Chapter Text
Laura proposes to Max six months after.
Surviving summer camp— or, in their case, the lack thereof— means a lot more than just a phrase that Max jokes would be funny to slap on a t-shirt. Two months spent locked in a cell, surrounded by nothing but metal and concrete and the echoing voice of your significant other who you can’t even see, let alone touch, really does a number on someone. In there, her mind spun like it was impaled on a rotisserie spit. Time slowed down to a tense trickle, a dripping faucet in an empty house.
The second they were free, suddenly it was all infinitely finite again. The woods were vast. Pivotal choices skipped by in camera flashes. Laura felt just how expendable their lives were with every throbbing heartbeat. But she refused to let Max’s life be thrown away. Refused. Even if breaking the curse was the last thing she ever did.
And now, as time accelerates onward, away from that hellish summer, she goes right along with it. Pedal to the floor. Full throttle. Why the fuck not?
Why the fuck not. That sounds like a fantastic motto to live by. It’s this mentality that guides her through most days, especially on one particular frosty February morning.
Today is February twenty-third. Six months to the day since the counselors escaped with their lives and maybe a shred of their sanity. Five months and roughly three weeks, give or take, since she sent a virtual deferral letter to her dream school. That’ll have to wait.
And it’s been five months and three days since she and Max reached a mutual decision that they didn’t want to live apart. Not now, and probably not ever again. Their less-than-desirable situation left them with an anemic assortment of options, however. The savings that would’ve been accrued from their summer counselor gig never came to be, and any money already saved from sparsely-paid vet internships or part-time jobs is small potatoes in the world of rent in upstate New York. The financial compensation for their trauma— demanded and won by some of the counselors’ more horrified families— also turned out to be rather meager.
It had taken a while to weigh their options. Both of their homes have always been open to the other, especially once they moved past the sneaky, awkward teenage years. Laura’s house is quiet; its only resident is her dad ever since her older brother moved out long ago. But it’s also cramped and not very private. Laura could translate the subtle twitches of alarm on Max’s face as he mulled over sharing a living space with the man who he always greets with a stammering, “M- Mr. Kearney.”
Before last June, Laura had always been amused by their interactions, since Max’s nerves remained steadfast as ever no matter how many times she assured him there was nothing to worry about. Laura’s dad has been a gruff guy for as long as she can remember, a lean bulldog of a man; it’s just the way he is, and she’s used to it. According to her brother Landon, anyone who knew their mom only to have her taken away has every right to be grumpy. But now, after what they’ve been through, Laura wasn’t about to drag Max into anything even mildly uncomfortable. Hence, her dad’s house was a no-go.
That’s how they ended up being long-term guests of the Brinly abode. It’s a larger place, a typical four-bedroom, three-bath family home. It’s also more chaotic. His parents graciously allowed them to set up camp (ha) in the finished basement, and most mornings Laura is still startled awake by scampering feet overhead, courtesy of Max’s younger twin sisters and the family dog. It’s nice having all this noise and laughter to listen to, because it means they’re alive. Alive and fully embraced by regular life. No curses to crack, no gun barrels biting into palms, no blood spatter on the walls. Though Laura’s nightmares still enjoy painting that sort of picture for her, she is glad to wake to complete and utter normalcy. Life will never be boring again as long as it’s like this— but even boring would taste sweet now, she thinks.
On the morning of February twenty-third, Laura crawls out of a gore-crusted dream— the kind that brings sentience to the corners’ shadows, makes monsters out of the furniture and old air hockey table, and injects white-hot adrenaline directly into the base of her spine. She sees Ryan’s face, and he’s clutching his stab wound, bleeding out onto the basement’s plush cream carpet, reluctantly caving to her bite. Her muscles are limp lettuce and her mind is buzzing with static, and then she sees Travis, his face perfectly split down the middle by a metal bar. I’m sorry.
He’s likely sitting somewhere similar to that cell now. All of the surviving Hacketts were arrested after that night; even with Kaylee’s body bobbing in the pool— self-defense, it was declared, a label Laura can’t disagree with— the family didn’t have a leg to stand on when the one missing hiker’s body was found in the lake. The cops are still searching for the other one. Laura doubts there’s anything left to find.
