Chapter 8: Source of anger
Max
The alarm of Max's phone chimes and wakes the girl from her deep slumber. A slumber without any nightmares. She dreamt about Kate; about their date. 'I can't even remember a time without any nightmares. And now? Katie really changes me. Sometimes it occurs to me like I'm in an actual dream, afraid to wake up anytime soon. Hopefully that won't happen!' she thought and looked at her phone with a big yawn. 'Six thirty, Chloe should be here in half an hour, better get ready.'
Max stands up and stretches her limbs. 'If Kate's up already? She told me that her dad would get her around 8. I definitely want to say good bye before she heads off to her parents. Dog, I'm gonna miss her!'
She changes into her sportswear, a white sport top, black shorts and sneakers, and heads for the shower room to brush her teeth. The whole building is still silent, nobody's up yet. On her way back to her room she stops in front of Kate's room, thinking about to knock, but she doesn't want to wake her. So she decides to wait until she's up, which can be easily told by her play of the violin.
It knocks at her door at point 7 o'clock. She opens it and in front of her stands Chloe, wearing the same clothes as always: a white tank top and her dark blue beanie. The only different garments are sweatpants instead of her jeans and some old, pretty busted pair of sneakers. The bluenette grins at the smaller girl. "Mooooorning!" she says with a happy voice.
Max raises one eyebrow. "Didn't know that you are a morning person."
"I'm definitely not, but without any sleep and a shitload of coffee there is no morning. Wanna bail?"
"Nope." The black-haired girl answers plainly.
"Why not?"
"We have to wait."
"Wait for what?"
Suddenly the sound of a violin, playing Nemo by Nightwish, echoes through the hall. Max closes her eyes and smiles, enjoying every tone. "For that."
"Whoa, sounds cool. Who's playing that?"
"My Katie. Every morning she plays a song for me." Max answers, radiating pure happiness.
"Your Katie? Every morning she plays this crazy shit for you?" Chloe asks in awe and the muscular girl nods. "Damn, you're so lucky! I never even met a human being that would make me a cup of coffee."
"You have a mom, who makes you breakfast every morning."
"Mom doesn't count, 'cause she's forced to do this for her only daughter. Y'know, family love and stuff."
The play stops and a few minutes later Kate comes out of her room. Max instantly jumps at her, hugging her like crazy. "Good morning! Thank you for this song!" she whispers in her ear.
Kate shrieks a bit because of the sudden cuddle attack and smiles widely. "Morning, my love! You're welcome!" she says.
Both part, looking deeply into their eyes and then they kiss. Chloe looks at them from a distant with a wide grin.
Kate breaks the kiss. "Sorry, but I have to get ready."
Max nods and brushes over Kate's cheek. "Yeah, I need to get going, too. Well…" The freckled girl leans forward and gives her girlfriend another, but this time longer kiss. "This one's for today." Then another one. "This one's for tomorrow. And this one…" The next kiss is more passionate, including some tongue-play. "…is for tonight." she says with a smirk, winking and making Kate blush.
And it is just now that the Christian girl recognizes the blue-haired girl, standing at Max's room door, grinning at them, and making her blush even more. "I take it that this is Chloe?"
"Yup! Chloe meet Kate Marsh; Katie this is Chloe Price." Max says, introducing them.
"Heya, Kate! So you're that girl that drives my old pal Max hella crazy?" the punk-girl says with a smile and shakes hands with the small blonde girl.
"Y-yeah. It's a pleasure to meet you. Max already told me some things about you." she answers shyly, intimidated by the bold character of Chloe Price.
For Max it almost looks like if Kate fears that Chloe is about to eat her alive, so she intervenes. "Okay, enough introductions! Kate, you have to get ready! Chloe, we have a lot ahead of us, so let's bail!" She gives her girlfriend one last kiss. "Bye, my Katie. Can't wait to see you tomorrow!"
"Bye, my Max. I'm already counting the seconds! Bye, Chloe!" Kate says and heads for the showers. Max and Chloe head for the exit.
"So, Maxipad, what are we gonna train today? Want to show me some badass moves?" she says, making some fake cliché karate-moves.
Max starts to stretch and looks at her sternly. "Maxipad, for reals?! I'm not a feminine hygiene product, Chlo! And no, today we start with some light stuff." Her stern look changes into a mischievous grin. "At first we go for a nice run. How about from here to the lighthouse?"
