Chapter Text
The sky was a dark, soulless grey. Max shivered against the beating of hail, rain, and wind. She stood outside the Two Whales Diner and watched the patrons inside eating calmly and happily, the warm golden light from the diner’s booth lamps shining through the windows. Nobody seemed to realize what was happening right outside the diner. Max pushed forward and a powerline fell in her path. She let out a call when she saw the working and tired face of Joyce Price.
“Joyce! Get everyone away from the windows…there’s a storm!” Max called, her hands cupping her mouth.
Nobody noticed. Nobody heard.
Max clambered over the fallen powerline pole towards the diner’s entrance. Her hair soaked, she pushed her bangs out of her eyes.
“Joyce! Joyce, PLEASE!” Max cupped her mouth again. Her hands were warm and sticky. She pulled them away and looked down, realizing they were a dark red.
Looking upward, she saw the sky was filled with enormous whales, all sliced open and raining this red rain. Their lifeless bodies whipped around above her in the high winds and hail. At the corner of her eye, she saw a flash of blue and looked back towards the diner.
It was a blue head of hair.
“CHLOE!” Max screamed. “GET OUT OF HERE!”
The tall, pale, tattooed girl stood on the front step of the entrance to Two Whales, her hair was not viciously whipping around her face, she was not coated in red rain. She was as still as a statue, eerily pristine against the occurring storm. Her back was to Max.
“CHLOE! GO!”
Max held her breath as the girl turned slowly around. Still every hair on her head in place, the red rain seemed to miss all parts of her. Her eyes…her eyes were so different. Why did they look like that?
“Chloe…?” Max quivered as she approached closer to the steps of the diner.
Max looked down at herself. Her blue tank top and checkered boxer shorts were sticky and saturated in the red rain of the whales. When she looked back up at the untouched, still Chloe, a loud and sickening moan call came from Chloe’s wide, outstretched mouth. Why were her eyes like that?
Max felt tears well up in her own eyes, she stretched a soaked, slick red arm out for Chloe to take. Another load moan, this time booming from the sky and the body of a limp, enormous whale hurtled into the Two Whales Diner.
Max shrieked.
{MAX}
WEDNESDAY: Early Morning
Max’s eyes pulled open desperately searching, looking for the diner, looking for Chloe. She jumped upwards and stumbled and found herself falling, her face smacking a sharp edge before contacting a cool, hard surface. It was dark and she felt a soreness pulsating in her left cheek, with a radiating heat spreading on her face. She panted heavily as she lay sprawled out on the cool surface of the floor, realizing her clothing was soaked. Max’s heart began to pound even harder as she frantically felt the dampness of her skin.
Red rain, red rain, red rain…
She squeezed her eyes shut before forcing them open and attempted to take deep breaths as she slowly began to recognize her surroundings.
Lisa plant is over there…acoustic guitar with stickers on it is over there…her hand reached out gingerly and she felt the leg of her bed. Bed is right here… her hand moved to the right and she felt cool wood. Nightstand… right here…
The pulsating of her face continued as she reached and gingerly touched her left cheek bone just below her eye. Her fingers came back slightly slick. Her heart raced again.
The fucking nightstand right here… Ow, Jesus…
She slowly pulled herself into an awkward sitting position in the darkness of her room. A dull jab in her left butt cheek caused her to growl, pulling an orange bottle of pills that were hidden under the bedsheets she pulled down with her during her flight from the nightmare.
She sadly rolled the bottle in the palm of her hand, staring at the label…
“Stupid Zoloft,” she huffed, setting the bottle back up onto her nightstand.
Once Max could ground herself more into reality, which, if she was honest, she couldn’t tell if the nightmares were worse, or the real life she was living, she buried her face into her palms.
Apparently, blood happens in both…
She saw her tiny digital clock tick to 4:08 a.m. on her desk. The screensaver of her desktop computer bounced back and forth between the four corners of the screen. Her curtains were billowing gently in the icy, Oregon pre-winter winds. Sometimes, she got so hot when sleeping because of her nightmares that she was leaving her windows cracked open to keep her cool at night. She shivered slightly as she reached up to touch her cheek. The pulsating of her face didn’t seem to die down, nor much of the bleeding.
“Dammit,” she breathed defeated, flicking on her warm, glowing lantern lights that were strung meticulously across her photo wall where her bed sat. A few photos were missing, creating awkward blanks where they used to hang a few months ago. Max couldn’t bear to see those photos during all the waking hours she spent in her room, so she did what any person would do; she hid them in an old shoe box underneath her bed. Though Max brought them out often, she found herself sometimes sleeping with the box of photos to the side of her when she dozed off clutching them.
Sliding on her rubber sandals, she grabbed her room key and headed down the quiet hallway of the girl’s dormitory at Blackwell Academy.
I’m tired of these fucking nightmares. Max thought as a tired hand reached up to tap the sore cheek. She had no idea how she looked, but in the wake of the nightmare, her cloudy head couldn’t care less.
