Work Text:
Between the frigid temperatures and the general mid-autumn monotony, it was already a shitty week when the dorm furnace decided to break. Max returned to the dorms after dinner to find a crowd forming by the entrance. Principal Wells stood on the top step surveying the students with an air of slowly building panic. A bright red sign on the door fluttered in the wind but Max couldn’t make out what it said.
“What’s happening?” She asked, pushing her way through the crowd to Kate. She noticed first that Kate was already in her pajamas with a coat thrown over them, and second that she was holding what looked like a cat carrier. “Why is Alice out here?”
“The furnace broke and Samuel can’t get the parts until tomorrow. We’re all getting moved to the library since it has heat.”
“Seriously? I have so much homework to do.”
Kate nodded and rubbed at her nose which was already growing as pink as Alice’s. She looked like she was about five seconds from crying, which was also what Max felt like doing. Classes dragged on forever today and all she wanted was a hot shower and her bed.
"It's only for the night," Principal Wells was saying to the group gathered closest to him. “There are sleeping pads set up and more importantly, working heat!”
“Is ‘sleeping pad’ code for those disgusting old gym mats that sit in the weight room gathering dust all year?” Victoria asked.
Max could tell that Victoria was nearing her boiling point, but for once it felt warranted.
“They’ve, uh, been disinfected.”
“Do you know what our parents pay for room and board? We should all be reimbursed, this is ridiculous.”
“Again, it’s only one night and there are… extenuating circumstances,” Wells said awkwardly. He gestured at the sky as if to say act of god, what can you do?
“Principal Wells?” Brooke raised her hand even though she was already speaking, “Who will chaperone us?”
"Um, nobody." Wells’ eyes shifted eagerly towards the staff parking lot. “After all, you don’t have a chaperone in the dorms. I think you’re all mature enough to handle this, am I right girls?”
The unenthusiastic chorus of agreement was met with the beginning drops of sleet.
***
It was just past 10 pm when Courtney produced a bottle of vodka from her bag. She set it in the center of the room and slowly other girls begin to add their contraband to the pile.
“I didn’t realize it was a potluck,” Max said, “I would’ve brought something.”
Dana laughed and Max flushed with pride. It wasn’t particularly difficult to make Dana laugh, but it still felt good.
“Here Caulfield.” Juliet passed her a solo cup filled with what smelled like old vinegar. “Cheapest box wine money can buy.”
The wine was sour on her lips and she shivered involuntarily.
Victoria suddenly clapped her hands together and the talking died down almost instantly. It was kind of impressive, the power she had over her peers. Impressive and slightly terrifying. Max shifted so that she was hidden behind Dana.
“Girls, you know what time it is. We’re going to play a game.”
Kate sighed quietly and Max drained her cup.
“I just want to sleep,” Kate said under her breath. She was the only one already in her sleeping bag other than Brooke, who had dragged hers behind the check-out desk upon arrival and would occasionally peek around the side to glare at them when they got too noisy.
Max refilled her cup.
“Wait, who are we missing?” Victoria demanded, scanning the room.
Dana looked at Max and rolled her eyes. Max grinned back. It was pretty obvious who was missing and typical of Victoria to pretend she hadn’t noticed.
“Rachel,” Juliet said without missing a beat, “late as usual.”
Rachel Amber. Ask three different people about her, get three different answers. A model, an actress, a burnout, a slut, the town sweetheart. Max had spoken to her a whopping total of six times since the beginning of the year. Rachel was always polite but slightly guarded during their interactions. Max would sometimes catch her staring from across the photography lab with a detached sort of curiosity.
“We’re not waiting for her,” Victoria said decisively. Nobody dared to disagree. "Alright, Alyssa! You’re up. Truth or dare?"
“Uhh…” Alyssa yanked out her headphones. They were still blasting what sounded to Max like chainsaws and guttural screaming. “Can I pass?”
“You could, but I don’t recommend it,” Victoria said at length, “unless you want to wake up outside.”
“Whatever. Dare.”