The bluenette's jaw drops. "The lighthouse?! That's about a thousand fucking miles from here!"
"Not exactly, but it's enough for a warm-up. So, c'mon slowpoke!" she says and starts to jog, Chloe right behind her, trying to keep up.
Half an hour later, Max arrives at the lighthouse and stretches again, enjoying the view. Morning mist is still arising from the woods surrounding Arcadia Bay; the sun bathes her in a warm, orange light. The silence is only broken by occasional cries of birds, a soft blow of the wind or the cracking of the wet underwood. Arcadia was still asleep. Normally, Max would've taken a ton of photos by now, but she left her cam at Blackwell. 'I know that a photographer should always be equipped and ready for a shot, but sometimes even I need a break. Sorry, Jefferson, but you can suck it!'
Loud panting disrupts her thoughts. "God…fucking…hell…you…wanna…kill…me…" Chloe is bathed in sweat and collapses to the ground, trying to catch some breath.
The smaller girl walks over to her with a warm smile and pats her on the back. "You did well, Chlo! You kept up and kept going! Now, rest for a minute before we continue." She walks to a pile of stones and reveals a small stash of water-bottles she kept there, throwing one to punk-girl. "Here, drink something!"
"Thanks…" the bluenette says, opens the bottle and takes a big sip out of it. Her breathing stabilizes slowly. "I puked behind some tree back there. So you owe me a breakfast!"
"No problem! You'll get it, but first…" The black-haired girl sits down onto the ground and pats a spot besides her.
"Meditation?" Chloe asks and Max nods. "Meditation it is!" With a sigh, the punk girl sits down. "Last time I had that much fun, sergeant step-ass sent me to a boot camp."
"You were in an actual boot camp?" Max asks with awe, but with no surprise. 'Figures that Madsen would do something like that. Asshole!'
Chloe's face darkens. "Yup, thought it was just a summer camp for 'difficult teens', but it turned out to be a hellhole. The only positive side was that I met my first girl there."
"Well, where's a shadow there's always some light and we are here to make you control such bad memories." The black-haired girl answers warmly. "Now, close your eyes and focus!"
While Max stays silent and meditates, Chloe's mind wanders to some deep and dark places inside of her head. Memories of pain and hurt emerge and threaten to devour her. A tear rolls down her cheek.
Wherethefuckever in Oregon, July 2011
The bus hits a pothole in the street, making it rock so hard that Chloe's head, resting on the window while she's asleep, is banged against it. She wakes up groggily, rubbing the hurting spot and is clearly pissed. 'First step-fucker wanted to send me to summer camp, then mom agreed with him and now I can't even get some sleep here. Fuck this shit!'
"Learn how to drive, jackass!" she yells through the bus, addressing the bus driver. Her comment is answered with some agreement and a lot of ignorance by the other kids and the driver.
The 16-year-old girl looks at her phone to check the time. 'I've been locked up in this tuna can for five fucking hours, without any toilet break! Oh step-shit, you're gonna get some rage for that, I swear!' A look out of the window shows her, that the view hasn't changed since she fell asleep and hour ago. 'Trees, trees and some more trees. Looks like the backdrop from the movie Wrong Turn. Just waiting for some freaks to highjack the bus and strangle me with barbed wire. Would at least be a relief.' She sighs, touches a spot at the bottom of her backpack and feels a bump, which makes her grin. 'As soon as I'm out of this piece of shit, I'm gonna head for the woods and light a candle. Damn, I really need to blaze…and to piss!'
Soon, the bus slows down, heads down a muddy road with even more holes and passes a sign depicting Camp Takoma. 'Figures, no freakin' summer camp without some fucked-up cliché native American name. Well, better then camp Crystal Lake.'
That this camp wasn't any regular summer camp, Chloe could tell by some strange things. Firstly, the common wooden huts were barracks. Secondly, the camp's personal stood in a perfectly straight line, looking like Gunnery Sergeant Hartman. But she finally knew that she arrived in a new and even worse hell than ever before as one of the Hartmans entered the bus and stars yelling "Everybody, move your asses out the bus, leave your fucking baggage and get in line. Move, move, move!"
Chloe rolls with her eyes and gets up lazily. 'Great! Just when you think life couldn't get any more fucked, something like this happens. Now I wish I'd be at Crystal Lake.'
