Chapter Text
Grief was not something Amanda had much experience with.
It wasn't that she had never lost anyone before. She had. Life made sure of that eventually. But this—this constant ache lodged beneath her ribs, this exhaustion that seemed to settle into her bones no matter how much she rested—was unlike anything she had ever dealt with before. It wasn't something she had ever discussed in therapy because, until now, she had never needed to.
And she certainly never imagined it would happen like this.
Amanda forced herself upright when her alarm went off. The room was still dark, the pale light of dawn barely visible through the curtains. It was five in the morning. She had slept for maybe an hour, though even that felt generous. Most nights were spent drifting in and out of restless sleep, only to wake up feeling just as exhausted as when she had closed her eyes.
The past week had passed in a blur she struggled to make sense of. Reporters camped outside the university. Dedications appearing almost overnight. Phone calls from worried family members. Messages from friends checking in. Every television station seemed to be covering the tragedy, and every article she accidentally stumbled across carried another list of names—names she recognized, students she had met, and friends.
People who had been alive a week ago and were now being remembered through photographs and candlelight vigils. Amanda couldn't escape it. Even when she turned off her phone and avoided the news, the silence only left her alone with her thoughts, and her thoughts always dragged her back to the same place.
Back to Caledon. Back to the fire.
"Please, ma'am, you have to stay back—"
Amanda shut her eyes before the memory could fully settle in.
It never came in pieces anymore. It arrived all at once, vivid enough to make her stomach twist. The flames reaching into the night sky. The thick smoke pouring from the building. The desperate shouting from emergency responders trying to control the crowd. She remembered fighting against the people holding her back, convinced that if she could just get closer, if she could just see for herself, she would find Max somewhere in the chaos.
No. Not again.
Instead, she had spent the next week watching the list of confirmed victims grow longer. Every day brought another update. Every day brought another family receiving answers.
And every day Max remained missing.
Amanda hated that word.
Missing.
It sounded temporary, as though Max had simply wandered off and would eventually be found. Yet she hated the alternatives even more. She hated the sympathetic looks people gave her when they thought she wasn't paying attention. She hated the careful way people spoke whenever Max's name came up. Most of all, she hated how everyone seemed to be slowly accepting a conclusion Amanda couldn't force herself to reach.
They, well Amanda, had found Max's Polaroid camera lying just outside the building. Her car had been discovered in the parking lot not long after. Both were enough to confirm what Amanda already knew—that Max had been there that night.
What they hadn't found was Max herself.
Amanda remembered that all too well.
"Please, ma'am, you have to stay back—"
"No!" Amanda struggled against the officer's grip. "Please, my friends, they're—"
"Let her in. It's okay."
The command cut cleanly through the chaos.
Amanda turned towards the voice and found Yasmin standing a few feet away. Her posture was straight, her expression composed, exactly the way people expected her to be in a crisis.
But Amanda could see it. The strain around her eyes, the tightness in her jaw, and the way her hands remained clenched at her sides. The university behind her was burning, and everyone knew there were still people unaccounted for.
Yasmin looked exhausted—hearbroken. Yet somehow she was still standing.
The officers immediately stepped aside.
"Yes, ma'am."
Amanda barely waited for them to move before rushing past.
"Thank you, Yasmin."
The words left her breathlessly, disappearing into the noise around them.
The scene beyond the barricade felt unreal—emergency vehicles crowded every available space, flashing lights painted the smoke in shades of red and blue, and firefighters moved with urgent purpose, shouting directions Amanda couldn't quite make out over the roar of the flames.
The building itself looked monstrous. Fire poured from shattered windows. Thick black smoke climbed into the night sky, blotting out the stars.
Amanda's stomach twisted violently. People were still in there. Or at least they had been. Her eyes darted frantically through the crowd. She spotted Reggie near one of the ambulances, pacing back and forth with his phone pressed against his ear. His face was pale. He kept trying to call someone, lowering the phone only long enough to immediately dial again.
Amanda wondered who he was trying to reach.
Then she saw the protesters.
They were gathered near a police vehicle, surrounded by officers and looking just as shaken as everyone else. Some were crying. Others stared blankly at the burning building.
A surge of anger shot through Amanda's chest.
Had they done this?
The thought came and went almost immediately, drowned out by a stronger emotion.
Fear.
All she cared about was finding her friends.
"Moses?!" she called out.
Nothing.
"Safi?!"
No answer. Her voice disappeared into the noise.
Amanda continued forward, weaving carefully through the controlled chaos. Firefighters rushed past carrying equipment while emergency responders shouted updates Amanda couldn't make out over the roar of the flames. Every direction she looked brought another reminder of how bad the situation really was.
Her eyes searched the crowd desperately—for Moses, for Safi, and for anyone really.
Then something on the ground near the entrance caught her attention. At first, it barely registered. There was debris everywhere—broken glass, scattered belongings, pieces of things Amanda couldn't identify. It looked like just another object left behind in the panic.
She took another step before her brain finally caught up.
The world seemed to tilt beneath her feet.
No.
Her breath caught in her throat. A few feet away, near the entrance of the building, was a familiar camera.
Max’s camera.
For a moment, Amanda could only stare at it from where she stood, her mind refusing to process what her eyes were telling her.
The sight of it made something inside her stomach drop. That camera was practically an extension of Max. She brought it everywhere, so often that Amanda sometimes forgot it wasn't actually part of her. Dates rarely lasted more than ten minutes before Max was reaching for it, insisting she needed "just one picture" before they continued.
Looking at the camera lying alone on the pavement, Amanda felt a cold dread spread through her chest. For a moment she couldn't move, couldn’t breathe, and couldn’t think. All she could do was stare.
