Work Text:
There’s a black cloud over the girls dorms when Max finally makes her way back. The whole second floor is quiet, every door shut but Dana’s.
Dana calls out when Max passes her doorway but Max walks further until she’s out of sight and wrestles a short, harsh rewind from her ragged body. It hurts like hell, bad enough to make her nauseous, but it’s worth it to save herself from another ‘Max, you’re a hero’ conversation.
She feels a pang of guilt; Dana’s a good friend, she probably just wants some comfort.
But Max is empty, a husk; she doesn’t have any comfort to give, right now. She tells herself she’ll make it up to Dana later.
Max freezes when she makes it to Kate’s door, all wrapped up in yellow tape like a crime scene, rocked by a wave of panic. It’s okay, she tells herself. You saved her. She’s still alive. You did it.
It doesn’t matter if it’s true; the roiling tide of dread in her belly swallows up any pride or comfort she might find in it.
When Max finally reaches the end of the hall and makes her way into the room she feels like collapsing. She’s tired, ready to pass out; to give in to sleep until nightmares or the blaring of her alarm forces her back into consciousness. Shock pours over her like a bucket of cold water, stripping the oppressive haze of fatigue from her as soon as she flicks on the light.
Nobody Messes With Me Bitch, Max reads, feeling sick. She’d forgotten about Nathan and his threats.
Frantically, she engages the lock on her door, fighting the rising tide of panic in her belly. Hands shaking, Max makes a circuit around the room to switch on the rest of the lights. She clears her closet, checks every dark corner, even forces herself to peek under the bed - like a kid checking the room for monsters.
There’s no one.
She’s alone.
But, Nathan has already been here before. The worst part is her lock isn’t broken; she has no idea how he managed to get into her room. Did someone let him in? Did he somehow get a key? She knows the administration keeps spares of the room keys in case of emergency. The Prescotts own Blackwell - but do they have that much power?
If Nathan can just snap his fingers and get whatever he wanted, how is she ever supposed to be safe?
Especially now that she’d gotten him expelled?
The phone is in her hands before she knows what she’s doing, her shaky fingers already tapping out Chloe’s number.
She picks up on the second ring.
“Hey.”
Max tries to answer, but her throat seizes up, and all she manages is a hoarse breath into the receiver.
“Max?” Chloe tries again, a note of panic sharpening her voice.
“I-I can’t breathe,” Max manages, pressing the pads of her left hand against her throat, as if she could feel the obstruction.
“Okay,” says Chloe, voice shaky. Max can tell she’s trying to be calm, because she’s using that same tone she did the summer they were 11 and Max broke her arm riding bikes in the woods. “Okay, where are you?”
“In,” Max chokes on her breath, “my,” again, “room.”
“Okay, I’m on my way over. Fifteen minutes.” There’s noise on the other line, a rustling, and the sharp exhale of Chloe’s breath. “Hey, listen to me, alright?”
Max nods, distracted. It’s hard to focus on Chloe’s words when her head is spinning. The tips of her fingers are numb and her legs are so weak. A flood of hot saliva fills her mouth and she tries to swallow it down, attempting to keep vomit at bay.
“Max, you’re having a panic attack. And it’s really scary and you think something awful’s gonna happen, but you’re safe, okay? I promise you’re safe.”
“Chloe,” she tries, voice breaking on another ragged exhale. She feels like she’s going to pass out, her heart is thundering wildly in her chest.
“Max, you’ve gotta breathe, alright,” she’s running, Max can tell from the sound of her voice.
“I-I can’t,” she chokes.
“You can,” Chloe interrupts. “I know it. Super-Max, right? You can do anything.”
“I’m not-”
She feels nothing like a hero, pacing dizzy lines up and down her room, struggling to catch her breath.
“With me, okay?” Chloe instructs. “Hold your breath first. You can do that, right?”
“Y-yeah.”
“Ten seconds, Max. I’ll count. 1, 2, 3...”
Chloe talks her through some breathing exercises that are both mercifully effective and distracting; so much so that she doesn’t realize Chloe’s gone silent until she hears the slam of the car door and the rumble of the truck’s engine on the other line.
“Chloe?”
“Right here, Max,” Chloe assures her. “On my way. How’s your breathing?”
