Chapter Text
Okay, so, crisis number one: time travel is real.
That's a hurdle Chloe still hasn't quite gotten over.
But it leads into crisis number two: the universe has elected to bestow this apparent ability to fold the fabric of time like laundry upon one of the most overthinking, indecisive little balls of anxiety the world has to offer.
Among a million other things, her mind keeps drifting back to that one time Max started tearing up at the ice cream truck because she couldn't pick between strawberry or cookie dough or vanilla. She isn't one for believing in the existence of a god, but Chloe can't help but feel whoever was in charge of giving Max crazy time powers should be fucking fired. And maybe smacked upside the head for good measure.
Then, there's crisis number three: Rachel is worried about what happened, pissed off that Chloe isn't telling her anything, and blitzed out of her gourd all at the same time. None of which is any help whatso-fucking-ever.
She just sort of appeared from the dark without so much as a warning and sent Chloe a text to look outside, not an uncommon occurrence but not one Chloe is particularly equipped to deal with right now either. The immediate apprehension to her presence proved to be very much warranted the second she clambered up to that little patch of rooftop and Chloe actually got a good look at her. Still, her timing couldn't have been better, as Chloe was being called downstairs and didn't want to leave Max alone too long for fear of her finding some way to fuck herself over even half asleep.
Would Max be upset with her for thinking like that? Probably. Is it overkill? Truthfully, Chloe doesn't fucking care. She's going to do it either way.
When she gets back from what felt like a cross between a war strategy meeting and an under rehearsed good-cop/bad-cop routine — that could frankly be considered a whole fourth crisis by itself — things seem peaceful, at least. Max isn't trying to claw her way out of bed like a rabid animal and find the quickest way to blow herself up, so there's that. Rachel is sitting by Max's side instead of out on the rooftop smoking where Chloe last left her, apparently having taken the request to keep an eye on Max pretty damn literally.
However shakey she's becoming, Chloe is still very much in frantic caretaker mode, and so continues to hop from one crisis to another without a moment's pause.
“What did you take.”
It isn't a question. It doesn't need to be.
Rachel turns towards her, eyes blown wide enough they look pitch black and hair still a mess from walking all the way from Blackwell. She looks a bit like the girl from The Ring.
“I haven't taken anything,” she says, bold-faced and blithe.
Chloe barely has the energy to sigh anymore. “Rach, not tonight. Please.”
Rachel moves her hand away from Max with all the care and caution of someone trying not to set off a landmine. “Will I be granted amnesty in exchange for my honesty?”
“No.”
“Then, no,” she echoes, flashing a thin, dagger-like smile. “I haven't taken anything.”
Chloe stares down at her. “Fine,” she grits. “Y'know it's past curfew, right? How long have you been wandering around by yourself? Aren't you cold? What are you even doing here? Pick your pick.”
Rachel pulls another pair of cigarettes from her pocket with what Chloe might call magician's flair if she were in a better mood, and nods towards the roof. Chloe trudges after her, staying in and leaning out over the windowsill while Rachel makes herself at home under the stars. Of course, she doesn't give an answer. She asks a question of her own; blindly handing Chloe her lighter as she's facing away, watching the still damp asphalt glimmer under the streetlights.
“Have you ever thought about nabbing one of step-dick’s guns?”
Chloe struggles not to startle the whole house hacking up a lung. “What ?”
“You heard me.” Rachel snaps, blowing smoke from her nose in a harsh sort of huff. “Just answer the damn question.”
Sensing her only hope of getting anything out of Rachel is to go along with whatever this is, Chloe ignores the hypocrisy of it and relents by way of indulging panic's urge to bite back.
“So what if I have?” She tests the words for herself, tastes their sickened, metallic bitterness as they roll off her tongue. “What does it matter?”
“Because if I ever find out you've got one and catch wind of you being fucking stupid with it, I'll rip it right out of your hands and coldcock the sense back into you myself.”
The sheer specificity of Rachel's answer is enough to give Chloe pause through the whiplash of hearing it. “... Why do you sound like you've put so much thought into this?”