Then Amanda forced herself forward. Her legs felt strangely unsteady, as though the ground beneath her had become unreliable. By the time she reached the camera, her hands were shaking so badly she had to brace herself against her knee before crouching down.
That was when she noticed the photograph. A Polaroid had already been ejected from the camera.
Amanda picked it up with shaking fingers.
The image made her heart lurch. It was crooked and blurred, framed at a strange angle that made it obvious nobody had intentionally composed the shot. The photograph showed the building engulfed in flames, smoke consuming most of the frame as orange light bled across the image. The shot looked rushed, accidental, as though the shutter had gone off while the camera was falling.
Amanda stared at it, trying desperately to make it make sense. The camera was here.
That meant Max had been here.
The photograph proved that much.
But if Max had dropped it, then what happened afterward?
Why was the camera on the ground?
Why wasn't it with Max?
Where is Max?
Amanda's gaze immediately lifted from the picture and swept across the scene again. She searched the crowd of survivors gathered behind barricades. She searched the ambulances lined along the road. She searched every stretcher being wheeled past.
A sick feeling crawled its way up Amanda's throat. The camera answered one question—Max was here—while creating a hundred others, and every possibility Amanda could think of left her more terrified than the last.
Remembering it made her stomach twist.
With trembling fingers, Amanda reached for the camera and carefully lifted it into her lap. A year ago, she would've rolled her eyes at herself for doing something like this. Back then, she would've laughed if someone told her she'd be sitting alone in bed, talking to a camera as though it could answer her back.
Now she clung to every piece of Max she still had.
The sweaters in her closet. The photographs pinned to the fridge. The half-finished notes written in Max's messy handwriting. The voicemail Amanda had listened to so many times she practically had it memorized.
And this camera.
God, this camera.
Amanda ran her thumb along its worn edge, tracing familiar scratches she remembered teasing Max about months ago. The gesture was automatic now, almost comforting in a way she hated admitting. She swallowed against the lump building in her throat.
"Good morning, Max."
The words came out quiet and fragile. The same greeting she'd given her countless mornings before.
The same greeting that used to be followed by Max groaning dramatically and pulling the blankets over her head. Or a sleepy smile. Or a complaint about how Amanda was too cheerful before coffee. Now it was met with silence.
Amanda stared down at the camera resting in her hands, blinking rapidly as her eyes began to burn.
"It's been a week."
Her voice cracked immediately. She took a breath and tried again.
"It's been a week, and we're doing a memorial over at the Turtle today."
The words felt wrong the moment she said them.
A memorial—for Vinh, for Moses, for Safi, for the students, for the professors, and for everyone else who hadn’t made it out.
Amanda's grip tightened around the camera. "We've all been busy, I guess," she continued quietly. "Trying to figure things out. Trying to help each other. Trying to pick up the pieces."
A humourless laugh escaped her. "As if anybody even knows how to do that."
She looked down at the camera again. Nothing about the past week had felt real.
Every morning she woke up expecting to find a text message waiting for her. Every time her phone buzzed, her heart leapt before her brain could catch up and remind her why that wasn't possible. She answered every unknown number that called. She found herself looking towards the door whenever someone knocked. Even now, after seven days of silence, some stubborn part of her still believed Max would eventually walk through it with an explanation for everything.
Maybe it was irrational and Amanda knew it probably was. But nobody had found Max.
That fact echoed through her mind every single day.
They had found her camera. They had found her car. They had found enough evidence to confirm that she had been at Caledon that night. Yet somehow, despite the searches, despite the investigators, despite the endless hours spent combing through the aftermath, nobody could tell Amanda where Max was. And because nobody knew, she couldn't stop herself from hoping.
What she hated most was the way people looked at her whenever she said that out loud.
Nobody argued with her. Nobody told her she was wrong. Instead, they offered sympathetic smiles and careful nods before gently changing the subject. Their words remained hopeful, but Amanda could hear the doubt hiding underneath them. She saw it in every hesitation, every glance exchanged when they thought she wasn't looking, every conversation that seemed to stop just short of saying what they all feared.
Yasmin had never said it outright. None of them had.
But Amanda could feel the growing assumption settling over everyone around her. The longer Max remained missing, the more people began treating her disappearance as though it already had an ending.
Her chest tightened.
"Yasmin suggested putting up your photo too."
Amanda stared at the camera in her lap, blinking through the tears threatening to spill over. The words hurt more than she expected.
The memorial had started as something for the students, then for the faculty, then for everyone the fire had taken. Pictures lined the walls now. Candles. Flowers. Handwritten notes from grieving friends and family trying to put impossible feelings into words.
And among them was Max.
Amanda had stared at the chosen photograph for nearly five minutes yesterday.
Max had been smiling in it. And that same smile sat amongst photographs of people who would never come home.
The memory made Amanda's throat tighten.
"I know why they did it," she continued quietly. "I know everyone is trying their best. Nobody knows what happened. Nobody knows what we're supposed to do." Her grip tightened around the camera. "But every time I look at your picture sitting there with everyone else's, it feels like people are making a decision that nobody actually gets to make."
The tears finally spilled over.
"You're missing."
Her voice cracked.
"You're not supposed to be a memorial photo."
Amanda wiped at her face with the heel of her hand, but more tears followed immediately. "Maybe that's selfish. Maybe that's unfair to everyone else. I don't know anymore."
She laughed weakly, though there was no humour in it.
"I just keep thinking about how flustered you'd be if you knew people were using that one picture."
A sob escaped her before she could stop it.
"God, you'd complain about it for weeks."