As soon as the kids left the bus the camp personal starts to yell at them to get in line. Some of them shout from the distance, some others search for victims and start to yell directly into their ears. Chloe sees some of the others start to cry, because of the psychological hammer that is dropped on them. Luckily she's used to this sort of shit from home, and frankly, she doesn't give a fuck, because she read some stuff about boot camps and since this is no penitentiary they can't do shit to her, if she ignores their orders. But for the start, she plays by their rules and gets in line.
Suddenly a small man steps in front of her, tiptoes and starts to yell some gibberish stuff into her face. The bluenette couldn't suppress a grin. 'Time to raise some hell!'
"You think I'm funny?" he asks in a harsh tone, provoking Chloe even more.
She bursts out into a loud laughter. Suddenly the shouting of the other instructors stops instantly. Everybody looks at her, some of the teens are in shock, some in awe and some are grinning. "Pahaha, sorry dude, but you remind me of Gomer Pyle!" The punk girl knew that this was an insult for every military or ex-military person and most of these assholes were ex-military.
At first the small drill-instructor lacks some words, his left eye twitching. "GET DOWN AND GIVE ME TWENTY!"
Chloe laughs even harder. "No, Pyle, I'll get down, dying by suffocation, 'cause you're so fucking hilarious, hahaha!"
A tall, black-skinned woman walks towards them. From the uniform and the radiation of power, Chloe could suggest that she runs the whole show. "Drill-instructor Jackson, what is going on here? Why is this fucking punk laughing instead of eating dirt?"
He straightens himself. "Ma'am, this piece of shit doesn't play by the rules and insulted me, ma'am. I was about to show her the hard way, ma'am!"
The tall woman musters the bluenette with a stern expression. "Jackson, I'll take over!" she says to the small man in an ordering tone and he obeys. "So, you little fuck think you're special, huh?" she continues in a calm and slight quiet, but threatening voice and Chloe answers with a nod, a wide grin on her face, not even a bit intimidated. "You got ordered to do twenty push-ups, now get down and start pumping, asswipe!"
"Nope, won't do it and you can't make me, 'cause you little fuckers can't even touch me without being sued. So, fuck you!"
For a moment, there is complete silence. This is a fight about authority. If Chloe wins, the inmates will rule. If the staff wins…well, it will be hell on earth for her and the others. But she doesn't care about this or the others. Chloe's a loner since her best friend bailed on her and it will stay this way. The bluenette and the uber-drill-instructor, as Chloe called her in her head, entered a stare-contest. The woman grins evilly and brakes the contact, but not because she couldn't hold it any longer, but to start a speech. "My name is chief-instructor Carter and I'm your worst nightmare!" She points with her finger on Chloe. "This little shit thinks that you can do whatever you want; that you don't have to listen to us; that we can't do anything to you, if you disobey our orders. But she's wrong! It is true that the instructors won't give you any physical treatment, but a psychological and everyone has a breaking-point and when we reach it, your ass belongs to us!" She looks at Chloe again, addressing her. "Maybe I can't hurt you, but some of your troubled fellows can and there isn't much we can do about it."
That was something Chloe haven't considered as she started this duel. Maybe some of the others were some whackos, who would do anything to be in favor with the instructors. Her grin faints.
"I see that you understood me. Now, get your ugly ass down and give me fifty!" She said with a wide grin and a hissing, sadistic voice. Chloe obeys and starts to pump, because if she doesn't, she wouldn't survive this shithole. She read that people already died in these camps, due to the psychological and physical torture. "And to make my point, you'll all do fifty. Now get down!" she yells and then crouches besides Chloe. "Let this be a last warning! Nobody fucks with me! NOBODY!"
After an hour the whole group of fellow campers has finished their fifty push-ups, because they had to wait for the very last to finish. The sun stood high during the procedure, giving two of the teenagers a heat stroke. Now, they finally were allowed to enter their barrack. They had the order to unpack and be ready for some more shit in 30 minutes.
Chloe enters the old wooden building with her backpack over one shoulder. The stench of mold and wet wood is almost unbearable. She's drenched in sweat, smelling like a rotten corpse, as she would call it. 'Fucking hell! Thanks step-ass for this nice trip! I hella swear, as soon as I'm home again, I'll get one of his fucking guns, stick it deep into his ass and pull the trigger!' She takes off her top and her bra and throws herself onto a very uncomfortable bunk.
"Hey asshole! Put your fucking shirt back on, nobody wants to see your tiny titties!" a small, auburn-haired girl yells at her.
