Chapter Text
Stare at the photo
Day 1, Morning, Shared route
“Max.”
Max suddenly breathed in and looked up.
Victoria.
She was standing with her arms crossed, and looked annoyed, with her face pitched up in bored disdain and her arms crossed powerfully.
But she kind of always looked like that, anyway.
Max sighed and looked away from Victoria – and Taylor, who Max only belatedly realized was right behind her – off to some of the windows along the class room.
“Oh. Hi, Victoria. What’s um. What’s up?”
Victoria grunted.
Taylor whispered something to Victoria.
“You’ve been staring at that fucking photo all class. What is it? Is your next project?”
Max frowned, slightly, and looked back to Victoria.
She brought the photo closer to her chest and shook her head.
“No, um. I haven’t even started on that.”
Victoria’s eyes widened slightly and she raised an eyebrow.
“Then?”
Max just shrugged.
“Nothing. It’s nothing.”
Max sighed and stood up from her seat, suddenly realizing class had let out already and she didn’t even realize.
Victoria just stared at her.
Max nervously put on her messenger bag and started to walk past her –
Victoria inexplicably reached out and snapped her perfect hand to grasp at Max’s wrist –
“Hey!”
Victoria took the photo –
Max frowned deeply and stared up at Victoria.
But Victoria just gave her a much harder glare in return.
And Max couldn’t take the pressure for very long.
Max sighed pathetically and looked away, rubbing at her arm.
“Give that back … please?”
Victoria scoffed.
“Just as soon as you tell me why you’re staring at an old Blackwell class photo.”
Taylor made an inquisitive humming sound.
Victoria blindly offered the photo up with her other hand still supporting her elbow.
Taylor leaned in close to examine it.
Max shook her head gently again.
“No reason. I swear. I just … I like it … and …”
Victoria scoffed.
“Then you won’t mind me tearing this up, then.”
Max blinked and looked forward to Victoria.
“N-no! You can’t …”
But Max didn’t really have the words.
Victoria kept her eyebrow raised at the sudden expulsion of emotion.
“I can’t? Watch me.”
Victoria looked down to the photo and grasped it with both hands and –
“My best friend was in there. But she has like … other people around her. And it feels weird. Seeing her like that. So … I look it at a lot. And think. Okay?”
Max really didn’t want to give Victoria any more ammo to torture her with, but.
She just wanted this whole thing to be over.
Victoria sighed pleasantly and half re-crossed her arms again, so the hand with the photo was raising it to her face, and the other hand was supporting her elbow.
“Was that so hard?”
Max just grumbled.
Yes, it obviously was.
“Which?”
Max blinked.
“H-huh –”
Victoria groaned,
“I didn’t fucking stutter. Which one was your friend?”
Max blinked a few more times.
“Wh-uh. Why do you care?”
Victoria shook her head and scoffed.
“I don’t. Now answer the question.”
Max huffed indignantly.
She looked off into the distance, again.
Quiet.
“Oh pretty pretty please won’t you tell me, Maxine?”
Victoria’s voice had this ridiculous teasing edge to it now and Max didn’t understand why in the slightest.
Taylor giggled and crossed her arms, though.
She must have found it amusing somehow.
Max looked back to Victoria.
Her response came automatically.
“Max, ne ---”
Victoria rolled her eyes and gesticulated the photo in a circle,
“—never Maxine yes yes of course you sound like a fucking broken record.”
Oh.
Max frowned.
Victoria was just using her name wrong intentionally.
She apparently knew perfectly well Max’s preferences.
Like that felt any better.
“Can you just give me the photo back and leave me alone? What did I even do to you?”
The only time Max felt like she ever had any footing in a conversation is when she got annoyed and angry or brutally honest.
And intentionally using her name wrong was certainly a way to annoy her.
Quiet.
Victoria frowned, but Max didn’t shrink under her gaze this time.
Taylor whispered something in Victoria’s ear, and Victoria sighed.
“Fine. Just tell me who your best friend is. Or was. And you’ll have your photo back.”
Max kept her frown.
“You promise?”
Victoria rolled her eyes again.
“Jesus, pushy little bitch today, aren’t you. Yes, fine, whatever, I promise.”
