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“What is it?” Rachel sighs into the phone.
At first there’s no reply on the other line, just the faint sound of breathing and some music in the background, tinny and distant.
“Chloe, c’mon,” Rachel shakes her head, impatient. She wants to skip the routine. It’s tired. It’s boring. She takes a deep breath and raises her gaze to the sky.
The moon is huge tonight.
“I’m gonna fucking hang up on you.”
Chloe chuckles, but the sound is low and dark, like Rachel’s empty threat is the punchline to some sad joke, “How did you know it was me?”
“Who else would be fucking blowing up my phone at two am?” Rachel asks, smiling weakly despite herself.
She wants to be stern, but she knows Chloe too well, can hear the tears she’s trying to keep out of her voice in the ragged edge of her breathing, the choppy cadence of her words. It’s a little disappointing, because she always falls for that kicked puppy shit.
“Rachel…”
Here it comes.
“Rachel, I’m sorry,” Chloe breathes into the receiver. “I fucking miss you. Please…”
She knew that this was exactly how this call would go when she chose to answer it, but it still fucking sucks. Rachel feels so trapped she wants to scream, sick of the games she gets caught up in over and over again, feeling like an actor playing the role of herself, waiting to recite the next line of the script.
“So, this is the part where you ask me to come back, right?” Rachel cut her off, unable to keep the bitterness out of her voice.
“Rachel.”
“You’re drunk, Chloe,” Rachel sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose. Chloe never could apologize sober. “Hang up. Get some sleep, call me back and try this again when it might actually mean something.”
“I can’t,” Chloe whispers. Rachel can hear the sound of bedsprings, she closes her eyes and sees Chloe there, spread out atop the mattress, phone pressed to her cheek. She’s got a half lit joint between the fingers of her left hand, eyes fixed on the ceiling, that impossibly pretty mouth pursed into the saddest, most beautiful frown she’s ever seen; wounded and vulnerable and far too much Rachel’s type. “You know I can’t relax with you mad at me…”
“I bet you don’t even know what you’re apologizing for,” Rachel accuses, but she’s just playing her part. What Chloe knows, what she doesn't know, whatever she decides to do next won't change who they are to each other.
Chloe breathes deep and then dives in.
“For being controlling,” she says, a harsh rush of air into the receiver. “For not respecting your boundaries.”
Rachel bites her lip and waits for the rest.
“Rachel,” Chloe sighs her name, like a prayer. “I’m sorry. I mean it. I’m sorry.”
“Okay,” Rachel breathes. She reaches into her pocket and withdraws a pack of cigarettes, sinking down into a crouch on the floor and lighting it. The smoke burns pleasantly, loosening the vice grip on her ribcage just slightly. “Okay.”
“Do you forgive me?” Chloe murmurs, needy and earnest.
“Yeah,” Rachel says. Her head aches. “Chloe, you can’t keep pulling this shit on me.”
“I know…”
“You have to trust me,” Rachel continues. God, she’s exhausted. “When I tell you I’m not going to leave you, I need you to believe me. Because if you don’t, what’s the point of any of this? Who is this helping?”
“I know,” Chloe repeats. “I know, I know.”
“I don’t want to hurt you,” Rachel says.
She means it.
She always does.
“Get some sleep, okay? I’ll talk to you in the morning.”
“Okay,” Chloe says. “Night, Angel.”
Rachel shakes her head at the nickname. “Night, Priceless.”
She hangs up the phone and regards the stars. She used to think they were the only thing she could miss about Arcadia Bay, but she knows better now. There will be stars in Los Angeles. There are stars everywhere. If they’re dimmer down south, it won’t matter because everything else will be brighter. She'll be brighter.
Rachel takes one last drag of her cigarette and flicks the butt onto the ground, crushing it beneath her heel and smearing tiny embers across the pavement. She watches until the glow fades completely.
“Who was that?” Frank asks when she lets herself back into the RV. Pompidou looks up and thumps his tail sleepily in greeting.
“No one,” she murmurs, kicking off her shoes and kneeling on the bed. She crawls up his body, presses her hands into his bare chest and pushes him gently onto his back. She leaves her right hand against his heart, feels it thump into her palm.
For as much as Frank and Chloe can’t stand each other, they really do have a lot in common. Too much, actually, which is at least half the problem.
They both kiss her like they think each time might be the last.
Rachel responds in kind.
She’s not sure, either.