Chloe stares at her and scoffs. "At least I have something to show, flat chest!" she answers and ignores her again, gazing at the ceiling.
"Hmm, nice pair! I like 'em!" a voice chimes from the bunk neighboring hers.
Chloe turns her head and looks into the hazel eyes of a blonde girl with a blue feather as an earring and then starts to stare at her as the beating of her heart accelerates and her breathing almost stops. 'Holy fuck!'
The blonde girl responds her stare with a wide smirk. "Like whatcha seeing?" she asks. Chloe stays silent, unable to speak. "Hey, wanna bail, take a shower, smoke some weed and chill in the woods, before these assholes come back and torture as some more?"
"Hella yes!" the bluenette yells louder than she wanted, getting up faster than ever in her life. "But I don't think that they would give us any hot water here."
"Hell no, but the instructor's showers have hot water." the blonde says with a mischievously grin.
"Sounds like you've been here before."
"Yup, my parents love me that much." the blonde answers with a sigh. "Either way, hot shower, yay or nay?"
Chloe just answers her with a wide grin, puts on her tank top, and grabs her weed. Both of them sneak out of the barracks and break into the instructor's showers. The bluenettes jaw almost drops as she sees the luxurious shower room; clean, not smelling like death and decay; but it really drops to the ground as the smaller blonde girl undresses in front of her. Chloe's heart nearly stops as she sees the perfect naked body of her new partner in crime. She was thin, but not skinny, with a few muscle bumps here and there. The body was slightly tanned, but without tan lines, indicating that she wore no clothing when she was sunbathing. Her breasts were a bit bigger than Chloe's, but not too big, they're just fitting her body perfectly. 'There is only one word coming into my mind that describes what I'm seeing right now: wowser!' Chloe's heart aches as she's reminded of her old friend Max. 'Max always used this fucking word, I hate it, but now it just fits.' she thought, not realizing that the other girl stands right in front of her.
"Well, I take it that my body has officially stunned you." she chimes with a smirk on her face. "The name's Rachel, by the way."
The punk-girl gulps, trying to find her words. "C-Chloe…" is the only thing she could answer.
Rachel giggles and touches Chloe's cheek with her right hand, brushing over it. "Chloe, huh? I like that name! So Chloe, how about you take your clothes off, too? 'Cause I'm burning to see the rest of you!" Even though, she already had some sexual experience, Chloe undresses herself very clumsy, like this is going to be her first time. But Rachel doesn't mind, she watches her with great eagerness. Finally, as the bluenette drops the last garment, Rachel closes in, wraps her arms around the punk's neck and gives her a passionate kiss. Both girls give away quiet moans as their tongues dance around each other. Rachel breaks the kiss after a while and swirls a strain of Chloe's blue hair around her finger. "Hmm, I love your hair color! C'mon, let's get wet, 'cause I want you right now!"
Chloe gulps again as the blonde leads her into a shower stall and starts the water. The warm liquid covers them, washing away the sweat and dirt from their first workout from hell. Again, both girls' bodies meet. Chloe could feel Rachel's breast on her naked skin; one of her perfect thighs already pressed against her crotch. The bluenette wants her! She wants her badly! But before the taller girl wants to continue her sexual adventure, she breaks the kiss and looks at the blonde with a reddened face, because she had something to confess; something that doesn't fit her almighty punk street cred. "Uhm, Rachel?"
"Hmm?"
"I…uhm…I never did it with a girl before. I-I mean, I already have some sex experience, just…" she stammers, but is cut off by Rachel's finger on her lips.
"Then why don't you just shut up and let me fuck you, so that you can learn something?"
Chloe answers her with a nod and their lips collide again. Now the bluenette starts to rub her sex against Rachel's thigh. She was so aroused that she was already on the edge, but she holds it back, because confessing her girl-virginity was embarrassing enough. Rachel starts to kiss along Chloe's jaw line, leaving a hot trail on it, heading for her neck and there the blonde girl starts to suck and bite on it, while her hands wander down Chloe's body to her breasts, kneading them softly. She starts to squeeze the punk's nipples and every pinch sends a bolt of electricity through her body, making her moan. While one hand keeps on caressing her boobs, the other one goes deeper down, over Chloe's stomach, playing with her navel piercing, and then over her pubic mount to her sex.
