Episode 4: Dark Room

                                    

                                          
For the first time since Chloe's accident, I notice my surroundings. The waves lap at the shore, where dozens of beached whales lie. I push Chloe's wheelchair along the beach and Max walks beside us. She looks awkward.
                          
 "It's weird hanging out with you again," Chloe says suddenly, breaking the oppressing silence.
                          
 "I know..." Max agrees. "I'm glad we are, though."
                          
 "It was nice that you sent Chloe actual letters," I tell her.
                          
 "That's more than any of my other friends have done..." Chloe adds sadly. "And you even wrote on that cool parchment paper. That's so Max." She laughs for the first time in a very long while.
                          
After the accident, nobody wanted to be seen with Chloe. I was the only one to stay by her side at all. BlackHell Town turned its back on Chloe Price because she could not move her body anymore.
                          
 "So pretentious," Max says. "But I love writing on it, like an English poet. You deserve the best stationery."
                          
 "There was only one John Donne," I tell her. "But Max Caulfield can try to emulate him."
                          
 "Probably easier to write that to visit me," Chloe says with some of the same attitude as in the other timeline, when we met her on Blackwell campus. "I don't mean that in a b*tchy way. Not totally. You probably wanted to avoid awkward conversations like this."
                          
 In this timeline, Chloe is less bitter about life. In the other timeline, she had lost her father and became angry at the world because of it. But now, she cannot even move her body, yet she is grateful to be alive.
                          
 "Uh... pretty much, yeah," Max admits awkwardly.
                          
 "Look, the worst thing you can do is treat me like a baby," Chloe says sadly. She misses having a normal life. "I still want to laugh and talk sh*t with my best friend. Can we stop?"
                          
 I put on the brakes of the wheelchair and move out from behind Chloe.
                          
 "This is seriously the best view of the sunset," my friend says. "What do photographers call that?"
                          
 "'The golden hour'," Max tells us.
                          
 "See?" Chloe asks. "Without you here, I'd have no clue. Bet you could take some amazing shots..."
                          
 "Oh, you're a photographer?" I ask her, trying to gauge what has and has not changed about her in this timeline.
                          
 "Yeah," she confirms.
                          
 "Those beached whales are so sad," Chloe says, turning her gaze to look at them. "I kind of know how they feel... At least I'm alive here with you."
                          
 "You're a real survivor, Chloe," Max says sympathetically. "I know you have to deal with so much."
                          
 "I don't want anybody else feeling sorry for me," Chloe says firmly. "I can do that... along with Jules and my parents. My dad still feels guilty about buying me that car. And Jules feels guilty about emerging almost unscathed."
                          
 "You don't really blame William... do you?" Max asks.
                          
 "For getting me the hybrid I wanted for my sweet sixteen?" Chloe says. "No, I blame the asshole who cut me off and sent me into a ditch."
                          
 "Do you... remember everything?" Max asks.
                          
 "I saw everything in bullet time," my friend responds sadly. "I felt my back snap and... And that was the last thing I ever felt in my body. When I woke up in the hospital, I literally couldn't move a muscle. Somehow Jules came out of it with a few broken bones and a scar across their face."
                          
 "Jesus!" Max exclaims. "I... I don't know what to say."
                          
 "Don't say anything," Chloe tells her. "I'm just happy I did get to see you again." I hope she is not thinking what I suspect that she is thinking. "I could have ended up vanishing out of the blue like that girl from Blackwell."