“Better.”
“Yeah? That’s good.”
“Thank you.”
“Thank me later, nerd.”
Chloe’s mouth must be twisted up in that cocky smirk, Max can tell, “With pizza.”
Max feels herself winding down as Chloe keeps talking; she can feel her fingertips again and the dizziness has passed, but she can’t shake the feeling that something is about to go terribly wrong.
“Yo, Hippie, stay with me,” Chloe’s voice brought her back to reality. “I’m gonna need you in a minute.”
“What do you mean?” Max asks, rising from her bed to resume pacing the room.
“I’m in the parking lot,” a slamming car door punctuates the statement, “but I can’t get into the dorms, you’re gonna need to leave your room and let me in.”
Max hesitates, glancing up at the graffiti on her wall, the disturbed photocollage facedown in the corner of her room.
No way could she let Chloe see this. She would flip.
“Are you up for that, or do you need some more time?”
“No,” Max blurts. “No, no. Just… I actually really don’t want to be here anymore, okay? Just wait for me.”
“Sure, yeah,” Chloe says. “You’re the boss, Max.”
“The boss?” Max teases, slipping out the door and locking it futilely. “I could get used to that.”
“Yeah, well don’t get too comfortable,” Chloe drawls. “If my step-douche didn’t hate both our guts I’d take you back to my room right now and make you my bitch.”
“Uh,” Max stammers, dropping her voice to a whisper in the hallway, “what?”
“Mario Kart, you fuckin’ goof,” Chloe laughs. “I found my old Nintendo. God, Max, what were you thinking?”
“Exactly what you wanted me to, you perv,” Max accuses, grateful Chloe couldn’t see her blush.
Chloe laughs again, warm and familiar, before mercifully letting Max off the hook. “You almost done in there? I really do not want to get busted by one of the Blackwell rent-a-cops, fucking Jim Dangle would have my ass.”
“Almost down,” Max promises, descending the stairs to the ground floor. “Jim Dangle?”
“Okay, wow, what passes for entertainment in Seattle? Don’t tell me it’s all drum circles and Portlandia re-runs.”
“What’s wrong with Portlandia?”.
“God, you are such a hipster,” Chloe complains. “Okay, obviously we’re going to need to schedule a Reno 911 marathon for after I school your ass at Mario Kart.”
Max pauses on the dorm steps for just a beat, feet half off the top step, letting the moment hang between them. Chloe waits a few feet away, loose-limbed and bare-armed, despite the chill of the night air; hands jammed in her pockets, watching Max with a look equal parts warm and cautious.
A wave of affection and gratitude washes over Max, so powerful it makes her throat ache. She crosses the distance between them, wrapping her arms around Chloe’s waist and pressing the side of her face against Chloe’s collar bone.
“Thank you,” she breathes, unable to keep the tremble out of her voice.
“Yeah,” Chloe whispers, wrapping her arms around Max’s shoulders. She drops a kiss atop Max’s head, quick and startling. “For sure.”
She pressed a second kiss into Max’s hair, then a third, and squeezes her again until she feels so full with emotion she thinks she might sob. Tears burn her eyes when she pulls out of Chloe’s grasp.
“Come on,” she says, fitting her hand into Chloe’s grip and tugging her toward the parking lot. “Let’s get out of here.”
x.x.x
“You tired?” Chloe asks, settling back into the driver’s seat.
They’re parked in front of a gas station convenience store. The overhead light in Chloe’s cab is busted, leaving them draped in shadow. Max can’t see what all is in the plastic bag on Chloe’s lap.
“Earth to Max,” Chloe tries again. “I asked if you were tired.”
She is.
She wants to find someplace quiet and dark and go to sleep for a week and she wants her life to be back to normal when she wakes up. She wants Kate back and happy and safe. She wants Nathan in a prison cell or wherever creeps like him deserve to go. She wants Chloe out of mortal danger for ten fucking minutes.
She’s so tired.
But she also knows that what Chloe’s really asking is ‘do you want to go someplace to sleep?’ and she really, really doesn’t.
“Nah,” She swallows, hoping that in the darkness of the cabin Chloe can’t read her as easily as she can in daylight.