Quietly pushing open the door of the bathroom to not wake Kate who was sleeping in the room across the hall, she noticed the heat and steam from someone taking a shower. The smell of clean floral hit her nose, with cool hints of a minty scent that she inhaled welcomingly. Then, remembering the time of night, or morning rather, she realized how odd it was that someone was showering at four in the morning. They must have been in there for a while, as the mirrors were fogging up. Maybe it was someone on the early practice sports teams, Max shrugged.
She attempted to be quiet as she didn’t want to disturb the person in the shower and quietly attempted to unroll some paper towel for her rapidly swelling and weeping cheek. Taking a lazy hand, she wiped the steam away from the mirror with a cool palm.
Holy crap… That’s what I look like. It looks like I got into a fist fight with my nightstand.
Her blue eyes looked darker than they used to, her brunette hair, a wavy, frizzy bed-ridden mess, and her skin was so pale that her freckles were basically screaming “LOOK AT US!” around her face. Although, Max thought, nothing compared to the angry red cut on her left cheek that looked like it was going to bruise underneath.
Unexpectedly, the sound of the single shower stream stopped and she heard a quiet sniffle and a sigh from behind her in the stall.
Oh, god. Max thought, as she didn’t want to be seen by anyone looking like she did. She froze and debated either taking a handful of dry paper towels to wipe away the crusting blood on her face back in her room (maybe she could use a dash of water bottle water or something) or acting as nonchalant as possible to wipe away the mess of her face in the bathroom mirror, pretending nothing was off about it. Standing in front of the mirror frozen, she gripped the corners of the sink, a wad of forgotten paper towels in one hand. Her hair covered her face when she looked shyly down as the door squeaked open behind her.
A silhouette draped in light pink approached from behind. As the sound of shuffled shower shoes against tile ceased, Max saw from the steamy reflection in the mirror on their sudden halt, they were just as surprised as Max was that they weren’t alone in the bathroom at four am.
Max was still frozen and realized it was probably too late to run out of the bathroom like a weirdo, so she stayed at her sink, gripping the edges.
A watery, yet cool voice came from behind Max, “Wha—what are you doing, Caulfield?”
It was unmistakably Victoria Chase. Max should have known by the expensive smelling shampoos and body soap scents and the light pink robe in the mirror’s reflection. Max found it odd however, as she knew Victoria wasn’t necessarily a morning person at all, as she could be heard whining about it in the bathroom before the first class of the day most mornings. She wasn’t on any sports team, last Max remembered.
“It’s a public bathroom, Victoria.” She shot back, a bit aggressively.
Victoria scoffed from behind her, “Obviously, dweeb.” She heard Victoria shuffle around to the sink to her left. Max felt an awkwardness fall over the room.
She carried her neatly organized shower caddy to the sink and pulled out a golden looking bottle of something or other. Victoria’s soft, pink hand elegantly squirted two dabs onto her fingertips before massaging her face carefully with it.
Max smirked a bit and figured Victoria probably spent a good amount of time in front of a mirror. She thought about saying something like, “aren’t you too young to be slathering anti-aging cream on your face?” but realized she was too tired to bother.
Victoria continued her routine, watching herself in the steamy mirror. Her silky, rather short robe was damp around the neckline from the shower and Max wondered why people preferred expensive silk robes over the comfy, fluffy big ones. If she remembered correctly, Victoria had at least three colors. The thing was so short, Max figured only Victoria had the right type of legs to be confident in something like that, she thought as she took a quick glance.
Why do you even know about her robes, weirdo? Max thought to herself, shaking her head.
Victoria finished up massaging the lotion on her face and spoke into the mirror, “Take a photo, perv. It’ll last longer.”
Max blinked a few times and shot her gaze back to her own foggy mirror.
Victoria smiled coyly at herself in the mirror and added, “Haven’t you seen a girl in a robe before, you big lesbo?”
“Good one, Victoria.” Max mumbled dryly.
The heteroqueen of Blackwell really stuck it to me there. Wow, so creative… I really look fucking terrible. And then there’s the perfect Victoria Chase…what a funny parallel. Maybe she takes secret showers all the time so she can spend countless hours making sure she is the epitome of Blackwell Beauty before anyone sees her.
Max noticed that Victoria wasn’t facing her own mirror anymore, but was leaning her left hip against the sink, arms crossed staring directly at Max. Her eyes were piercing through her, she could feel it.
Victoria, stiff, motioned to her own face vaguely before asking Max, “So what’s the deal with the face?” she asked, surprisingly, without iciness.
Max instinctively turned her head to glare at Victoria, but when she did, she noticed Victoria’s hard, piercing stare falter for a moment. She couldn’t tell if she should say something rude in response or say something in a joking manner. Before she could decide, Victoria steeled herself again.
Max quipped back, “You know…I just felt like getting into a fight with my nightstand in the dark.” She was too tired to be mean.
Max could tell that Victoria wasn’t expecting this answer and raised a brow. After a few moments, her lip quivered upward in interest.