As Rachel starts to massage her clit, Chloe almost couldn't hold on anymore. Her body was already twitching and her breathing was very fast and shallow. The blonde girl notices that the bluenette girl was close and stopped her teasing. "Not yet, Chloe! We're not done!" she says with a sweet voice. Chloe's hips keep on moving. She wants to come; she wants to release the pressure; her body was on the edge, but Rachel wants to give her some more. She plays with her fingers at Chloe's entrance, rubbing over her sensitive nub from time to time to keep her in this current state. Then she shoves in two fingers. Chloe groans because of the sudden insert, but suppresses the first pain until it's replaced by pure pleasure. With deep and heavy movements, Rachel's fingers slide in and out, rubbing over the sensitive walls. An unbearable heat emerges from Chloe's womb, filling her whole body. She twitches and cramps as the orgasm hits her with full force. Rachel tries to hold her as Chloe's legs couldn't hold her anymore, but she slides down on the wall of the booth.
Panting heavily, Chloe tries to stay awake. First the fifty push-ups and now, a hot shower with a very intensive orgasm were just too much. Rachel sits in front of her with a wide smirk on her face, which the bluenette answers with a wry smile. "That…was…hella…amazeballs!"
The blonde giggles. "Amazeballs? Never heard that one before, but I'm glad you liked it."
"Your turn!" Chloe says with a wide grin, eager to try her new knowledge.
"You betcha! Show me what you learned!" Rachel says in anticipation.
As Chloe wants to return the favor, a cool draft goes through the shower room, because the door is opened. "WHO THE HELL IS IN THERE?" a female voice yells into the room; clearly one of the instructors.
"Shit!" the punk hisses. "Can you give us at least ten more minutes to finish?" she yells at her from within the stall.
"Yeah, I haven't been fucked for two months now, so have some decency, asshole!" Rachel adds to Chloe's surprise. The curtain of the stall is opened and the female instructor stands in front of them, jaw dropped, because of the scene in front of her. "Wanna join us?" the blonde girl says, but the drill-instructor seemed not to be in the mood.
The woman let the both girls dress and leads them to a small shabby cabin at the edge of the camp. She locks them in and returns some time later with chief-instructor Carter and Gomer Pyle.
"Unauthorized separation from the group, breaking and entering into the instructor's shower room and finally, forbidden sexual intercourse. I thought I made myself clear that you shouldn't fuck with me, Miss Price?" Carter says in an eerie quiet voice.
"Believe me, I wouldn't even fuck you, if you were the last woman on this fucking planet, sista." Chloe says and earns a hard punch in her guts, making her fall onto her knees, coughing, holding her belly with one hand. "Ugh…fucking son of a bitch! You're gonna pay for that, asshole!" she adds, and this time a kick into her back is her reward, letting her fall front first onto the ground with a groan.
"Let me make one thing clear. If you keep on doing your little rebel-thing, you will receive this treatment on a daily basis. And as for you, Miss Amber, I thought you learned your lesson last year, but I was wrong."
"C'mon, Rosie! You know that I'll never change." After a few moments she lays on the ground besides Chloe, too.
The chief-instructor kneels in front of them. "You two little shits played your little rebel-game long enough. I will beat the shit out of you, until you two break and then you'll be mine!" she says and stands up. "Leave them in here for the rest of the day."
Boots are stomping on the wooden blanks, as the instructors leave the hut and lock it again. Both girls lie on the floor, exhausted and in pain. Their eyes lock onto each other and with a grin on their faces the two troublemakers hold each other's hand, knowing that they were bound from now on.
Chloe & Max
"Fuck this shit!" Chloe yelled in anger. Both girls are still sitting on the ground due to their meditation session.
Max opened her eyes and looks at her friend. "What is it, Chlo?"
The bluenette stands up and walks up and down. "I can't do this shit, Max. Every time I try to calm down my mind goes haywire and I just think of all the shit in my life."
"You just need to try harder." The black-haired girl says in a calm voice.
Chloe stops in front of her, looking with her misty eyes into the blue eyes of her friend. "Max, for the last fifteen minutes all I did was trying to suppress the need to cry like a baby. I'm more than depressed right now. I…I…"
With a sigh, Max stands up, drops her shoulders and speaks to her in a quiet and soothing voice, while she rests one of her hands on the punk-girls shoulder. "I'm sorry, Chloe. But I can't train you under these conditions."
