Thinking about
why… You almost laugh. Almost. Why would anyone subject themselves to this? Each time you tried you knew just a
bit more than the last. Memorized a
few more conversations, found
more ways to get things done faster. Each time hoping,
praying that it would be enough to tip things in your favour, enough to get Chloe
out of the unfair fucking
grudge Arcadia Bay seems to have for her.
That's the crux of it, isn't it? Chloe. You're doing it for her. For her.
You open your mouth, but the sudden feeling of wetness trickling down your face has you shutting it prematurely and looking into your lap. You wipe your eyes with your sleeves that hang down well past your hand.
You feel, from the way the bed dimples, Chloe scooch up closer to you. Not
close, but closer. You look up, her face shows worry, almost a protectiveness. Guess she didn't expect
that response to her question.
Well, neither did you, you suppose.
Emotion floods up from your chest where it feels like your heart is caught in a vice grip. The words just come spilling out. "You're
so important to me Chloe and this isn-" Your voice hitches breathily and you choke back another sob. "This isn't the first time I've done this, all-
all of this. Bad shit just
keep happening, to
you, to
me, to
everybody I know and care about. Just-
over, and
over, and
over-" You bury your face in your sleeves and try to keep quiet as shudders wrack your body, frail as it is.
You distantly hear Chloe get up and come back. When she speaks her voice is uncertain, scared even, but gentle. "Hey, Max, here." You unbury your face from your sleeves and see her offering you a box of tissues.
"Th-thanks." You take the whole box and pull a few tissues from it. Chloe is quiet as you blow your nose and recompose yourself.
One last swallow to try to clear the lump of irrational guilt and fear of rejection in your throat -
nope- and you continue. "I don't- I don't know
why bad shit keeps happening, I
try and
try to fix things but so far it's never
worked. Never for long. Never for long
enough." You look up at her, blinking your watery eyes enough to focus your vision. She looks back intently, hanging on your every word, thinking. "I'm just so…
so tired, Chloe. I just…" You break eye contact and your voice fades to almost a whisper. "I just want to see my best friend again."
Chloe keeps her silence, and you chance a glance up.
Awh. You recognize that expression. She's thinking,
hard. Her brow is furrowed and her eyes narrowed, staring, almost glaring to the side, as if the answers to all the questions fighting for attention in her head are hiding just out of sight.
Her face suddenly relaxes and her piercing, blue-eyed gaze swings back to you. "Max, I-" Her voice wavers with uncertainty, before her jaw sets and she continues in her smooth alto. "This is... a lot." You nod as she continues. "But Max, even if I don't really get everything yet, I'm…" She sighs. "I'm on your side, okay?" She reaches out and awkwardly kinda pats your shoulder before withdrawing sheepishly. "Besides!" She says with a forced brightness. "You've got totally
badass superpowers now, what kind of idiot would I be to just kick you out now?"
You offer a wan smile at that, which she readily accepts with a grin of her own. A flurry of white movement from what little you can see of the window catches your attention, and your smiles falls as you scoot forward on the bed.
Oh no…
Chloe gives you a confused look, then follows your gaze, standing up and peering over her desk out the window. "Snow?" She says. "In October?"
Your mind races. This is… different. Not much different, but different. You're
sure the snow usually falls in the afternoon, you usually see it with Chloe at the lighthouse right as the sun is setting.
"Yo, Earth to Max?" Chloe's voice rings in your ear for a second as you shake your head and refocus your eyes. "You good?"
"Sorry, uh- yeah." A small nod in return.
"Let's try to grab some shuteye, okay? Hopefully a few hours of sleep before my mom wakes us up." She pauses at that thought. "Yeesh. Explaining you might be a doozy…"
You giggle quietly. "I guess so…" She gives a smile back before tucking into her side of the bed.
You're about to let yourself drift off after she shuts the light off, but you feel her prop herself up, so you roll over towards her. "Everything alright?" Her face is pensive in the cool evening light, shadows of snowflakes cast a dimly dancing show over her closet, portending a coming calamity you don't even want to
start thinking about tonight.
"You said time powers, right?" She speaks slowly, as if restraining herself. You give a small nod. "What if- ugh." She pauses, searching for the words. "After you… left. I had a close friend." Icy nervousness suddenly clamps in the pit of your stomach. "She… disappeared like six months ago and she hasn't been found." She looks at you, her restrained words belying the childlike hope that burns softly in her eyes. "Do you think… your powers could help find her? Or even make it so she never went missing?"
You roll onto your back, breaking the eye contact. You don't
think you can. Not without soft photojumping to your time in Seattle and only having god knows
how long to warn Rachel about Jefferson, and that would only help
if she took you seriously.
But… you consider.
There's more going on this time. The woman in the hospital room, who you don't
think was a hallucination. The woman who was familiar in so many ways, yet none felt like tics you'd seen on anyone you know. She had glowing tattoos, she could draw in the air, she appeared to you out of
nowhere then went right back to that nowhere. Do you want to risk telling Chloe you can and possibly crush her even harder if -
when- you do find Rachel? Do you want to just tell her what happened? The options feel like a crushing vice pushing the breath out of your chest.
[] Write in
≅≅≅
I have a tendency to outwardly screw my face up to match the emotion of words I'm reading in a book or hearing in a movie or play, and I suppose I do it while writing too cause all the muscles in my face feel like they just ran a marathon lmao. Thanks for the very well worded write-in Spector29, that gave me a lot to work with.
