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It started with a sip which turned into a glass which turned into a bottle.
Lying down in her bed, she took another drag of her cigarette. She wondered where the day had gone. Into the same void where the weeks, months and years go probably. The void that eats happiness and leaves the present. The void that contained everyone who ever left. The sucking black pit that enveloped everything that mattered. She looked at the empty bottle, lying uselessly in her bed. Her last one. She groaned in frustration. Booze had become harder to get ever since that fucking liquor store clerk had confiscated her fake ID. It really was just typical; people got to walk all over her. There really was no escape from reality. No escape from this small town hell either. At least not for her. Everyone else got to leave: Max, Rachel… Dad...Why couldn’t she?
Finishing the smoke, she put it out on the overflowing ashtray on her bed table. She looked at the haze that had formed throughout her room. Beyond the smoke she could see the yellowed walls. She didn’t care. It seemed only fitting that the house went to hell with her. It was her house after all. Funny. It used to be her home. Now, all she ever did was try to find ways of not being there. Every moment away from this place was time well spent. David had turned this place into a police state. “He’s deranged, that stick up his ass must have impaled his brain” She mused to herself. If she could, she wouldn’t spend another second in this house, but she had nowhere else to go. American Rust had become a sad reminder of Rachel and how she left things. The last time Chloe went there, she trashed the place and almost burnt it to the ground. She had been such a fool. All the plans to escape Arcadia Bay that her and Rachel had made had all just been another improv game for Rachel. Their friendship had just been another play and Rachel as Chloe knew her had just been a role. She never existed, and now she existed even less so. Just a blank memory of a girl who used her.
Looking down, she realized her knuckles were clenched hard enough for them to turn white. She had to relax somehow. She would spark up a joint, if she hadn’t run out of favors from Frank. Sadly, that was the only way to get high in this town. Slowly but surely, she thought, the town manages to become more and more unbearable. All she ever saw anymore were murky traces of people and things she used to love. There really was only one bright spot: Steph. Steph was nice, Steph was cool. Steph was geeky. Steph was fun. Steph was hot. Steph was a lot of things to Chloe, least of all, she was there for her. “For now at least. Don’t even get your hopes up, she’s only here because she hasn’t found a good excuse to leave yet. But she’s looking. Any day now you’re gonna give her the ammunition she needs and this time it will definitely kill you”
The downstairs door slammed shut with a force that shook Chloe. “Oh shit”. David. He had come home early. Hearing the heavy, coordinated steps from downstairs made her heart palpitate.
“Chloe!”, the words came on a thunderous cloud of sulfur and poison. She heard steps up the ladder. “Shit! shit” she yelled to herself. She ran to the other window that she hadn’t bothered to open. She yanked it up, before turning around and maniacally waving her arms around, trying to persuade the clouds to move. They didn’t budge.
Three sharp rap landed on the door. That sound alone was enough to make Chloe’s inside turn.
“Open this door up missy!” Another three raps.
“Just a second, I’m changing” she yelled out, still fanning the smoke out of the window.
“Don’t lie to me, I saw smoke coming out of your window! We had an agreement!” Another three raps, another twist of Chloe’s guts.
Knowing the game was up, Chloe let her arms fall to her side before trudging to the door.
Immediately after unlocking it, the door was shoved open. She narrowly avoided getting hit. Then he was there. In her room, once again. As they stared at each other Chloe could hear her heart pounding in her ears.
“So, Chloe, what tale are you gonna spin this time?”
“Fuck you David, yeah I smoked in here. This is my room, my house. You’re just a tourist but you’re acting like you own the place”
“Don’t you talk back to me young lady. I am the head of this house and I make the rules. And one of those rules were you would stop smoking. A rule which you have clearly broken. Don’t you know how your behaviour is affecting this family?”
“You are not part of this family. You are not my dad and you’re certainly not in charge of me. You’re just stop disgusting leech who decided to stick itself to my mom and suck the life out of us all. You’re a fucking creep”
David’s hand flew across the space between them and landed firmly on the side of Chloe’s face, knocking her off balance. There it was, the old familiar sting.