“I dare you to leave.”
Courtney and Taylor doubled over cackling and Dana and Juliet pressed their palms over their mouths to stop from laughing.
“This is lame anyway,” Alyssa said, her face slowly turning crimson. She shot Victoria a nasty look, and a rude hand gesture, then gathered her stuff and shuffled towards the computer lab. Stella rolled up her sleeping bag and trudged after her, only daring to mutter the word bitch once she was a fair distance from Victoria.
If she were brave, Max would have stood up and told Victoria to stop being such a nightmare. But she wasn’t brave. Instead, she hid her face in her cup. The wine was becoming bearable.
“Who wants to choose the next victim?” Victoria asked gleefully.
Everyone raised their hands, except Max and Kate.
Victoria was still mulling over her decision when the library doors burst open. Rachel Amber walked in, looking disoriented and wind-blown, but still unfairly attractive. Her jeans, artfully torn and clearly expensive, were soaked through.
“Took you long enough,” Victoria pouted.
“Sorry V. I had to take care of something,” Rachel’s voice was husky like she had already been drinking. As she moved across the circle of sleeping bags, the smell of pot trailed behind her. “Care to share?” She asked Courtney, taking the bottle out of her hands before she could respond.
Kate gave Max a wide-eyed look and grimaced. Max shrugged back, understanding Kate’s sentiment. It felt like they accidentally crashed a party they weren’t invited to. She finished her wine and refilled her cup again.
“Oh, I know exactly who you were with.” Victoria said smugly, “Are you two dating again, or is it casual?”
“Nate’s a friend, that’s all.”
Nathan Prescott was the most prominent of the many boys rumored to be involved with Rachel, and in Max’s opinion, he was also the worst. Usually, she didn’t care much about the dating lives of her peers, but Max found herself wondering what Rachel had been doing with him that kept her out so late.
“Sorry, it’s hard to keep track. You have so many friends,” Victoria said.
A few of the girls snickered but everyone else just looked tense. When Rachel and Victoria started going for each other’s throats, nobody wanted to pick a side. There was never a clear winner.
“Careful, Vicky. People in glass houses… et cetera,” Rachel motioned dismissively with her hand. She hopped up to sit on a table and put the bottle to her lips. Max caught her eye and looked away quickly.
“Whatever,” Victoria replied happily. “Juliet, you can go next.”
“Oh good!” Juliet turned to Max who tried to silently plead for mercy. “Max.”
"Truth," Max said immediately. She refused to be made to eat hot peppers or lick a trash can or whatever other depraved dares these girls were bound to come up with.
"How bold," Victoria sneered at her and her stomach sank.
"Hmm." Juliet took her time thinking of a question, leaving Max to wriggle in her seat expecting the worst. It was her fault for not being open enough, for not bothering to make friends or even small-talk. Everyone in this room probably had questions. "Okay... Have you hooked up with anyone at Blackwell yet?"
Well, at least that was an easy one.
“Uh, no.”
Everyone groaned.
"That's boring," Taylor chided, “but no surprise there.”
There was a smattering of chuckles but not from Kate or Dana, which made Max feel slightly better. Still, this was her chance to make friends and it was slipping away because she was too boring to hold their interest.
“I mean I hooked up with a townie. Just nobody who goes here.”
The faces around her changed from disappointed to eager and it was an unexpected relief. It was harmless slumber party talk, right? Technically it wasn’t a lie, but it still felt like one. These were not the kind of girls who would consider her sloppy “practice” kisses with her best friend a hookup.
“What?” Dana shrieked startling Alice who buried herself deeper under the blanket in her carrier. Kate winced in sympathy. “Who?”
“It was a long time ago. You probably wouldn’t know her.”
“Her?” Rachel was grinning right at her.
Max felt herself blush down to her chest. She always got a rush when Rachel acknowledged her, not that it happened often but when it did, it felt like the sun was deciding to shine on her specifically.
Emboldened, Max continued, “yeah, she was my best friend and I had a huge crush on her. Lame, I know.”