The ‘I promise’ had that annoying over-enunciated teasing tone, and Victoria gained this stupid little smile afterwards, and Max hated everything about it.
But did she did want the photo back after all.
“Chloe Price. My best friend was Chloe Price.”
Both Victoria and Taylor were visibly shocked by the news and the both of them recoiled slightly, blinking.
Victoria looked back down to the photo, and frowned.
“You knew Chloe Price?”
Taylor spoke this time, and Victoria spared her the most temporary of annoyed glances before looking back to Max.
Max just sighed.
“I know, I know, I know … She looks so … different now. Why do you think I’ve been ... idiotically looking at some dumb photo?”
Max then just shook her head and closed her eyes,
“Look, just ---”
Victoria shoved the photo back to Max’s chest,
“Chloe’s best friends are Rachel Amber and Steph Gingrich. Those are the people around her in the photo. Rachel is too perfect to even talk to you - don’t even fucking bother - and Steph is … probably right up your alley, actually.”
Max blinked her eyes open about a dozen times and carefully took the photo back from Victoria.
Taylor looked at Victoria inquisitively.
Victoria just sighed and raised a hand to rub at her own temples.
“She does a bunch of nerdy fucking shit. Like dungeons and dorks or whateverthefuck. She burns movies for cheap. She’s alright, I guess.”
Max blinked about a million times, now.
Victoria was being nice?
Max thoughtlessly put the photo back into her bag.
“Um … thanks? I guess? Victoria?”
Every word came out more questioning than the last.
Max didn’t understand Victoria at all, especially not when she could switch between being a bully and not so fucking quickly sometimes.
“Whatever.”
Victoria looked down the nails at one of her hands and ran her thumb over those nails, inspecting.
Max was just so horribly confused by the exchange and after sparing Taylor a momentary look – Taylor had still been looking thoughtfully at Victoria – Max numbly made her way out of the class room.
After the door closed, Taylor sighed wearily.
“You were supposed to compliment the photo, Victoria. You’re just confusing the poor girl now.”
Victoria just grunted.
She looked away from the door to Taylor.
“And you were supposed to shut the fuck up, but I guess we all make mistakes sometimes.”
Taylor rolled her eyes and shook her head slightly.
“Well, I’m going to go clean this mess up, before she thinks you hate her forever.”
Taylor turned on her heel.
Victoria sighed heavily.
“Wait. I’ll … fix it.”
Taylor rolled her eyes again.
“Uh-huh. Just like the last time you ‘fixed’ it.”
Victoria groaned painfully.
“Don’t remind me …”
Taylor just smiled, obnoxiously.
“What else are friends for.”
---
Max closed her locker.
Her damn heart just about leaped out of her chest when she saw a girl in front of her, revealed by closing her locker.
After blinking away the shock, Max cleared her throat.
“Um … do … do I …”
Max was an incoherent mess at times but she usually wasn’t this bad.
The problem was this girl was ridiculously good-looking.
And it was kinda short-circuiting Max’s brain.
Still, after an awkward second or two, the girl just laughed pleasantly and raised a hand up to wipe a strand of hair away from her own face.
She stood up straight and –
Reached out to Max, to do the same with her hair.
Max’s breathing hitched but her brain finally rubbed enough cells together to remember –
From the photo –
“You’re Rachel, right?”
Max’s voice came out a little breathless and airy.
The girl smiled wider.
“Yeah, that’s me. Surprised you know.”
Rachel crossed her arms and continued to smile.
“You’re Max, right? Max Caulfield?”
Max swallowed.
How did she know?
“Y-yeah. H – “
Rachel giggled pleasantly.
“Oh goodie! Come –“
She immediately took off past Max and thoughtlessly grabbed one of Max’s hands and tugged her along.
Max had no real choice but to be tugged along with this enthusiastic and mind-stoppingly-gorgeous girl.
“Uhhhhhh I have … class … and –”
“—Skip it! This is more important.”
Max frowned, but found herself unable to directly contradict Rachel, and was dragged into the girl’s bathroom all of the same.
Whence inside, Rachel sighed pleasantly and released Max’s hand.
She walked a bit further into the bathroom and twirled around poetically, with her arms extended.
“Fresh air.”