The thought hurt because she could hear it so clearly. Max rolling her eyes, making some dramatic comment.
Max being here.
Instead there was only silence.
Amanda lowered her gaze to the camera in her lap. "We found this." Her fingers curled around it.
"They found your car."
The lump in her throat grew harder to swallow.
"But they never found you."
The room felt impossibly quiet.
"So where are you, Max?"
The question came out so fragile. A week of fear and sleepless nights and unanswered questions condensed into four words.
"Where did you go?"
Amanda squeezed her eyes shut.
"Please."
Her voice broke completely.
"I don't need you to explain anything. I don't care where you've been or why you haven't called. Just... please."
Amanda would believe anything if it meant Max was alive.
"I just need something," she said quietly. "One sign. That's all I'm asking for."
Amanda pressed the camera tighter against her chest, her shoulders shaking. "I just..." Her voice cracked. She swallowed hard and tried again. "I just need to know you're okay."
The words barely made it out.
For a week, Amanda had done her best to hold herself together. She had comforted other people, attended meetings, answered questions, and helped organise memorials for friends and family members they had lost. She had kept moving because stopping felt impossible.
But sitting alone in her room with Max's camera in her hands, there was nobody left to be strong for.
The grief she'd been holding at arm's length finally caught up to her.
Amanda bowed her head and cried, mourning the friends who were gone, mourning the lives that had been cut short, and mourning the woman she loved who had vanished without a trace, leaving behind nothing but unanswered questions and a hope that seemed to hurt more with every passing day.
Amanda wasn't entirely sure how she managed to leave her apartment after that.
The conversation with Max's camera had left her emotionally drained, her chest aching in a way that made it difficult to breathe, yet somehow she still found herself walking towards the Snapping Turtle an hour later. There was a memorial to prepare, people depending on her, and if there was one thing the past week had taught her, it was that grief rarely gave people the luxury of stopping.
Life kept moving whether they were ready for it or not.
By the time she arrived, she was relieved to find that Julie and several of the others had already started setting everything up. Tables had been moved around, candles were being arranged, and photographs were slowly being placed in their designated spots. The sight immediately eased some of the tension sitting on Amanda's shoulders.
At least she wasn't doing this alone.
What she hadn't expected was seeing Reggie carrying a stack of folding chairs across the room.
Amanda blinked.
"Reggie?"
The young man immediately looked up from what he was doing. For a second, he looked almost guilty about being caught there before offering her a small wave.
"H-Hey Amanda..."
He set the chairs down and awkwardly rubbed the back of his neck as he approached.
"I-I hope you don't mind me helping out. I woke up early and didn't really have anything to do, so..." He glanced towards the floor. "I was walking around and saw people setting up in here. I figured I'd help."
A beat passed before he added quickly, "I swear I haven't broken any glass."
Despite everything, Amanda let out a laugh. It was short and tired, but it was genuine.
"Thank you, Reggie. And it's definitely okay. The more the merrier, right?"
The tension in his shoulders immediately eased.
"R-Right!"
Amanda watched him for a moment as he offered a shy smile before turning back towards the stack of chairs.
She understood exactly why he was here. Helping wasn't really about the memorial. It was about staying busy. It was about having something to focus on besides the thoughts waiting for you the second you were left alone.
Amanda had spent the entire week doing the same thing—organizing meetings, answering calls, and helping with arrangements. Anything that kept her moving long enough to avoid thinking about the empty side of her bed or the silence where Max's voice should have been.
Reggie wasn't any different. If anything, Amanda suspected he had even more reasons to keep himself occupied.
The fire at Caledon had already taken so much from everyone, but Reggie's losses seemed particularly cruel. First Loretta, then Vinh.
Amanda's chest tightened.
While Caledon burned, another tragedy had unfolded across town. The explosion at the demolished Abraxas house—the same one that had already claimed Loretta's life—had taken Vinh as well, something Amanda still found difficult to wrap her head around.
Losing one friend was enough to knock the ground out from under someone. Reggie had lost two people within the same year, same month even. Amanda wasn't surprised he looked exhausted, nor was she surprised to find him here instead of at home. Sitting still meant thinking, and thinking meant remembering.
Amanda remembered seeing him that night near the ambulances, pacing back and forth with his phone pressed against his ear. At the time she hadn't known who he was desperately trying to call. Later, she learned the truth.
It had been Vinh.
Even after everything happened, even after the explosion, Reggie had kept calling and calling as though persistence alone could somehow change the outcome.
Amanda knew exactly what that looked like. She had spent the past week chasing the smallest possibilities, convincing herself that the next phone call might matter, that the next message might be from Max, that somehow the next day would be different from the last.
Hope could be a terrible thing when there was nowhere for it to go.
After hours of preparation, people slowly began arriving at the Snapping Turtle.
The atmosphere was unlike anything Amanda had ever seen inside the bar. Conversations were quieter. Laughter, when it appeared, was brief and tinged with guilt. Friends embraced each other for a little longer than usual, while others simply stood together in silence, finding comfort in not being alone.
Everyone seemed to be carrying the same exhaustion, the same grief.
Amanda did what she always did whenever things felt overwhelming, she worked. From behind the bar, she poured drinks, greeted customers, and offered small smiles whenever someone looked her way. The familiar routine helped. It gave her something to focus on besides the ache sitting permanently in her chest.
More than that, it gave her a reason to stay where she was.
The memorial had been set up by the deck hours ago. Photographs lined the deck alongside flowers, candles, and handwritten notes left behind by friends and family. Amanda had helped Yasmin choose some of the pictures the day before, but she hadn't gone outside since.