"No, it's sweet," Juliet insisted. "Can we have a name? Pretty please? It won’t leave this room. Slumber party rules."
There was a resounding chatter of affirmation, and Juliet and Rachel both pinky-swore they wouldn’t tell.
Max hesitated. If she told them, it would be embedded in her lore at this school and follow her to graduation. At the same time, it was nice to feel like she was being indoctrinated into the Blackwell sisterhood.
"Chloe,” she said finally, “Chloe Price.”
"Ha!" Victoria’s face lit up and Max rocked back on her knees, her heart jumping up her throat. "Unbelievable!"
“Wait, do you know her?” Max’s heart took a U-turn and began plummeting back down to her stomach.
“Sure,” Victoria said with an unnerving smile, “most of us do. Some of us better than others…”
Max followed her stare over to where Rachel was braced against the table, bottle firmly in hand. Her eyes were glassy and hard to read in the glow of the electric lanterns but her grin was gone.
Did Rachel know Chloe? Max couldn’t picture it. Chloe was never the sunniest person even before her dad died, and Rachel was downright bubbly most of the time. Max had seen her skipping down the hall just last month. Actually skipping, arm-in-arm with Dana. Chloe couldn’t have much in common with a girl like that.
"Aw, was she your first love?" Dana asked. She had a friendly half-tipsy smile, but the rest of the room was exchanging glances and whispering behind hands. Max felt her face grow hotter.
Rachel was watching her from the desk, her face a mask of mild disinterest that was just slightly too careful to be genuine. It was more troubling than Victoria’s smirk.
"I don’t know. Maybe? I just wanted to know what it was like."
“Typical. Price is like lesbo training-wheels for every try-sexual in Arcadia Bay,” Victoria said, apparently enjoying the shock on Max’s face. “Don’t worry though, we won’t hold it against you.”
The room erupted into stifled fits of laughter. Kate reached across her sleeping bag and squeezed Max’s hand.
“What the hell is a try-sexual?” Dana asked.
“You sophomore year,” Juliet answered.
There was another round of laughter and this time Dana joined in too. Rachel’s eyes flashed as she took another swig from her bottle. Suddenly Max was angry. A low, slow-burning anger that made her feel reckless. Chloe deserved someone in this room to stand up for her, to claim her.
"You can hold it against me all you want. I don’t regret a second of it. She was good. Really good. Better than any zit-faced 14-year-old boy would have been.”
"I’m sure she was. Chloe sure knows how to keep her friends happy." Victoria was coiled tight, but her eyes weren’t on Max. Rachel and her were glaring at each other like feral dogs searching for a glance of vulnerable throat.
“Oh, you have no idea.” Rachel ran her tongue over the rim of the bottle before pulling from it, and Max felt her heart stutter.
Every head in the room turned to watch as Rachel closed the distance to Victoria.
“I mean we shared a wall last year so, yeah, I think I have some idea.” Victoria still sounded confident but the energy of the room was shifting rapidly.
Max thought about Chloe’s latest Instagram pictures, the hair and the tattoos, the effortless beauty that was always so obvious to Max, even when they were kids. She looked back at Rachel, smile painted on over whatever was brewing inside her, and everything clicked into place. She could see them hanging out at the skate park together, getting ready for parties in Chloe’s room, sharing fries at the diner. Joyce would find her charming.
Someone across the room--probably Courtney—mimicked a loud, pornographic sounding moan. The girls laughed and applauded. Rachel set her jaw and said nothing.
Rachel slept with Chloe. Max frowned and felt the room tilt under her. Too much wine, she told herself. She stared down at her cup and let the realization move through her like a wave. She wanted to cry or throw up but instead, she gripped the cup hard enough for it to crack and send wine rushing over her wrist. Too much wine, that’s all.
Kate shot her a bewildered look. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” Max whispered back. “A little tipsy.”
“Come on Rachel, truth or dare?” Victoria taunted, dragging Max’s attention back to the drama unfolding next to the historical fiction section. Rachel’s grip on the neck of the bottle was white-knuckled but her face betrayed nothing.