She wrenches herself free from the poisonous well behind her forehead, then props herself on her elbows and squints. A skinny sliver of sun has snuck its way into the room thanks to a gap in the short curtains that cover the narrow rectangular windows near the ceiling. Four panes of glass, cut exactly the same in size and length, all concealed by matching sets of taupe curtains that look too short to really exist. These strange blank spaces have been carved into Laura’s awareness of the world around her, after last summer, and this is one of them. Those curtains bother her, but she can’t explain why. There’s no reason they should wriggle like worms under her skin. It’s like she can see the two puzzle pieces that fit together, but she can’t bring herself to nudge them into place. Like she’s trying to wrap her mind around something, but every time she thinks she’s finished wrapping it around and around, more and more bandage regenerates at the end of the roll.
She draws in a breath. It smells warm. Buttery. Like—
“Mmm. Pancakes,” Max moans around a massive yawn. The words are slightly garbled by his jaw cracking open, but she gets the gist of it.
“I swear I still have this...” Laura pauses, frowns. She has to explain it, has to get out the thought. “... this heightened sense of smell, you know? Obviously I was only infected for a few hours, but... it sticks with me.”
“G’morning to you too, hon,” Max mumbles, rolling onto his stomach and stuffing his face in his pillow. His movement quakes the thin sofa-bed mattress and disturbs Laura’s share of the wrinkled sheets, but she hardly notices. “Welcome to day one-hundred-eighty of eternal existential crisis.”
“Sorry. Morning,” Laura says. “I just woke from a heavy dream and I was... thinking.”
“No, no, don’t be sorry. I like it when you’re all contemplative. Contemplative Laura makes up for my lack of thought.” She brushes floppy hair out of his face, and there’s a flash of freckles and mischief-laced blue eyes as he turns onto his cheek. “And between you and me,” Max adds, dropping his voice to a whisper, “she’s hot.”
Laura stifles a giggle. “Shut up,” she tells him.
He flips onto his back. Lifts his brows, wiggles them. “Make me, Ms. Morning Breath.”
“Oh really? Is that how we’re gonna do this?” she asks. “Playing dirty?” Within seconds, she tears away the fluffy blanket covering them both and launches into an all-out tickle attack. But even amid their laughter, Laura still spies black claws where her fingernails should be, gouging bone-deep gashes in Max’s skin where there are none, slicing through freckle and blush and smile. She blinks the image away. Shit, they need some fucking therapy. They’ve gotten some, but some isn’t enough.
Max squirms under her, though he doesn’t shriek and plead and shove her away like he used to. Laura sits back on her knees, still straddling him. “Huh. You’re a tough shell to crack this morning.”
He offers her a breathless shrug. “I don’t know what it is. I guess something about being a wolf for a while took out a lot of the skittish chihuahua in me.”
“Uh-huh,” she hums, unable to hide the splash of skepticism coloring her response.
Max tries a joke next, quipping, “Hey, I gotta protect my ego somehow. Even if it’s only from the tickle beast.”
“What ego?”
His jaw sags open and he stares up at her.
“Shit, sorry. That was mean.” Laura leans down and pecks his forehead, nose, both cheeks. “I’m sorry. I’m not really myself this morning.”
“It’s alright. Me neither.”
She falls back onto the paper-thin mattress and curls into his side. Max throws his arm around her shoulders and blows out a long breath. Six months, and a surplus of love still oozes between them, almost more than they know what to do with. It gushes like a nosebleed, squeezes out with every glance and touch and breath and drumming heartbeat. They are inseparable.
With all that bottled lightning crackling between them, Laura is amazed that his family doesn’t mind them sharing a bed downstairs out of the way from everyone. They’re adults— in theory— but they’re also still young, all simmering blood and blazing fingertips. At first she had thought it was obvious why they weren’t invited to stay in Max’s childhood bedroom upstairs. It only has a twin-size bed and is in the middle of everything, while down here they have their own bathroom and living space. But now, in hindsight, Laura recognizes a second reason.
Well, she can’t exactly blame the Brinlys. Better safe than sorry.