She couldn't bring herself to. Seeing those photographs individually had been difficult enough. The thought of seeing them all together made her stomach twist.
Especially her friends and Max’s.
Nobody pressured her about it. Nobody asked why she hadn't gone out there yet. The people helping with the memorial knew her too well for that. They knew what the past week had been like for her, and for once Amanda was grateful that nobody expected her to explain herself.
She was wiping down the counter when a familiar voice pulled her from her thoughts.
"Hello, Amanda."
Amanda looked up to find Yasmin standing on the other side of the bar.
"Thank you again for offering your bar for this." A tired smile accompanied the words.
Amanda immediately returned it.
"Of course. You don't need to thank me."
Even as she spoke, Amanda couldn't help noticing how much the past week had changed Yasmin. The woman had always carried herself with confidence, commanding a room without needing to raise her voice. Now the strain was impossible to miss. It showed in the shadows beneath her eyes, in the slight slump of her shoulders, and in the exhaustion and regret that seemed to follow her everywhere she went.
Amanda understood why.
The tragedy at Caledon had taken students, professors, and staff members. It had devastated an entire community.
For Yasmin, however, it had taken something even more personal.
It had taken Safi.
Amanda's chest tightened at the memory.
The process of identifying the victims had been brutal. Families had spent hours waiting for answers, clinging to hope until hope became impossible to hold onto any longer. Amanda still remembered the moment they confirmed Safi. She remembered Moses too. Both of them had been recovered together, a detail that somehow made the loss feel even crueler.
Amanda recalled seeing another person with them as well, someone whose face seemed oddly familiar, though she had never been able to place where she'd seen them before.
The details of that day had become hazy around the edges, but Amanda remembered Yasmin with perfect clarity.
She had watched the woman hold herself together through the impossible. She had stood in front of grieving families, comforted students, coordinated recovery efforts, and carried the responsibility of an entire university through a disaster that had shaken everyone.
Amanda had been there when the confirmation came. For the first time since she'd known her, the carefully maintained composure Yasmin had carried throughout the crisis collapsed beneath the weight of a single truth. Her authority, her professionalism, her ability to keep moving forward despite everything that had happened—it all gave way to grief.
In its place was a mother—a mother facing the unbearable reality that her daughter was gone.
Amanda remembered seeing Yasmin crumple into herself as the reality finally settled in. The sound that escaped her was one Amanda hoped she would never hear again for as long as she lived. It wasn't a scream, it wasn't crying, it was grief in its rawest form. The kind that came from losing a piece of yourself.
For a moment, Amanda thought about Max and the uncertainty she had been living with for the past week. She had spent days hoping for news while simultaneously fearing it, caught in the impossible space between wanting answers and dreading what those answers might be.
The thought made her stomach turn.
"How are you holding up?" Amanda asked softly.
Yasmin let out a quiet laugh that carried no real humour behind it.
"Not very well, if I'm being honest."
Amanda nodded.
There wasn't much else either of them could say after that. Some losses existed beyond the reach of comforting words, and Amanda suspected neither of them had the energy to pretend otherwise. Yasmin offered her a small smile before stepping away to greet another guest, leaving Amanda alone with her thoughts once more.
As she watched her go, Amanda felt a familiar ache settle in her chest.
She couldn't imagine being in Yasmin's position.
Before she could dwell on the thought any longer, she noticed movement throughout the bar. Conversations gradually quieted as people started making their way towards the deck. Some carried flowers. Others held candles or folded pieces of paper tucked carefully in their hands. A subtle shift passed through the room as everyone seemed to arrive at the same realization.
It was time.
Amanda felt her stomach tighten immediately.
She had spent the entire day avoiding the memorial at the deck. Even while helping prepare for it, she had found excuses to stay behind the bar. She had organized supplies, checked on guests, and kept herself busy enough that she never had to step outside and look at what everyone had spent hours putting together.
But there were no more excuses left.
Slowly, Amanda stepped out from behind the counter and joined the crowd making their way outside. She remained near the back, letting other people pass ahead of her. The closer she got to the deck, the heavier her chest felt. She already knew what waited for her on the other side.
Rows of photographs surrounded by flowers and candles. Too many faces she never should've had to say goodbye to. And somewhere amongst them was Max.
By the time she reached the doors leading out to the deck, her feet refused to take another step. People continued moving around her, filtering through the doorway in small groups, but Amanda remained where she was.
For a moment, she simply stared at the doors. Her hands trembled slightly at her sides as she closed her eyes and drew in a slow breath.
She wasn't ready.
She wasn't ready to see people she'd spoken to only days ago smiling back at her from memorial photographs. She wasn't ready to see Safi or Moses or Vinh. She wasn't ready to look at the faces of people who had spent so much time inside the Turtle and accept that they would never walk through its doors again.
And she definitely wasn't ready to see Max.
She took another shaky breath, forcing herself to remember why everyone had gathered here in the first place. This wasn't about what Amanda was ready for. It was about the people they had lost and the people still trying to carry on without them.
Slowly, she opened her eyes and pushed the doors open. The cool air greeted her first, followed by the low murmur of conversations drifting across the deck.
Then her eyes landed on the memorial and her breath caught.
The deck had been transformed. Candles flickered, casting a warm glow over bouquets of flowers, handwritten notes, and photographs arranged with careful attention. People moved quietly between them, pausing to read messages, leave behind small mementos, or simply stand in silence. Some cried openly. Others leaned into friends and family members for support.
Slowly, Amanda stepped forward.
Her gaze moved across the first row of photographs, lingering on each face as she walked. Some she recognized immediately. Others she knew only through stories Max, Moses, and Safi had shared over the years. Students, professors, and staff members—people who had started that day expecting it to end like any other. People who never made it home.