“I will not be disrespected in my own home. You apologize this instant”
Chloe looked at him through tearful eyes. “Fuck this” she decided before sprinting past David, down the stairs and out the door. Behind her she could hear David yell at the top of his voice. She didn’t listen to a word of it.
Arcadia Bay had a quaint, eerie quality to it that one never got used to. It used to be charming, alluring even, when she and Max would spend hours exploring every abandoned house, every dark patch of forest they came across.Now, however, all it did was creep under Chloe’s skin. This time of year the days were short and dark. With the dark came the cold. Chloe stood in the deserted streets. Who knows how many blocks she had walked. “No jacket, no cigarettes, no home. Thanks David”. She shivered. The bruise on her cheek had taken form in a deepened blue that contrasted with the paleness of her skin. “Now what?” she thought as she held a ball of snow against her bruised face. Looking out into the night she saw the open road and the ghosts of the past. Rachel and her, planning to run away, Max actually doing it, and dad never getting to. Tears welled in her eyes as she slid down against the wall of an abandoned gas station. It was all too much. It wasn’t fair. The good ones left, the bad ones stayed and everything was going to shit. She sat there for an eternity.
Her phone buzzed. She wiped her eyes and pulled it from her pocket. Multiple texts from Joyce, and one from Steph. Without reading any one of them she clicked Steph’s name.
“Hey Chloe! Did you get my message? I totally think that’s the movie we should watch next! I mean two women, alone in a secluded place, slowly melting together. I mean, talk about subtext, right?”
“...Steph...” was all she managed to breathe out, as the tears pushed their way out again.
“Chloe, what’s wrong?”
“I… Can I come over?”
“Yeah, of course but Chloe, are you alright?”
“No, I’ll be there in 20 minutes”
She hung up, got to her feet and started walking.
By the time she reached Steph’s house, she was practically frozen. Her hands were numb and she barely had the dexterity to ring the doorbell. As she stood waiting, the harsh elements all seemed to target her and would not let up for even a second. Time had effectively slowed down. “God, hurry up” she thought as the coldness etched itself into her skin. Finally, the door was being unlocked. When it opened, she could feel the heat from the interior stream out over her. It burned. Before her stood Mr Gingrich, wearing the familiar beard, sweater and demeanor. He was a wholesome man. Chloe had seen that in the way he treated Steph. In the way he treated herself. With genuine love and respect. He reminded her of her dad.
“God, Chloe, what are you doing in this weather without a jacket? You better hurry in” He stepped aside and held out an arm invitingly. Standing inside, her skin quickly went from numb to burning. “What were you doing out there without a jacket in this weather? ” Suddenly she felt an overwhelming desire to not be around anyone but Steph.
“Is Steph in the basement?”
“Uhm yeah, sure go right ahead, you know the way”
She did know the way. A quick spin on her heels and a few steps down the hall led her to the basement door. Making her way past the door, an immediate familiar smell of concrete and perfume welcomes her. For a moment, all she did was stand there, taking in the situation. The warmth and the comfort that this place has come to provide her. Ever since things changed, the bay had continuously sprouted sanctuaries, be they places or people, that immediately would wither and die. That cycle had played out far too many times, and Chloe hoped that this basement would not fall to the same fate. But every inch of her knew that it would.
“Hey is anyone there?”
“Oh yeah. Steph. God, you’re in someone's room idiot, you can’t just stand here not saying anything”
“Yeah, it’s me” Her voice came out gruff and gravely, unused and cold.
“Hey Chloe, come down here”
With an invitation, her feet started to move and carried her down the stairs, around the corner and into view of a girl lazily lying in a lime-colored bean bag chair. It’s the most inviting sight she’d seen in a while and her automatic shuffling feet had found new inspiration as she began a sprint towards Steph and ran straight to the wall, slowing down at the last second and barely managing to avoid a head-on collision.