“The train tracks, too.” Rachel carries on, taking another overly arduous inhale, voice scratchy and raw as she speaks through her smoke. “Haven't I told you a hundred times you're gonna get yourself caught in those things if you aren't fucking careful?”
Chloe watches one of her legs start jittering.
“And you–” Her voice hitches. She turns further away, even though she's already well out of sight. “You’d tell me if anyone ever… did something to you. Right?”
“Like wh–”
“Like if someone spiked your drink and tried to take you back to their room and– and– You wouldn't keep something like that from me, would you? You'd tell me so I could go and kick his fucking teeth in, right?”
“Rach, hey, slow down a second.” Chloe wants to reach for her, but they're just barely too far apart. No doubt intentional. “Where the fuck is all this coming from?”
There's a boiling silence, a sigh long and shuddering. Disappointment layers her tone. “... I have a wild imagination.”
“No shit,” Chloe breathes. “I think it's running away with you a little. You wanna stay the night and sober up a bit? Or am I dragging you to bed kicking and screaming, too.”
By the time Rachel speaks again, she's flicking the remains of her cigarette into the dark. Chloe is only half finished.
“I can't stay long.” Her voice is newly steeled, but still raw in the middle. She finally turns around. “I just… I wanted to see that stupid face of yours for a few minutes.”
She says it like it's meant to be a playful insult, though the look in her eyes is anything but lighthearted.
“Uhm, hello, did you miss the bit about curfew?” All that blistering anxiety Chloe's been trying to hold in starts to spring forth, leaking through the cracks like water spraying from a damaged dam. “Where the fuck are you gonna go?”
“Somewhere, nowhere, everywhere,” Rachel says, donning what's surely meant to be a reassuring smile. It feels more like the last goddamn straw. “I'll be fine, Chlo. You don't have to w–”
“Stop it,” Chloe barks. “Stop, shut up, don't– Don't finish that fucking sentence, Rachel, I swear to god.”
Rachel's gaze shines with some strange mixture of relief and recognition. “There you are,” she whispers. “I thought you'd never quit it with the fake-chill voice.”
There are moments when Chloe thinks she and Rachel are the only ones around that can understand each other. But equally often there are moments such as this, when she's sure she'll never truly be any closer to understanding just how Rachel's head works. She struggles to keep some semblance of a grip on herself, breath very nearly puffing out of control and knuckles white as one hand curls into a fist in some desperate attempt to forcibly expel the stress from her system.
Rachel inches closer, stares at her with those wild, dark eyes. “You've been thinking, too. I can see it on your face.”
Chloe gets the sinking feeling she's found herself on the losing end of one of those chess games.
“Where's your head been taking you? What does she have you thinking about?”
There are far too many ways she could answer that, and as tempted as she is to spit them all out in one go Chloe still has to consider the idea that Max might not want Rachel to know about any of it. Nevermind the task and a half of convincing Rachel of the reality of the situation, seeing as Chloe isn't sure how to prove it without essentially asking Max to hurt herself in the name of trivial demonstration. So instead of the minute and many, Chloe goes for the vague and solitary.
“I don’t fucking know anymore.”
And it's still true, she doesn't. Even if she's been putting more and more pieces together, somehow it feels as though she only knows less and less. Her vision blurs with tears as the thought pulls her back into its crushing, inky depths.
“Everything is–” Feeling Rachel lay a gentle hand on her cheek, Chloe leans into the touch, and falters to a murmur. “Everything is so fucked, Rach. I don't know how to help her with this. I don't know if anyone can fucking help her.”
Rachel slips the remains of Chloe's long forgotten cigarette from her fingers before it can burn them.
“Shit’s so fucked I don't even know where that damn freak of a teacher comes into it yet and–”
Somewhere amidst the thousand mile an hour swirl of her racing thoughts, something clicks into place, cutting and cold. Nausea creeps along her throat.
The empty photo album with Rachel’s name on the cover. The way Max knew just where to find her.