Amanda swallowed against the tightness in her throat and continued along the memorial until a familiar face caught her attention.
Vinh.
Amanda remembered the first few times she'd met him. He had always seemed so full of life, so easy to laugh with, the kind of person who could fill an entire room with his presence without even trying.
A week ago, Vinh had been planning a future. Now people were leaving condolences beneath his picture.
Amanda's gaze drifted across the deck until it landed on Reggie. He stood a few feet away from the memorial, completely still. His eyes never left Vinh's photograph. The crowd continued moving around him, people stopping to read notes or leave flowers before moving on, but Reggie remained rooted in place as though he couldn't bring himself to take another step. Amanda understood the feeling all too well.
She quietly looked away and continued along the row of photographs.
A few frames later, she found Safi.
Amanda stopped. The ache in her chest deepened as she looked at the smiling face staring back at her.
Safi's smile looked exactly the same as Amanda remembered it—bright, confident, and slightly mischievous, as though she knew something nobody else did. For a moment, Amanda found herself thinking about Yasmin. A mother attending her own daughter's memorial.
The thought of losing Max was enough to make her feel like she couldn't breathe some days. She couldn't begin to imagine what it must have been like to lose a child.
Her gaze shifted again and found Moses' photograph beside Safi's.
A shaky breath escaped her.
He was smiling softly in the picture, the same smile Amanda had seen countless times over the years. The sight of it brought back memories almost immediately—conversations at the Turtle, rambling discussions about whatever had captured his interest that week, and the way he always seemed willing to listen whenever someone needed it.
Amanda stood there for a long moment, staring at the photograph.
It felt wrong.
Only a week ago, Moses had still been here. She could still picture him sitting with Max, talking. Now she was standing in front of a framed photograph surrounded by flowers and candles.
Amanda hated how easily a life could be reduced to that. She hated the finality of it all. Hated the way memorials seemed to ask people to compress an entire person into one photograph and a handful of words, as though that could ever be enough to capture everything they had been.
Yet here they were. With photographs trying their best to stand in for lives that should have been much longer.
Her eyes burned as she moved on to the next photograph. Then she stopped.
Amanda felt her entire body go still. The conversations around her faded into the background. The flickering candles, the quiet voices, the movement of people walking through the memorial all seemed to disappear at once as her gaze locked onto a face she knew better than her own.
Max.
The sight of her hit Amanda harder than she had prepared for. For a moment, all she could do was stare.
The photograph was one she'd seen hundreds of times before. Max was smiling at the camera, sunlight catching in her hair as she looked completely unaware of the future waiting for her.
Amanda felt something twist painfully inside her chest. Slowly, her gaze shifted upwards. Unlike the others, there was no date beneath Max's name. Instead, a single word had been placed above the frame.
MISSING
Amanda stared at it until the letters began to blur. A word that somehow managed to carry both hope and heartbreak at the same time.
For the past week, she had clung to that word with everything she had. Missing meant the search wasn't over. Missing meant there were still questions left unanswered. Missing meant there was still a chance, however small, that Max was out there somewhere waiting to be found.
But standing in front of the memorial, Amanda found herself hating the word too. Because every day that passed seemed to make it harder for everyone else to believe in it. Every day brought fewer leads, fewer possibilities, fewer reasons to hope. And no matter how many times nobody said it out loud, Amanda could feel it hanging in the spaces between conversations.
The growing belief that Max's photograph belonged here just as much as the others did.
Her hand rose before she realized what she was doing. Her fingers brushed lightly against the edge of the frame.
"Fuck," she whispered. Her voice cracked, a tear slipped down her cheek.
Because seeing Max's face on her phone was one thing. Seeing her photograph sitting amongst the dead was something else entirely.
Standing amongst photographs of people they knew they had lost made everything feel wrong in a way Amanda couldn't fully explain. It felt as though the world had already made a decision she wasn't ready to make herself. As though everyone else had reached the final chapter while Amanda was still stuck somewhere in the middle, desperately searching for the pages that were missing.
The tears came before she could stop them.
She stared at Max's smile through blurred vision and felt her heart breaking all over again. It wasn't because she'd given up hope, nor was it because she believed Max was gone. It was because standing in front of that photograph made it impossible to keep avoiding the reality she had spent the past week pushing aside.
Nobody knew where Max was. And for the first time since the fire, Amanda realized that uncertainty could hurt just as much as grief.
Her chest tightened painfully.
Suddenly, the deck felt suffocating.
Amanda could still hear people talking around her, but the words no longer registered. The voices blended together into a distant hum as her gaze remained fixed on Max's photograph. Candles flickered in her peripheral vision. People moved around the memorial. Somewhere nearby, someone was crying.
Amanda couldn't look at any of it anymore. Her eyes burned as she quickly wiped at her face, but it was no use. The tears kept coming. She needed to get out of there.
Before she could second-guess herself, Amanda turned away from the memorial and headed back inside the Turtle. She kept her head down as she walked, ignoring the concerned looks sent in her direction. The moment she stepped inside, she made straight for the restroom.
By the time she pushed through the door, her vision was completely blurred.
Amanda crossed the space in a few hurried steps and braced herself against the sink. Her hands gripped the edge so tightly her knuckles ached, but she barely noticed. A strangled breath escaped her. She lowered her head, shoulders trembling as she fought to regain control.
She squeezed her eyes shut. Seeing Max's face out there felt like somebody had reached into her chest and ripped something open all over again.
She would've done anything to hear that Max was alive. Any clue. Any sign. Anything that told Amanda Max was safe.