“Sup?” she said, slightly out of breath
“Jesus Chloe, you could just walk like a normal person”
“Couldn’t wait to see you any longer and”-- She leapt from the wall, barely landing in the bean bag next to Steph --“I am definitely not a normal person”
“No...I’ve noticed. well I’m touched, even if I’m afraid for my bean bag’s safety”
“I’ll have you know that I have the utmost respect for chairs, they are our humble servants and me must maintain a mutual respect, lest we end up with a Blade Runner situation”
“God, you are obsessed with that movie” She said, throwing her hands up. “I gave it to you over a year ago and you literally haven’t gone a day without mentioning it since”
“It’s a good movie, nay, in fact, I’d say it the best thing to happen to storytelling since human kind figured out how to talk”
“Chloe, you are seriously culturally starved. That’s the whole point of our movie nights; I’m trying to widen your horizons beyond Deckard and fucking Pris.”
“Well fine, Roger Ebert, let’s see what your amazing cinematic mind can do. One movie, one chance to topple Blade Runner from it’s throne”
“You are so on” she said, the lines off her mouth curving up into a smirk. Chloe could feel a slight blush creep over her face. She let her eyes drop to the floor and focused on the pattern in the carpet.
Steph got up in search of the perfect movie. Chloe watched her for a moment, all of her. “Get it together Price, this never ends well”. She let out a small sigh and dragged herself up. She took a moment to glance around the room. Steph really knew how to make a space her own. Everything from the 70’s punk rock records hung up on the walls to the neon colored bean bag chairs. This felt more like a home than anything she had experienced in a long time. She walked over to Steph.
“Gotta burn real quick, I better not be disappointed when I come back”
She quickly moved past Steph, so that she wouldn’t notice the bruise on half her face. But Steph knew. She had seen it as soon as Chloe had come in.“It’s none of my business, but dammit I wish it was. Nobody should have to deal with shit like that. Especially her” Steph mused as she pretended to look at her movie collection. Finally realizing she hadn’t actually answered Chloe she quickly turned to her.
“Sure, I’ll be ready to scrape your jaw off the floor when you come back!” she called out after Chloe, who was already halfway up the stairs.
When Chloe came back down, she felt foolish, for blushing and for not bringing a jacket. At least she could probably spend the night here again and avoid the absolute worst of the cold. It was a mixed bag however. Spending the nights at Steph used to be her haven away from the rest of the cruel, indifferent world that had formed around her. Lately however, the familiar withering had begun to take place. Her feelings for Steph had quickly begun to color the nights she spent there. She found herself becoming unable to relax, unable to sleep in Steph’s presence. She was always on guard, afraid to let anything shine through the cracks of her facade. The cycle had to be broken, she couldn’t lose another person and she couldn’t tell Steph how she felt. She still remembered the sharp turn her and Rachel’s thing had taken when Chloe tried to make anything serious of their relationship. Maybe Steph was different, but then again, maybe not. No, she would just have to get over these feelings. Leave them behind and never look back. But for now, she would just have to get through the night without cracking.
“So...wow me” she said, rubbing the cold out of her hands.
In the glow of the TV’s rays, they sat in silence. Steph: completely engrossed, Chloe: miserable. The come down from alcohol was something most people got to avoid. “All the normal people get drunk at night and sleep it off.” she could practically hear Joyce’s voice in her ear. Chloe could feel her mouth drying up, her guts churning and her head spinning while the movie just kept on going, unbothered.
As the credit scrolled past the screen, Steph got up to turn on the lights while Chloe desperately yearned for a cigarette, or a brain transplant, on a shovel to the head. She weighed that thought and decided a cigarette might be the least lethal option, for once. The lights gradually came on and Chloe’s head imploded. Pain. Searing pain. She got up, pushed her way past Steph and dimmed the lights to almost nothing.
They stood quiet for a moment.
“So…” Steph turned around to face Chloe in the dark, ready for the appraisal.
“What did you think of the movie? Did I nail it or what?”
“Yeah totally, definitely one of Hitchcock’s best”
Steph stood for a moment, eyes squinted.
“It’s Kubrick…You know that guy who had his name in big letters within the first 2 minutes of the movie?”
Chloe stood rubbing her temples, saying nothing.
Steph threw her hands up, defeated.
She continued “Nevermind. But wasn’t the atmosphere just so heavy? And that ending!”
“Sure, listen Steph, I don’t wanna be rude but if I don’t have a cigarette in this hand”-- She raised one hand and pointed to it with the other --”in 5 seconds, I’m legitimately gonna have a tantrum. Like, a full on toddler tantrum”
Having given up completely, Steph stood aside and raised an arm toward the exit-leading stairs.