“Fight with a nightstand?” she asked before making a soft ‘hmm’ noise. The blonde almost seemed…amused by this, but apparently Max looking like a bloody-cheeked mess was humorous enough for her.
Max let go of her vice grip of the sink and moved the wad of paper towels into her other hand. Victoria’s gaze followed Max’s movements and she heard a ‘tsk’ noise escape her bathroom companion.
“What?” Max breathed.
Victoria looked as if she was reeling through different responses in her head, her eyes staring at the angry, red cheek on Max’s face. Suddenly, Max felt self-conscious about it. Turning away from Victoria’s studying gaze, she flicked on the sink and began to soak the wad of paper towels to wipe the dried blood from her face.
“You don’t want that to scar, do you?”
Sighing loudly enough for Victoria to hear, she shut off the water and wrung out the paper towels. “Honestly, Victoria…my face is fucked as it is, so I don’t see the big deal anyway.”
Before she knew it, Victoria was to her left side, in her personal space, with her hand gripping Max’s that held the soaking wet paper towels. Max stammered, taken aback by this.
“I know you say you don’t give a shit or whatever if your face looks fucked up, but… it’s not sanitary to clean it with just water and gross paper towels. People use those after they go to the bathroom.” Victoria’s pointy nose scrunched with disgust.
Max wanted to argue simply so she could wipe the blood away and crawl back into her mess of a bed, but Victoria’s strong grip of her hand held it just where it was.
Max sighed, “What else would I even use anyway?”
Victoria raised both of her brows in humorous shock. “Good Lord, Caulfield. Hasn’t anyone taught you how to take care of yourself?”
Max’s ears grew hot and she pulled her hand away from Victoria’s, towel water droplets hitting and rolling down her bare leg. Her eyes scanned Max’s sleepwear and she must have decided not to bully her on that too.
Victoria’s demeanor clicked over and she stammered out, “I mean, your face routine.”
Max looked back at herself in the mirror and Victoria’s side could be seen with her reflection too. She watched Victoria’s reflection scan Max’s injury and she could have sworn she saw a ghost of a frown. It wasn’t disgusted like she would assume, but more of…an empathetic pull of her mouth.
Victoria cleared her throat and straightened her back. She dropped her arms from their crossed position over her chest. She stood suddenly taller at Max’s sink, still facing the brunette.
“Will you stay here for two minutes?” Victoria asked in a slightly sassy manner.
Max scrunched up her face in confusion as to why she would do that. Victoria saw her facial response and rolled her eyes accompanied by a dramatic sigh.
“I don’t want to have to look at a scar on your nerd face for the rest of the school year. So…just chill for a sec and I’ll come back with something better than freaking soggy paper towels.”
Before Max could protest that she’d rather go back to her bed, the blonde had already high tailed it out of the bathroom, leaving a wafting scent of flowers and mint behind her. She glanced at Victoria’s forgotten shower caddy full of her expensive cleansers and lotions and razors. Max figured that maybe Victoria was playing a mean prank on her; like she would wait to see how long Max stupidly would wait for her in the bathroom. Though, with the caddy still on the sink to the left of her, she kind of doubted that.
Max stood there in disbelief for the two minutes or so that Victoria was gone.
Was…that Victoria being nice? Well, not nice, but nice in a Victoria way?
The girl’s bathroom door swung open and Max couldn’t help but notice how forgiving Victoria looked outside of her expensive outfits and icy jewelry. Her face was bare, clean, and soft. She looked natural without the expensive makeup and her cheeks held a natural brushing of rosy pink. Her lashes were long and naturally darker than her light blonde pixie cut. She obviously had… well, an appealing figure that was draped in a thin silk robe. Her legs were stupid long. Max reluctantly could see why guys found her to be the most beautiful girl at Blackwell…if not also the bitchiest.
Victoria was in front of Max by now and she snapped her fingers near Max’s face.
“Hello, Earth to spaced out hipster.”
Max shook her head gently, “What?”
An exaggerated sigh, “I was telling you that we need to clean it with this,” Victoria held up a sleek looking bottle of cleanser, “and then we will make sure it is moisturized with this,” she held up a weird looking arm of a plant that was oozing something slimy. “Lastly, we will put this little Band-Aid on it to keep it protected from the gross shit.”
If Max was honest, she had no idea there would be so many steps to take care of a dumb cut and bruise. Suddenly, the idea of wiping away the blood and going back to bed sounded better and less complicated.
Victoria stood there waiting for Max to begin. Max felt her palms get clammy. She eventually, clumsily, if she was being honest, managed to wash her face with the clean smelling soap Victoria pumped into her hand. Victoria guided her a little impatiently by telling her to not scrub too hard and make sure the wound was clean and rinsed. Logical enough.
Max looked up at her dripping face in the mirror through one squinted eye that collected water on her dark eyelashes.
I guess it does look a lot less gruesome.
Max reached blindly for the roll of paper towels before Victoria barked at her.