A fist punches the smaller girl right in her face. She doesn't move; she doesn't even let out one sound; she just stands there. Max could've easily averted the hit, because she knew that Chloe would do that, even before the bluenette had clenched her fist, but she needed it to happen; she wanted to proof a point and only prepared herself for the impact to minimize the damage.
"WHAT?!" Chloe yells into Max's face. "You drag my ass up here, making me vomit, make me remember the most fucked-up time in my life and now you tell me that you won't train me?"
Max nods. "Yes!" The punk's face turns deep red as more anger rises inside of her, she wants to place another punch into her friend's face, but her fist is stopped inches before her target. "Don't you even wanna know why, before beating the shit out of me?" she asks, but doesn't wait for Chloe's answer and continues. "Chloe, if I train you before you manage to control your anger, you will end up hurting people you don't want to hurt, like you just did with me. With my knowledge you would've been able to kill me with one hit." The smaller girl sighs again and let go of Chloe's fist. "I'm sorry, Chlo, but without meditation no training." she says and turns around to leave.
Chloe grabs her friend by her shoulder and turns her around. "Then fucking show me how to do it! All you did was sitting there beside me and saying that I should relax and stuff, but it didn't work."
"It would've worked, if you'd just find and accept the source of your anger, so that you could fight it."
"But how should I find it?" the punk asks desperately.
"Just tell me, why you are angry?"
"I don't know; it's just my style." she says with a shrug.
"Stop making fun of it and tell me!" Max tells the punk with a stern expression and a strict voice.
"I-I can't." Tears are welling up in her eyes.
"Do it, Chloe!"
Suddenly something breaks free inside of Chloe. She starts to yell again. "FINE! You wanna know what makes me angry? You really wanna know?" she doesn't wait for an answer. "Everything makes me angry! I hate everything and everyone! I hate you, because you fucking bailed on me when I needed you the most! I hate my dad, because he just left me without saying good bye! I hate my mom, because she dragged this step-ass into my life! I hate Rachel, 'cause she left me without any sign!" She walks over to the edge of the cliff and continues to shout out her pain. "I hate this fucking town, because it took everything away that I loved! I hate this stupid world, 'cause it's always unfair to me! I hate this fucked up universe, 'cause it always makes fucking fun of me and feasts on my suffering!" She starts to sob, wrapping her arms around herself. "I hate myself, 'cause I fucked up so many times. I should've helped my mom, but instead I gave her a hard time. I shouldn't have told you to stay away from me; I should've apologized to you. I mean, you gave me two chances and I blew them. All I wanted is love, your love, but instead I choose to be angry at you and I hate myself for that. There you have it, I hate myself! I fucking hate myself!"
Max wraps her arms around Chloe's neck and gives her a long hug to comfort her. "Hush, it's okay."
"No, Max. Nothing's okay. I'm so alone. I just want someone in my life. Someone who gives me some hold, if life gives me shit again; someone who understands me." The bluenette says, still crying.
Max sighs as she realizes what Chloe wants. "Chloe…I know what you want, but sadly, I can't give it to you; not anymore. But you will find someone! One day, you'll find the right girl! Be patient!" Both part and Max brushes some tears from Chloe's cheek. "And until then, I'll teach you some martial arts, 'kay?" She says with a smile.
Chloe looks at her with awe. "Y-you do?"
"Yup, 'cause we finally found the source of your anger and now, you can kick its ass! But before we start, let's get some breakfast! Two Whales?"
"Nah, the Two Whales sucks. Let's try the Blackwell cafeteria."
"Why?"
"Because my mom works there now."
"For reals?"
"Yup, step-ass got her that job. At least he's for something good. But tell me one thing. Did you go through the same shitty source-finding-thing as I just did?"
"Yeah." Max answers with in a low voice, remembering the beginning of her training.
Seattle, September 2009
She takes one last, deep drag from her cig before throwing it to the ground. 'Either way this world's a shithole, so why bothering about environmental Protection?' Actually, she hats smoking, because it stinks and with every draft she'd like to vomit. But it kept her going and so she saw no possibility to stop.
A big, wooden house, build in an Asian style, is in front of her. A sign shows her that she's at the right place. Max let out a loud sigh. 'Okay, dad, the final chance. I hope it works, otherwise I won't return home…never ever.'
After she pushed the button for the bell she waits, until the buzzing sound of the door lock gives her the sign to step inside. The brunette girl stands in a hall. Different signs on the doors are telling what is behind them. She chooses the one that is depicting 'Office'. Her knock on the door is answered with a friendly "Come in, Miss Caulfield!"