There’s a moment, just silence, with Chloe peering at her through the darkness and her mouth pulled tight like whatever words she has tucked behind her teeth are about to spill out into the space between them. And then Chloe nods once, slow, and rolls her shoulders in their sockets and the moment is over.
She reaches over and sets the plastic bag on the floor between Max’s feet, but not before grabbing a fruit pie that she drops in Max’s lap.
“You still like lemon filling, right?” she asks as she turns the key in the ignition.
“Yeah.” Max can’t really fight the spontaneous little smile that comes with the mental image of Chloe in the snack aisle trying to figure out which flavor of fruit pie to get her.
“Gross,” she mumbles around a cigarette, unlit. She pulls back onto the road and steers with her knees for the few seconds it takes to light it properly. “I was hoping you’d outgrow that.”
“Do you have to do that in the car?” Max asks, wrinkling her nose at the smoke.
“Ugh, just roll your window down,” Chloe says.
Max does, sliding in the seat until she can rest her head on the arm she props along the window. She grits her teeth against the blast of cold outside air. It helps her feel more aware, a little more present, but does nothing for the bone-deep exhaustion she feels.
Chloe blows past the turn that would lead them to her house, taking them down the main drag toward the pier. Max has been back in Arcadia Bay for months, but the differences are still striking. She remembers hot nights, the way the street looked festooned with banners and bright lights during the annual Summer Celebration festival, packed with locals and tourists alike wandering store to store. It’s hard to reconcile that image in her mind of the bustling, untouchable center of Arcadia Bay with the the ‘For Lease’ signs and vacant storefronts she’s seeing tonight.
The rush of air stings her eyes. She shuts them in response, squeezing out a few tears that dry quickly in the wind.
“Hey.” Chloe’s urgent tapping on her leg shakes her out of her daze.
Max blinks blearily, mouth dry as she turns her attention to Chloe. Had she actually managed to doze hanging halfway out of a speeding truck window?
“First place I ever got arrested,” Chloe gestures with a flick of her hand, cigarette ash spilling down the front of her shirt. She doesn’t seem to notice, smirking proudly in the brief flashes of illuminating streetlight.
Max straightens up, looking in the direction Chloe indicated; a fenced in gravel lot and a billboard. “What for?”
“Vandalism,” Chloe elaborates, exhaling a stream of smoke. “It was election season, I was tagging campaign ads with dicks.”
“How did you even get up there?” Max asks incredulously, twisting in her seat to keep looking when they drive past it.
“Well,” Chloe begins, the glowing red tip of the cigarette bobbing in the dark like a firebug, “about… ten percent luck, twenty percent skill, fifteen-”
Max rolls her eyes shoving Chloe’s shoulder hard. Chloe laughs, rocking with the force of Max’s push, waving the lit cigarette in the air between them. “I got a boost from the losers I was hanging around with. They bailed on me as soon as the cops showed up. Pigs were waiting for me on the ground already by the time I was halfway down the ladder.”
“Jeez,” Max shakes her head. “How old were you?”
“Fourteen. It was a few months after you left.”
Max nods, settling back into the seat. There’s a question on her tongue and she knows it’s dangerous, she can feel the sharp edges cutting the soft inside of her mouth. She spits it out, to have it over with. “Did you ever hate me for it?”
Chloe’s silent for so long Max thinks maybe she just didn’t hear.
“No,” Chloe says, finally. “Maybe it would have been easier if I could have, but…” she trails off with a shrug.
“I’m sorry.”
“I know.”
“If I could go back-”
“Don’t do this,” Chloe cuts her off with a quick shake of her head. “You can’t, right?”
Max nods.
“Then don’t even go there. Maybe things would be better, maybe not. Some things are just fucked up, Max, and nothing can change that.”
Chloe flicks the smoldering cigarette butt out the window.
Max raises her hand, feeling time start to unravel around her. That dizzy feeling fills up her head again, temples throbbing slightly with exertion and then-
“-nths after you left.”
Max bites her lip, blinking hard against the ache in her skull.
Chloe puts the cigarette to her lips, taking her final drag.
“Hey,” Max reaches out, placing her hand on Chloe’s arm, “give me that, okay?”