“NO. Do not dry your face or wound with that gross shit, I already told you that.” Victoria pulled a soft beige looking towel from underneath the arm of her silk robe. Max looked to the towel and saw the initials V.C. stitched elegantly into it.
“Aren’t you worried I’ll get my gross face on it?” she asked a little incredulously. Max knew if she had a towel like that, she wouldn’t use it on her wound.
“Jesus Christ, Max. Just take the fucking towel.” Victoria shook the towel in front of her face.
“You could at least say ‘please’.” Max joked, grabbing it. She gave Victoria one last look for approval and continued when Victoria rolled her eyes in exasperation.
Max began to rub her face on the towel and to nobody’s surprise, it was the softest thing she’d ever touched. It smelled good too, like a field of flowers, to again, nobody’s surprise.
“Caulfield…what are you doing?” Victoria’s voice went up in pitch and distress.
Max felt her cheeks grow warm wondering if Victoria caught her taking in a sniff of the soft fabric. She felt the towel get pulled from her grasp and looked to see Victoria giving her a fierce raise of her brow and upturn of her chin.
“You can’t scrub that thing on your cheek like a child. You pat. Oh, my shit, you are incredulous.”
To Max’s complete shock, or horror, Victoria took matters into her own hands. Carefully, she brought the towel close to Max’s face before making eye contact with her. Was that her waiting for approval?
Max didn’t object so Victoria began, quite gently, dabbing the rest of the dampness from her face. Max looked up through her eyelashes at Victoria’s studious and serious face. Victoria’s eyes darted to Max’s and a slight pink flush on her porcelain cheeks appeared.
“Bet you’re really glad you don’t have all these freckles like me,” Max scoffed, still wondering at the blonde’s flawless cheek-skin.
For some reason, she was nervous having someone who would gladly make fun of her on a moment’s notice be so close and honestly… helpful. Max didn’t know what the hell she was doing regarding cleaning up a slice to the face, plus the nightmare that caused her to jump from her bed like a scared cat exhausted her entire brain. If she really had it her way, she would have scrubbed her face with a paper towel and passed back out in her bed.
Victoria gave a short snort. “Honestly, Caulfield…” She looked like she was debating something again. “the freckles…they suit your whole…thing you’ve got going on.” She pulled away from Max and handed her the towel when she was done.
Max felt herself give a gentle, tired smile. Maybe Victoria and her could get along.
Victoria caught the look on the shorter brunette’s face and stammered, “You know that whole hipster…nerd shit thing.”
Annnnd it’s gone.
Victoria turned her back to Max and grabbed her other supplies that she set down on the sink earlier when she returned. Picking up the weird plant chunk, Max gave her a worried look.
“Oh, come on. Don’t be a fucking baby. Haven’t you ever seen fresh aloe before?”
Max reached up and rubbed the back of her neck, feeling a bit ridiculous. Of course it was aloe.
“The only kind I’ve seen and used came from a green bottle in my mom’s fridge,” Max shrugged.
Victoria pursed her lips together in amusement. Something Max had rarely seen from her.
“Is that what…”
“…poor people do, yes, Victoria,” Max offered.
She rolled her eyes and cleared her throat looking between the aloe in her slender hand to Max’s cut.
“I’m just going to do this myself, as I know you’ll probably do it incorrectly if I hand this to you.”
Max had no idea what she was going to do with the plant.
“Are you going to make me like, take a big ole chunk out of that thing and eat it?” Max asked, mostly being sarcastic.
To Max’s complete shock, Victoria let out a humored, singular laugh before composing herself and going back into that perfect posture mode she mastered.
A perfect, steely front…
“No, you weirdo.” Victoria took a slender pinky and dabbed at the oozing end of the aloe arm and brought it towards Max’s sore left cheek.
Max instinctually held her breath. This was a very weird experience. Being in the bathroom with Victoria Chase at four in the morning, having her assist with the cut to her face. Warren probably wouldn’t believe it.
The surprisingly cool slime of the aloe touched her hot cheek and she almost let out a sigh of relief. She didn’t grasp yet how much the stupid injury pulsated. Victoria’s face was bunched up in serious concentration as she gently spread enough aloe over the cut. Victoria’s green eyes met Max’s for half a second and they didn’t seem angry or repulsed, just calm. Max’s heart was thumping a bit higher of a rate than usual. She hadn’t had anyone in her personal space, besides her parents and Kate, in two months. It was strange.
Weird things happen at four am, Max decided.
What truly stupefied Max was how Victoria had no repulsion of Max’s injury touching her perfect hands or Victoria’s obviously custom and expensive embroidered towel. She didn’t peg Victoria as someone who was totally in the know on how to fix injuries. Maybe she shouldn’t be making certain assumptions about people right away, even if it’s somebody she hadn’t gotten along with. With this thought, Max’s curiosity began to grow enormously and she couldn’t help but ask.
“Why do you know how to do things like this? Injuries and stuff, I mean,” Max almost whispered, for Victoria was pretty close to her face and talking at a normal volume felt weird.