“The first thing she said to me was something about staying away from Jefferson.”
“Supposed to– L-Let me go out n’ fix everything.”
Chloe grabs Rachel's wrist, rushed and desperate and still so soft.
“Why can't you stay?” she croaks. “What if I need you to? What if– What if something happens to you ?”
Rachel runs a thumb along Chloe's cheek, swiping away a few stray tears in the process. “I think you've got enough on your mind without adding me into the mix.”
“What the fuck is wrong with you two? You think it's that easy to just not worry about you when you're pulling shit like this?” It comes out more reminiscent of a wounded whine than the gnashing fangs Chloe is aiming for. “And don't act like you haven't been in the fucking mix for a while already.”
“I'm not trying to.”
“Then what are you trying to do?” Chloe sniffles, blinks hard, looks up at Rachel's pensive, melancholic expression. “Cause you've got me so goddamn lost and I– I can't fucking keep up with you right now.”
“Then don't,” Rachel answers, raspy and pleading. “Just for tonight. Don’t worry about me, don't try to keep up with me.”
“But you–”
“I don't get it.” Rachel leans in to smooth the errant hair from Chloe's face and press a kiss to her forehead. “I know. You don't either.”
Chloe searches for something, anything to say in reply, gritting her teeth and swallowing back another whimper.
“You'll see me in the morning, won’t you? Save all of your worrying ‘til then.”
“God, you're so– You're so fucking unfair. Why do you always have to go?”
“You’re slipping up already,” Rachel whispers, playful smile unable to mask the howling gale of chaos in her eyes. “C’mon, baby, at least try not to think about me so much. Why don't you go back in with Max and get some rest? You sound like you need it.”
Chloe holds the girl’s wrist a little tighter, like that’ll stop her. “Rach.” She bites out the nickname as if it were a curse and a devotion all at once. “Stay. Please.”
As if on cue — as if somehow conspiring with Rachel to make this whole situation as difficult as it can possibly be — Chloe startles to attention at the sound of Max’s small, clipped voice calling out to her from inside. Rachel makes to pull away but Chloe keeps her rooted in place, eyes wide, breathless and begging.
“Go on.” Rachel nods towards the room. “Don’t wanna keep her waiting, do you?”
Some garbled noise of frustration and dilemma drips from Chloe’s throat. She knows Rachel will disappear the second she turns her back. She knows . But she also knows that Rachel is right, and she can't just leave Max to fend for herself either.
So with heavy, aching heart, Chloe loosens her grip. She can't bring herself to look Rachel in the eye.
“... Don’t take anything else tonight,” she mutters, words bittersweet with both defeat and familiarity. “And text me when you get somewhere safe. ”
Rachel doesn't say anything.
Chloe ducks back inside, straightens up, and turns away.
Max has gotten up, standing hesitantly at the bedside, drowsy expression marred with curiosity and concern. Chloe scrambles to cover up her crying, but the half distant and entirely asphyxiating sound of Rachel leaving is only drawing more stupid fucking tears out of her. The thought tumbles from her lips before she can stop it.
“I really hate it when she does that.” Chloe gives a wavering, humourless excuse for a laugh, arms falling to her sides as she gives up and allows the misery to dribble down her face. “Hey, you've seen what Rachel's like, haven't you. Does she always leave?”
Max doesn't say anything either. Not that Chloe expected her to.
“Sorry, sorry. There's probably some kinda rule against that, right? Can't go spouting too much future wisdom without fucking shit up or whatever?”
And she knows she's running off at the mouth, that she should be checking to make sure Max is okay instead of roping her into this, but she's well past the point of keeping it together.
“It's just– She's fine, isn't she? If something happened, you… you fixed it. Didn't you.”
Max gives her one of those guarded, knowing looks — they've taken on a new and dreadful meaning — and staggers another few steps forward to gather her up in a hug. For a moment, Chloe goes rigid, guilt roiling amidst the acidic amalgamation of everything else she's trying not to feel too much of. The freshly reopened wound of abandonment wins out over all, however, and so it doesn't take long for her to return the embrace with far more force than usual; as though Max might vanish too if she isn't careful.