“Lead the way, let me just grab something first”
With a joint in her hand and an ill-fitting borrowed jacket, Chloe felt more like a human being than she had in a while. She and Steph sat next to each other on a rusty bench at the far end of the garden, where they had a clear view of the star-filled sky. The eerie silence that could only be found in the night soothed Chloe. She looked up at the house, all the lights were out. They were alone.
“Thanks for this Steph, I...I really needed it” she said, shakily pushing her breath out before taking a heavy drag on the joint and passing it to her benchmate.
“Are you talking about the weed? Or… this.” she lazily moved her hand between them, pointing at each in turn. A silent moment passed. Then another and another after that. Chloe said nothing, instead leaning her head back and gazing into the sky. Steph put her free hand over Chloe's. Chloe gave a slight jump before turning her head to face Steph.
"Chloe, do you want to talk about"-- she hesitated for a moment before slowly touching Chloe's bruised cheek --"this…". Chloe flinched and turned her head away from Steph's touch.
“Too much” Steph thought to herself. A pregnant pause followed. It felt like miles between them. Finally Chloe spoke.
“Look. Steph, we’ve tried this before. I break apart, you try to put me back together and I leave here just as broken. What is the point? I’ll always be this way and you’ll get tired of trying. One day you’re gonna stop answering the phone and it’ll hurt just as much as it always does. I’m just so tired of people leaving. Dad dying, Max fucking off to Seattle and then Rachel moving to L.A. She didn’t even say goodbye. It’s funny, I always thought she was the brave one but to leave after all we shared without a single word. Fucking two-faced coward”
“Hey” Steph softly said, putting her hand on Chloe’s arm. “I’m not leaving, I’m right here. I can’t promise you what’s gonna happen to us in the future but for now, we’re here. I want to be with you and I’m not going anywhere”
Chloe turned her head to look into Steph’s eyes and held her gaze for a moment. Then, she shook her head. She knew this song and dance too well. Everybody lies.
“Whatever Steph”. The empty tone in Chloe’s voice tore into Steph’s heart. She had been through too much, heard too many lies to be comforted by words. “Maybe it’s time to show her what you really mean” Steph thought.
She moved her hand slowly up Chloe’s side, resting it on her cheek. Chloe didn’t turn away this time. Maybe that was a good sign, Steph thought. She just couldn’t read Chloe anymore. This was dicey but then again, maybe Chloe needed it as much as she did. She was gonna risk it.
“Chloe look at me”-- She did --”I have never been more serious in my entire life, you won’t lose me, I don’t know how to say it more clearly than that”
Chloe stared at her with glazed, dispassionate eyes.
“Except... maybe this”
She leaned forward and touched her lips to Chloe’s. Chloe was frozen, her entire being unmovable, especially her lips.
“Fuck, this was a terrible idea” Steph thought as the feeling of panic started to spread through her body.
An instance before Steph would separate their faces and admit defeat, Chloe’s lips began to move. Reciprocating. Steph could feel the corners of her lips move upward, involuntarily. Maybe this wasn’t such a terrible idea after all. It certainly didn’t feel that way in the way her hand caressed Chloe’s troubling marks, or in the way they shared a single breath, or in the way they shared their minds without a word spoken.
In Chloe’s mind, a storm was brewing. A hurricane of confusion, of relief and worry. Steph did really want her here, she did really want Chloe and she did really intend on staying. On the other hand, Chloe had been fooled before. Rachel. She could taste her on Steph’s lips, feel her in the touch, hear her in the words. She thought back to the day Rachel left. How she disappeared without a word. How Chloe had spent days calling, searching. How Chloe had found her months later, on an online modeling agency. How two-faced Rachel had been, she thought. How similar this did taste. The cycle had just started once again. Suddenly the feeling of Steph’s presence on her became an itch, a horrible inflammation of abused flesh. Her body started to shake and her mind gave up.
Chloe turned her head away from Steph’s. She got up and started walking.
“Chloe...I’m sorry Chloe! I- I wasn’t thinking!”
Chloe wasn’t there anymore.