“…mmh,” Victoria looked like she was deciding on whether to let Max in on whatever her answer was. Her green eyes met Max’s again and Victoria made a tilting motion with her head before dropping eye contact. “Well, Nathan would…” her voice gave the tiniest of quivers. She gently closed her eyes and inhaled, regaining all previous composure. “Nathan would get… facial injuries, along with other things. Fights. Arguments with his father, Sean… that type of shit.”
Max almost felt her jaw drop but she regained her cool quickly. Until this moment, Max hadn’t really considered the emotional impact that Nathan’s arrest and sick photo-ops of drugged girls would have had on his best friend Victoria Chase. Assuming she would have been there for him when he was at his most mentally troubled, Victoria was probably Nathan’s true, singular friend. Maybe Victoria had a whole other mysterious nurturing side to her that she never let anyone see, besides Nathan. The same Nathan Prescott who resided in jail for the murder of two old fellow classmates of Victoria Chase’s: Rachel Amber and…her Chloe.
A flash of a dark, menacing whale carcass flashed into her mind’s eye. Blood sticky, heart pounding, an eerily blue flash of still hair in the middle of a storm…
“Holy fuck,” Max breathed out before she could stop herself. She gripped the side of the sink tightly, attempting to come out of the flash.
Victoria backed away curiously and wrapped the aloe in some type of plastic wrap and set it back on the sink. She gave Max a quick and suspicious glance.
“Yeah, well…Sean Prescott has his own demons, too.”
Max was confused for a moment as her head usually streamed her off topic, but she figured that Victoria’s response was to Max being outwardly shocked at Nathan being physically abused. She felt a little guilty for already knowing that information due to the week before the storm that never destroyed Arcadia Bay.
Victoria started messing with a tiny first aid kit. She pulled out a paper wrapped Band-Aid and pulled it open. Max couldn’t tell what kind of mood Victoria was in. She seemed suddenly tired. Tired like an eighteen-year-old student with baggage would be. Like things haunted her too. The thought was almost like a lightbulb over Max’s head.
Victoria Chase must be going through the shit too… Who else would shower at 4 a.m. for no logical reason?
“Hey, Victoria…” Max weakly started.
The blonde was focused, pulling the backs of the Band-Aids off and tossing them into the trash. She approached Max again, this time not as vulnerable, further away. She made a noise that sounded like a “hmm?”
“I’m…sorry about Nathan.” Max felt her palms sweat again. It was like dipping back into those memories that never, technically existed. She was pretty sure her underarms began to act up out of anxiousness. Max fucking hated Nathan for what he did. Regardless, the dude had loved ones who were thrown for a destructive curve when hearing about what he had done. She could imagine how she would have felt if the places were switched.
Victoria’s shoulders seemed to soften and the air lost its tension. Victoria Chase, Queen Bee of Blackwell Academy, had let her mask slip for an honest moment. She took a step closer to Max, analyzing her cut, figuring out the right way to stick the Band-Aid. Max could feel Victoria’s warm, quivering breath on her face as the blonde placed it securely over the cut on Max’s cheek. Her hand hovered on Max’s face for an instant.
“Don’t be. I’m…sorry, about your friend. I-,” she inhaled sharply and pulled her arms back to her sides, the silk of the robe flowing with her. “I should have fucking known.” Victoria’s gloomy face caught Max’s soft, but shocked face. As quick as her walls began to quake, they were once again up and steeled. “But whatever.”
Max was certain Victoria used a “whatever” whenever a conversation got too uncomfortable or real for her. Still, the show of vulnerability truly shocked her. Max had no idea Victoria thought that way about the situation…like she had guilt about Nathan doing what he did, when there wasn’t much Victoria could have stopped logically. Max recalled the solemn and serious demeanor Victoria carried throughout Chloe’s funeral. Max found herself wondering why Victoria even showed up, and even today, two months later, she still wasn’t sure as to why.
Victoria slipped her tongue over her tensed lips and looked down and away. Max could have sworn it was in a shy manner. The blonde turned quickly and gathered up her shower caddy on the other sink and the extra supplies. Max wasn’t sure if she was supposed to be quiet or say something.
“Don’t forget the ice,” she stated over her shoulder. When Victoria headed to the bathroom door exit and slipped out without another word, she was certain Victoria had enough of her.
The beige towel caught her eye and realized that Victoria left the embroidered towel on the sink and grabbed it hastily, exiting the bathroom.
Max saw Victoria down the hall, pulling her room key out of her caddy. She almost called for her, but realized that would be stupid as it was early as hell. She did this quick, silent jog up to Victoria’s door before she turned her key to get inside. Max glanced at the white board to the right of Victoria and noticed the rude, red hand written message of:
VIC SUX DIX! ;P
Max realized she wasn’t supposed to notice it, so she pretended she couldn’t see it as she held out the towel to the taller blonde. Victoria sighed, almost annoyed, and turned her head to look at Max looking goofy with the towel.
“Just…keep it or whatever. You can sell it. It probably costs more than your baby Gap wardrobe.”