Max blinked, but couldn’t help but giggle softly at the show and terrible joke.
Still, she was basically still entirely overwhelmed by this girl’s presence and attitude, and rubbed comfortingly at her own arm.
Rachel eventually stopped and shook her head.
Then she just smiled again.
“So many memories in here.”
Max blinked a few times.
Rachel held the silence for just a bit too long, watching Max’s expression,
“Like tagging and stuff.”
Oh.
Max felt kind of silly –
Rachel turned around and scanned the walls.
“I still see some of Chloe’s artwork, no matter how hard they try and scrub it off.”
Rachel quietly walked over to one of the walls and leaned over a bit to inspect some ‘artwork’.
That was Chloe’s doing?
Just how much had Chloe changed?
Chloe would never commit crimes however petty or significant, like that.
Max frowned a little bit, but eventually found the nerve to walk a bit closer to Rachel.
“Chloe did this?”
Rachel nodded gently.
“Yeah. I remember being with her when she did this one.”
Max took a step or two closer.
Everyone lies. No exceptions
She frowned a bit more.
Rachel then sighed pleasantly and stood up straight again.
She turned to face Max.
Max blinked.
“So. I heard you used to be good friends with Chloe.”
Max nodded, slowly.
She was gradually getting used to Rachel’s … everything.
“I um, yeah. Like … gosh, five years ago. But … we haven’t really been … in touch.”
It felt a little awkward coming out, for more reasons than one.
Rachel closed her eyes, and her expression died a bit.
She crossed her arms.
“Yeah. I’ve heard about that, too. It’s really tearing Chloe up.”
Max blinked a few times,
“Oh, um, Chloe, but…”
Max deflated, sighed, and looked down to the floor.
She rubbed at her arm again.
“I didn’t mean to … just … one day turned into two … to three … before I knew it, it was a month and I just …”
Max frowned more earnestly.
Quiet.
Rachel eventually sighed and patted at Max’s shoulder.
Max looked up to her.
She was smiling, somehow.
“I don’t think you did it to intentionally hurt Chloe, Max. Not from everything else she’s told me about you, anyway. But it did hurt her. And that’s why you’re going to the Price household this afternoon and apologizing, and also why you’re going to act like you never met me if you happen to see me there.”
Max blinked only about a million times.
“I … am?”
Rachel patted on Max’s shoulder again and giggled pleasantly.
“You sure are. Because you’re such a good person, right? And it kills you to think that Chloe might be suffering. So you’re going to fix that. Like a good girl.”
Max opened her mouth to say something, but nothing really came out.
Rachel just giggled again.
“Wow, that’s cute. Your mouth gapes and everything.”
Max kept on blinking – now adding blushing to the mix –
Rachel just laughed and pulled away, walking to the exit.
“Anyway. Probably shouldn’t be on campus anymore. I’m sure Mr. Madsen would have some choice words for me. But be a good girl, yeah? Chloe didn’t deserve that.”
Max just still gaped her mouth as Rachel wordlessly made her way out of the bathroom.
Goddamn.
That girl was overwhelming.
Max uselessly raised a hand to play with her own hair.
And just started to think, about everything.
The event with Victoria was already exciting enough, now a graduated senior found a way back onto campus to orchestrate fixing her relationship with Chloe?
The bell suddenly went off, and Max groaned painfully.
Great.
She was late, on top of everything.
Max readjusted her messenger bag and walked quickly to her next class.
She tried to just put all of this stuff out of her mind for now.
She knew she was already overthinking it.
The stares from Victoria and Taylor, though, as soon as she left the bathroom, screwed that effort quite royally.
Did they see Rachel?
Did they see Rachel dragging Max into the bathroom?
Victoria’s glare was intense, and Taylor even looked a little concerned.
Max just quietly made her way past them, and tired not to think too much about why they were glaring at her instead of going to class.
Jeez.
What a freaking day.
And it wasn't even lunch yet.
Decisions
This is an interactive story. You will be able to choose some decisions that Max makes, particularly when it comes to which ladies she focuses on. Max will make other decisions for you based on decisions you made prior. It is recommended you use the links at the end of each chapter to navigate the story instead of trying to use AO3's navigation system. Ever read a Goosebumps story? Sort of like that.