and I could tell that I was blushing.
Rachel's face changed, and it took me a moment to realize she was surprised. She had been so calm and collected for every moment I had seen her. She recovered a few seconds later though, and spoke again.
"So did you get this girl's name, or phone number or…" She trailed off, and I thought for a minute, before it hit me. That piece of paper I had woken up holding was Chloe's phone number!
"Her name is Chloe, and she did give me her phone number, but I left it in my dorm. God, I'm so stupid." Rachel's face was blank, and I could tell she was trying not to show emotion. "What is it? Do you know her? Kate said you knew a lot of people, and maybe you know her-" And then it hit me like a ton of bricks. God I was dumb. "You do know her! She said yesterday that you and her were best friends! Why didn't you say anything?" Rachel just stared at me for a few more seconds blankly before bursting out laughing.
"I'm so sorry-" she paused between bursts of giggles to speak to me. "Chloe is my best friend-" More laughing, what was so funny? "Check your phone." I pulled out my phone and it opened to my contacts list, where Rachel had put in her information. I went down the list and saw nothing weird until I realized there was a new contact, one that definitely hadn't been there before. It said Chloe, and had what looked to be a mobile phone number, along with an email.
Rachel managed to recover from her fit of laughter, and drew herself up to explain herself to me. "Chloe texted me yesterday about a girl she met at Blackwell who she thought was cute. I figured it had to be you, because you're the only new girl at Blackwell who's arrived in the time since Chloe last visited campus. She was worried you lost her phone number or something, and she didn't have your's, so I may have arranged this," She gestured with her hands to the diner. "To try and talk to you."
I was calmer now, but still plenty confused, and with plenty of questions.
"What do you mean, arranged this? Kate asked me to go to breakfast with you guys."
Rachel was smiling now, and I got the feeling she had wanted to say this to someone.
"Well I invited Kate to hang out in my room this morning around the time she would be having breakfast, and helped her with her homework, and then gave her some lemonade. Afterwards I casually mentioned that I was going to the Two Whales for breakfast. She asked if she could come along, because she was hungry and wanted to eat with someone she felt was nice, and I happily obliged. And then I asked if she wanted to invite anyone else, and she thought of you, because you were the only ones clearly awake in the dorms at the time I asked."
I was awed. This girl had some crazy people skills. Like, Hannibal Lecter level people skills.
"Isn't that like, manipulating people? That's wrong." Rachel laughed, and I was surprised.
She spoke, and once again, there was a bemused expression in her eyes.
"Wrong in what way? Did I deceive Kate? Yes. Did I do so with any negative intentions? No. I got her to invite you to breakfast with me, which I would have loved to have with both you and her anyways? Yes. The reason I did so, however, was to help out my best friend with a girl she met the other day, that she had no way of getting in touch with." She was staring at me with a examining look in her eyes, and I got the feeling she was trying to tell what kind of person I was. Or maybe she already knew, and was trying to confirm her hypothesis.
I slowly nodded my head. What she was saying made sense, and was reasonable, it was just the level of familiarity with Kate and manipulation on her part which unnerved me. The look in her eyes vanished, and Kate returned from the washroom. She budged past Rachel and sat down.
"Did I miss anything while I was gone?" Kate spoke.
"No, nothing much, just small talk. Right Max?" Rachel answered, looking directly at me while she spoke.
"Yeah, nothing much." I lied, not looking at Kate. Rachel seemed nice, and she wouldn't manipulate Kate for anything bad, so what Kate didn't know wouldn't hurt her. Right?
Joyce arrived with the food and we all dug in heartily. I finished in half the time it took for Rachel and Kate to eat their food, probably because I was both the most hungry and the one who had gone the longest without eating any of Joyce's cooking. I waited for Kate and Rachel to finish while we made small talk, and when Joyce came with the cheque, Rachel grabbed it.
"My treat. Kate always pays whenever me and her ate out, and it would be rude to ask you to pay when we just met." She winked at me, and I figured it couldn't be bribery when the food was this good. Heh.
Joyce took the cheque, and turned to Kate and Rachel.
"You two head out to the car, and I'll send Max on out in a few minutes. I just wanted to have a little chat with her. Rachel headed out happily, but Kate hesitated.
"It's nothing bad honey, I assure you." That seemed to please Kate, and she headed on out. Joyce turned back towards me, and smiled at me, her voice warm.
"Honey, it's been so long since I've seen you, and it's so nice to see you again. How about you come by my place tomorrow night, and eat dinner with me and the family? I have a daughter your age, it'll be nice, she could use some new friends." It was really nice of her to invite me, and I didn't have any plans, so…
"Sure Joyce, I'd love to come over. What's your address?" Joyce scribbled something down on her pad and ripped off a sheet of paper, tucking it into my bag.
"Don't you go losing this now, okay?" She winked at me, and I wondered how much of her patron's conversations she actually heard.
I got up and left, waving goodbye to Joyce as I did. I exited the diner, I turned around to look at the sign. The way the dim light of this morning hit the sign… I pulled out my camera and took a picture.
"Always take the shot." The voice from behind startled me, and I spun around. Standing there was Rachel Amber. "Something Mark always said." She spun around and walked off to the car. It took me a moment to remember that Mark was Mr. Jefferson.
Who was this Rachel Amber? She seemed to have this ridiculous intuition when it came to people. Either she was scarily smart, or was ridiculously gifted at interacting with people. I wish I could talk to people that easily.
As I stood in this sleepy morning, I thought about something. It was easy to look at the world, to see where to take good photographs, to see where the world framed itself just right. People… people were trickier.
AN: There's Chapter 2. No Chloe in this chapter, just Rachel Amber's introduction and some setup for later chapters. I did my own take on Rachel's personality, as she doesn't show up in the games. Next chapter, should once again, be up within the next week (maximum, it'll probably be up before then.)
Uploaded Sunday, March 20th, 2016.