Max felt a pang of hurt on that comment and her face must have shown it because Victoria’s eyes changed. Max had to admit that Victoria was probably right about that, but as of lately, Max had taken to retiring her old, childish looking wardrobe. Those cute graphic shirts labeled “peanut butter and jam!” with a jelly jar holding a guitar weren’t appealing to her anymore. Once they made her smile and “aww,” but now…Max just didn’t see the humor or charm in it. She’d taken inspiration from Chloe with the tones of color in her wardrobe: greys, blacks, navy tones…whatever would hide her in the background of her own life. Her mother questioned her about the wardrobe shift once, deeming it to be an “angsty” change. Maybe her mother was right about that, but Max kind of liked the look of thrifted, dark denim jackets over black jeans nowadays.
“Wow, you’ve got that kicked puppy look down, Caulfield.”
Max gently waved the towel in front of Victoria again in response, ignoring that painfully accurate analyzation of herself.
“I don’t want it,” she stammered out and clicked open the lock of her door, slipped inside and shut it in Max’s face.
Max rocked back and forth in her rubber sandals in front of Victoria Chase’s locked door feeling ridiculous.
I’ll wash it and just give it back to her later I guess.
Climbing back into her bed, she switched off her glowing string lamps and snuggled against her childhood bear. Her clock read 4:56 a.m. She yawned and felt the tug of the Band-Aid on her skin and winced, almost forgetting it was there. Her eyes felt heavy as she quickly drifted off into a restful sleep for the first time in a week.
{VICTORIA}
WEDNESDAY; Same day: Morning
Victoria Chase… Blackwell Academy’s own fucking perfect vision of beauty and power.
The pixie haired blonde observed herself in the front camera of her own smartphone. She laid atop her dorm bed, barely covered in her pink, silken robe, messing with the front of the liquid fabric. Her skin was buzzing, anxious…she just wished she could fucking fall asleep like normal.
Raising the phone higher, she checked out a few angles of herself. Chin pointed down, sharp and serious. One eyebrow raised in a coy manner. Head tilted just so. She let the curve of her chest peek from underneath the robe in a way that stated it wasn’t intentional…probably.
If this doesn’t get him rock hard…well, then I don’t know what will.
For effect, she pursed her lips.
Yep.
She turned on the flash and took the shot. Examining her work, she stared at it. Her skin was smooth, her chest looked damned good, and her hair…
Well, fuck.
She quickly deleted the snap. Her hair was a mess, out of place on the left side. Plus… her one ear looked enormous. Victoria lifted the phone over her head again and posed herself perfectly, smoothed down her hair, and took another photo. The flash blinded her eyes for a moment. She blinked, examined the slightly scandalous selfie, and gave a satisfied lift of a brow. This would certainly work. Hovering over the blue send arrow, she paused.
It’s Juliet’s boyfriend… I mean, how trashy can I get?
Steeling her face, she hit the send button with her thumb and watched as it sent. Zach Riggins had a thing for Victoria first, not Juliet. So, it wasn’t a big deal, she justified. She caught a glimpse of the time, 5:15 a.m. Locking her phone, she tossed it to the side as she stared up at the ceiling. Her room had a gentle flood of light from the strings of LEDs that she carefully placed on the walls around her posters next to her bed. Her skin tingled and her eyes were refusing to stay closed for the past half hour.
She huffed and pulled herself into a sitting position and shrugged off the pink fabric. It pooled into a milky pile at the floor of her bed and she laid back down. She slept better in the nude anyway. After a few minutes of fluffing pillows anxiously, turning and shifting, she covered her eyes with both hands and began to breathe in and out slowly; the breathing exercises her therapist back home taught her.
In for eight counts…hold for five…release for ten… Relax, Victoria.
Her mind flashed to a scorching image of Nathan being escorted off campus in handcuffs, his hands caked in a browning coat of that Price punk’s blood, his face downcast and horrified. She saw his eyes burning, welling up red. Victoria Chase and Nathan Prescott had made eye contact following the fatal gunshot after the entire school fled the halls and classrooms to watch David Madsen hold him down, his flailing body pinned by the knees of the security officer on the area between her friend’s shoulder blades. He was shrieking and crying; if Madsen wasn’t holding him down…Victoria was almost sure he would have hurt himself. Nathan flailed and screamed on the floor outside of the girl’s bathroom, and when he looked up and locked eyes with Victoria, the wind was knocked right out of her. Taylor noticed Victoria wobble in her heels within the crowd surrounding Nathan and Madsen. She grabbed Victoria by the elbow and held her up, giving her some grounding. His eyes plagued her throughout her days, even two months later.
He just needed fucking help.
Victoria rubbed her eyes harder and sat up again, throwing her comforter off. She had already let herself get inside her own head in the form of a nightmare tonight, featuring that fucking scumbag Jefferson. Before this entire mess, her visions of Jefferson were of him between her legs as she was sprawled out on top of Max Caulfield’s desk. It used to give her such a sexual jolt to imagine them fucking on the retro-nerd’s seat, just to have Max sit in it the next day. It drove her mad.