The silence was what was killing her. The endless cycle of possibilities that kept replaying in her head every night when she couldn't sleep.
Amanda lifted her head and stared at her reflection in the mirror. She barely recognized the woman staring back—dark circles sat beneath her eyes, her face looked exhausted, and her expression carried a grief she wasn't even sure she was allowed to call grief.
Because how were you supposed to mourn someone who might still be alive?
How were you supposed to move forward when hope refused to die?
A fresh wave of tears threatened to spill over.
Amanda swallowed hard and took a shaky breath. Then another. And another.
Slowly, she loosened her grip on the sink. She wasn't okay. She hadn't been okay for days. But there were people outside who needed her—people grieving friends, family, students, and loved ones.
So Amanda stood there for a few moments longer, gathering the fractured pieces of herself as best she could before forcing herself to look away from the mirror and prepare to step back out into the memorial.
Amanda watched from the sidelines as Yasmin stepped up to give her speech.
Despite everything she had endured over the past week, Yasmin still managed to stand in front of the crowd and speak. Her voice remained steady as she talked about the lives they had lost, the community they had built together, and the importance of leaning on one another in the difficult days ahead. She spoke about grief, remembrance, and finding a way to keep moving even when the future felt impossible to imagine.
Amanda couldn't help but think that Yasmin was speaking to herself just as much as she was speaking to everyone gathered there.
While the speech continued, she kept herself busy. She moved quietly through the crowd with a box of tissues in hand, checking on people who looked overwhelmed and offering help wherever she could. It gave her something to focus on besides the photographs lining the deck and the grief that seemed to hang over the entire time.
For most of the speech, Amanda managed. Then Yasmin mentioned Max. Her voice softened as she spoke about those who were still unaccounted for. She reminded everyone that Max Caulfield remained missing and asked that anyone with information, no matter how insignificant it might seem, come forward. Any lead could matter. Any detail could help.
Amanda found herself slowing to a stop.
For the past week, she had felt as though she were holding onto hope alone while everyone around her gradually prepared themselves for a different outcome. Hearing Yasmin acknowledge that the search wasn't over, that people were still looking, loosened something inside her she hadn't realized she was carrying.
Her eyes drifted towards Max's photograph.
For a moment, all she could think about was the last time she'd seen her before everything went wrong. Max had been heading out with her camera hanging from her shoulder, already halfway through the door when Amanda called after her.
"Stay safe."
Max had turned around with an amused smile, as though she'd heard those exact words before.
"When am I not?"
At the time, Amanda hadn't thought anything of it. It had been an ordinary goodbye. One of countless small exchanges they'd shared over the years, so familiar that neither of them had given it a second thought.
Now she found herself replaying it anyway—wondering if Max had made it where she was going, wondering what happened after that, wondering how a person could leave behind a camera, a car, and a hundred unanswered questions without leaving behind a single clue as to where they'd gone.
A week had passed, and nobody had been able to give her an answer.
As Yasmin's speech came to an end and soft applause spread through the crowd, Amanda's eyes found Max's photograph once more. The word missing still sat above it.
Please, she thought.
Please let there be something.
Anything at all.
The memorial lingered long after Yasmin stepped away when she finished her speech.
People drifted between the photographs and candles, stopping to read handwritten notes or share stories with one another. Every now and then Amanda would catch a laugh from somewhere in the crowd, usually followed by someone wiping tears from their eyes. Grief was strange that way. Even on a day like this, people still found themselves remembering the things that made them smile.
Amanda threw herself into helping with the cleanup as soon as people began leaving. It gave her something to focus on besides the ache sitting in her chest.
Flowers were gathered carefully. Candles were extinguished one by one. Families collected photographs and keepsakes they wanted to bring home while volunteers slowly packed away the rest. Nobody seemed particularly eager to finish. The longer the memorial remained standing, the longer they could pretend this wasn't really goodbye.
But eventually the crowd began to thin. People exchanged hugs and promises to keep in touch before making their way home. Some lingered in the parking lot long after they'd said their goodbyes, continuing conversations that seemed less about what was being said and more about delaying the moment they had to leave.
By the time the last of the decorations had been cleared from the deck, the Turtle had gradually settled back into its usual routine. Or at least something close to it.
The music remained lower than normal, conversations softer. The atmosphere carried the weight of the evening with it, and many of the people who had attended the memorial chose not to leave at all.
Amanda couldn't blame them. Going home meant being alone with their thoughts. Here, there were familiar faces and people who understood exactly what they were carrying. So she slipped behind the bar and returned to work.
There was comfort in the routine of it. Taking orders, pouring drinks, washing glasses, and keeping track of tabs required just enough attention to stop her mind from wandering too far. Not enough to distract her completely, but enough to keep her moving. It also gave her plenty of opportunities to keep an eye on the people she was worried about.
Reggie spent most of his timeoccupying the same stool at the bar. He wasn't drinking excessively. Most of the time he sat quietly with a drink in front of him, occasionally talking to whoever happened to be nearby before retreating back into his own thoughts.
Amanda knew where those thoughts were taking him—Loretta, and Vinh. The losses had piled up so quickly that she wasn't sure he'd even had time to process any of it. Whenever she looked his way, he seemed exhausted.
On the other side of the room, Yasmin occupied one of the booths overlooking the windows. Amanda couldn't remember ever seeing her stay at the Turtle this long before, but she remained there, nursing her drinks while staring out into the darkness beyond the glass. Students approached her throughout the night. Faculty members did too. A few parents stopped by her table as well. Yasmin made time for every single one of them. She listened patiently when people needed to talk. She offered comfort where she could. She carried herself with the same quiet strength Amanda had watched her display all week.