Chloe raises her eyebrows, taking her eyes from the road to glance dubiously at Max. Still, she dutifully stubs out the butt against the dashboard and drops it in Max’s waiting palm. “Did you just timewarp me?”
“That depends,” Max turns her head back toward the open window so Chloe can’t assess the authenticity of her smile, “were you about to do something shitty?”
“Well played,” Chloe concedes. “You win this round, Captain Planet.”
Max closes her fist around the cigarette butt in her palm.
She squeezes til the warmth is drained from it, absorbed by her skin.
x.x.x
Chloe takes her to the beach. It’s bitterly cold this close to the water, but Max doesn’t hesitate when Chloe leads her down to the shore.
The sand is cool beneath her and Max is grateful for both the uncharacteristic ease with which Chloe had accepted her refusal to head into the surf and for the zip up hoodie she had subsequently draped over Max’s shoulders for ‘safe keeping.’ The sweater is absurdly oversized and smells like an ashtray, but it’s warm and right now that’s all Max lets herself care about.
She can’t remember the last time she was in a place this desolate. Facing the water with her back to the city it almost feels like she could be the last person on earth. She feels empty again, like she had earlier on the lawn with Warren. Brittle and hollow, filled with cracks already, like the slightest bit of added pressure could shatter her; scatter her pieces to the wind.
She’s weeping before she even really realizes it; knees pulled up to her chest, face in her own lap just sobbing. She feels almost outside of her body, shocked by the violence of her breakdown. Max cries with her whole body, throat raw, shoulders shaking, fists clenched tight on the fabric of her jeans.
There’s a shift in the sand and Max looks up, blinking through tears to see Chloe hobbling awkwardly up the beach toward her, trying to run without kicking up sand. She’s barefoot, pants rolled up to her knees, covered in sand and seawater. Chloe drops to the ground in front of Max and pulls Max into her arms.
Chloe’s body is cold and damp and sandy but her touch lights a trail of fire on Max’s skin anyway. She cups a hand around Max’s head, guiding Max’s face into the crook of her shoulder. Max wraps her arms around Chloe’s body, pressing tightly against her like the moment she lets go she could be swept away by the wind.
It doesn’t feel good but for the first time since this afternoon she feels like the pressure building up around her is easing.
“Shhhhh,” Chloe whispers, running a soothing hand through Max’s hair. “I’ve got you. Let go.”
She does.
Max isn’t sure how long she’s spent crying when her tears finally run out, but her body is stiff and sore and she’s shivering. Chloe’s worse off, she knows, dripping wet and hunched awkwardly to hold her. Her skin is ice-cold and that has to be a weird angle for her back, but she hasn’t complained even once.
Max pulls away, licking her lips and tasting salt. She’s not sure if it’s from her tears or the seawater on Chloe’s skin. Chloe loosens her grip to let Max move back, but doesn’t stop touching her, one hand at the base of her neck, the other settled at her hip to stroke her side.
“Chloe?”
“Yeah?”
“Can we go back to the truck now? I’m fucking freezing.”
“Yeah, for sure,” Chloe’s smile is somehow softer than the gentle grip she keeps on Max’s hand after she helps her up.
“Sorry I got snot on your shirt,” Max mumbles, embarrassment catching up to her.
Chloe lets go of her hand just long enough to drop her arm over Max’s shoulder and pull her close, tucking the smaller girl into her side. “It’s fine,” she presses a kiss into Max’s temple. “Snot a problem.”
Max is too drained to laugh, so she doesn’t even try; just settles her hand against Chloe’s hip and tries to communicate her gratitude through the restless drumming of her fingers.
x.x.x
Chloe cranks up the heater as soon as they get back to the truck. Then she steps outside, strips off her shirt and pants and lays them out across the hood to dry.
“What if someone comes by?” Max hisses when Chloe slides back into the cab, struggling to maintain an appropriate level of eye contact now that she’s suddenly trapped in a confined space with her practically naked best friend.
“They won’t,” Chloe shrugs.
A beat.
“Give me that jacket, though.”
Which is how Max ends up having one of the most serious conversations of her life with someone who isn’t wearing pants.
“You good?”
Max still feels a long way from good, but she shrugs.
“Better.”