“It's okay that I let her go,” she murmurs, face half buried in Max's hair. “Right? She's not gonna come back to me half dead like you did?”
Max holds her a little tighter.
Her voice comes muffled and laden with all the grim reassurance of a hunter looming over a narrowly felled boar. “... I won’t let her.”
The thought hangs between them, a stark and silent monolith curling its icy grip around all it can reach. Chloe isn't sure if it makes her feel better or worse. But she knows Max meant it as a comfort, so she tries to take it as one.
“Right.” It's barely a whisper. She forces herself to pull away. “Yeah. Thanks, Max. Now what're you– What're you doing up? Are you okay? D’you need anything?”
Max's brows furrow in a sleepy blend of frustration and worry. She takes Chloe's hand and tugs her back towards the bed.
“N-Need to look after you,” she says, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
“I’m not the one who needs looking after,” Chloe retorts in a sigh, despite the fact that she feels categorically awful and no doubt looks worse. She has just enough remaining sense to not say what she's thinking — I've got my hands full keeping track of you two — out loud.
"'Course you are," Max counters all too easily, an insistence as soft as it is cutting. “Just gotta let me.”
Feeling the telltale sting of yet more tears, Chloe casts her gaze to the frayed fabric of the sheets beneath her. “But you should be–”
“Chloe. Please.”
Something simultaneously warm and frostbitten settles in her chest and threatens to make a home there. She wonders if Rachel felt like this when she was begging earlier.
“... Fine, fine,” she relents, sounding far more pathetic than she intends. One of them may as well get what they're after tonight.
She tries not to think too hard about how Max doesn't need to ask which precarious stack of loose DVDs to rummage through in order to find Blade Runner. She tries not to take notice of the ever taunting hints of scarring on her neck. She tries not to dwell on the idea of Max being kept cold and alone in that basement, of Rachel trapped beneath the shadow of a man she trusted.
Max kind of looks like she's trying not to think too hard either. She pads back over to sit at Chloe's side, pulling the blanket over them both and sliding the box of cookies in Chloe's direction with a hopeful — if not somewhat bleak — expression.
Try as she might to let herself be distracted, Chloe can’t help but simmer in the uncertainty of it all. Every thought leads back to another worry, and every worry fades into another wretched thought. Each decision feels like the wrong choice to have made, the wrong thing to have said, and it’s taking everything she has to not to get back up and pace a rut into the floor sorting through all of her feelings on the matter.
“I think I’m starting to get why you’re so damn restless all the time,” she confesses as the credits crawl by, staring holes into the mattress. “There’s so much on my fucking mind and I know that I don’t even know the half of it.”
She tries to inject a little humor into her tone. It doesn’t work.
Max shuffles a bit closer, tucks herself into Chloe’s side. “Sorry,” she murmurs. “I sh-shouldn’t have–”
“Don’t you dare say you shouldn’t have told me, Max.” Chloe slings an arm around the girl’s shoulders, pulls her closer. “I don’t even know how you managed to keep all this shit to yourself in the first place. Have you– Have you really just been running around trying to fix stuff all on your own?”
It feels wrong to phrase it that way. Fix stuff. Like she's just enabling Max's fucked up view on the whole situation. But Chloe doesn't know how else to say it.
Several more questions beg to follow — Who else have you killed yourself to save? What else have you broken yourself to fix? What else aren’t you telling me? — but remain stuck in her throat, all tangled together in a great knotted ball of cowardice.
“I had you,” Max answers, tangibly hesitant.
Chloe blinks once, twice. “You’ve… told me before?”
“T-Tried to do things by myself,” Max says, small and frantic and guilty. “I did. But I–”
Her voice grows even quieter, even more leaden. Chloe strains to hear it.
“I need you too much. M’Sorry.”
Oh.