The office is huge and decorated with a lot of Asian stuff. Paintings of battles between samurai and landscapes, battle-armors, swords, Nunchakus and other weird weapons Max has never seen or heard of before. It wasn't really her area of expertise. On the other end of the room stands a big, wooden desk and at this desk sits a man, looking and writing some on some papers on his desk. "Uhm…h-hi!" the small girl says with a shaky and nervous voice. 'Damn social anxiety, even after I give a shit about this world I'm still nervous around other people.' she thought, hands clawing on the strip of her old camera bag. "M-my name is…"
The man raises his hand to cut her off, before lifting his head and Max looks into the warm smiling face of an old Asian man, who looks like the cliché Kung-Fu master from some old Martial-Art-movies. "Maxine Caulfield and you have an appointment!" he finishes her sentence in dialect-free English. "Welcome, Maxine! My name is…"
"Dr. Li Tsun." Max cuts him off. 'See, I can play your little game, too!' "And it's just Max, never Maxine!"
But the Asian man stays friendly. "Yes, right! Your father already told me about you and when I look into your eyes I see a very troubled girl. Please, sit down!" he says, pointing at two cushions on the floor. 'Comfy! No couch? Bummer! Sarcasm-Mode: on!' Max thought and sits down, Master Tsun does the same right beside her. "So, tell me, Max, what is bothering you?"
The brunette girl shrugs. "Well, simply put, the world is a shithole, my life sucks and this place so far, too."
Master Tsun has already closed his eyes, breathing steady. "You have a lot of anger inside of you…"
Max rolls with her eyes. 'Wow, nice work Einstein. Never would've figured that out by myself.'
"…and a lot of cynicism." he continues, which gives the small girl goose bumps, because he knows her thoughts, which creeps her out. The master opens his eyes again and looks deep into the freckled girl's eyes. "We need to control this anger or it will devour you. The best way is meditation, followed by a basic training to get your life in balance again. You have a favorite hobby?"
She nods. "Yeah, photography. But I haven't taken a shot in weeks."
"We need to include this into your therapy; it will help to give you some positive input. Now, close your eyes, take deep breaths in and out, try to feel your body, think of nothing."
Max does what she's told to do, but she isn't able to control her thoughts. She starts to think about Chloe's last words, about Sam, about the last six months, about her fucked-up first time. Every single memory swirls around in her head like a big vortex, sucking her down into the abyss, until she can't take it anymore. The brunette girl stands up with a scream, her eyes and cheeks wet from tears. "I can't do it! This bullshit doesn't work!"
Li Tsun still sits on his cushion, opening his eyes slowly. "Patience, Max. Come on, sit down and try again."
"NO!" she yells. "Listen, you crazy asshole, this shit just makes everything worse! I never felt so depressed my whole fucking life! FUCK THIS SHIT!" she screams and starts to walk towards the door in fast pace. She doesn't know how, but before she could reach it, Master Tsun stands in front of it, blocking the way. "Get out of my fucking way, dipshit!" she hisses with gritted teeth.
"Max, we both know that I can't force you to stay, but we also know what will happen, if you leave this house. So, I ask you friendly to stay and continue the lesson." The master says in a calm voice.
Max just ignores his words and darts towards the door, but before she could grab the handle she faces the office again. 'How is this possible?' She tries it again, and again her movement ends in the opposite direction. She turns her head towards Dr. Tsun, who hasn't changed his position a bit. "Okay, what is going on here?" she asks.
"Nothing, I just stand her and you wanted to leave, but you always turned around." he says nonchalant.
With a battle-cry she takes another try and this time she feels and sees that the Asian man does some slight moves to turn her around, using her own momentum against her. Max loses it, she starts to attack the older man, but he parries every one of her hits with ease.
"That's it, let it out! Oh, you have some talent, maybe you should do more than some basic training; I could teach you. Too high, too low, too predictable…"
After five minutes Max's strength leaves her and the more week her punches get, the more she starts to sob, until she crumbles to her knees and starts to cry hard. Every pain, every frustration, every negative memory rushes through her head and is released in a flood of tears.
Master Tsun kneels beside her and pats her back. "That's it! You've broken through the emotional wall you've build inside of you. Now, we're able to reach the source of your anger. Now you're ready. So, tell me, Max, what is bothering you?" And Max tells him everything; her training has started!