The two of them lay like that for a while, pressed together and subconsciously protecting the other from unseen unknowns. Eventually Max gets up and lumbers over to the tiny bathroom to pee and splash his face. He plants a sloppy kiss on the crown of Laura’s head as he goes.
She lays among the rumpled sheets and gazes at the dark TV at the foot of the bed, an old 32-inch flatscreen with a scratch slicing through the pixels left of center. Then she gives in to scrolling on her phone. She skips through Emma’s sponsored story, but pauses her thumb to watch a clip from one of her favorite accounts, which chronicles the adventures of an Australian Shepherd who chases the water from sprinklers and goes on lots of car rides where he sticks his nose and tongue out the window. The next story is from Dylan— yet another Spotify link of a ten-year-old indie pop song. Laura rolls her eyes, but adds it to her mental listen-to-later list regardless.
She sighs and drops her phone on her thigh without bothering to lock it. Right on cue, the wintry chill begins to seep in through the basement’s poorly insulated walls, and she tugs the blanket back over herself. She hears the shower squeak on in the bathroom; Max must’ve felt grimier than he previously thought.
Laura is considering turning on the TV, maybe catching one of those super-dramatized vet shows, when she notices a new noise. A slight jingle, increasing in volume and intensity as its source gets nearer. Like tags on a collar. Laura turns her head and smiles when she sees the family’s dog, Bailey, venture into the basement. “Hi, sweetie,” she coos, beckoning her closer. “How are you?”
Chestnut-brown with hazel eyes that seem to speak a thousand languages, Bailey is presumably a lab-beagle mix, though as with most shelter rescues, her true ancestry remains a mystery. Max and his sisters like to joke that she’s “barely leagle.” As is customary between them, Laura lets Bailey sniff her hand in greeting first. Then she skims along Bailey’s spine, and after that settles into a firmer massage, scrunching her fingers up and down her back. The dog grunts in pleasure.
Before long, Max emerges from the bathroom with a towel around his waist. When Laura’s eyes snag on him, he hesitates in the doorway and does some hip-swaying maneuver that vaguely resembles the start of a strip tease. She throws a bundle of socks at him. Max lets the projectile smack his chest, then sinks to his knees in mock surrender. “I’ve been hit,” he gasps, falling to all fours. “Save me, Bailey. Come on, girl.”
Bailey simply stares at him with her head cocked. Laura snorts.
“Wow, so much for man’s best friend,” Max mutters, amused. He stands again and picks out a t-shirt and sweatpants. Laura watches him get dressed like he’s painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.
“I love you,” she says suddenly. She never used to tell him that as much as she tells him now.
Max peeks over his shoulder, then looks away, then looks back at her again, all within half a second. A lopsided grin breaks through. “I love you too,” he says.
Laura buries her face in Bailey’s shoulder and rubs behind her ears one last time, inhaling a scent like warm bread and sunbaked soil, reminiscent of summer despite everything being frosted over outside. Then she finally rolls out of bed and pulls on an outfit and ties her hair up. She doesn’t notice the way Max gazes at her with the same level of wonder that she pours onto him.
“Ready for some pancakes?” he asks her.
Laura grins. “As ready as I’ve ever been.”
They follow Bailey over to the staircase that opens into the kitchen upstairs. Max gestures with his arm. “After you, ladies.”
They hike up the steps on soft socked feet and Laura nudges open the already ajar door. The Brinlys’ kitchen is a box of light, all the bustling activity within nearly blotted out by the stark winter sun that rises behind the bare tree branches outside.
Feeling like a video game protagonist trapped by a poor camera angle, Laura navigates to the table and pulls out a chair next to one of Max’s sisters, Stephy. Even if the girls were identical twins, Laura doubts she would have any trouble deciphering who is who. While Stephy is mellow for a twelve-year-old, more subdued and thoughtful in her mannerisms, Cassie possesses quite the fiery streak that Laura also can’t help but take a fond liking to.
“Morning,” she greets Stephy, who has pushed aside her emptied plate to work on a drawing in her sketchbook.
Stephy peers shyly in Laura’s direction. She has the kind of dark brown eyes that could hold a thousand secrets in them. “Hi,” she says. She indicates her work-in-progress. “I’m drawing Bailey chasing a squirrel.”