She’s glad the truck is too old to have an arm rest, it makes it easier for Chloe to slide up against her. She’s been finding ways to touch Max all night; a hand on the small of her back, an arm around her shoulders, a kiss atop her head. And maybe it should be weird that it’s only been two days and they’re this close again; maybe it should be weird that sometimes when Chloe touches her Max feels kind of like she’s gonna throw up, but in a good way. Maybe she needs to actually sit herself down and figure out what it means that right now she’s struggling not to visibly freak out about being this close to Chloe in her underwear.
But that’s a conversation with herself she can save for another night, she thinks. She can cut herself that much slack, at least.
Max settles against Chloe’s body with a long sigh.
“Do you wanna talk about it?”
For as much as they’ve been through since they’ve been back together, Max has never heard Chloe sound this hesitant, this cautious.
Max’s pause to consider this must be a bit too long, because when Chloe speaks again she sounds even less sure of herself. “I mean, you don’t have to. Obviously. Just, y’know, if you want.”
“I…” Max begins, only to find her voice catching in her throat and, great, she’s crying again.
“God,” Max laughs bitterly, swiping the tears from her eyes with the heels of her palms. It hurts a little; the skin around her eyes is puffy and tender from exertion. “Sorry. Fuck, I can’t seem to stop…”
“Sorry,” Chloe says. “You really don’t have to, if you don’t want… I didn’t… I mean, I don’t know-”
“It’s fine,” Max says. “It’s fine.”
She sniffs hard, pawing at her eyes again until Chloe reaches up and pulls her hand down to the space between them. She squeezes Max’s hand once, and traces shapes against Max’s palm with the pad of her thumb.
“Chill,” Chloe murmurs, mouth right up against Max’s ear.
It’s so stupid. It’s embarrassing; she just sobbed her eyes out on the beach like ten minutes ago and here she is breaking down again. She hates feeling so out of control of her body, like a passenger on a ride to somewhere she doesn’t want to be.
It’s like one minute she’s fine, she’s handling it; and the next she’s drowning in a well of emotion she hadn’t even realized was there and-
“This sucks,” Max says, gripping Chloe’s hand tighter.
“I know,” Chloe whispers.
Chloe’s probably the only person in the world who can say something like that to Max right now and get away with it because, yeah, she actually does know.
“I just keep thinking about Kate, y’know?” Max says after a long moment of struggle. It’s a difficult conversation to try to have. The task of trying to fit her torrent of emotions into the inadequate confines of language is daunting. She already feels exhausted. Max has never been an eloquent speaker, she’s always preferred a visual language to the spoken or written word. She feels lost and frustrated, and of course it’s Chloe yet again that is here to witness her utter ineptitude.
It feels like five years ago, in a lot of ways. She wonders if Chloe’s thinking that as well, if Chloe’s remembering Max’s prior failure.
She wonders if it makes Chloe think about hating her again.
Chloe stays silent, chest rising and falling steadily beneath Max’s cheek. She smells like the ocean.
“I keep thinking about how we all failed her,” Max chokes out, hating the way her voice breaks. “All of us. She needed someone. We- we should have seen this coming, we all knew she was depressed but no one did anything. God, some people made it worse.”
“Then be mad at them,” Chloe says, voice firm. “Not yourself. Max, you saved her.”
Max shook her head, trying to pull herself from Chloe’s embrace.
Chloe tightens her grip, keeping her close and Max gives up, settles herself against Chloe’s chest again.
“It shouldn’t have come to this at all,” Max continues, shakily. “I should have… been there more, I should have protected her more. I should have done something.”
“You did. You saved her,” Chloe repeats, voice low. “You saved her.”
“It doesn’t feel like enough-”
“To you,” Chloe interrupts. “It doesn’t feel like enough to you. But this isn’t about you. Whatever else happened, you saved Kate Marsh’s life today, Max. You have no idea what that really means.”
It’s a moment, suddenly, that Max knows they’ve been heading toward since she left five years ago.
Max sits straighter and untangles her hand from Chloe’s grip. Gently, she turns Chloe’s arm over in her lap, sliding the sleeve of the hoodie up to trace the raised, jagged edge of the scar on the inside of Chloe’s wrist.
