Archive of Our Own ^beta

This is the private journal of Max Caulfield.

So if your name isn’t Max Caulfield, stop reading this, close the book, put it down and walk away. Because if I find out you’ve been reading this… well, let’s just say I have recently developed a very particular set of skills. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you.

(Still can’t believe Nathan talked me into watching that film. So not my style.)

And if your name is Max Caulfield? You’d better be the right one. You’d better be me. Because if you’re not… well, how does that quote end?

Oh, yeah: I will kill you.

I don’t know where to start.

Wherever you want, that’s probably what Mr Jefferson would say. Everything tells a story, and photographs are no different. But your job, as the photographer, is to make the photo tell the story you want it to.

God, I sound like his groupie.

But this isn’t a photo, this is me in my room, with the blinds drawn and the lights off and music I can’t even remember the name of on my crappy little hi-fi and I’m just curled up in the corner scribbling this down as fast as I can so I don’t have to look up and see the photo of Chloe I’ve propped up next to my bed.

Chloe with her blonde hair and quiet smile and that fucking tube in her neck so a machine can breathe for her.

Oh Chloe I’m so sorry I’m so sorry you didn’t deserve any of this, not from me and especially not from her.

Start from the beginning, Max.

Start from the beginning and don’t leave anything out.

Blackwell. I guess it starts with me coming to Blackwell. With me coming back to Arcadia Bay.

So I got my scholarship (despite my best efforts, as Mom likes to say). That was nice, I guess. Got the bus back to Arcadia Bay from Seattle, all my worldly possessions crammed into a few holdalls and a backpack. God, that was a long journey. My legs felt like someone else’s by the end of it.

Of course a few days later my parents turned up in their car and brought the rest of my worldly possessions with them. But I wanted to get to Arcadia Bay under my own steam. Wanted that moment where the road crests the hill on the east side of town and for a moment, before you plunge back amongst the pine trees, the whole town is laid out below you. Arcadia Bay looks beautiful from up there, for the few seconds you can see it, framed by trees on both sides and the ocean in the background. I guess I wanted that moment to myself, without Mom or Dad going on about how they were so excited for me or have I packed this and will I be okay without that.

I would have taken a photo if the bus hadn’t been moving. Maybe I should have anyway. Arcadia Bay, framed by nature, blurred by movement… maybe I should have. Always take the shot. That’s another one of Mr Jefferson’s.

So anyway, back to Arcadia Bay. Blackwell’s not bad. I made some friends, got in with the party crowd a bit quicker than I expected. I’ve got Victoria and Nathan to thank for that. They’re good people, although Nathan can get a bit… intense, sometimes. I guess it’s his medication. I can’t blame the poor guy, if I had his dad I think I’d be intense too. They made my 18^th a blast, them and the rest of the Vortex Club. Nathan joked for a bit that he was going to put that video of me getting way too drunk and kissing Victoria up on the web, but he never did.

And of course there’s Mr Jefferson, the reason I went to Blackwell in the first place. He’s cool. Hell, he’s more than cool, he’s Mark Jefferson. I mean, come on. There are people who would kill for a chance with a photoshoot with the man and here he is teaching us about chiaroscuro.

Mr Jefferson’s been nice to me these past few weeks, sending me emails about what he’s covered in his lessons and encouraging me to start re-attending class. I still think he’s disappointed I didn’t enter anything for the Everyday Heroes contest.

Chloe.

Chloe, where do I start with you? With how we were friends for years when we were kids? With how we played pirates and made each other mixtapes and snuck wine from the cabinet that William and Joyce didn’t think we were tall enough to reach?

Or with how you had that accident that locked you in your own body for the rest of your life and I just abandoned you? How I should have come running the moment we got that phone call in Seattle – I still remember your dad’s voice, crackly on a bad line, “Max, it’s William… there’s been… it’s Chloe…” – but I never did, just sent you letters and postcards when I remembered, too selfish to come back and look you in the eye. Too frightened to pick you up when you couldn’t move at all.

But I was going to make it up to you Chloe, I swear, I was going to try and make everything better. I promise.

I was.

You’re looking at me from that photo by my bed like you don’t believe me.