“I don’t like where this is going,” Juliet whispered loud enough for everyone to hear.
“I love where this is going,” Dana slurred, beaming.
“Dare,” Rachel said. “Always.”
“Such a badass, huh? I dare you to tell us all how close you really are with Price.”
“Nope!” Max stood up, fueled by the intense burning in her stomach and a desire to avoid the details of Rachel’s relationship with Chloe. “Rule violation, you can’t dare someone to tell the truth. Everyone knows that.”
Rachel gave her a look just soft enough to pass as a “thank you.” Max nodded and looked away.
“Fine.” Victoria snatched the vodka from Rachel, taking a long sip and wiping her mouth on the back of her hand. “Then show us.”
“I don’t understand what’s happening,” Kate whispered to Max. “I just want to sleep.”
“I just need a volunteer,” Rachel said.
Dana’s arm shot into the air and Juliet forced it back down.
Victoria raised her hand and everyone sat up a little straighter.
“Go ahead, Amber.”
Rachel moved forward and grabbed Victoria in one motion, cupping her neck like she was scruffing an animal. Victoria whimpered.
“What’s the goal here V? You want me to say I like girls?” Rachel leaned in so close their lips were almost touching and Victoria was looking at her like she might combust. Max felt her pulse in her ears. “I don’t think anyone would be surprised to hear it.”
“So then admit it,” Victoria said through her teeth.
“You first,” Rachel said, and then she kissed Victoria full on the mouth. Gasps echoed across the circle of sleeping bags. Dana whooped and Juliet shushed her frantically. Rachel pulled away, leaving Victoria looking shell-shocked.
“What the fuck, Rachel!” Victoria’s skin was mirroring the glow of the exit sign. “You’re a deviant!”
“Is that not what you wanted?”
“I… No!”
“You dared me to do it.”
“I didn’t think that you would.”
“Well that was your mistake I guess,” Rachel said returning to her sleeping bag, “Taylor! Truth or dare?”
“Truth!” Taylor said frantically.
***
Max couldn’t sleep. The library was drafty and smelled like damp old paper and there were a million dark, shadowy places between the shelves where a murderer could be lurking. The ticking of the clock above the door--so soothing when she was here after class to do homework--only added to the ominous atmosphere.
The sound of a zipper interrupted the ticking. By the scarlet glow of the exit sign, Max watched as Rachel slipped out the door.
Max unzipped her sleeping bag as quietly as possible. The cold air on her legs almost deterred her but she powered through, pulling on her socks and a thick sweater over her pajamas. The door groaned loudly as she pushed through but she managed to catch it before it clanged shut.
Down the hall, there was an identical sound, the front doors creaking open then banging against the frame, followed by hushed voices. Max walked on the balls of her feet, socks sliding on the linoleum. The halls were dark and colder than the library. The walls across from the front doors were alive with the shadows of quaking tree limbs, back-lit by the flood-lights outside.
Rachel was talking to someone in the foyer.
“Are you drunk?” a low voice hissed.
“Well yeah,” Rachel said, her voice wavering slightly, “but that’s not why I called. Wait! Please don’t leave.”
Max flattened herself further against the wall. The Rachel she saw at school--the one on a first-name basis with half the faculty, the one who could start a trend by accidentally mismatching her socks, the one who burned through all the cool older boys and never seemed to care--that Rachel had never sounded so desperate.
Max craned her neck and saw only their silhouettes. Rachel was shorter and distinctively soft; the other girl was tall and angular.
"Rachel, I came because you said it was an emergency.” The tall girl sounded pissed off. “Do you know how much trouble I’ll get in if David catches me here?”
“I know, I know!” Rachel’s shoes squeaked on the floor as she scrambled around the girl, putting herself in front of the doors. “It is an emergency… a friendship emergency.”
“Goddammit, Rachel. Do you think that’s funny?”
“No! I’m being serious. I’m so sorry Chloe. I know you’re still mad—”
“Yeah, no shit.”