Yet Amanda noticed the moments in between. The silences after someone walked away. The way her shoulders sagged when she thought nobody was looking. The exhaustion that seemed to settle deeper into her bones with every passing hour.
Amanda found herself watching both of them more than anyone else.
Whenever Reggie ordered another drink, she made sure food found its way onto the counter in front of him. Whenever Yasmin finished a glass, Amanda offered water before anything stronger. Neither of them argued. Both accepted the attention with the weary gratitude of people who no longer had the energy to insist they were fine.
As the night wore on, the crowd slowly dwindled until only a handful of regulars remained scattered throughout the bar.
Reggie was the first to leave.
Amanda noticed him reaching for his wallet and immediately shook her head.
"Not tonight."
Reggie opened his mouth as though he intended to protest before apparently deciding he didn't have the strength.
"Thanks, Amanda."
She walked him to the door.
"Get home safe, okay?"
A small smile crossed his face.
"I will."
Amanda watched him disappear into the night before returning to the bar.
Yasmin remained for another hour before finally standing from her booth and making her way towards the counter. "Thank you," she said quietly.
Amanda offered a smile. "You don't have to thank me."
Yasmin's gaze drifted around the nearly empty room before returning to Amanda.
"Still. Thank you."
There was something in the way she said it that made Amanda think she wasn't talking about the drinks. Before she could respond, Yasmin offered a tired smile and headed for the door. She watched her leave, waiting until it closed behind her.
Only then did she take in the state of the Turtle—a few chairs still needed stacking, empty glasses waited to be washed, and the floor would need cleaning before anyone could finally call it a night.
The tasks themselves were mundane, the sort of things Amanda usually completed without thinking. Tonight, she found herself grateful for them.
Because for a little while longer, they would keep her busy. Because the moment she finished, she'd have to go home. And home had become a difficult thing lately, all silence and unanswered questions waiting for her the second she stepped through the door.
When she finished closing up the Turtle, Amanda said her goodbyes to the remaining staff and stepped out into the cool night air.
She stood on the sidewalk for a moment, keys dangling loosely from her fingers as she stared at the empty street ahead. The day had been exhausting in every possible way, and every sensible part of her knew she should go home, shower, and try to get a few hours of sleep.
Instead, she found herself turning towards the university. The realization settled over her halfway through the walk.
For an entire week, she had avoided the Hellerton House.
Every time she found herself anywhere near campus, she instinctively took a different route. She told herself there was no reason to go back there. The house was empty now. Whatever belongings remained had already been packed away. Visiting it wouldn't change anything.
Yet here she was.
The campus had long since quieted down. Most of the students had gone home hours ago, leaving Amanda alone with the sound of her footsteps and the weight of her thoughts.
After the fire, Yasmin had arranged for Max's belongings to be packed and catalogued. Clothes, books, photographs, notebooks, cameras, and everything else that had accumulated throughout the years had been carefully boxed away. Yasmin had offered Amanda first choice over anything she wanted to keep, an offer she accepted with more gratitude than she could ever properly express.
Most of those boxes remained untouched in her apartment.
They occupied an entire corner of her living room now. Amanda passed them every day and occasionally caught herself staring at them before forcing herself to look away. Opening them felt too much like sorting through a life that wasn't supposed to be finished.
The only things she'd actually taken were a handful of Max's sweaters. She wore them constantly. A part of her still insisted they smelled like Max, though Amanda couldn't tell anymore whether that was true or simply something she wanted to believe.
By the time the Hellerton House came into view, the knot in her stomach had returned.
Amanda slowed to a stop at the bottom of the steps. She had lost count of how many times she had come here over the years. There had been movie nights that stretched until sunrise, mornings spent talking over breakfast, and afternoons where they accomplished absolutely nothing beyond enjoying each other's company. Even after the breakup, there had been periods when the house still felt familiar enough for Amanda to walk into without knocking.
It had always been Max's home. Somewhere along the way, it had become part of Amanda's life too.
The spare key felt heavier than it should have when she pulled it from her bag.
Amanda still remembered Yasmin's reaction when she learned Amanda had kept it. Max had apparently given her a duplicate more than a year ago and never bothered asking for it back, not even after the breakup.
She had offered to return it, but Yasmin refused.
The house would remain Maxine's.
Those had been her exact words.
At the time, Amanda understood exactly what Yasmin meant. As long as Max was missing, there would always be a possibility, however small, that one day she might walk through that front door again.
Amanda swallowed hard and climbed the steps before she could change her mind and slid the key into the lock.
A moment later, the door opened. Amanda stepped inside and quietly shut it behind her.
The silence settled over the house almost immediately. For a few seconds she remained by the entrance, simply looking.
The house was empty. Not completely empty—the furniture was still there, the couch remained in the living room, the dining table still occupied its corner. Lamps, chairs, and shelves remained exactly where they had always been.
But everything that had made the house feel like Max's was gone.
The photographs that used to sit on the shelves or occupy the wall had been packed away. The books Max had accumulated over the years were sitting in boxes somewhere. The little pieces of clutter Amanda used to complain about had disappeared.
No camera left on a table, no jacket draped over a chair.
No evidence that someone actually lived here.
Amanda wandered slowly through the living room, her eyes repeatedly landing on spaces where something should have been. Every empty shelf and cleared surface reminded her that somebody had come through this house and packed away the evidence of an entire life.
By the time her gaze drifted towards the staircase, Amanda already knew she wasn't going upstairs. She wasn't ready to see Max's bedroom stripped down to its bones. She wasn't ready to stand in the middle of that room and confront how much had been removed from it.