That weekend, I was going to come round. Thursday was going to be the End of the World party. So I’d spend Friday morning sobering up – and trust me, since I came to Blackwell, I’ve learned some tricks for that – and then come round on Friday afternoon. I had this idea that we’d spend the whole weekend together. Friday chilling by the beach or something (if they’d moved those poor whales), Saturday we could have gone to town, gone shopping or something, I don’t know. A lazy Sunday after that. Board games maybe, or a film or two. Something nice to wind down.

I even planned to make some space brownies with Victoria and bring them with me so we could have them on Saturday night once your parents went to bed. If I’d known the amount of morphine you were on I wouldn’t have bothered.

It would have been nice, wouldn’t it? Just the two of us, like when we were little. Goofing off all weekend and driving your parents up the wall. Just like old times.

You still don’t look like you believe me.

I still don’t like to think about what happened.

The last clear memory I have is from the Wednesday afternoon of that week. Sat on the grass outside Blackwell with the rest of them – Victoria, Taylor, Nathan, Courtney. I can’t remember what we were talking about, probably nothing important, but I remember us all sat in a circle. I remember the sun on the back of my neck. I remember the buzz of a drone above us and I remember the sound of the cars on the road. I was there, then. I know that.

And then I wasn’t.

There was a pain, like a headache but worse, like something was shunting my brain aside, like I was being squeezed to make room for something else and oh God it hurt, it hurt but it was so quick I didn’t have any time to do anything.

Could I have fought it? I wonder that a lot these days. Could I have kicked her out, if I was strong enough? If I’d made an effort for once in my life? Would you still be here, Chloe?

And then I don’t remember a thing until I woke up next to you.

I was groggy and confused and there was a bad taste in my mouth like when I don’t brush my teeth after morning coffee. And there you were. Older, but still the same Chloe, all webbed up in your tubes and braces and blankets. You made my breath catch when I saw you in the flesh for the first time in five years. You really did.

I thought you were asleep. I thought I must have stepped up my plan, gone to see you way too early, and maybe we’d gotten way too high and I’d blacked out. It’s happened before, after all. You looked beautiful there, in the morning light. Peaceful and happy.

I almost took a fucking photo.

When you wouldn’t wake up I thought you were just out of it, and then when I shook you and still nothing happened I started to get frightened. I tried to find your pulse! I don’t even know where the pulse is but I tried to find it, squeezing your wrists and neck like I’ve seen in movies. Nothing. And then I started to panic, hot and acid panic that burned by guts and the bottom of my spine, and I ran to get Joyce and William.

I don’t think I’m ever going to forget the tears on Joyce’s face when she realised what was going on. Or William’s choked voice as he tried to get you to wake up.

And I know I’m never going to forget their faces when they saw the morphine injector in your IV drip, and turned to look at me.

The police asked me a lot of questions. “We’re treating Ms Price’s death as suspicious,” that’s what they said. Fucking right it’s suspicious. Don’t need to tell me.

They asked me, again and again, if I remembered anything. At first I said I didn’t, so they let me stew for a while.

And then I started to remember.

Snippets, fragments, nothing coherent. Us on the beach, us watching Blade Runner. Your tears shining in the morning sun and a beautiful smile on your face in the evening light. And a question, you asked me to do something awful and I agreed.

And I would have done it too. I want you to know that, Chloe, I would have done it too if you’d asked me. But it should have been me who did it. It should have been me who held your hand as you slipped away, should have been me who was weeping into your bedsheets as your head sagged and your eyes closed. I at least owed you that. It should have been me who did the unthinkable, and it should have been me who mourned you.

But instead it was her, whoever the fuck she is, some imposter, some other Max who stole my last chance to be with you.

Could you tell the difference, Chloe? That’s the question I really don’t want to think about. The evening sun’s slanting in through the cracks in the blinds as I sit here scribbling, the same colour as the light of my last memory before her. I can hear Zach and Logan playing outside, the clank of Samuel climbing a ladder. I’ll do anything not to think about that question but here it comes again. Did you know she wasn’t me? Did she fool you? Or did you notice, but were so glad to see me you didn’t ask?

You asked her to end it for you.

Would you have asked me?

In the end, from what memories I cobbled together, the police decided that I’d just fucked up the morphine injector. A tragic accident. William and Joyce refused to press charges. I think they suspect you might have asked me to do what I did.

So I came back to Blackwell like nothing had happened. Came back and cried onto Victoria’s shoulder for a whole afternoon. Ruined her cashmere. She bought a new one, but I was in her room a few days ago and notice she’d kept the old one for some reason.