Chloe?
Max’s chest heaves involuntarily and she has to catch herself before she gasps. It was definitely Chloe’s voice, the same as it always was if not slightly rougher.
“I just—I needed to see you.” Rachel stepped forward and Chloe moved back. Max’s heart hammered inside her chest. “You’ve been blowing me off all week.”
“If you’re so desperate to see me then why didn’t you pick up when I called earlier?” Chloe asked quietly. “Where were you?”
“I was… um—"
“You’re about to lie to me!”
“I am not!”
“You are! You have a tell, your eyebrow does this… quivering thing. Don’t fucking lie to me Rachel. That’s the only thing I ask of you.”
“Is it? Because it feels like there are a hundred rules that only apply to me.” Rachel hadn’t sounded nearly this fierce with Victoria. “Do you know how much it hurts that you don’t trust me?”
“For real Rach? How am I supposed to trust you after you lied about Frank?”
“I wasn’t lying! I just didn’t tell you the whole truth because I knew you would react like this. I already hate myself enough for the both of us, okay? He’s old and sleazy and disgusting. It didn’t mean anything—”
“You lied to me. You’re the only person I trust in this entire shitty town, my best friend, and you lied to me.”
It hurt to hear Chloe call someone else her best friend. Max knew she had no right to be hurt—she was the one who left, she let them lose touch, she still hadn’t told Chloe about moving back to the Bay—but it still hurt. All those thoughts about Rachel replacing her, filling the voids she left, were true.
“One time! One single mistake—"
“Fine!” Chloe threw her hands up and then let them flop back to her sides. “It’s all forgiven. Are you happy?”
Rachel exhaled noisily and grabbed Chloe’s hand. “Yes. Thank you, Chloe”
“So, where were you?”
“I was with Nathan.”
“Oh, cool. Did you have fun driving past all the peasants in his new Audi?”
“Chloe…”
“Did he at least share his script with you? I mean you’ve gotta be pretty fucking high to listen to that whiney little—"
“See! I didn’t tell you because you always get like this. I needed weed. If I can’t go to Frank anymore then I have to go to Nathan. I know he’s a douche, but he’s not the anti-Christ.”
“You’re right, he doesn’t have the charisma.” Chloe got quiet and Max could tell she was feeling sorry for herself, which usually meant she was about to say something stupid. “I mean what’s the deal Rachel, are you guys fucking?”
“No.” Rachel said immediately. Even Max could hear how hurt she was. There was a moment of drawn-out silence, then Chloe sighed.
“Okay.” Chloe walked over to the wall and slumped into it, sliding down until she was sitting. Max could finally see her face and she looked… tired.
“I don’t want to fight anymore Chloe.”
“I don’t either. I’m sorry.” Rachel knelt down and then crawled over to her, straddling her legs. Max gritted her teeth. “I had a long day,” Chloe said, resting her head on Rachel’s shoulder, “and David was being fucking horrible when I got home. I’m just not thinking straight.”
“Me neither,” Rachel said and pulled Chloe into a sloppy kiss.
Max’s entire body tensed with jealousy and embarrassment. To think, she was just bragging about their innocent tight-lipped kiss when Rachel got Chloe like this. All heavy breathing and hands pushing under shirts and muffled groans that made Max burn like she was the one being touched.
“Rachel, stop,” Chloe said, shrugging Rachel off of her like an old coat. “God, can’t you just— don’t do that if you don’t mean it.”
Rachel’s shoulders slumped like the weight of her disappointment was a physical thing.
“I do mean it.”
“Tell me that when you’re sober.” Chloe stood up and brushed her hands over her jeans.
“You’re just going to leave?” Rachel sounded pathetic and even though everything in Max was bundled tight with envy, she couldn’t help but feel bad for her. Her humiliation paled in comparison to Rachel’s, which was suddenly spread out for her to see.
“I have work in the morning and Joyce is going to skin me alive if she catches me sneaking in again.”
Chloe began walking toward the doors.