She felt her stomach churn in sickness. It was revolting, sick, the things the papers said he had done. She could easily have been a target…and maybe she was for all she knew.
Nathan wouldn’t let him do that to you, even if they were some vile minded duo…
Victoria’s hands began to quake. She thought back to her ridiculously late evening shower after her night terror. She had grabbed her shower caddy and almost ran into the hall, full-nude, before slinking herself into her robe and rushing out of her dorm room. Her eyes were leaking tears, not just from a general ache of Nathan being arrested, but from fear.
In this night terror, Jefferson had her tied up like marionette figurine, naked. He snarled from behind his camera, holding a wireless camera remote, taking lewd photos of her drugged out of her fucking mind. Victoria had not been aroused by this one bit. It turned her skin ice cold. Flashes went off, blinding her. His breath hot in her ear as he grinded his erection through his pants against her bare leg, snapping another photo with his remote.
Victoria clutched her stomach and raced to the trash can by her desk, spilling out watery sick. She felt lightheaded and brought her bare legs to her chest and rocked back and forth, keeping herself near the trash can in case anything else wanted to come up.
In for eight counts…hold for five…release for ten…
And then, to make her life even better, the stupid Max Caulfield strolled her nerd ass into the bathroom early as hell in the morning and surprised Victoria by standing there, hovering quietly over a sink. Victoria couldn’t believe her awful luck, first the night terror and then there was Max, clutching the sides of the sink so tightly that she noticed her knuckles turn white. When Victoria caught sight of Max’s swollen, bloody cheek, she felt…honestly, kind of terrible. Which was odd for her, but Nathan did go and shoot up Caulfield’s childhood best friend. Sure, the brunette joked about being in a fight with a piece of furniture, but Victoria caught a glimpse of terror behind her dark, blue eyes. Victoria was going to go and mind her own god damned business, spreading lotion on her face, but Caulfield kept staring at her. There were rumors, not started by Victoria (for once), about Max being queer; that Chloe was probably some fling, and it made Victoria feel even worse about it all. Max was a fucking zombie, so sad and small, and scared the first few weeks after the funeral. Courtney kept trying to fuck with the nerd, but Victoria would yawn and act bored whenever her group started talking shit about the hipster. Her own personal insults about Caulfield were limited nowadays as Victoria had other shit on her mind. It made Victoria’s guts buzz when Max had stared at her from the other sink, clutching the sides, knuckles white.
Then she decided to spurt out some rude comments, like Victoria always did, about taking a photo and then she went and called her a lesbo. Sure, it was below the belt, and the way Max’s cheeks grew red, Victoria couldn’t help but wonder if she wasn’t that far off on that one. Still, the comments weren’t necessarily justified, and she couldn’t keep her fat mouth shut when she observed the skinny, sad looking nerd grab a wad of gross bathroom paper towels to clean the wound on her face. Victoria didn’t necessarily like Max, but she didn’t want the girl to end up with an unflattering scar for the rest of her life that interrupted the spread of freckles along her cheek. It would just be wrong to let Max destroy one of her only good features.
So what if I helped the dweeb out? Nobody saw it happen and nobody would believe Max anyway if she decided to tell everyone about Victoria Chase delicately cleaning her wounds after her valiant battle with dorm furniture. It was a one-time deal.
She didn’t know how long she sat in a huddled ball near her trashcan, but the notification sound of her cell went off from her bed and she noticed the ceiling light up from the glow of her phone. She looked down at her trashcan and sighed, gathering the bag delicately and tying it tightly to avoid spillage. She stood carefully and threw on her robe and slid on her slippers. Bending down, she grabbed the ears of the trash bag and left the room to toss it into the garbage chute down the hall. When she returned, she checked her phone:
ZACH: yo yo yo! hey hottie! just woke up to go lift some weights ;) ur pic was hot to wake up to
Victoria sighed, suddenly disinterested in the whole thing. She still felt the tingling of her skin, the crawling of her insides. She checked the time and saw that it was 6:15 a.m. There was still a while before her first class started and she needed to keep her mind preoccupied. Some of her best ways she knew how was to go shoot photos or run. Seeing as the daylight break was weak, grey, and gloomy, she decided a run was a better option. Maybe the sweat and sore muscles would free her mind of the vivid images that flashed up here and there. Never mind the fact that she was already clean and pristine, two showers a day never hurt anybody.
Changing quickly into matching Lululemon sports bra, running tights, and a jacket, she slipped on a pair of Nikes and made her way down the hall and out of the dorm. She started slowly, an easy pace to make sure her stomach wouldn’t do something ridiculous out in public.