Chloe lets her.
The moment feels sacred; she hates to ruin it with all her useless words, but she knows some things have to be said aloud.
“Like Rachel Amber saved you?”
Chloe breathes slow and quiet, tracing the shell of Max’s ear with her nose. Her voice is soft, but steady. “Yeah.”
Max realizes her hands are shaking.
These aren’t the only scars. She’s caught glimpses; raised lines barely visible through the brilliant ink of Chloe’s tattoo sleeve, faded white nicks along her side and hip when she was shirtless, the brief suggestion of precise and deliberate marks on the insides of Chloe’s thighs.
Max wants to apologize. Not just for leaving, not just for never knowing what to say; but for everything. For everyone else who failed her, for all of the shitty turns her life had taken, for every single moment that had lead Chloe to the point in her life where she needed to be saved that way. She wants to touch every scar just like this. She wants Chloe to feel her reverence. She could never say she was sorry in a way that would mean anything to Chloe, but she thinks that maybe she could press all of these feelings into Chloe’s skin with the pads of her fingers.
“Max,” Chloe pauses, searching. When she starts again her speech is careful, weighted, “I mean, you’re right. A lot of people let Kate down on, like, a lot of levels. But today, when she needed someone the most, you were there. Not your powers. Just you. And that’s… amazing. You’re amazing.”
Max’s whole body is shaking now. She sniffs hard, blinking desperately to keep a fresh wave of tears at bay.
Max drops her head to Chloe’s chest again, finding her heart’s wild gallop almost more comfortable than its previous steady thrum.
x.x.x
“Hey, you falling asleep on me over there?”
Max’s smile is small and tight, but it’s the first one she’s been able to give without feeling kind of like a fraud, “No.”
Chloe looks expectantly at Max and waits for her to elaborate. Max pretends not to notice, feeling too drained from their last conversation to attempt to wrestle her complicated swirl of emotions into coherent speech.
“You tired?” Chloe tries again. She’s dressed now, too impatient to sit around half naked for much longer. Her clothes still look wet.
“Aren’t you cold?” Max deflects, reaching out and running a hand down the damp fabric of Chloe’s pants.
Chloe starts a little. Max watches her throat bob in the dim light of the cabin, before she answers.
“It doesn’t bother me.”
“You’re freezing,” Max murmurs, flicking her eyes up to catch Chloe’s gaze.
Chloe bites her lip, looking down at Max’s hand on her thigh.
“I’m not,” she shakes her head. Chloe clears her throat and refocuses her attention on Max. “What’s up, Max?”
“What do you mean?” Max evades her again, pulling her hand away.
“Don’t try that shit right now,” Chloe says. “Not after… everything, okay?”
“Sorry,” Max says. She bunches her hands into fists in her lap, struggling to sort out the mess in her head. It’s like trying to untangle strings of knotted Christmas lights. “I just…”
“I’m tired of being so helpless,” Max finishes, finally. It seems like a gross oversimplification of everything she’s feeling, but it’s the best she can do.
“So don’t be,” Chloe says.
Max looks at her across the cab, frustrated. “You say it like it’s that simple.”
Chloe starts the truck, easing them out of the parking lot and back onto the main road. “Open the glove box.”
“Chloe-”
“Do it.”
Max leans forward and does as she’s told. “What am I looking for?”
“It’s in the back, under the insurance crap.”
“Keys?” Max asks, drawing a cluster of them out by a worn black lanyard.
“Keys to Blackwell,” Chloe clarifies. “I nicked ‘em from Pornstache when you said you wanted to find out what’s going on.”
“Chloe…”
“This is your chance, Max. Don’t puss out now.”
“I don’t want you to get into anymore trouble,” Max says.
“I won’t. Not with Super-Max on my side,” Chloe shoots her a playful grin. “Here, pact: if we get caught you use your powers to spring me from the pokey and we go on the lam.”
“Pokey? On the lam?” Max laughs. “I thought we were breaking into my school, not becoming old timey bank robbers.”
“It’s a slippery slope, Bonnie,” Chloe says. “So, does that mean you’re in?”