“What else do I need to do to fix this?” Rachel asked quietly.
“I don’t know anymore.” Chloe ran her hand across Rachel’s cheek and down her neck. “I don’t know if it’s worth fixing.”
Chloe walked out the doors, disappearing into the slush and wind. The doors shut behind her with a solemn clang and a last burst of frozen air that hit like a slap. Rachel got up and staggered into the bathroom across the hall.
***
Max waited a few minutes before walking into the bathroom. The fluorescent lights made her eyes sting before they adjusted. Rachel was sitting on the edge of the sink smoking a cigarette. She looked pale and ghastly in the watery light.
“Rachel?” Rachel hardly glanced at her. “You alright?”
“Fan-fucking-tastic Max. How are you?” Rachel looked at her coldly.
She knows. Max was sure she hadn’t been spotted but the way Rachel was looking at her didn’t add up otherwise. Max lifted herself to sit on the other side of the sink. The water she failed to notice pooling on the counter, soaked through her pajama pants in seconds.
“I don’t know. Tonight’s been… a lot.”
“That’s just life at Blackwell.” Rachel paused and flicked ash toward the drain before adding, “so, I guess we have a mutual friend, huh?”
Max’s throat went dry and when she tried to swallow, she found herself choking. “Uh, y-yeah. I mean sort of? I haven’t spoken to Chloe in years and we didn’t leave things… well she’s probably forgotten about me.”
Rachel laughed, loud and startling, and Max’s palms began to prickle. Rachel could end her whole lift right now, socially or literally.
“Sorry it’s just… do you know Chloe?” Max bristled at that and apparently, Rachel caught it, smirking before she continued. “She doesn’t forget. She’ll hold onto a grudge until you make up or one of you dies.”
Max sighed, “Yeah, that’s Chloe.”
Rachel nodded and took one last drag of the cigarette before smashing it into the edge of the sink. Samuel would have to scrub the burnt smudge off the porcelain tomorrow morning. “She still writes letters to you sometimes.”
“What?”
“In her journal. I know I shouldn’t read them but...” Rachel shifted awkwardly and curled in on herself slightly, “I was jealous. She doesn’t tell what’s going on with her anymore but she writes you these letters just spilling her heart out. Even if she’ll never send them, it’s still… She still trusts you to understand.”
If Max were a different sort of person, that comment might have made her feel just a little bit superior. She wasn’t that person though and Rachel—drunk and self-pitying with her lips still swollen from kissing the only person Max had ever deemed worthy of kissing—was still intimidating. Even worse than that, she was charming and Max still wanted desperately to know her better, to be her friend, to find out which version of Rachel was the real one.
“I’m nosey too,” Max said. “I would have done the same thing.”
“Really? I thought Maxine Caulfield was a paragon of virtue,” She said teasingly and softened it with a lopsided grin. It felt like an olive branch.
Max chuckled and shook her head. “Uh, not quite. You sure you’re not thinking of Kate?”
“I see… classic case of innocent by association.” Rachel still smiled but her eyes were keenly searching Max’s face. “You should tell her you’re back.”
Max shrugged and scuffed her shoe along the rounded basin, “I don’t know if I’m ready to face her.”
“I get it. She can be sort of…” Rachel smiled humorlessly and shook her head. “Anyway, can I ask you for a favor?”
“Sure.”
“Can you just… forget what you saw earlier? Victoria would hold it over me for the rest of my life if she knew.”
“Yeah, no, uh, don’t worry,” she stuttered. “I’m not the gossiping sort.”
Rachel slid down from the counter and stumbled forward, catching herself on a stall door. “Oops! Ha. Yeah, you seem… trustworthy.”
“Thanks.”
“What I mean is… you seem like a good friend, Max. I can see why Chloe can’t let go.” Rachel said over her shoulder as she walked to the door. Before she pulled it open, she looked back at Max and for an instant, her lip quivered and her forehead creased. Then she turned and left Max alone, soggy and confused in the bleak glare of the greenish lights.