Laura leans over to examine it. “Wow, that’s really good,” she says. “But... it kinda looks like the squirrel is chasing Bailey?”
“Yeah.” Stephy smirks and pulls the sketchbook back onto her placemat. “It didn’t go so well for her.”
Like she heard her cue, Bailey reappears under the table to rest her muzzle between Laura’s knees, tail swishing in a gentle wag. “Aw, poor girl,” Laura teases, stroking her thumb over the curve of her head. “Let a squirrel get the better of you again, huh?”
Max finishes pouring orange juices and coffees and delivers them to the table. He sits down across from Laura and flicks through his phone while they idly play footsie under the table. The two of them are evidently running a bit behind everyone else; Max’s mother is just finishing the last batch of pancakes, his father is about to shut off the morning news on the TV, and Cassie is nowhere to be seen, presumably upstairs getting ready for school. Stephy is already dressed, her backpack perched neatly by the front door down the hall.
“Good morning, you two.” Max’s mom smiles as she sets down the final pile of pancakes on the table.
Max grins at her and reaches for the syrup. “Thanks, Mom.”
“Thanks, Beth. These look great,” Laura adds, lifting half of the stack onto her own plate. She doesn’t realize how hungry she is until she takes the first bite of pillowy, salty-sweet goodness.
“None for the dog, Max. She’s already had a couple bites,” his mother tells him. She starts to leave the room, but stops and leans back in to ask, “Could you do me a favor and run to the store today so I don’t have to go after work? It’s just a handful of things. I left the list on the fridge.”
“Sure, no problem,” Max replies between the bites he’s shoveling in. Laura can’t resist mimicking him. The way they consume food might never be the same after being infected; it’s always a mad rush as if they’ll never get to eat again. Laura has noticed his family’s uncertain glances, though they never point out any worries. In fact, it’s almost like they don’t even know where to begin when it comes to picking Max and Laura’s brains about what happened to them.
Anyone who wasn’t at Hackett’s Quarry can’t possibly understand the events of that night. Laura herself still has trouble outlining it in her head sometimes. As far as Max’s parents and her dad know, they were wrongfully imprisoned for two months after a minor car wreck, and when they were able to get out, they got roped into a bloody game of cat-and-mouse with the Hacketts. It’s best that they never know the entire story, Laura thinks. Though part of her does wonder if cracking open the trap door in her mind and letting loose a little bit of the traumatic truth would really do any harm.
While Max and Laura wash and dry the breakfast dishes, his father filters through from the living room to say hello. Cassie also flounces down the hallway, bookbag in tow, and announces her intention to sign up for the middle school’s talent show. Laura flicks suds onto Max’s hair as she converses with Cassie about the dance routine she’s planning to an Ariana Grande song. “That better not just be a copy of some dance you saw on TikTok, Cass,” Max says as he spritzes water on Laura in retaliation.
Cassie’s eyes flash with annoyance. They’re her brother’s, sharp and the color of pool water. “No! It’s my own original dance!” she protests before stomping off, understandably offended by her brother’s teasing allegations.
Laura gives Max a small shove, so then he shouts after her, “Uh, yeah, great! Let me know when I can rehearse it with you!”
A few minutes later, the entirety of his family— minus Bailey— has departed for the day, and Laura is able to relax the taut muscles in her shoulders. She’s comfortable with his folks, has been after knowing them for years, but something about her relationship with them has shifted now that she lives in their house. It isn’t necessarily a bad shift— just different. It makes her relationship with Max more real, more set in stone, more irreversible. There’s no denying that she will leave a lasting imprint on the lives of these people who took her in when they didn’t have to. And it’s important to her that the impression isn’t an ugly one. They mean a lot to Max, so they mean a lot to her also.
Max grins at her as she tucks the bottle of dish soap back under the counter. “Looks like it’s just us now,” he says.
“Hmm.” Laura makes a show of pretending to check their surroundings. “Looks like you’re right.”
He leans in and pecks her nose, and she kisses his lips in return, linking her wrists at the back of his neck. When they part, Max nuzzles her and murmurs, “You ready to go?”
“Yeah. Let me just grab my bag.”