That hot-and-cold ache starts to rise in Chloe’s chest again, and her brain can’t seem to decide whether she’s comforted by the idea of her having been there for Max during whatever she’s gone through, or horrified at the thought that she’s apparently had any memory of it completely fucking erased. Either way, she shifts around so she can hold Max with both arms
“Hey, don’t be sorry,” she barely manages to whisper. “I’d rather be in the thick of things with you than left in the dark.”
It’s a familiar sentiment. One more often directed at Chloe than originating from her, a reassurance that helps her recenter when she’s in the midst of losing her shit over the collateral damage of something she’d done. And it’s then, as Max seems to find some comfort in it as well, that Chloe comes to a realization.
She can’t handle this all on her own either. There’s someone she needs, too.
She has to tell Rachel.
Even if it’s going to take an absurd amount of explaining.
Even if it’s probably going to make things even messier than they already are.
Even if Max doesn’t want her to.
I’m the one who should be sorry, Max, Chloe thinks, sardonic and biting. But trust me, it’s for your own good.
Aside from scattered proclamations of guilt and the occasional aimless plea for mercy invoking her name like some vague and vengeful deity, Rachel hasn't found much mention of herself in that notebook.
Which is sort of odd, considering there are multiple pages dedicated to both Victoria and Nathan, several mentions of Juliet and Dana and practically everyone else Rachel would be likely to run into stepping out of her dorm first thing in the morning, and even another concerningly detailed list; this one regarding ways to avoid that fluffy nerd guy with the cat shirts. Wesley or Waldo or something like that. Even fucking Frank’s name has been brought up more than hers.
What's more, everything Rachel's been able to put to the test throughout the day has proven true. Kate and her rabbit, the nerd — Wallace? Warner? It's kind of driving her insane that she can't remember — and his movies. She was almost too caught up thinking, Ah, I'm not the only one who sees it, to register Max knowing that Victoria's snobbery is just a half-baked defense mechanism as another oddity.
And while the sheer lack of her in all of those pages is starting to feel more than a little ominous — and also the slightest bit like an insult — Rachel thinks there's a worse fate still.
After spending the day pouring over it front to back and front again, she's become much more acquainted with Max's messy handwriting. There's still plenty too garbled to decipher, but with a bit of ambition and some technical brute force, she's managed to read quite a bit. And a lot of it, most of it, too much of it is disturbingly descriptive accounts of horrific things happening to Chloe.
Shot in the stomach. Crushed by a train. Wounded by her own ricochet. Put down like a rabid dog and left to rot in solitude.
Again.
Attached to each of them, somewhere, always that word. Again.
It had been a relief, when she stopped by to visit Chloe earlier in the night's spiralling and found not a single bullet hole there to greet her. Although it didn't do much to stop her full speed tumbling down the rabbit hole (if anything, leaving like that probably just made things worse for both of them.)
The only other person who appears in the notebook with equal frequency — embroiled in equally nauseating scenarios, with equal use of that dreaded word — is, of course, Mark Jefferson.
Jefferson took Victoria. Again
Jefferson got rid of Nathan. Again.
Jefferson told Max what he did to her was her fault, stuck a needle in her neck, and promised her that he would be the last thing she heard. Again.
What exactly is one meant to do when confronted with such gruesome, stomach turning events presented alongside a plethora of mundane truths as if they were all on even ground? Not to mention the strangely consistent mix of will and was, prophecy and retelling, each catastrophe an ouroboros spoken of as though it was all Max ever knew and all she could ever hope to know.
Chloe isn't dead. Obviously. Nor could she possibly go through even one of those things multiple times, let alone all of them. But the details of each incident — and how to prevent them — are a little too specific, a little too accurate to be written off as mere imagination. Even if they could, it would just raise another set of questions in and of itself.
Kate is fine too, and last Rachel checked Victoria hasn't vanished into thin air. Though at the same time, there is a dim, dingy bunker somewhere that was filled to the brim with photos of god knows who and vials of god knows what. Jefferson did hurt Max, whether it was multiple times or just the once.