“Yeah, I’m in,” Max nods. “Let’s go, Clyde.”
x.x.x
“Seriously?” Max glances down at the still wet cuffs of Chloe’s jeans. “One midnight swim wasn’t enough for you?”
“What can I say, Max?” Chloe asks, still grinning like she’s already won. Which she has, but it’s frustrating that she’s this certain of it. “I’m married to the sea.”
Max rolls her eyes. “Then go back to the sea, ass. We’re not breaking into the pool. We need to get out of here and soon. What if we get caught?”
“We won’t get caught,” Chloe insists. She swings the lanyard at her side, like a lasso. “C’mon, Max, we earned this. Splish splash.”
All things considered, breaking into her school to dig up information had been surprisingly fun. It feels good to be with Chloe again, working together and stirring shit up. She feels giddy and reckless and powerful. They hadn’t found the smoking gun Max had been hoping for, but everything they’d discovered proved one thing.
She wasn’t crazy.
Something really was going on in Arcadia Bay. What happened to Kate and what happened to Rachel were connected events.
It was a legit conspiracy, now, there was no denying it: the Blackwell administration, Nathan Prescott, and David Madsen all knew more than they were letting on.
The adrenaline high of breaking the rules, of taking control of the situation, of impressing Chloe still hadn’t faded.
Max liked doing what she wasn’t supposed to. She liked taking matters into her own hands.
She liked impressing Chloe.
She wasn’t ready to stop.
“You’re right,” she finds herself agreeing. “We have earned it. Splish splash.”
The trip across the lawn to Blackwell’s indoor pool is short and fast, punctuated by bursts of giggling and Chloe’s exaggerated attempts at stealth. She ducks behind trees and benches; at one point she dives into a sloppy somersault so awkward and clumsy it nearly brings Max to her knees.
They don’t see a single security guard, even as Chloe unlocks the door to the pool and rushes them inside.
“Boys?” Chloe asks. “Or girls?”
She’s gesturing to the locker rooms but there’s that flash of a challenge in her eyes and Max isn’t about to back down. Not tonight.
“Both,” she says, heart thumping wildly in her chest. “I think.”
And the nervous twisting in her guts is so worth it just for the way that stunned look on Chloe’s face melts into this slow, sideways grin.
“Okay, dork. Good to know,” Chloe says. She’s speaking quicker than normal, Max revels in the knowledge that she’s actually thrown Chloe off balance. “Girls okay tonight, then?”
“Of course,” Max smirks, leading them into the locker room. She struts feeling bold and invincible, buoyed by the sensation of Chloe’s gaze locked on her back. She wants to turn around to gloat but it would ruin the effect. For once, she’s going to play it cool.
Chloe’s clearly flustered when they make it to the pool; rambling on about heated water and sharks and all sorts of nonsense. She sits down by the pool, running her hand lazily through the water while Max goes to turn on the lights.
Chloe wastes no time stripping down as soon as the pool lights up below her. Max watches from the coach’s office, transfixed, wishing she had her camera to capture the way the blue light of the pool paints Chloe’s skin cerulean.
“In the water, I am beautiful,” Max quotes, quietly. She wonders if Chloe likes Vonnegut.
“You coming or what?” Chloe calls over her shoulder before she dives into the water. The sound of the resulting splash shakes Max from her daze. She goes to the edge of the pool and halts, fingers curled just under the hem of her shirt, watching Chloe swim.
Max thinks of selkies.
Chloe in the water is a new creature; at home in her skin, comfortable. She floats carefree and dives with purpose and swims as if it’s the most natural thing in the world. Max is loathe to intrude. She feels heavy with the weight of everything that has happened, afraid of polluting the water with all her strife.
“Yo, Max,” Chloe bursts up from the water, pushes her hair back with wet hands til it’s slicked flat against her scalp. “What gives?”
“I just… like watching you,” Max admits, heat rising to her cheeks.
“Ha, gay,” Chloe says, but a beat too late. She dives back under water to hide her face and swims a little closer. Her cheeks are still pink when she resurfaces. “As much as that flatters the exhibitionist in me, you need to get in here. Like, now. Heated water, Max!”
Max thinks of sirens.
She strips, watching Chloe watch her from the corner of her eye. It’s not until Chloe looks away that she feels her heart start to really race.
She dives into the water.