They both give Bailey a goodbye pat, then throw on coats and hats and venture into the February chill. Max’s car is sitting in the garage, still a bit busted up and taking a well-deserved rest after being retrieved from the scrapyard in North Kill. So they walk up to Laura’s car instead, which is parked at the curb just out of the way of the now vacant driveway.
A fifteen-year-old silver Subaru she bought for herself as cheap, no-frills transportation to school and work, it is in remarkably mint condition despite the high mileage on its odometer. Max affectionately dubbed the car “Sylvia” for its paint color, and Laura had to admit the name is rather fitting, even while she rolled her eyes all the way into next year at the concept of naming cars like pets. Yet for someone so intimately familiar with the way cars work, she can’t blame Max for wanting to make them a little more familiar for the mechanically-challenged, too.
“Here hon, you can drive Sylvia,” Laura says, tossing the keys at him.
“Really? Is that just so—”
“I can control the music?” Laura beams at him, and that’s enough of an answer.
They climb in, and Laura shrugs off her drawstring bag and plugs in her playlist while Max makes all his minor seat and mirror adjustments. He’s especially careful and precise now when he’s behind the wheel, and that’s the main reason Laura lets him drive her car often— so he can be reassured that she still trusts him as a driver even after what happened. It’s a small fragment of her larger goal to leave all of that shit in the rear view mirror. If that’s even possible.
“Aw, really, Laur? Jonas Brothers?” Max whines as they wheel out of the neighborhood.
“I can put on The Script instead,” she says lightly, a threat. Max sticks out his tongue at her. She scrunches her nose at him. And by the time they park at Target, Max is singing along with “Burnin’ Up” like he wrote it himself.
As usual, Max convinces Laura to share a bag of popcorn from the cafe with him. They pick up the things on his mom’s list and then wander around some more like they’re shopping for their own place. They spend about a year in the housewares section while Laura holds up candles for Max to sniff. Then they move on to the clothing department, where he skims his fingers along just about every sweater on the rack and goes, “Ooh, hon, you gotta feel this! How do they make it so soft?”
After checking out, Max emerges outside ahead of Laura and stops short. “Oh, looney tunes,” he swears, holding out a hand to catch some of the sky’s spray. “It’s raining.”
Laura steps out next to him and frowns. “Oh, fuck,” she mutters. “It’s raining.” Then they glance at each other and cave into laughter.
They brace themselves, then jog across the parking lot to Sylvia, whose normally dull gray flanks now gleam with specks of rain. They collapse inside and Max puts on Beyoncé before Laura can stop him. They sail through town, admiring how other cars’ headlights bleed onto the wet pavement. Then they swing by the Dunkin’ drive-thru for a second dose of coffee, during which Laura shows Max a cute selfie Emma posted of herself with Abi, and Max asks yet again, “You’re sure they’re not a thing?”
Laura double-taps the image and scrolls to another cat video. “Positive,” she says. “Probably.”
Since they’re near her former neighborhood, they order an extra donut and swing by Laura’s dad’s house. “I’m sure he’s okay, but I still worry about him sometimes,” she admits as the car turns onto her old street. Brief flashes of déjà vu flicker across both of their minds at the familiar sight— slipping out of windows, climbing down trees, coasting ten under the speed limit with only the parking lights on until they made it back to the main road. Back in the days of broken curfews and constant whispers and tiny thrills, when sneaking around was like earning the ultimate teenage trophy.
The windshield wipers squeak over the glass, swiping the high school memories out of Laura’s vision. Then she notices something else in front of her house, and whatever else she had been about to say dies on her tongue. “Keep driving,” she tells Max.
“Wha— are you sure, hon? What’s wrong?” he asks. Even as he questions her, he still does as requested and rolls past the modest bungalow.
Though nobody else can possibly tune in to her screaming thoughts, Laura still has a sinking-stomach feeling that someone might be listening in on her mind anyway. She hugs her knees to her chest and leans forward to watch in the side mirror as the vaguely familiar car parked in front of her dad’s house recedes into the distance.
Max stays quiet, knowing that she will speak when she’s ready. And sure enough, the moment they exit back onto the main road through town, Laura explains in a tight voice, like she’s forcing her words through the tiniest gap imaginable, “I... saw my dad’s girlfriend’s car parked out front. I don’t...” She swallows, throat aching. “I can’t deal with that right now.”