And Rachel hasn't seen Nathan since the day Max first showed up.
Friend certainly isn't the word she would use to describe her relationship to Nathan Prescott. Not lately, at least. He's become more of a begrudging colleague than anything else. They're amicable enough once they've got enough alcohol in their systems, but even that's a delicate balance all too easily overthrown by the next round of drinks. She’s found the best way to navigate his antics is to walk the tightrope between taking what others say about him with a grain of salt, and paying close attention to each rumor built around his name.
She's heard quite a few over the years. Arcadia Bay never runs out of things to whisper when it comes to the Prescotts, and there's been no shortage of wild accusations regarding both Nathan and his father.
The things she read about him in that notebook were the worst by a longshot.
Drugging, kidnapping, blackmail, manslaughter. If Max's notes are anything to go by, he's been serving as Jefferson's mangey little lap dog; helping to sniff out potential victims and aiding in luring them away. He would be the one spiking Chloe's drink. He would be the one waving a gun in her face. He would be the one who kills her.
Max's notes make it sound sort of like an accident. Like he gets carried away in another one of his feral, paranoid tirades — Rachel's seen them plenty, they're nothing new; she's even taken the brunt of a few herself — and it just… happens in the heat of the moment.
But Rachel isn't going to accept that as an answer.
Yes, she has tried reminding herself that it couldn't possibly be true. But she's been steeped in the grim and grimy dread of that notebook all day, so when that didn't break her immersion she turned to other, more powdery methods of taking her mind off of it. And when that didn't work either, she walked her very much not sober ass all the way to the Price’s just so she could actually see Chloe and try to convince herself the girl hadn’t stumbled headfirst into some horrible fate since they last met.
When that didn’t work — when Rachel still couldn’t look at Chloe without picturing her coughing up blood, without thinking about Nathan touching her — she decided there was only one thing to be done.
Get a hold of the little snot-nosed bastard and ask him about it.
Is this a drug-fueled, emotion addled, and likely very stupid plan? Oh, undoubtedly. But that’s never stopped her before and it sure isn’t going to now.
What will throw a wrench into the works, however, is the fact that he isn’t picking up his phone. She knows from experience that even after crashing from an all night rager, Nathan can be startled awake by the slightest shift or sound, so despite the ungodly hour three missed calls in a row is almost unheard of. Still, it’s no matter. It wouldn’t be the first time he’s tried to make himself scarce, and Rachel has other ways of tracking him down.
Which is how she finds herself starting the day off with a more than healthy dose of Victoria Chase.
“Remind me again why I haven't blocked your fucking number?” Her drowsy and astoundingly ornery voice crackles to life through the phone speaker. It's sort of nice to hear her too. “The sun isn't even up yet. What the fuck is wrong with you.”
“I'm outside,” Rachel answers, patience long since burned up. “Wanna let me in?”
Victoria stays quiet. For a moment.
“Hell no,” she spits. “Don't you usually get Juliet to do that for you? You didn't seriously interrupt my beauty sleep just for this, did you?”
Despite the outright denial, Rachel can still hear the distant shuffling of her sitting up.
“Why don't you come see me and find out for yourself.”
“Oh for fuck’s sake,” Victoria sighs, before grumbling something to herself about gratitude and weirdos and needing better drinking buddies. Then, the sound of her door creaking open. “Why am I the only one who gets to know how insufferable you really are?”
“Just ‘cause you're special,” Rachel says, more monotone than she intends. “Hurry up. I think I'm cold.”
“What the hell do you mean you think ?” Victoria just barely manages to ask before Rachel hangs up on her.
The fact that she looks so pissed when she finally gets to the door is at least enough to give Rachel a moment's mischievous joy in the midst of her more macabre musings. Although it would seem it's an equal exchange, seeing as the girl's expression shifts to one of cautious condescension as she reaches out to drag Rachel inside by one of her sleeves.
“You know what you look like right now, right? Because if you don't, let me be the first to say you're giving new meaning to the phrase cracked out.”