As she rounded a corner and traveled toward the front steps, Victoria’s brain flashed to the image of Max being held up, by who Victoria assumed was her father, before being placed into the backseat of a dinky car. The normally inquisitive, happy, and soft face of Max Caulfield was completely gone. In its place was a pale, sunken-in, void shell of the girl who sat behind her in photography. The Vortex groupies surrounded Victoria as she attempted to make her best bored face, gossiping and making jokes about Max crying. It felt uncivilized. Victoria ignored their quiet jeers and she couldn’t help but stare at the whole mess that was happening ahead of her. Her eyes met Max’s and her heart dropped. It was all fucked up. When the small car chugged away out of the lot and down the road, Victoria had turned to the majority of the Vortex Club that had claimed the stairs when she heard one of the guys saying something.
“The fucking dyke’s ghost is going to haunt the girl’s bathroom forever now.”
Most of the group laughed. Victoria noticed that she, Dana, and Taylor did not.
Another responded back, “Max was like with Chloe, right? I mean everybody is saying they had to have been a thing by the way she held her dead body and cried. Courtney said the loser must munch box. Too bad…she kind of has that weird new girl hotness. Like, honestly, I’d let her suck my dic-,”
Now, Victoria didn’t know why she said something, but the ghost of Max’s face was burned into the back of her eyes.
“Shut up. Nathan’s going to fucking prison and you’re all talking about Lamefield being a dyke. Get some fucking class.”
It had shocked all of them. They all looked at her like she had grown two heads. She swallowed and gave them the best of her ‘don’t fuck with me’ glares before turning on her heel and pushing past a shocked Taylor and an offended Zach.
Victoria panted and shook her head before she picked up her speed, attempting to literally run from the memory. She felt beads of sweat drip between her cleavage and form under her hairline. The cool rush of breeze felt insanely good against her face and she continued around into the parking lot.
When Victoria began to cooldown from her run, she decided to head back to the dormitory. It was about 8:15 a.m., her gold watch told her, and the sweat let her know she had a good work out. When she reached the hallway to her room, she walked quickly, not wanting to be stopped by anybody. However, much to her dismay, Courtney opened her door and gave Victoria a pitiful grin. Victoria slapped on her best icy pout when Courtney gave her a wave.
“Hey, Vic! I got your history homework done!” She looked like she wanted Victoria to give her a treat for being a good girl.
Victoria, still breathing heavily, held her hand out to Courtney.
“Oh, um, here! See you in class, girl!” Courtney placed the packet into her open palm, waved and went back into her room.
Heading down the hall to her own room, a brown messy head of a bob caught her eye, standing in front of Victoria’s door. Working herself up to say something bitchy, she halted as she watched Caulfield take the edge of her boring, everyday hoodie and wipe away the rude red message someone had scribbled in dry erase marker earlier on Victoria’s room board. Caulfield pulled off the cap of a marker and instead began quickly drawing the image of what looked like a bird.
Victoria heard some chatter and doors opening down the hall and she realized it would look weird if people saw Max Caulfield drawing on the room board of Victoria Chase. Victoria inhaled deeply, not really wanting to pull out some shit this early, but her image depended on it. She peered back over her shoulder and watched a few of the girls whisper and point at Max down the hall.
Oh, for god’s sake, Max. Maybe I shouldn’t have let you think I was being kind earlier.
Victoria found it oddly pleasant of Max to be doing what she was doing, but nonetheless, the hierarchy was there for a reason, even if Victoria loathed it a lot of the time.
She walked up to Max, who was lost in focus at the board, and Victoria cleared her throat and iced her face to look intimidating.
“What exactly do you think you’re doing?” she asked, glaring daggers at the back of the girl’s head.
Max tensed, obviously caught, and she slowly turned around to face Victoria.
“I couldn’t stand looking at that gross message…” Max caught Victoria’s daggering eyes and gulped. “I’m sorry…I probably shouldn’t have--,”
“—You’re goddamned right, Lamefield. Now, please. I’m sweaty and gross, and I don’t need to see you drawing weirdo shit on my board this early in the morning. Now, move.” Victoria waved Max away from the board and thought about erasing it.
The blue bird was in flight and, if Victoria was being brutally honest with herself, wasn’t that shitty of a drawing at all. She felt her heart jump.
Is Caulfield really being this fucking nice?
Victoria saw Max’s face go pale as her blue eyes looked Victoria up and down, probably realizing that she had just worked out after taking her odd, middle of the night shower. Max was probably thinking about earlier this morning and it made Victoria’s stomach uncomfortable.
“Listen,” Victoria began barely above a whisper, so nobody down the hall would hear. “Just because I fixed your face doesn’t mean we’re best friends or something. It’s probably in your best interests to leave me the fuck alone, Maxine. I’m…I’m no fucking good to be around.”
Victoria watched Max’s face go from hard, rival-like, to a vague pity. Her blue eyes seemed even more intense with the red, sore looking cheek, and Max’s eyes met Victoria’s quickly and they seemed to look right into her, analyzing, wondering, doing the usual Max Caulfield shit.
Max leaned closer to Victoria, her eyes no longer challenging, but were suddenly holding a wise gleam that Victoria had never seen from her before. The brunette’s hair brushed Victoria’s cheek as she got close, that was how ballsy the hipster got, before whispering next to the blonde’s ear:
“That’s a damn shame then, Victoria.”