“Okay. It’s okay,” Max murmurs. He turns off the music and holds out his hand over the center cup holders housing their large coffees. Palm up, fingers spread in invitation. Laura presses her trembling fist into his warmth, and he encloses her hand in his, rubbing his thumb over bone-white knuckles.
“I know it seems so, I don’t know, small compared to what we faced last summer. What you went through. But—”
“It’s not,” Max interrupts. He catches her gaze for a second, then reluctantly returns his attention to the road. “It isn’t that at all, hon. I mean...” A heavy sigh. “Laura, you lost your mom. Of course that’s a big deal.”
“Yeah, well, I lost her eighteen years ago. Did I really lose her if I don’t even remember having her in the first place?”
Max is quiet. Laura hates herself for doing this, for backing him into a corner when he was only trying to help. He, the guy who shapeshifted into a fucking werewolf more than once, is trying to make her feel better.
What did she do to deserve it?
They return to the still-empty house, wolf down some lunch, then take Bailey on a jaunt outside. Max, who is known around the neighborhood for being a bit of a car whisperer, is called over to poke around under the hood of a neighbor’s old pickup truck that keeps stalling. Meanwhile, Laura returns with the dog right as the Brinlys start arriving home. A school bus trundles to a halt by the stop sign at the end of their block, and Stephy and Cassie are the first kids to leap out of it. They race Laura and Bailey back to the house, and she lets the twins beat them there just so she can hear their own unique victory cries. The afternoon carries neatly into evening, and gradually the drafty rooms fill up with family, and the house begins to feel warmer again— especially once Max rejoins them.
After dinner— an easy affair of paper plates, pizza, and salad— Laura pads down the carpeted stairs to the basement. She finds her boyfriend already settled in bed, sipping one of those icky wine seltzer drinks he likes, the TV’s whitish glow alive in his eyes. Laura crawls across the blankets to him and presses a kiss into that tender sweet spot at his temple. His skin is still perfumed with the cheap Bath & Body Works shower gel someone put in the bathroom down here. Something smoky, near pomegranate but not quite. He grins tiredly and leans into her, and she twists around to see what he’s watching.
“Teen Wolf,” Laura observes. Her head swings back toward him, disbelief written between the wrinkles in her brow. “Wow. Really?”
“What?” Max is the illustration of innocence. “It’s...” He waves a hand helplessly. “... interesting stuff. You know?”
“Do I?”
He narrows his eyes at her, pushes out his lips. “Hmm. Rhetorical question?”
In lieu of a verbal reaction, Laura kisses him— the kind of kiss she wants to linger on his lips while she’s away, to keep him yearning. Then she tiptoes to the shower and washes off the day. When she emerges twenty minutes later in linen shorts and a baggy sweatshirt swiped from Max’s wardrobe, her mind as pleasantly hazy as the fogged up bathroom mirror, he is still engrossed in the same Teen Wolf episode. So Laura gives in. She falls onto the squeaky mattress, cracks open a lime seltzer— his least favorite flavor, the ones he always saves for her to drink because she inevitably will— and watches the damn show with him.
Or, well, they attempt to watch the show. But mediocre TV and a couple cans of cloying seltzer quickly turn into heavy petting. Laura slides onto Max’s lap and chases after his lips and neck like there is nothing else to do in the world. A low hum of appreciation rumbles in his throat; he turns off the TV and, thoughtfully, places his empty drink can on the pushed-aside coffee table rather than throwing it to the floor. She noticeably marvels at his flexibility as he does this, and all he can do in response is smirk, jovially toss his hair, and say, “Yeeah, I’ve still got it.”
“Shut up,” Laura mumbles against his mouth. He swallows her words whole and consumes her in another kiss. Then another, and another, until her hair has surely dried, until the next effortless day has dawned outside, until she leans back and says, “We should get married.”
Max blinks several times, not unlike the guy in that gif meme Dylan likes to send in their seldom-used counselor group chat. “Wh—” He swallows hard. Gulps, to be more precise. “Uh, come again, hon?” he asks weakly.