Rachel scoffs, but still runs a hand through her hair in an attempt to get it at least somewhat under control.
“Where’s that little rat of yours?” she asks, following behind Victoria as they creep back up through the halls, half whispered and razor sharp.
Victoria bristles. “... You mean Nathan? Jesus, what'd he say to you this time.”
Rachel meets her momentary glance with a smokey, crackling stare. Victoria doesn't hold it.
“And what do I look like,” she huffs, turning away. “His keeper?”
“Do you want me to answer that honestly, or do you want me to placate you?”
That earns Rachel another bout of indecipherable muttering and a second, somehow even more disgruntled sigh. She rolls her eyes in return as Victoria opens the door to her dorm and waltzes right in like she owns the place.
“Y’know, one of these days I’ll get tired of trip-sitting both of your snarky, ungrateful asses,” she grits, still dancing around the question. Unsuccessfully. “Now go clean yourself up or whatever. We’ve got classes in, like, three hours and you look like you just crawled out of a bog.”
“I didn’t ask you to boss me around.” Rachel closes the door behind her. “I asked you where Nathan is.”
Try as she might, Victoria isn’t always the best at keeping her facial expressions in check. Especially not when she’s stuck in a small room with a less than happy Rachel at ass o’clock in the morning. Rachel takes a step closer, watching her cycle through frustration, dilemma, and desperation in short order.
“I don’t– I don’t fucking know, alright? I haven’t heard from him in a few days. Why do you wanna know so bad, anyway?”
Despite being somewhat inebriated, sort of sleep deprived, and very much off her goddamn rocker, Rachel is confident in the notion she has the upper hand here. Still, she tries to choose her words carefully.
“I heard a rumor,” she says, holding Victoria’s stare far longer than she knows is necessary. “I wanted to ask him about it.”
“Seriously?” Victoria glares back. “Since when do you buy into that horseshit? C’mon, you know he’s not as bad as everyone says he is.”
“Do I? Do you?”
Rachel doesn’t let her answer.
“It’s cute that you believe in him and all, but just because you’re his favorite doesn’t mean he won’t find a way to be a danger to you. And you know he’s dangerous, don’t try to lie to me. At the very least to himself.”
Victoria wilts under the weight of Rachel’s stare, but stands her ground.
“Nathan wouldn’t hurt me,” she bites, offended and defensive and once more avoiding the real question. “What the fuck would even make you think–”
“Oh, but you can never really be sure.”
Rachel closes their distance, leers at her like an animal admiring the gleam of moonlight dancing along the gored remains of its last meal.
“I mean, how do you know I wouldn’t hurt you?”
For a moment, she can see the spark of genuine fear and worry in Victoria’s eyes. An instant of uncertainty, an unhidden flinch. A show of weakness. As if she’s only now come to realize her place as a pitiful little housecat cowering at the barest glint of a tiger’s fangs.
When she does finally come up with an answer, Victoria can’t seem to choose between sounding angry and sounding honest.
“You wouldn’t want to,” she says, uncharacteristically quiet even as she straightens up and moves to brush past her. “And neither would he. I've already told you two not to get me involved in your stupid fucking fights anymore, take the damn hint and leave me out of it.”
“Fine.” Rachel grabs her by the wrist, keeps her there a moment longer. “Just let him know I’m looking for him.”
“Fine.” Victoria echoes as she all but rips herself away. “Christ, Rachel, you’d better get a fucking hold of yourself before first period if you still want people to buy into your perfect princess bullshit.”
Victoria is a lot easier to read than she thinks she is. She only calls Rachel by her first name when she’s caught in the throes of being helplessly, reluctantly genuine.
“How about you stick to worrying about yourself.” Rachel offers a sunlit, candy coated smile to ward her away. “And I'll worry about me.”
“Worried, sure,” Victoria sneers. “What the fuck ever. Don't expect me to answer the phone next time you try and pull something like this.”
That's what she said last time, too.
I thought I told you not to lie to me, Rachel thinks, a sordid mixture of fondness and exasperation.