Tried to go to classes like normal but I couldn’t. Now I just sit here in my room with my blinds drawn and try to remember what’s real and what’s not. Mr Jefferson sends me his catch-up emails and Kate – bless her – brings me notes from his classes. The principal tried to talk me out of this slump but all I heard was the drone of his voice, not the words.

Because I’ve started to remember other things. These aren’t my memories, I think. They’re hers, left behind in my brain like footprints.

I remember a Victoria who couldn’t be more unlike the one I know, a Nathan who acts a thousand times worse than I’ve ever seen him. I don’t remember William but I remember a man called David Madsen who looks oddly familiar.

And I remember a different Chloe, blue hair and attitude and raw energy. A beautiful, strong, furious Chloe who’s daring the rest of the world to be the one to blink first. A Chloe that maybe you deserved to be, instead of the one you were forced to become.

This morning Kate brought me her notes from Mr Jefferson’s class and I nearly screamed when I opened the door because she’s dead, I saw her jump, I tried to stop her but I wasn’t fast enough to stop her or kind enough to help her or smart enough to talk her out of it – but that’s her Kate. Not my Kate who brings me notes and who I keep trying to get to join the Vortex Club (and she tries to get me to join her Bible study group in revenge). Not my Kate who got wasted at a party once and who had to be smuggled back to her dorm by me and Taylor to sleep it off, all three of us dodging campus security and climbing in through her window when she lost her room keys.

And I’ve got other memories, too, ones I can’t explain. I don’t normally hang with Warren and the geeks but I got them to explain time travel and chaos theory and wormholes and the multiverse to me. I think I know less now than when I started, but some of it makes sense.

I don’t know if I’m called Max or Maxine any more. Some of my schoolbooks say one. Some of my memories say the other.

This morning I saw my clock hit 10:30 twice.

Kate knocked on the door, and then a few minutes later she knocked on it again. Bringing the same notes. Smiling the same smile.

I’m not going crazy. I swear I’m not.

She left me her memories, some of them, and I think she’s left me with something else.

This power doesn’t seem as strong as she remembers it being. I can’t rewind much and sometimes it doesn’t work. My body rewinds with the rest of the world so I can’t use it to break and enter. Photos are still just photos to me, not magic portals to fucking up someone else’s life.

But I’m getting better with it.

If there’s any justice in this world, Chloe, it’d be you who gets this power. So you can rewind the accident, slam on the brakes, swerve to one side, survive with nothing worse than a ruined pair of pants and a story to tell. So you don’t spend years as a living statue, slowly suffocating as your lungs fail. So you don’t have to ask a stranger wearing the skin of your loser friend to kill you.

It’s been a day or two since I last wrote in this. I’ve started attending classes again. Everyone looked happy to see me again. Victoria gave me a hug and Mr Jefferson used my return to kick off the start of a new photo competition. The theme is ‘natural beauty’ this time. He’s already bugging me to enter.

And maybe I will. I wonder how Mr Jefferson would react if I handed him a photo of two Maxes, her frightened and confused and me…

The ultimate selfie. Ha.

I’m working on ways to go after her. I have a few ideas. I might be able to go back to the day the other Max took over if I can find a photo of it. I’ve asked Brooke if she ever keeps her drone footage.

I don’t know what I’m going to do to her if I catch her. But she’ll deserve it.

And maybe after that we can have that weekend like I planned. Just you and me, Chloe, like old times. Max and Chloe, on top of the world again, nothing and no-one to hold us back.

So if you’ve read all this and your name isn’t Max Caulfield, it’s up to you what you do now. You might think I’m mad. You might be right. If you ask me about it, I’ll try and explain. But also you might be tempted to take this and spread it around Blackwell to try and make fun of me. Do that and I’ll destroy you. You’ve no idea how easy it is for me to do that now.

And if your name is Max Caulfield, and you’re her, and you’ve somehow come back, take this body you’re in and drop it off a cliff. Or throw it under a bus on the highway. Or take an overdose of those sleeping pills they prescribed me. Send me off to be with Chloe because that’s the only way you’ll be safe. The moment I get control back I’m coming for you.

I need to wrap this up now. Brooke just texted me: “Drone footage is a go.” God bless her and her interest in aerial photography.

I guess I’ll see you soon, Chloe.

One way or another.