Laura forces an exhale through her lungs. Life is too fleeting, she thinks, to not be honest. “That is... something I would like to do... with you. In the future, obviously. I would marry you, Max.”
All at once, his face crumbles into the softest of smiles. The shells of his ears match the red in his cheeks. “God, Laur. I- I mean, I hope you know that I’d marry you too. In a heartbeat.”
She stares at him for a while, then murmurs, “Someday.” The promise leaves her lips as weightless as a cloud.
“Someday,” he agrees. “I’m all in, babe. I know we’re still young and everything, a- and we have our whole lives and blah, blah, blah, but— we already survived the worst, haven’t we?”
“We have.”
Max looks like he’s in the grip of a wild, euphoric epiphany. “Honey, we could handle frickin’ anything! We are the dream team.”
Laura can’t suppress a giggle at his endearing fervor, nor does she want to suppress it. “Well, that goes without saying,” she replies with an emphatic nod.
Then out of nowhere Max says, “Wait a sec, I’ll be right back.” Before she can utter half a question, he jumps off the bed and races up the stairs.
Moments later he returns, feet pounding like thunder in his effort to rejoin her as soon as possible under their cocoon of warm sheets. Laura instantly pinpoints the surprise in his hands— plastic with a nearly iridescent shine, crinkling excitedly. “Noticed this was forgotten from my sisters’ stash of old Halloween candy. I, uh, kept forgetting about swiping it from the cabinet... until now.”
He holds up the multicolored package, and Laura recognizes it at last. “Oh my god, Max, don’t tell me you’re doing the ring pop thing.”
“Yeah, I’m— I’m doin’ the ring pop thing, hon,” he says between bouts of laughter. “I’m sorry, you know I have to.” And to his credit, Max does look genuinely apologetic when he pops open the wrapper and shards of stale candy go flying everywhere. “Okay— oh, shit— okay, will you make me the happiest guy in the world and—”
“Yes, Max—”
“— okay, awesome! So... so will you do the honors?” Max asks. He holds out his hand. Laura wouldn’t want to do anything else besides slide that blue raspberry-flavored rock onto his finger, so that is exactly what she does. And the kiss they exchange right after, sitting cross-legged over the tangle of sheets, is an oath.
She doesn’t want to dream that night. Not when her reality is, at the moment, so ideal and blissful and right that she doesn’t even need to dream. But the human mind and heart are two separate entities.
The nightmare comes to her in abstract pieces. There’s Max on the night of the final showdown, pallid and gray and melting, holding out his ring necklace to her and asking her to keep it safe while he’s not himself. Then his boy-next-door smile becomes crowded with needles and fangs that tear thoughtlessly into her flesh. And then she’s running, sprinting, fallen twigs snapping like bones under her feet. She’s in that flimsy boat, bobbing to and fro over murky depths. Then there’s a body splashing into a pool, hitting with a thud like the water is solid, Max— no, no, not Max, he’s safe on the island— and then there’s bullets entering her own body, but she’s infected, so they should be benign, like something made up, merely a product of a troubled mind. Only this time the bullets embed, take root among her organs like they’re meant to be there. The hole in her face is a second mouth, and it screams.
The scream shatters her skull. Max. Its noise multiplies at the rate of cancer cells. And there’s something else living in her head, too, the curse of split-second decisions and what-ifs, blood roaring in her ear canals until it fades into an overlapping chorus of cicada chirps, nature’s concert. Max. Max. A severed head, grill marks seared into the doughy flesh of the cheek. Pressing the muzzle of a gun into the bony, malformed skull of Silas. Her teeth sinking into Ryan’s arm, salty blood and sweat. The images cling to her like damp coffee grounds, like wet grass clippings. A corpse falls, bounces off the keys of a decrepit piano, yellowed aged ivory bound by cobwebs, one trill after another stapled to her brain matter. She used to play piano when she was little. She used to sing, too, in little elementary school musicals. So did her mom. But then her mom died.
Max.
Three in the morning is a special, hellish stretch of time reserved only for overthinking and waking in a cold sweat. Laura spends the remainder of the night making friends with the basement ceiling. The only thing that provides her solace is the gentle, steady image of a snoozing Max beside her.