Just before storming off, before leaving Rachel to once more wade through the mire of everything that notebook has put in her mind, Victoria pauses to linger in the doorway. She doesn't turn around.
“... And by the way, you’re fucking freezing.”
With that, Rachel is alone.
Some part of her knows Victoria is probably right, and she should try to sober up and calm down a little before the day officially begins. But she stopped taking suggestions from her rational side hours ago. All she has now are the endless temptations of wrath and greed. However, seeing as Nathan isn't within immediate tackling distance, that leaves her with only avarice to fall back on.
So she wriggles her way back into Chloe's sweater, sits in the middle of her cold, empty bed, and spends a bit more time losing herself in the fucked up little world of Max's notebook.
It doesn't matter that she's already been running herself in circles about it all night, she'll find a way to make everything make sense, she'll find something that'll help. It doesn't matter that she can feel the exhaustion creeping up on her, she won't have this thing forever and she can't afford to waste any more time. It doesn't even matter that she just fucking left Chloe there buckling under the weight of everything and begging her to stay, or that the mere sight of her was enough to make Max curl up in a ball and cry.
At least until sobriety comes to kick her in the ribs and grant her the usual throbbing headache and scalding wash of regret that tends to come with post-high clarity. Suddenly, everything matters. Her legs are achy, shaky and sore from all the walking, and she can sure as fuck feel that chill now. By the time she's whipped herself back into a presentable state, she's already cursed herself six ways to Sunday for being such a cruel little lying monster and still thought up no less than six excuses for why she up and left; even as each potential fib only added to the crush of inhumanity.
Okay.
Alright, okay, hit the brakes. Cut the lights, pull the plug, take a step back.
Maybe she’s bitten off more than she can chew. Maybe she’s tricked herself into thinking she can do everything on her own and now she’s in over her head. Maybe she's gotten the teeniest, tiniest bit carried away.
Again.
(Again, again, again. Max isn't the only one who knows how to abuse that word.)
Rachel thinks it really is a wonder Victoria hasn't blocked her yet. Almost as much of a miracle as the fact that Chloe hasn't just given up and stopped speaking to her altogether. Quite the opposite, when Rachel catches her eye from across the school lot, she looks relieved instead of angry like she damn well should be.
As always, it makes the prospect of coming clean even more intimidating. But in spite of it starting to seem like an innate and inescapable compulsion written into her very DNA, Rachel doesn't like to lie. Especially not to the only person she feels like she can actually be herself around. That, and she knows if she keeps all of this to herself any longer she won't be able to look at Chloe or Max without crumbling under the weight of everything she’s read.
“Rach!”
She watches — feeling less of an all-seeing tiger and more of a petrified deer in the headlights — with muted anticipation as Chloe bounds up to her, apparently in far more energetic spirits than she'd been last night. In the blink of an eye, Rachel finds herself gathered up in a bear hug and practically lifted straight off the ground.
“How long have you been back?” Chloe asks upon pulling away. “You never texted me after.”
Her voice is a strange approximation of its usual brightness, softened and saturated with the anxiety she’s been holding onto all night. Her fingers are warm against Rachel's jaw as she moves to hold the girl's face in her hands, and she remains entirely uncaring of both the swathes of prying eyes around them and the muttered remark of a passerby telling them to get a room.
“Where’ve you even been? Are you feelin’ okay? Have you had anything to eat y–”
“I need to tell you something.”
Rachel blurts it out on impulse, but tells herself that she's ripping off the metaphorical bandaid and it's all a part of some grand strategic plan. In reality, she’s too busy struggling not to back out of her own attempt at honesty, too busy reminding herself that Chloe has said time and time again she would rather Rachel admit to a lie midway through than beg forgiveness after it’s already been taken to its peak.
“It’s– It’s about Max,” she adds, far too frazzled to keep the shame from trickling into her tone.
Chloe's gentle grip slips away.
“Yeah,” she breathes, caught somewhere between caution and confession. “I– I have something I need to tell you, too.”