Tonight, the living room was as far as she could manage.
Amanda crossed the room and lowered herself onto the couch. The cushions dipped beneath her weight. For a while, she sat there quietly, her eyes wandering across the room. The longer she looked, the easier it became to imagine the house as it used to be.
Amanda had spent enough time here over the years that her memories filled in the empty spaces automatically. She could picture Max stretched across the opposite end of the couch with her feet hanging over the armrest, completely invested in whatever documentary, event, or anything that had captured her attention that day. She could imagine the front door opening and Max walking inside with that camera hanging around her neck, already halfway through a story before she'd even taken off her shoes.
The images came so naturally that Amanda almost expected to look up and find her there. Instead, there was only silence.
The realization hurt.
Amanda looked down before the disappointment could settle any deeper and reached into her bag. The familiar weight of the Polaroid camera settled into her lap, and her thumb instinctively brushed across the worn edges.
A small smile tugged at her lips.
"Guess I finally came by."
The words sounded ridiculous spoken out loud, but Amanda found she didn't particularly care. Talking to the camera had become a habit over the past week. Every morning she greeted it. Every night she found herself speaking to it again. At some point it had stopped feeling like she was talking to an object and started feeling like the closest thing she had to a conversation.
So she talked.
She talked about the memorial. About how many people had shown up despite the short notice. About Moses and Safi's photographs. About Yasmin somehow finding the strength to stand in front of everyone and give a speech when Amanda wasn't sure she would've been able to get through a single sentence in her place.
She talked about Reggie staying at the Turtle until nearly closing and how worried she had been watching him sit there with his drink for hours. She talked about all the small things she would've texted Max throughout the day if things had been normal. Eventually, Amanda found herself talking about nothing important at all.
The way she always had with Max.
"...and Yasmin stayed until almost closing," Amanda said, shaking her head as she leaned back against the couch. "I think that's the longest I've ever seen her sit in the bar."
A faint laugh escaped her.
"You would've been so concerned like I was."
She shifted slightly on the couch, absentmindedly adjusting her grip on the camera. The loud click that followed made her jump, and a second later the familiar mechanical whir filled the room.
Amanda stared at the camera in disbelief as a photograph slowly emerged from the front. For a moment, all she could do was blink.
"Are you serious?"
She pulled the photograph free and glanced down at it. The image hadn't started developing yet, leaving nothing but a blank square in her hand.
A laugh slipped out. Knowing her luck, it was probably a blurry picture of her forehead. Or half the couch.
"I don't even want to know what that looks like."
Shaking her head, Amanda stood and crossed the room. She set the undeveloped Polaroid down on the coffee table before slipping the camera back into her bag. The photograph sat alone against the bare surface, a small white square in a house that had been stripped of almost everything that made it feel lived in.
Her gaze lingered on it.
The thing was, Max would've loved it regardless of how it turned out. Amanda had lost count of how many terrible photographs of herself existed purely because Max refused to throw them away—blurry pictures, poorly framed pictures and pictures taken at the worst possible moments. Amanda used to argue that most of them were objectively awful, only for Max to roll her eyes and insist that was exactly why they were worth keeping.
The thought made her smile falter.
"I hope you find that someday."
Her voice came out softer than she intended.
"I hope you walk in here, see it sitting there, and immediately start making fun of me."
A small smile remained on her face as she looked down at the photograph.
The thought should have hurt. Instead, it brought a strange sense of comfort. For a brief moment, she could picture it so clearly. Max walking through the front door, spotting the Polaroid on the coffee table, and already having a joke ready before she'd even picked it up. Amanda could practically hear her teasing about the angle, about the lighting, about whatever unfortunate expression had inevitably been captured.
The image felt so vivid that Amanda found herself holding onto it for a few seconds longer before her gaze finally drifted around the living room and settled on the coffee table once again.
The photograph remained a blank square for now, still waiting for the image beneath it to appear.
"Come home, Max."
The words slipped out before she could stop them.
Amanda swallowed against the ache in her throat, turned towards the door, and left the photograph exactly where it was.
Not as a goodbye, but as something waiting to be found.
A few moments later, the front door closed behind her and the house fell quiet once more.
The photograph remained on the coffee table, continuing to develop long after Amanda had gone.
The photograph had captured exactly what Amanda expected it to. A poorly framed selfie taken entirely by accident. One side of the image was occupied by part of her shoulder while the rest showed her sitting on the couch, caught mid-reaction after nearly dropping the camera. Between the dim lighting and the awkward angle, it was exactly the sort of photograph Amanda would've immediately declared terrible.
As more details settled into view, however, it became apparent that the camera had captured more than Amanda.
Near the center of the frame, another figure gradually emerged within the image. The outline was faint enough to be mistaken for a flaw in the film at first glance, the sort of imperfection most people wouldn't think twice about. Yet the longer the photograph developed, the clearer it became that it wasn't a smudge or a trick of the light.
Someone was standing in the middle of the living room.
A camera hung from her neck. One hand rested inside the pocket of her jacket. Her posture was relaxed, familiar in a way that would've been impossible for Amanda to miss had she still been there to see it.
The room surrounding her looked familiar too, though not quite the same.
The shelves that now sat empty were lined with books. Photographs once again occupied the walls. Small pieces of clutter rested on tables and countertops, scattered throughout the house.
The house looked lived in.
It looked like it had before the boxes, before the fire, before an entire week of grief had swept through the lives of everyone who called Caledon home.
The photograph finished developing in the silence of the empty living room, leaving behind an image Amanda never saw—herself sitting alone on the couch and Max standing only a few feet away.